Why Parents Are the Most Powerful Force in Education: Dr. Kathy Weston of Tooled Up Education

Dr. Kathy Weston is one of the leading national experts on parenting, family life and parental engagement in children's lives. In 2018, she established Tooled Up Education, a holistic bank of evidence-based resources for whole-school communities. Tooled Up supports 166 schools in 8 countries, delivering bespoke CPD for educators as well as 'on tap' resource support for parents.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

1. Why parental dialogue is one of the strongest protective factors for children’s wellbeing
2. What the pandemic revealed about the strengths and gaps in home–school partnerships
3. Why “screen time” is the wrong lens for understanding children’s digital lives
4. How evidence-based parenting support improves both learning and mental health
5. How AI can support parents and educators—without replacing trust or nuance

✨ Episode Highlights
[00:00:00] Dr. Weston on why technology shouldn’t be scapegoated in children’s lives
[00:02:54] How the pandemic reshaped parent–school relationships
[00:07:52] Why parents, not schools alone, do the “heavy lifting” in education
[00:09:33] The problem with blanket screen time bans
[00:13:23] Real examples of digital tools supporting focus, learning, and wellbeing
[00:20:25] Introducing AI-powered support for parents inside Tooled Up Education
[00:23:23] Dr. Weston on why AI can reduce educator workload without harming pedagogy

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Dr Kathy Weston: No, I do not believe children need smartphones in early childhood. But do I think social media is the ultimate evil? No. Do I believe children need to be taught to use digital and social media? Absolutely. And I know as a researcher, one of the greatest protective factors of all is parental dialogue about what children are seeing, viewing and digesting online.

So I'm not one for scapegoating tech. If anything, the world is relying upon tech to solve many of the greatest problems in the world, and there's always another side to that. So I'm not one for throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[00:00:44] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders. The top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at 

[00:00:58] Ben Kornell: EdTech Insiders. Remember to subscribe to the pod. Check out our newsletter and also our event calendar.

And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoy today's pod.

Hello, edtech Insider listeners. It's me, Ben Kornell, again with a special guest. Dr. Kathy Weston. She is one of the leading experts on parenting, family life and parental engagement in children's lives. In 2018, she established Tooled Up Education, a holistic bank of evidence-based resources for whole school communities.

Tooled Up supports 166 schools in eight countries delivering bespoke CPD for educators, as well as ONTAP resource support for parents. Welcome, Dr. Kathy Weston. 

[00:01:58] Dr Kathy Weston: Thank you so much, and it's very encouraging to be able to update you that we're now in 170 schools since we last spoke. 

[00:02:07] Ben Kornell: Wow. I feel like this is one of the interviews that I've been looking forward to the most personally.

One, because I have so much to learn as a parent, and also this homeschool alignment that you talk about is something that is becoming such a huge concern really since the pandemic. But now with screen time and AI and this idea that parents and educators are in this together to support children to reach their full potential.

I feel like the aperture has really opened. So let's start at the very beginning. You were already doing this before the pandemic, before 2020. What did the pandemic reveal about the strengths and fragilities of the homeschool partnership that perhaps weren't fully visible before? 

[00:02:54] Dr Kathy Weston: So I think first of all, obviously for all of us globally, the pandemic was a kind of a watershed.

We were all stuck at home with families. Schools shut down. Teachers had the unenviable and extraordinary job of sometimes keeping schools open, certainly in the uk. They also had to sustain learning for populations of children that were stuck in lots of different environments at home. So it completely.

Shook up that relationship and I think that parents appreciated what teachers did and the role of school in children's lives. From the pandemic, we understood that it's a hard job. We understand teaching is a particular skill set that parents often do not understand or possess. So we had a deep appreciation, a deeper appreciation for educators, but out of that.

Sort of we're still recalibrating, I would suggest from that particular time. And I think that there was sort of an emphasis post pandemic that maybe a lot of pressure put on schools to solve every conceivable to mop up every conceivable crisis that sort of emerged post pandemic. One of those things, if you think about mental health.

