Relationships Are the Infrastructure for Growth

Learning and Wellbeing are Inseparable 

Susan Rivers, founder of iThrive Games, now Co:Lead of History Co:Lab 

"Teens are magnificent,” says Susan Rivers matter-of-factly. She’s adamant this is not naive optimism but a clear-eyed view of reality. But today's teens navigate systems that "don't believe in them," Rivers argues. When schools tell kids they must log community service hours to graduate, it's "very different than being told, ‘hey, you would be really helpful here. We really would benefit from you doing this with us’." One treats teens as boxes to check; the other treats them as essential, important, and impactful.

The shift requires adults to adopt what Rivers calls a "playful mindset"—adults rolling up their sleeves with an attitude of "I'm here for teens. Let's see what happens." When she worked with Dallas teens to design training for adults on how to show up for young people, the teens eagerly took up the challenge and created five different prototypes and fully designed one to show adults the lasting impact their words can have on teens. Adults who participated reported being surprised, with comments like: "I never realized that what I say could have such a lasting effect on young people."

This is relationship as infrastructure. Not warm fuzzies, but intentional, nurturing connection that creates conditions for teens’ development and growth, for their learning and civic engagement. When Rivers' son wasn't interested in a classwide project studying mushrooms, his Montessori teachers didn't fight him—they acknowledged his strengths and interests as a filmmaker asked him to apply them to create a documentary about the class project. He learned the content while developing his interests, staying connected to his classmates and contributing something useful. Rivers insists that adults must try to "actively nourish them." 

As someone who has spent years designing games and learning experiences with and for adolescents, Rivers sees something most adults miss: the behaviors that can feel maddening to adults are the developmental behaviors of  healthy adolescent development. “All of the things that drive adults nuts are actually what they're supposed to be doing,” she explains, “and to the extent that we resist them and tell them to stop or change, is to their peril and our own." The solution isn't more control—it's more connection and it’s more love.

This matters beyond individual kids' well-being. It's about democracy itself: teenagers learn to be democratic citizens by practicing democracy, not by being told about it. "If we're not helping kids form the habit of being part of a democracy, they're not going to be able to do it when they get older," Rivers warns. Those habits of civil discourse, helping neighbors, contributing to community? They're formed through relationships—or they're not formed at all.

Rivers describes her father's small-town upbringing, where "the adults cared about education. They looked out for my father, whose family didn't have that much." The paper company built schools, gave scholarships, and never fired its employees. "In this community, the adults cared about their kids," she says. It wasn't just family—it was a village.

We have to create those micro communities. The alternative, what we have now, produces collateral damage. High chronic absenteeism. Substance abuse. Kids throwing chairs. "Behavior is a manifestation of an unmet need," Rivers explains. The need isn't just academic support. It's to be seen, valued, and invited to contribute.

Rivers envisions librarians happy to see teens walk in, grocery store workers engaging them in conversation, communities asking high schoolers to help run food kitchens not for résumé padding but because they're genuinely needed. "We could be looking to our high schools to help us do things in our communities," she says. "Kids learn how to show up for others."

This isn't utopian fantasy. It's a practical necessity. “If we don’t care about our kids, we're going to be raising kids who don't care about the next generation of kids," Rivers warns. 

Individual thriving, optimal learning conditions, democratic renewal are not separate goals. They're built on the same foundation: relationships that actively nourish rather than control, which invite contribution and daily democracy practice.