The idea for a business that helped kids solve problems came to LB Reddington five years ago.
A teacher in New Canaan Public Schools for nearly three decades before retiring last year, Reddington had spent most of her career as a fifth-grade science teacher at Saxe Middle School, also teaching third- and-fourth graders at West School, and sixth-graders at Saxe.
During that time, Reddington took professional and personal pride in helping kids solve problems, far beyond just content delivery.
“Their management and their organization, and trying to draw their strengths out—you’re working in so many different supports for the kids,” Reddington said during an interview at New Canaan Library on a recent morning. “I enjoy bringing pieces together and solving problems and seeing that growth and success.”
Seeking to use what she gleaned in her 28-year career, Reddington last year launched LB Education & Life Coaching. A service for children as well as parents, the business identifies strategies that help students and then brings in parents “to help the kids find success,” she said.
“It’s expanding as I go throughout the year,” said Reddington, who holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in education from Boston College. “It’s looking at students, helping students who are not being as successful as they could be in school for various reasons. Sometimes it’s academic gaps, sometimes it’s learning challenges, sometimes it’s motivation, sometimes it’s confidence, sometimes it’s around executive function type skills, whether that’s organization or problem solving, advocating for themselves. Just as I would do in the classroom, I build rapport with the kids. Help them figure it out, like a puzzle. Identify what they need and then help them get those ‘small wins,’ so to speak. Those small successes that build on each other. Because I can tell them, as a teacher, ‘Great job.’ But if they’re not experiencing it or feeling it, it’s not as helpful.”
Asked how she’s feeling about her company one year in, Reddington said that she’s growing it very organically and learning as much as she teaches, including website development.
“It’s very exciting because I can be so creative and I’m learning so many new things, so that even though I’m not in the classroom teaching where I’m always learning new things I’m still doing that, just in a different way,” she said.
On Thursday, Reddington is presenting two sessions of a free talk, “Setting Your Child Up for School Success,” at New Canaan Library. The talks are scheduled for 12 and 6 p.m.
Known to many locals not only as a teacher but also as a longtime member of the Congregational Church of New Canaan, Reddington has had about 10 clients in her first year of business.
One of them, Kristen Caron, had known Reddington through her own personal training business and had no idea that Reddington had launched the coaching business until the two were chatting and Caron mentioned that her own son was struggling academically in the seventh grade.
“She mentioned that she may be able to help him, so we set up a time for the three of us to meet, sort of nonchalantly,” Caron recalled.
That first meeting took place at a Dunkin Donuts on a Saturday morning. There, Reddington spent nearly an hour getting acquainted with Caron’s son—by chatting about football.
“She was just really engaging him, and it was very cool, she had a great way of just chatting,” Caron recalled. “He [My son] knew essentially that she was going to be some kind of a helper with school, so he had a bit of an idea. But he started just opening up to her and asking her questions about how she could help him, and she was very adept in the way she was, making analogies about football and about how they correspond to school in the classroom environment. And it very effective. I remember thinking, ‘When are we going to start talking about school? All we’re talking about is football here.’ But she really got him and kind of was able to assess how she could get through to him.”
Reddington explained that she’s not just a tutor, but there “to help him learn how to become a better student—not in a class, not in any particular subject per se, but just learning how to learn,” Caron said.
The two started working together twice per week, and they devised organizational strategies that soon paid off, Caron said.
“She also gave him the confidence to go and self-advocate for extra help, for instance,” she said. “If he was struggling in a subject or the day before a test, if the teacher was offering extra help, he would take advantage of that and go. She helped him to see that he actually was very able to become a good student. I think prior to that, he just felt like he was dumb. He was always kind of comparing himself to his older sister, who is a good student, and just kind of naturally has good study habits and whatnot.”
As a result of Reddington’s work, Caron said, her son’s grades “went up quite a bit.”
“I think, more importantly, he just felt so much better about himself,” she said.
The majority of Reddington’s clients have been through New Canaan and have been middle and high school students and their parents, she said, though “I’m also finding that I have young adults coming to me.”
“They’re looking at other things, whether it’s going back to school or they want a career change,” Reddington said. “So I’ve been open, because I love to solve problems.”
Ultimately, Reddington said, her goal with any client is “to set them up so they don’t need me.”
“My role is set them up not only for immediate needs, but also down the road,” she said.
With students, getting there could involve any number of strategies, she said.
“Say if you’re working with writing homework, help students understand how to use software like Grammarly,” Reddington said. “How to read out loud to find any errors in their writing. Laying it out different ways, depending on how the student works. How to take notes, or how to outline, or how to do a visual of where they’re going, or keywords. Get a keyword list going. So I’m really trying to build strategies that they can use without me.”
The help is timely, Reddington said, in a post-pandemic world where many young people are experiencing anxiety amid constant connectivity and social media.
“It’s a different world, and the students need the support,” she said. “And parents need to understand where they can get support and how to help them and how to plug in. I help parents understand how important they are, to give them strategies. For me, being able to help children and connect with parents to help them really is just so rewarding.”
In fact, asked about her long-term vision for the company, Reddington said, “I would like to be a resource for parents through the website, where I could do Zoom. Working with the students it really helps to be in person, that in-person connection really makes a difference. So I don’t see myself doing Zoom so much with kids, but I could with parents.”