As soon as schools came back, we noticed huge rises in mental health concerns. So, for example, often children would return to school and teachers could see the visible signs of disordered eating, or they could see the effects of younger children who had been denied. Play interactions, social interactions over that period of time.

So teachers were on the front line of that, but they were also sort of unfortunately expected to solve those things. So the pandemic for us as a business was an opportunity. To really look at mental health in enormous granularity and to make sure that teachers and parents understood more about mental health literacy and more about what is it we need to do.

Many children were unscathed from the pandemic. For many children, it did have a lasting legacy, and it's important that parents and teachers are able to work together too. Mitigate risk and to support children who are experiencing that kind of mental distress. 

[00:05:12] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I feel like there were some things where we really got to see under the water of the iceberg, and we knew that these issues were brewing, but parents had a front row seat in their own homes to see it with their children and their children's friends.

What lasting shifts have you seen in parental expectations? Both for kids and for schools since then, given that kind of up close and personal experience. 

[00:05:41] Dr Kathy Weston: One of the interesting lingering issues is that for some children, we have to be honest, and the pandemic afforded reprieve, they enjoyed very much being at home.

And these were traditionally children who may have struggled with the school environment, or they may have been experiencing bullying, or they may have just been particularly anxious in that. For many of those children, the experience of being at home was very, very welcome. So there is vast and diverse individual responses to that time, but I would say what we have learned as families and school communities is the real meaning of resilience because every single one of us.

Had to dig deep. Our businesses were compromised, our families were broken up. We were unable to see loved ones. Often there was illness to contend with. Here in the UK we had nightly updates on how many deaths per day we were experiencing. It was an extraordinary time, but through that, I think the legacy for families, they realized what they were capable of.

They understood the individual. Mechanisms for coping that we can return to. We've learned that about ourselves. I'm sure you and I could share what got us through the pandemic as individuals, but for us families and there are families who really enjoyed that time together. They enjoyed the fact they didn't need to go out.

They enjoyed the fact they never received in social invitations. So it was a mixed experience. But out of that time, what have we learned about ourselves? What have school communities learned about how they can operate in times of emergency? And what have we learned that we've learned that deeper appreciation of the role of school in children's lives and how important it is for them.

[00:07:32] Ben Kornell: And now several of the schools in your community, 170 schools now. Have really embraced this idea of creating that homeschool connection. Can you tell us about some of the bright spots? What have the most effective schools done to build or maintain a stronger homeschool connection? 

[00:07:52] Dr Kathy Weston: So first of all, the sort of the underlying philosophy of our work@tool.is that parents are powerful and they will always be so in their children's lives.

So in my head, we as parents, we do the heavy lifting and the school supplements the great work that we do at home. So that's the kind of the mental dynamic that I always hold in my head. If we're sending children into school who are. Don't feel loved, don't feel like they matter. They haven't had a good night's sleep.

It's very hard for a school to just take that child and for that child to enjoy the opportunities contained within that environment. So the point is that the homeschool relationship should be one of partnership. But with parents acknowledging they're very, very powerful in children's lives and with a deep respect for educators.

So I see teachers as partners. I don't see that kind of hierarchy there. We are supporting one another and ultimately that united front and that consistency and alignment between home and school is when you see the magic happen in children's lives Ultimately. 

[00:09:01] Ben Kornell: So against this backdrop, we're also experiencing a huge backlash around screen time and even education technology.

And as EdTech insiders, of course, a lot of our entrepreneurs, builders and community leaders. Are worried about this trend and sometimes it's warranted and other times it feels like an emotional backlash. Can you tell us a little bit about what you think the critics miss when it comes to how Ed Tech can support families and not just classrooms?

[00:09:33] Dr Kathy Weston: Thank you. So that's a great question. First of all, we can all agree. EdTech is an enormous concept and within it are a vast hundreds, thousands, mostly even millions of different products that can enhance support children, young people, in multiple ways. Unfortunately, the term screen time, which is often even mocked.

Researchers, it can mean anything. Screen time can mean a child using Google Maps to find their way to school. Screen time could be learning a new language. And Duolingo, we have to think about children's digital experiences. It is impossible to denigrate and put down. Screen time without understanding the nature and quality of those digital experiences.

