We are on summer break. My sons, two pools, several theme parks, and a daily schedule that alternates sunscreen, snacks, and figuring out where someone’s left sandal went.
Somewhere between the towels and the third coat of SPF, I found myself thinking about one of the first lessons I ever taught these boys.
It is a short one. You don’t leave people out. You don’t pile on when someone is getting picked on. And you notice when a classmate looks like they could use a friend.
None of that is complicated. Most parents I know teach some version of it before their kids can ride a bike.
I want to be specific about what it means this month, in June, with Pride flags on porches and the school year just behind us.
LGBTQ+ kids are more likely to be the ones left out. They are more likely to be picked on. And they want the same thing every kid wants, which is to walk into a building and feel safe inside it.
Those numbers are not mine. They come from Glisten’s 2025 survey of LGBTQ+ students. Two in three said they felt unsafe at school at some point because of who they are. Only one in three said they look forward to going.
Read those two findings next to each other and sit with them for a second. A third of these kids look forward to school. The rest are doing quiet math about which hallway to take and which bathroom to skip, in a year when they hear their own identities argued about on the news.
This is a big part of why I keep speaking up for public education.
A public school is one of the few rooms left where children from every kind of family end up in the same place. Different incomes, different beliefs, different households, same homeroom. My kids sit beside children whose lives look nothing like ours, and that is the point.
When a school becomes a place where every kid feels seen and supported, the results show up in the data. The CDC has spent years on school connectedness research, a student’s sense that the adults and peers around them care. Kids who feel that connection earn higher grades, miss fewer days, and are more likely to finish high school. The same agency notes that LGBTQ+ students are among those least likely to feel it.
Glisten’s findings arrive at the same spot from the other direction. LGBTQ+ students with supportive teachers, inclusive lessons, and clear anti-bullying policies report a stronger sense of belonging, higher GPAs, and fewer days missed out of fear.
Belonging is a condition for learning. A kid who spends the day managing threat is not free to spend it on fractions.
Which brings me back to the pool, and to the boys negotiating whose turn it is to retrieve virgin daiquiris from the poolside bar.
The work of belonging does not start with a school board meeting, though those matter. It starts at kitchen tables and in car rides. It starts with the small conversations, the offhand questions, the way we answer when a child asks about a classmate with two moms or a friend who goes by a different name this year.
That is where children learn who counts. So this month, pay attention to those conversations.
Because that’s where inclusion gets built.
Be kind, feed your mind, and wash your behind.
The Dad Briefs covers the civic, political, and quietly human stories that shape family life in America — with recipes along the way. Food, Fun and Fatherly Wisdom. Recipes for Resistance.
