What To Do Now So They Are Ready Then
This morning I received a NY Times email update featuring an editorial on a topic that is near and dear to my professional practice and personal life as a parent: College students and anxiety and readiness.
I couldn’t agree more with the author and also couldn’t agree Less!!
Her main premise: Modern parents tend to over worry about their kids, inadvertently reacting in ways that turns normal human reactions to change and being in the unknown, into clinical psychological conditions leading to seeking out unnecessary psychological treatment.
Her argument is that often times giving them timeless simple life advice is the best solution. E.g. Stressed about a class and freaking out that you may fail? Advice: Do the reading and show up prepared.
Chill out. Stay the course. It is not that big of a deal to be uncomfortable.
Who could argue that advice?
I wouldn’t. And yet I am going to argue that there are three gaping holes in this argument:
#1: Parents often times give great advice, but are the wrong source!
Part of the journey through adolescence into adulthood is becoming one’s own authority (or “author of their own life”), which includes choosing who they will defer to for guidance and opinions, not just taking the authorities life imposes upon them as being gospel.
Parents can also have too much emotional attachment and expectation that clouds how “clean” the advice is. A “suggestion” is often more of an expectation about the right way to do something, which then couples it with the possibility of disappointment and thus can add more pressure, not take stress away.
Like many of you, I am a parent. I live it first hand. I can say certain things and it gets a shrug or a “you don’t understand” (yet given what I do professionally my suggestions are usually pretty much spot on!)… Then a different adult says the exact same things to them and gets a “thank you that’s exactly what I needed to hear!”
Obviously doing what I do professionally, I am frequently on the other side of it being the one who they listen to, and I work continually to never start from the premise that I know what is right or best for any of my clients… instead focusing on teaching them what I know that will empower them to know for themselves what is right and best.
#2: For many students – in my experience more than 1/3rd of them – there is A LOT more going on in their minds that makes just following simple advice and action much more complicated and challenging, and often makes that common sense advice not on target to address what is really going on.
Personal example: I recall my Sophomore year of college when I was really struggling and having a relative tell me “You are just going through the Sophomore slump.” They were wrong.
Two transfers and a leave of absence later, I figure out what was really going on that I was struggling so much that year in college.
That was no “Sophomore slump”… that was the beginning of me going deep into the journey of waking up and realizing that up until that point in my life, I had never really lived my OWN life.. How I had been endlessly making choices based on what I thought was right, what was socially acceptable and made me look impressive in the eyes of others.
My “Sophomore Slump” was actually my Call To Adventure (to use mythological terms), and trite simple advice not only was dismissive, following it would have been grossly inhibiting to my growth into adulthood. The well intended advice giver was actually a Threshold Guardian, and they didn’t even know it.
I have said many times that my decision not just to transfer colleges, but to leave all together and move to California, was the first time in my life I actually made a true decision for myself… it was the start date of my adult life.
Not all common sense advice applies in all cases, and this in my opinion, is the danger in oversimplifying things.
While my personal example may be on the extreme, the frequency of when “what’s really going on” turning out to be much more than just normal struggles, is far more common than this editorial acknowledges.
In fairness to the author, her common sense advice is not meant to be all inclusive and she references that. At the same time getting published in the New York Times gives it gravitas that doesn’t include a provision declaring there are countless exceptions, and parents would be wise to be able to discern when their kid is living one of them… which is a role I help play dozens of times a year and part of how I come to the number that around 1 in 3 have a lot more going on than just struggling with being away and on their own for the first time.
#3: Most of the preparation for being away at college really needs to happen BEFORE they leave for college!
Far too often, it does not.
Most problems would be avoided if kids were properly trained, prepared and conditioned to being away from home, living more independently and managing more adult responsibilities.
This includes things as mundane as learning how to manage through bureaucracies and how to organize one’s time. Building the capacity to experience all the awkwardness and stress of the unknown is not something we just tell them to do. It is something we instill in them through experiences and years of dialogue… and our modern culture does a pathetic job of doing this, exacerbated by the obsession with status and college admissions that is pervasive in many communities.. often without regard for what is actually right and the best path for an individual kid.
Here is a link to a presentation I did at Terra Linda High School in San Rafael, CA. The talk is called “What To Do Now So They Are Ready Then: The Other College Prep”… I contend that we spend so much time getting them to do what it takes to get into college, but nowhere near enough time preparing them to actually succeed once they get there.
How do we know we are doing the right things now?
Well for one, in my opinion and experience, If your kids aren’t pissed at you with some frequency for making them do growing up things that make them uncomfortable and nervous, you’re probably not doing nearly enough!
