Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding, 

I have three daughters, aged 15, 12, and 8. I’m at a loss for how to get my 12-year-old to be active. She’s not unhealthy or overweight, but at that age, she should be moving a lot. At present, the most exercise she gets is in gym class at school, which she complains about. That’s it. No dancing, soccer, or gymnastics like her sisters and the other girls do. She spends her free time drawing, reading, and playing video games, which all involve her sitting inside and ruining her eyesight more than it already is. When she hangs out with her friends, it’s only to play video games, too. How do I get her to be more active?

—Anxious About Activity

Dear Anxious, 

I have to admit, I’m concerned with the tone of your letter. You’re characterizing your daughter in a negative way, diminishing her genuine interests and erroneously claiming they’re harmful (reading and drawing can cause eye strain, but that doesn’t cause permanent damage to eyesight) while bemoaning her lack of interest in the activities that other girls like. Yikes. You need to pull way back and assess whether this is all about her physical health, or whether you have some latent bias against homebodies.

Let’s assume I caught you on a salty day, though, and you’re just trying to instill healthy habits in your kids. Yes, the recommendation is that kids should get 60 minutes of moderate-to-intense physical activity daily, but she’s probably getting that (or close to it) in gym, complaints or not. She doesn’t need to be intensely physical all the time to still be heading in a healthy direction. Your real goal is for her to have a strong body that can do what she needs it to do, and an enjoyment of things that require movement, even if they aren’t her main hobbies. It’s perfectly fine that your daughter isn’t into soccer, dancing, or gymnastics—in fact, you named three things I absolutely hated as a tween.

Get creative about other activities that might be more her speed. Yoga, gardening, or walking are great physical activities that can be done while listening to audiobooks, which might appeal to her. Alternatively, make family fun, rather than fitness, the focus and start doing some weekend hikes, geocaching, bike rides to the library, or trips to a museum or even a mall! If none of that will fly with her, settle for mandated movement breaks throughout her gaming and reading binges. Again, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good; a couple of laps around the house or some stretching between chapters is a perfectly fine step forward.

 Dear Care and Feeding, 

My first grader is having a difficult time in school, behaviorally. He’s regularly distracting his classmates and not following directions from his teachers. These don’t seem like big problems on their own but it’s becoming a pattern. He ran into this in kindergarten, although he shaped up after his behavior was communicated to us and he faced consequences at home.

We’ve done the same this year, but he’s still struggling, and I’m not sure what tools we can give him. When he said that his friends are distracting him so that he doesn’t listen, I told him that he should remove himself from his friends and/or ask his teacher for help so that he doesn’t make a bad choice. His teacher’s response was to go and focus, which is completely fair since he has a classroom to manage, I’m just not sure what else I can do to equip him to handle this.

He is also “highly capable,” which I would just call clever, but it does mean that he finishes assignments quickly and gets bored. Also, at home, we’re big on choosing our battles, so he has more independence than at school, which I’m sure is challenging. Can you share any tools and resources that I could consider so that he can do better and enjoy school more? Either for him or us? I feel like we must be missing something basic.

—Where’s My Manual?

Dear Manual, 
Whenever I hear that a teacher is telling a parent their child “just needs to focus” it boils my blood because it suggests a lack of curiosity and problem-solving from the educator. What are we doing to help that kid be able to (or learn how to) focus? It also suggests your son is intentionally not focusing, which doesn’t ring true to me.

Have you sought out an evaluation for ADHD? If not, that’s the first step I would take. If the test revealed a positive diagnosis, then the school would be required (assuming you’re in a public school) to give your son accommodations. These could range from strategic seating—like in the front of the classroom where he’d be less prone to distraction—to challenging bonus work, fidget toys, etc. You can start this process by talking to your pediatrician (they’ll likely give you a questionnaire for you and your son’s teacher to fill out) or you can go straight to a neuropsychologist or other qualified mental healthcare professional. Note that in some regions, or with some insurances, it can take a long time to get in with one of these practitioners.

Because of that potential delay, and also because I firmly believe that some therapeutic tools are helpful for lots of kids with and without diagnoses, I would start reading up on ADHD—not just the symptoms and manifestations, but the therapies and tools that are used to address it. I recommend reading Taking Charge of ADHD by Russell A. Barkley. It might be that some of what you learn now you could start applying immediately. For example, if your son is acting out because he’s bored, that’s a sign that he needs something else to occupy his time (side note: Your kid might be gifted, have ADHD, or both; there is a lot of overlap). Could the teacher give him some bonus work to keep on his desk, like a book to read, worksheets, or logic puzzles? Other interventions like fidget toys, physical movement breaks, behavioral reminders, or cues taped to his desk surface might help your son moderate his behavior, and his teacher should be willing to try them to see if they help.

I’d also pull back from any conversations around consequences, or expecting him to remove himself from distractions. I don’t know many first graders who have the wherewithal to sense that they are getting distracted and proactively remove themselves from their friends. And if there is a medical or intellectual reason for his behavior, it’s inappropriate to punish him for it (that would be like telling a kid with poor eyesight to see the blackboard better or they don’t get dessert tonight). I subscribe to the social model of disability, which characterizes a disability not as a problem with the individual, but as a gap between an individual’s needs and abilities and their environment. By this definition, the environment should be changed to accommodate all people, rather than putting the burden on the individual to adapt to the environment. (In other words, we install a ramp into the courthouse, rather than requiring someone using a wheelchair to hire a person to carry them up.) In my opinion, the best way forward with ADHD is a mix of both—adapting the environment as much as you can, and helping the individual adapt to the environment. I hope you can find this kind of partnership with your son’s school, diagnosis or not.

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Dear Care and Feeding, 

My son is in first grade and my daughter will start kindergarten in August. My son recently heard his teacher making fun of a “lazy eye” and insinuating that a character with one might be stupid. His sister has strabismus, which is being treated by multiple interventions. She’s not very self-conscious now but she also just turned 5. Basically, I want to complain so that my daughter won’t hear similar comments from a teacher when she’s in first grade. My husband thinks that by complaining about something like this I’ll be considered a difficult parent and this will make it harder for me to complain in the future. Should I complain anyway?

—Should I Bring It Up?

Dear Should I, 

I would start with the teacher; tell them what you heard from your son and allow them to explain or make amends. I don’t know the context, obviously, but it might have been a poor choice of words or was teaching kids how to interpret an illustration in a book and unconsciously employed some problematic bias, that’s something they should know so they can improve. Having the conversation with them first ensures you don’t paint an honest mistake as something more sinister. If the teacher’s response leaves you without any closure or reassurance, you can then decide whether to elevate to the principal. That way, you’ll also have a paper trail when you request that your daughter not be put in this teacher’s classroom. Hopefully, it won’t have to come to that.

Are you risking being labeled as difficult? Maybe. But that’s far better than some kid (yours or someone else’s) getting labeled as stupid by a teacher they’re supposed to be able to trust.

—Allison

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I am 18 years old and just finished my first year of college at my dream university. I learned a new programming language, became the president of a club, was a teaching assistant this past semester, and became friends with my roommate. My parents raised me to be independent from a young age, and I was more than ready to step out into the world. But my parents can’t seem to let up one annoying habit that’s keeping me from feeling like an adult.

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