Unfortunately, and I'm not gonna mention names, a global narrative has been generated by particular commentators to say all screens are harmful and bad, and that the smartphone, it has been totally scapegoated and social media as the ultimate evil in children's lives and has been, I would suggest incorrectly.

Attributed to a global mental health crisis. Unfortunately, people conflate that information with other ed tech programs or assistive technologies that in some cases are completely life changing and necessary for children. You and I could think about, I mean, I, I know children who need smartphones 'cause they have diabetes.

I know children with special educational needs who rely upon educational technology to perform well in school and to do their best. So unfortunately I think we need to be much more dis. Concerning about how we describe EdTech, whether you're an entrepreneur or not, and making sure we are not part of that movement against EdTech.

So we need to be much more, I think, proud of what we offer. But be much more careful about how we describe it. So we we're not all in the w same basket. And it's how children interact with technology. That is very, very interesting. So as a parent myself, no. I do not believe children need smartphones in early childhood.

But do I think social media is the ultimate evil? No. Do I believe children need to be taught to use digital and social media? Absolutely. And I know as a researcher, one of the greatest protective factors of all is parental dialogue about what children are seeing, viewing and digesting online. So I'm not one for scapegoating tech.

If anything, the world is relying upon tech to solve many of the greatest problems in the world, and there's always another side to that. So I'm not one for throwing the baby out with the bath water. We cannot afford to be anti-tech, but we have to be discerning and sensible when we just use that sort of big terminology without breaking it down into what we actually need and taught and mean.

[00:12:41] Ben Kornell: Yeah, and I often tell people technology is really neutral. It's really about what you're applying the technology to. It's called ed Tech for a reason. The ed comes first, the tech comes second, and so if you're using the technology to drill and kill memorization questions or to oversee and minimize what a student can do.

Like you're gonna have some negative outcomes, but if it's unlocking learner potential, then it can be an incredible asset based on evidence from your work. Where have you seen digital tools genuinely moving the needle on children's wellbeing, learning outcomes, or parental confidence? 

[00:13:23] Dr Kathy Weston: Well, let's start with the latter.

So obviously my platform, we do not give children direct access to because we are all about, we're a parental engagement platform, right? 

[00:13:33] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. 

[00:13:33] Dr Kathy Weston: So we are all about developing parental self-efficacy. So to give you a tangible example, if a child is feeling anxious, that parent wants to know, what should I do?

What should I say? What can make anxiety worse? What does the evidence say? So our entire way of life in Tooled Up is designed to empower that parent, okay? And in a world of dodgy information sources, misinformation, that's what Tooled Up is there to do, to really look at the quality of information behind tips and actionable ideas.

When it comes to children's use of tech, again, it's about discernment, right? I've seen children. My own children have used things like Quizlet intensely for a-level revision. My son studied a-level Greek and he used Quizlet intensely on a daily basis to good effect. My youngest would struggle a little bit more with attention and focus.

Actually used an app called Forest to allow him to concentrate a little bit better on for time management and focused tasks. So every child is different, and you and I couldn't possibly run through the array of technological solutions and ideas and innovations. But the other side of that is gaming. Is a very important aspect.

Certainly my teenage boys' lives and we know that there's good evidence that gaming can actually enhance children's wellbeing when it's used in an age appropriate way. And when children are not using games that are, you know, particularly violent or aggressive or, or games that are, you know, full of inappropriate content.

So you can already hear. The answer to that is who is your child? How are they engaging in the digital world, and what is the nature and quality of the tech that you are engaging with? Nobody can answer that except parents themselves or teachers themselves. So you know, it's an individual evaluation of the quality and impact of tech itself.

[00:15:32] Ben Kornell: Yeah, it's such a good point and nuance seems to be lost in our modern era, but I do think at the practical level, so many parents are just looking for those tips and tricks and in some ways saying, Hey, what you're doing is okay. You know, as a parent myself. You're almost always trying to figure out what's right, and I have a 14-year-old and I have a 9-year-old, and what's right for my 14-year-old is not right for my 9-year-old, both age-wise, but also because of their personalities.

