1
Podcast
Building a Relationship of Trust with Your Son
featuring Alvaro de VicenteBuilding a Relationship of Trust with Your Son
Our headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, offers a lecture on how to build a solid relationship of trust with your son. This relationship matters because it is the context within which you will form your boy’s character.
2
Essay
Increasing Your "Boy Tolerance"
by Alvaro de VicenteIncreasing Your "Boy Tolerance"
As a culture, we have a decreasing tolerance for boyhood itself. In his latest post, Alvaro de Vicente reframes boyish energy as the raw material of virtue, not to be stifled at every occasion. As parents and educators, we must elevate our “boy tolerance” if we are to raise dangerously good men.
3
Podcast
Parenting: Patience or Optimism
featuring Andrew ReedParenting: Patience or Optimism
Does your son know that you believe in him? Andy Reed on the power of optimism.
4
Podcast
Parental Expectations: On Being Both Perfect and Anxious for Nothing
featuring Alvaro de VicenteParental Expectations: On Being Both Perfect and Anxious for Nothing
“Be perfect” (Matt. 5:48) and “anxious for nothing” (Phil. 4:6). This tall order from the New Testament may put modern parents into a cold sweat. Parental perfectionism and anxiety are surely on the rise, but in his annual Headmaster’s Lecture at The Heights School, Alvaro de Vicente talks us down. He shows us the compatibility and wisdom of these two Biblical encouragements by refocusing on the process of growth—moral, academic, athletic, and spiritual—over simply the apparent results. Chapters: 2:41 Introduction: being “good enough” 8:15 A new way to see perfection...
5
Podcast
Emotional Presence and Imperfect Parenting
featuring Alvaro de VicenteEmotional Presence and Imperfect Parenting
In an age of external perfectionism, our children’s failure to achieve the standards we set for them can cause us anxiety—which itself then becomes an obstacle to the very thriving we hope for. This week on HeightsCast, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente discusses how to avoid this pitfall. He suggests thinking of good parenting as analogous to tacking into the wind: in order to stay on course, you need to be comfortable taking a non-linear path. In parenting, this means being more focused on processes and less attached to outcomes. It...
6
Podcast
Conversation: The Medium of Mentoring
featuring Alvaro de VicenteConversation: The Medium of Mentoring
The art of mentoring is not just for teachers and coaches, but also parents—who can never really be out of mentoring mode. In a recent Substack article, Alvaro de Vicente named five pitfalls for our attempts at mentoring young men. This week, he talks us through some of the takeaways, reminding us that mentoring is not a profound lecture but an ongoing conversation, and the goal is not to modify but to form. Chapters: 3:49 What mentoring is 4:35 Conversation as the basis 8:55 Parents: always in mentor mode 10:13...
7
Podcast
Learn to Turn: On Parental Prudence
featuring Tom RoyalsLearn to Turn: On Parental Prudence
While we often speak of the virtues we wish to see in our children, it is perhaps less common that we reflect on the particular virtues that we need to foster in ourselves. In this episode Mr. Tom Royals, 40+ year teaching veteran and Assistant Headmaster of The Heights, discusses the importance of parental prudence and its progeny: meekness, patience, and humility. In this week’s episode, we sit down with long-time Heights father and Assistant Headmaster, Mr. Tom Royals, to speak about the virtues of parenting. From his wealth of...
8
Podcast
Leading our Sons Towards Integrity
featuring Colin GleasonLeading our Sons Towards Integrity
Lower School Head, Colin Gleason, offers a Heights Lecture on integrity. He shares how honesty requires far more than merely telling the truth; our boys must learn to live the truth.
9
Podcast
Seeing Our Boys with Loving Eyes with Tom Royals: Not Projects, but Persons
featuring Tom RoyalsSeeing Our Boys with Loving Eyes with Tom Royals: Not Projects, but Persons
In last week’s episode, we considered how beauty is a special combination of order and surprise. To behold beauty, we learned, is to contemplate the dynamism of a being on the way to its perfection. It is to see the rose emerging from its seed. This week we talk with assistant headmaster, Tom Royals, about learning to see the beauty—albeit often messy beauty—of our own growing children. To be sure, in this adventure, we may find more surprise than order. Nevertheless, in learning to see our children with loving eyes,...
10
Podcast
Decisive Parenting
featuring Michael MoynihanDecisive Parenting
This week on Heightscast, an interview with Head of Upper School, Michael Moynihan, on his new book, Decisive Parenting. For more information or to purchase Michael’s book, click here.
11
Essay
Why You Should Become Your Son's Drinking Coach
by Alvaro de VicenteWhy You Should Become Your Son's Drinking Coach
The following essay first appeared as an article in Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack publication, Men in the Making. For more articles like this one, you can visit his page here. Subscribe to stay up-to-date on his writing. It is a fact that in our society high school students live in a culture of drinking. Not all teenagers drink, and many of them handle this culture impressively well. But they are all exposed to it, so parents ought not to ignore it. Whether you have a teenage son already or your sons are younger,...