What I tell parents in the first 10 minutes.

I've had a version of the same conversation at the start of every coaching relationship I've taken on. It's not a pitch. By the time we're on this call, the family has already decided to try the program. What I'm doing in the first ten minutes is setting up the working relationship so it doesn't break down later over a misunderstanding that I could have prevented on day one.

Here's what I cover, roughly in order.

The five things I always say.

"I review every problem your kid submits. That's the value — and that's also the limit on how many students I can take." I'm not running an automated grading system. When your kid submits a solution, I read it, I leave a note, I approve or send it back. That takes real time per student. It's why I keep the cohort small. If you're wondering why I'm selective about who I take on, this is why: more students means shallower feedback per student, and I'm not willing to do that.

"Don't sit next to them while they solve. Walk away." I say this early because it's the thing parents most often need to hear and least often want to. I understand the impulse — you want to help, you're curious, it's your living room. But the moment a parent leans in and says "try the other loop," the problem is solved by the parent, not the student. The student learns that when it gets hard, someone will come. That's the opposite of what I'm training. The discomfort of not knowing the answer is where the actual thinking happens. Protect that discomfort.

"If they get a problem rejected, do not 'help.' That's where the actual learning is." This is the same principle as above, but it needs to be said separately because rejection feels worse. A "needs fix" notice can upset a kid, and an upset kid is a kid a parent wants to comfort. Comfort them as a person — absolutely. But don't comfort them by solving the problem for them or explaining what was wrong. Send them back to it. If they're stuck after a genuine second attempt, they can message me. That's my job, not yours.

"The streak isn't the goal. Fifteen minutes a day is. The streak is the byproduct." I have a streak counter in the platform because it's motivating for some students, and consistency is genuinely important in this kind of training. But I've watched parents accidentally turn the streak into a source of anxiety — "you have to do something today or you'll lose it." That's backwards. What I care about is the habit: a short, regular block of time where the student is in contact with a problem. If they do that, the streak takes care of itself. If they're forcing a five-minute solve at 11pm just to keep a number alive, that's not the habit I want.

"If they're not moving, tell me — but usually I can see it before you do." The parent dashboard gives you a view of your kid's activity calendar and recent submissions. I have that same view, plus more. If a student goes quiet for more than a few days, I notice. I'll reach out to the student directly. You don't need to monitor the dashboard every day looking for problems — but if something feels off to you at home, don't sit on it. Message me. A two-minute note from a parent has saved me from missing a student who was quietly struggling more than once.

One thing I don't promise.

"I don't promise medals. I promise honest weekly review and a clear next step." I've had students go to the OI final stage. I've had students who trained hard for two years and didn't. CP competition outcomes depend on too many things I don't control — problem set difficulty, who else showed up that year, how the student slept the night before. What I can control is whether your kid gets an honest assessment of where they are, a realistic next problem to work on, and feedback that's actually useful rather than just encouraging. That's the deal. If you're looking for a guarantee of a medal, I'm the wrong coach.

One parent told me after about six months that the hardest part wasn't the problems — it was watching their kid struggle and not being allowed to fix it. That's exactly right. That struggle is the training.

After the first ten minutes.

I've found that parents who hear all of this upfront and still want to proceed are almost always the right fit. Not because they agree with everything immediately — sometimes there's pushback on the "walk away" part — but because they're engaging seriously with what the training actually involves rather than what they hoped it would involve.

The kids who develop fastest in my experience are almost always the ones whose parents step back the fastest. Not because the parents don't care — the ones who step back often care the most — but because they understand that their job at this stage is to make space, not to fill it. When I see a student solving independently, pushing into harder problems on their own, bouncing back from rejections without drama, I can usually trace that directly back to a parent who decided early on to trust the process and get out of the way.

That's what I'm asking for in the first ten minutes. Not faith in me specifically. Just the willingness to let your kid do the hard part themselves.