By Bill McMahon, Director
William Stixrud and Ned Johnson in their new book, The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives, are the latest authors to sound the alarm bell about the mental health of young people today. They write: “Adolescents and young adults today are five to eight times more likely to experience the symptoms of an anxiety disorder than young people were at earlier times,
By Bill McMahon, Director
The recent New York Times article “On Campus Failure Is on the Syllabus” highlights that the most selective colleges are seeing an increasing percentage of their students showing high levels of stress, depression, and the need for counseling. What is most interesting about this phenomenon is that the mental health issues are not from what we would normally consider traumatic events, but from the basic struggles of college life,
By Bill McMahon, Director
“How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Over parenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success” is a recent book that has received significant press and attention, in part, because the author–Julie Lythcott-Haims–was the dean of freshmen at Stanford.
Here is the book’s thesis in a nutshell: our young adults today are not happy, healthy, or resilient; this is especially true of the elite achievers at hyper selective schools;
By Bill McMahon, Co-Director
As I have written before, our overarching goal at Moosilauke is to help create confident, resilient, honorable, and happy boys and young men.
To achieve our goal we have a laser like focus on a few essential philosophies and practices. It all starts with positive risk taking since it is through encountering and overcoming failure that performance character traits like grit, resilience, and tenacity are created.
by Bill McMahon, Co-Director
As I have referenced in other writings, it is our firm belief at Moosilauke that the most powerful factor in the life of a camper (especially a teenage camper) is the peer culture he is immersed in.
Peer cultures come in many flavors. Without a few important factors in place they can easily spin negative–“lord of the flies” negative. Negative boy peer cultures are easy to spot: there is significant teasing;