The Parallel Process: Why Parents and Educators Should Walk Beside Young People
Robert Landau, Two Roads Education LLC, and The Guardian Project
For most of human history, adults have assumed that their job is to show young people the way.
Parents guide their children. Teachers instruct their students. Schools pass down knowledge, traditions, and expectations from one generation to the next.
This has always been seen as responsible adulthood.
But something fundamental has changed.
Young people today are growing up in a world that is dramatically different from the one their parents and teachers experienced. The pace of technological change, the complexity of global challenges, and the shifting nature of work mean that today’s students' journey is not the same as their parents'.
Yet many adults still approach parenting and education the same way: standing across the path and telling young people where to go.
This is what I would call a perpendicular relationship.
Adults push expectations, advice, rules, and solutions onto children based on their own experiences. After all, we have already lived through school and life. We believe we know the way.
But for young people, every day is different.
For them, every day is the first day of the rest of their life.
They are experiencing school, friendships, failure, technology, opportunity, and uncertainty for the very first time.
In her book The Parallel Process, Krissy Pozatek describes a powerful approach used in therapeutic wilderness programs for adolescents and their families. While young people are working through challenges and learning to be independent in the program, parents are asked to engage in their own process of reflection and growth. Instead of trying to control or rescue their child, parents learn to examine their own reactions, habits, and assumptions. They develop stronger listening skills, clearer boundaries, and greater emotional awareness. Pozatek’s central insight is that parents cannot simply demand change from their children; they must evolve alongside them. By moving on a parallel path of growth and self-awareness, parents become better equipped to support their children’s development of resilience, responsibility, and an authentic sense of self-worth.
They walk a parallel path.
The goal is not to manage the child’s journey but to become better prepared to support them as they grow.
This idea has profound implications for both parenting and education.
Young people today need adults who are not simply instructors or enforcers. They need adults who are mentors, coaches, and guides. Adults who respect that the world they are entering is different from the one we entered.
A parallel approach does not mean abandoning structure, expectations, or values.
In fact, it requires the opposite.
Children need clear boundaries, consistent expectations, and a strong sense of belonging. They need adults who protect them and help them build resilience. But they also need space to struggle, fail, experiment, and grow.
Real confidence does not come from constant praise. It comes from mastery.
Real resilience does not come from protection. It comes from overcoming challenges.
And real learning does not come from being told what to think. It comes from discovering how to think.
When parents and educators adopt a parallel mindset, several things begin to change.
Adults become more reflective about their own reactions, assumptions, and behaviors. Instead of immediately intervening, they listen more carefully and observe more deeply.
Conversations shift from lectures to dialogue.
Mistakes become opportunities for growth rather than moments of shame.
Young people begin to develop independence, accountability, and an authentic sense of self-worth.
This is particularly important in a future-ready world.
If we want students to become creative problem-solvers, responsible citizens, and thoughtful stewards of the planet, we cannot simply tell them what to do. We must help them develop the confidence and capability to navigate uncertainty on their own.
The role of parents and educators is not to control the path.
It is to walk beside the traveler.
In many ways, this is the essence of guardianship.
A guardian protects and guides, but does not dominate the journey.
As parents and educators, our responsibility is not to recreate the world we experienced. It is to prepare young people for the world they will inherit.
The best way to do that is simple.
Walk beside them.
