At Birch Wathen Lenox, The Kids are Waving Goodbye to their Comfort Zones

Take your pick: Covid. Phones. The culture of fear. The crazy world we live in. No matter what is to blame, something has been sapping kids of their can-do spirit. Bill Kuhn, Head of the Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City, was determined not to let it keep his students down.

That’s why his school is doing The Let Grow Experience again this year — and, as of this week — starting a Let Grow Play Club as well.

“What really drew me to it was that Let Grow is trying to solve the same problems as we are: Building confidence and independence,” says Kuhn, adding. “That — and the fact that Jonathan Haidt recommends it.”

Birch Wathen (BWL) is where Wendy Mogel, author of “The Blessings of a Skinned Knee” went to school. A personal hero! It’s also one of Let Grow’s Lighthouse Schools. Here is our Case Study of it! Just yesterday I stopped by and got to visit a kindergarten and a third grade classroom where the kids were presenting their Let Grow Projects. What are some of them?

“Riding a bike!” a kindergartener said proudly. “Dressing myself!” said another.

In the third grade classroom, one girl said she’d visited a friend by herself — the first time no one walked her there and back. Another girl went to the store solo and even asked a clerk for help. A boy made a chicken dinner for his family. And one boy said he finally pushed himself to try the special food his mom made. His parents are from Haiti. How was it? “It looked bad but tasted good!”

A lesson for us all.

“How does doing something outside your comfort zone make you feel?” the teacher asked.

“Brave!”

“Superb!”

“Like you’re getting ready to be an adult.”

The big revelation that kept coming up: “At first it was hard…but now I’m used to it.”

That is the same thing psychologists hear when they treat anyone — young or old — for anxiety: Do the thing that’s kind of scary and it loses its power to intimidate you.

In our case study, Kuhn admits that often today’s students give up when faced with a challenge, be that on homework, or a test, or in life itself.

His solution was to put “life” – everyday, unscripted experiences with strangers, shop clerks, other kids – back into kids’ lives, via Let Grow. Our programs (which are free, by the way) build students’ flexibility muscles — their ability to think on their feet and try out new solutions.

If you’d like your school to roll out The Let Grow Experience or Let Grow Play Club — great! Your students can meet Kuhn’s in that cool new place: Outside their comfort zone!

A Birch Wathen Lenox kindergartner’s Let Grow project.