The Riverwalk Roar

Happy Sunday, Pride!

I sincerely hope everyone is doing well and had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. My family and I spent the weekend in Charleston visiting Campbell. It was parent's weekend at Charleston Southern, so we spent time with her and it was great seeing her in her new environment, and with her new friends. We even caught Charleston Southern's home opening football game, where they blew out Point University 65 to 0.

But honestly... the score wasn't the part that stuck with me.

What stuck with me was watching Campbell navigate her own world. Her own schedule. Her own friendships. Her own mistakes. I wasn't there to wake her up on time, remind her to do laundry, or tell her which classes to prioritize this week. She's figuring all of that out on her own now." I was just... there. Watching. Cheering from a distance. Trusting that the years we spent preparing her actually prepared her.

And I won't lie, that's hard. It's hard to watch your kid figure something out the slow way when you know the fast way. It's hard to let them get a B on a paper you could've helped fix, or navigate a friend group hiccup you could've untangled in five minutes. But that struggle? That's not a gap in their education. That IS their education.

We talk a lot at Riverwalk about critical thinking. About curiosity. About wanting our Lions to be questioners, not just answer-givers. But that only really happens when we let kids sit in the productive discomfort of not knowing yet . . . when we resist the urge to swoop in and hand them the answer, and instead ask, "What do you think you should try?"

That's true for us as parents. It's true for us as educators. Growth doesn't happen in the moments we protect kids from every stumble. It happens in the moments we trust them enough to stumble, and then walk alongside them while they figure out how to stand back up.

So here's my challenge for the Pride this week: find one moment — big or small — where your instinct is to jump in and fix it for your kid, and instead, pause. Ask a question. Let them think it through. Let them try. Let them maybe even fail a little. That's not us stepping back from parenting or teaching... that's us doing it well.

I'm incredibly proud of Campbell — she's out there building a life, one decision at a time. And I'm just as proud of every one of our Lions doing the exact same thing here at Riverwalk, one class, one choice, one hard moment at a time.

In Pride and Purpose,