So, uh, you really are supporting schools and you position yourself as a holistic evidence-based resource for whole school communities. When you started it, what problem were you most determined to solve? And then how has the platform really practically added benefit saving time or money sharing insights for schools and parents?

Can you give us some good examples of kind of impacts that you've had? 

[00:16:28] Dr Kathy Weston: Yeah, we started off wanting to really look at academic thriving. What is it that children need to thrive academically? And of course that took us on a journey looking at family factors, you know, how children feel about themselves.

And then of course, the pandemic introduced the whole element of how mental health can affect learning, achievement, concentration. So we sort of go on this kind of organic journey looking at anything. That can enable a child to thrive or anything that can inhibit it, and that is our sort of goal. The bottom line is, as you know, parenting and particularly digital parenting is incredibly complex, but you are a busy dad and you want ideas, and I can tell you right now what they are.

If you've got a 9-year-old and a 14 year. What do you need to do? What do you need to say? What do you need to look out for? What's coming that you can preempt and be proactive about? So we believe in the quality of information and we translate research from a global network of academics, clinicians, you know, really looking at material, trying to make sense of it, trying to triangulate between different sources.

So I can give you as an output. I can do it right now, if you like, tell you what you need to be doing, saying and how you might be, you know, uh, responding to those children. 

[00:17:47] Ben Kornell: Let's dive in. 

[00:17:48] Dr Kathy Weston: Yeah. Let's test my knowledge, right? 

[00:17:50] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I mean, maybe we start, you know, I, my family recently went through a move and so one of the challenges is helping my teenager, who's 14 adjusts to a new school.

He's in eighth grade. You know, here in the United States you move from eighth grade into high school the following year, so it's a really tough transition time. What is the advice and tools and resources that you recommend in those situations? 

[00:18:15] Dr Kathy Weston: Yeah, so if you were in a tooled up school, or you were a tooled up parent, you would have access to our vast digital library, and I would be pointing you to resources around transition.

What you would find within those resources is how to have conversations with your son. About change, and probably I would've suggested preempting, you know, the change, the move to school with some sort of psychological questions, checking in, finding out how they're feeling and doing, and actually concentrating on the pillars of familiarity.

So things might change, but what are the things that are gonna stay the same in your life? And then thinking about transition anxiety, if there is any. What are they worried about? And then I would be suggesting you helpfully problem solve. Coach your teenager around some of the possible solutions. You as a parent might intuitively want to overly reassure him.

We know that it can actually exacerbate anxiety. And I would be encouraging you to coach him. What went well today? You know, you seem happier today than you were yesterday. Why do you think that's the case? And also, we have settling in journals. We have resilience journals that you would download. As a dad, we have resources for the school to make sure that child feels well settled.

So that's one of our bread and butter topics because you know, change is hard, but at the same time, there's an opportunity to cultivate resilience within it. 

[00:19:43] Ben Kornell: Wonderful. I feel like I've gotten something out of this call. And then if you go to the Tooled Up website, there's both researchers where you can see the incredible army of people that you have behind this Wednesday wisdom and parenting questions, and on the parenting questions.

It really is like all the stuff that a parent would want to know. It's almost like ask Kathy and, and here you have a bunch of really great research informed advice. Looking ahead, how do you see AI enhancing platforms like Tooled Up? Are you planning to add personalization, parent support, or educators, CPD with AI while preserving that human trust that's been at the heart of your family engagement?

[00:20:25] Dr Kathy Weston: Totally. So the good point about Tooled Up is we've spent, you know, six years, eight years curating content that is only evidence-based. We didn't even know it, but we were preparing for the age of AI by meticulously curating. The advice that we had and constantly updating and editing it. What we have now done as of February, 2026, we have introduced our own internal AI, which is called Tula, tool Learning Assistant, and that will only.

Scrape data from our internal, heavily curated content. So that's incredibly exciting. We never would encourage any parent just to use chat GBT to ask a parenting question, which are often, you know, require a lot of sensitive and nuances you've described. And instead they can use Tula and Tula means they are only.

