May you have your attention, please?
A wish for all kids (and the letter I wrote to my three)
Over the past year, nearly every parent-to-parent conversation I’ve had that’s gone deeper than, “How are you?” or “Can my kiddo catch a ride?” has meandered to some version of:
How do we help our kids thrive in a world this distracting, dynamic, and, at times, dystopian?
My husband Brian and I have been wondering how to help kids thrive since before our kids (now 11, 13, and 15) were even born. Back then, the path felt clearer, and the stakes felt lower.
Our first answer was to build Tinkergarten. Though it was impossible then to imagine the full range of challenges kids would face in their lifetime, we knew that spending more time outdoors, in community with others, taking risks, and nurturing a sense of wonder could help kids grow into creative, compassionate, and resilient humans. And, it turns out, we weren’t alone. We raised our young kids as we co-created an incredible, nationwide movement of people who felt the same.
Now our kids are adolescents. And in a media rich, AI-driven, sometimes isolating world, the ground beneath them is shifting faster than any of us can make sense of. It feels like we, and our kids, need to develop an additional set of skills to navigate our lives. The pace of change is dizzying, and the traditional instincts of parenting—protect, buffer, limit, ban—though tempting, are clearly no match for this moment.
That’s why we're building a10d ("attend") — a vision around a new way to gather, connect, and learn that helps kids take charge of their attention and develop the skills and mindsets they'll need to flourish.
Why Launch a Substack?
We’re committed to uncovering a healthier path forward for kids, and we know from our Tinkergarten experience that doing this work alone is not as powerful as doing it in close community with others who are asking the same questions. Tackling new territory together means deeper learning, greater impact, and more joy for everyone involved.
So today, we launched a10d.Substack.com a place to share this a10d journey with people like you. Each week, we plan to bring you:
Fresh perspectives and research on adolescents, attention, and the human skills kids need in order to flourish in our dynamic world
Experiments you can try with the young people in your life
Conversations about how our world is evolving and how to support ourselves, each other and the kids we love along the way
To kick this off, I wrote the following letter to my kids, which I have also shared with them. Because kids are at the center of what we’re creating here. And what I want for my three, I want for all of ours.
Our team in the age of Tinkergarten.
A Letter to My Kids
Dear Loves,
Since before you were born, Dad and I have spent many of our waking hours wrestling with a big question: What do you (and all kids) need in order to flourish?
In your early years, as you know, our best answer was to create Tinkergarten. With you three by our sides, we mobilized teachers and families across the country to help you and other kids build really important skills like creativity, empathy, and persistence, all through playing and exploring outdoors. We learned that growth comes from a mix of struggles and wins, that kids are wired to learn, and that adults mostly need to trust the process.
Now you’re older, and the world feels like it’s changing at warp speed. How we spend our time, connect with others, and experience our lives is shifting dramatically — some days it feels like we woke up on another planet.
This progress will benefit you in real ways. And like all progress, it can also harm. Powerful forces are pushing to accelerate and profit from this change, even when it comes at the expense of us humans. Everything you learned as a young kid will matter as you move through all of this change—and you’ll need even more to thrive in this landscape.
What won’t work
When adults get overwhelmed by new threats, we tend to want to ban things. To put the genie back in the bottle and protect you from all of this change. But banning isn’t a strategy for your flourishing. Even if we could protect you now, we’d leave you unprepared when you leave our nest.
The truth is, technology is the air we breathe. Screens and AI are already part of your everyday life in ways we can’t predict or control. These tools aren’t the big bad wolf; they’re features of the forest. If we focus only on protecting you, we’ll miss what you actually need: strong internal systems to navigate the world you’re growing up in.
And banning would cut you off from real opportunities. You can already find joy, insight, creativity, and connection through new tools. AI has the power to unlock entirely new ways of learning, creating, and being human — if we can manage to keep humans at the center as we shape it.
We want you to be part of that shaping.
What we’re learning so far
Hope is not lost. While the path forward is still emerging, the trailhead is clear: None of us can thrive unless we own our attention.
What you pay attention to shapes your lived experience. And that forms your memories. And memories help determine what you notice next, what you engage in, and how you spend your time, and so forth.
Your attention is your most precious, limited resource. It’s also a gift you give to others. It’s the currency of human connection, and connection makes life meaningful.
When you can sense, direct, and sustain your attention, you can be present for your life. You can build the human skills you’ll need to navigate, contribute, connect, and flourish, and be able to meet your needs for belonging, agency, and purpose.
Attention is your gateway to a life worth living.
May you have your attention, please?
If we have one wish for you, it’s that you can command your own attention. You notice the world around you. You can direct, shift, and hold your focus on the people and things you care most about.
We also deeply believe these same attention muscles are what you’ll need to think critically, act wisely, and find a healthy balance around technology and media.
So what will we do about it?
Just to be clear: as for phones, we’ll still set limits on time, content, and social apps. And you’ll earn more independence over time. Intentional limits will always be a key piece of how we thrive. Dad and I will keep working on our own limits, too, and we’ll welcome your help!
We’ve also been doing our homework: reading; talking with experts; and listening to you and other kids your age. We think it’s best to learn together, with our family and other families: forming hypotheses, experimenting, reflecting, and adjusting as we go.
The goal is to help you build the foundation to make your own choices about how you spend your attention on the things that matter most to you.
And like Tinkergarten, we want to share what we learn with a wider community, so other families can benefit too.
And, yes…we are a bit crazy. But, most of all, we’re crazy about you.
You ready?
Love, Mom and Dad
Our team today.
