Hello Reader,

I've known Jayne for longer than I probably care to admit.

We met at Wellesley, back when the biggest risk of saying something embarrassing was that a handful of friends might remember it years later. Thankfully, there was no social media documenting every questionable haircut (I had many), bad decision, or late-night philosophical debate.

I've been lucky to have Jayne in my life all these years. For nearly a decade, we've been bouncing parenting ideas back and forth, asking each other questions, challenging each other's assumptions, and trying to make sense of what it means to raise good humans in a rapidly changing world.

Back then, it wasn't surprising that she studied Religion, specialising in East Asian Religion eventually earning a doctorate at Columbia. If you've ever spent time with Jayne, you know conversations rarely stay on the surface for very long. She has a remarkable way of peeling back assumptions until you're looking at a question from an entirely different angle. She's also not afraid to challenge you when she thinks you're wrong—and I've always appreciated that about her.

That happened to me again while recording this week's episode of Infinite Halls.

Oddly enough, it started with two screens and a YouTube video.

Jayne described walking into her son's room while he was preparing for his A Levels. He had music playing, a YouTube video running in the background, and practice exams spread across his desk.

Everything about it made her uncomfortable.

Honestly?

It made me uncomfortable too.

I've spent years studying technology, speaking with researchers, interviewing families, and helping parents navigate digital life. Yet my instinct would have been exactly the same.

Turn it off.

Surely this can't be the best way to study.

But then she told me what happened next.

Her son had earned the highest mock exam scores in his cohort.

His teachers noticed his unconventional setup, paused, and then chose not to intervene.

Not because they believed every student should study that way.

But because they asked a better question:

"What evidence do we have that this isn't working?"

That question is critical.

Not because it's about screens.

Because it's about trust.

As parents, it's surprisingly easy to mistake familiarity for truth.

We assume our children should learn the way we learned.

Focus the way we focus.

Organize themselves the way we organize ourselves.

When they don't, our first instinct is often to correct rather than become curious.

What surprised me most wasn't Jamie's study habits. I've heard plenty of parents describe similar situations.

It was Jayne's willingness to sit with her own discomfort instead of immediately acting on it.

That's harder than it sounds.

Especially when you care deeply about the outcome.

The more we talked, the more I realized that this perspective didn't come from parenting books.

It came from her work.

Today, Jayne leads education and employment programs at RUN Hong Kong, working alongside refugees and asylum seekers from more than 29 countries. Every day, she sees how profoundly context shapes opportunity, decision-making, and the choices families are able to make.

At one point she said something I haven't stopped thinking about:

"You can't divorce parenting from context."

That may have been my biggest takeaway from our entire conversation.

We spend so much time debating parenting philosophies as though there's one universally correct approach.

There isn't.

A family raising children in one of the safest cities in the world faces different realities than a family living with instability, financial insecurity, or displacement. Even within the same city, every family carries different resources, different risks, and different constraints.

Context isn't a footnote.

It's part of the story.

Maybe that's why this conversation has stayed with me.

On the surface, it's a story about studying with two screens.

But underneath, it's really about the humility to admit that our children may know themselves better than we think they do—and that our job isn't always to remove every distraction, but to help them develop the judgment to navigate them.

If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Jayne, you can find Background Noise, Front Row Seat here:

EP 6: Background Noise, Front Row Studies Jayne shares how watching her son prepare for his A Levels challenged everything she thought she knew about learning. What looked chaotic from the outside turned out to be the study process that worked best for him—and the results spoke for themselves. Listen to the Latest Episode of Infinite Halls

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If this conversation resonates, I'd love for you to forward it to someone who's thinking deeply about kids, technology, and what it means to raise independent young people.

And as always, if this sparked something for you, just hit reply. I read every response.

Peace, Love, and Hairgrease,

Arcadia

PS: P.S. I’m grateful to Mehroo Coaching for sponsoring this edition of the newsletter. One of the things I appreciate most about Mehroo’s work is that it centers on relationships. Whether she’s coaching parents, educators, or leaders, she helps people communicate with more empathy, clarity, and confidence. That philosophy feels deeply aligned with what we’re trying to build at Infinite Halls: conversations that move us beyond fear and toward understanding. Thank you, Mehroo, for believing in this work.
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