“Invested Parenting”: Why ‘teaching’ isn’t your job but ‘supporting’ is.

This episode of The Study Sessions podcast features an insightful conversation between host Nathan McGurl and guest Rebecca Glover, Principal of Surbiton High School. The discussion centres on the evolving landscape of parenting and education, specifically the shift from a “hands-off” approach to the modern phenomenon of “snowplough parenting“.

Beyond Outcomes—The Case for Trampoline Parenting

In this episode, Rebecca Glover challenges the modern parental instinct to clear every obstacle from a child’s path. Drawing on her 30 years of experience in education, she explores how high parental anxiety and a focus on perfect outcomes can inadvertently hinder a child’s development.

Key Themes:

• The Rise of Snowplough Parenting: Parents are increasingly “smoothing out the path” for their children from birth through university, ensuring they never experience failure.
• Outcome vs. Effort: Glover argues that society is “very good at hyperboles” with children, often praising a final grade or a piece of art as “amazing” without investigating the work that went into it.
• The “Learning Pit”: The discussion highlights the importance of the “learning pit”—intentionally giving children challenges they might not solve immediately to teach them how to process information and organise their thoughts under pressure.
• Practical Feedback over Praise: Instead of a simple “well done,” parents are encouraged to ask probing questions like, “What were you thinking when you wrote this?” or “What did you find hard about this task?”

The goal, according to Glover, is to transition toward “Trampoline Parenting”: providing a safe, supportive base that allows children to be “thrown up into the air,” giving them the freedom to fail and learn in a secure environment.