Getting tips, advice, or signposting to resources that have been incredibly well thought out. And to be honest, you know, it's a safe space and we are very proud of that. So Tula will be able to direct our users towards content within our existing platform. Already. Any teacher, any parent can ask us anything.

Any teacher, any parent can request resources. So for example, a parent might say, my child doesn't want to go to school. Have you got any ideas? We send them a few things to read or watch, or we might give them a completely new tip. If we liaise with them, or a teacher might say, I need to be trained on, you know, a particular topic like A DHD, and we will put that content into tool dop and schools are able to use it at their leisure.

So the thing that makes us unique is every single piece of content has, is there because a school or a parent have asked for it. We're not just, you know, we're listening, we're learning. It sort of grows organically. In relation to the live needs of our community. And if you are a tooled up school, you'll be the beneficiary of all of the content that other schools around the world have requested.

And you get a sense of what we're all facing, what we're interested in. And that's super exciting as well. 

[00:22:42] Ben Kornell: Yeah, it's really fascinating because folks who've really spent the time to build up the knowledge base, uh, that is specialized and research based and really differentiating. AI really creates this unlock opportunity to tap that wisdom base and really provide personalized advice and support, not just for the parents, but for educators and for schools.

You know, one of the things we ask all of our guests is really what's getting you out of bed every day? What's getting you excited? What's the most exciting trend you see in the EdTech landscape right now that our listeners should keep an eye on? This could be both for your organization or just more broadly.

I 

[00:23:23] Dr Kathy Weston: mean, I am very excited about AI in general. I know we all know there are caveats. I mean, I've just written a resource on AI chatbot, right? We don't want children relying upon AI for advice, right? But there are opportunities. To enhance. For example, if you take a busy educator, AI is a game changer. You know, because it can help them organize notes.

They can think about, you know, the administration of an educator's role can be very, very busy. But, you know, there, there's a huge opportunity just at school level for AI to improve comms, um, administrative tasks, reduce that kind of workload, you know, and that is. Not touching their pedagogical philosophy or approach.

They're, they're separate topics, but surely to goodness AI, at the very least as an administrative assistant can save, you know, staff time. So I'm very positive about it, despite the obvious caveats. I mean, the horses bolted, I mean, where. We really need to get into the wave and start swimming and find our way in this current and be very savvy about, you know, be part of that dialogue about AI.

You know, share our concerns, share our appetite for excitement. Talk to our children about technological advances and change and bring their voices into it. So I'm not afraid of it, of having those dialogues, and I think as business owners and entrepreneurs and innovators, you know, we have to start learning from each other, getting interested using it.

Sharing those kinds of insights. So we have gone head first with our business and made sure we're using AI to enhance the customer experience, to improve the delivery of research insights to our community quickly. Because the one thing teachers and parents share is their extremely busy. And to be able to ask ULA within our site.

It's very exciting, you know, and that to get, to have confidence in the, in the information they're receiving is also very helpful. 

[00:25:34] Ben Kornell: This has been an awesome conversation. You know, even before the show, we were talking about your visit here to the US and time in Miami and Nashville, among other places. We can't wait to get you back and have tooled up in more schools in the us.

If people wanna find out more about tooled up, what should they do? 

[00:25:55] Dr Kathy Weston: They could just go to ww dot T-O-O-L-E-D UP education.com and you can see the front of our website there. And we've a lovely video sort of explaining how we work. And the other thing I would suggest is that everybody reads Wednesday Wisdom on the front of our website because I've just written about my trip to the.

States and that is read by 15,000 people every week. So you get a really good flavor of what we're about at Tool Do and how we try and share our own parenting stories. You know, we're not perfect, but also we are really interested in applying tool, do tips in our own personal lives. And Wednesday Wisdom gives you a wonderful backlog.

Of information on all sorts of extremely relevant topics to loving, busy, aspirational parents. 

[00:26:47] Ben Kornell: Wonderful. Well, this has been such a great conversation, Dr. Kathy Weston, CEO, founder of Tooled Up. Thanks so much for joining EdTech Insiders. 

[00:26:57] Dr Kathy Weston: Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:26:59] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders.

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