Eps 518: Living in the tension of our teen’s efforts during college application season

Joyful courage is taking a deep breath and remembering that what I want lives between my desire for it and my thoughts about it.

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 01:34
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Yay. So glad to be coming at you from my home office space, yes, Two long weeks and a half of travel and work and fun and just really happy to be home, ready to settle into the new normal of my life, yes, but I did have a great, great time the last Few weeks, and I'm ready to continue to create some really fun stuff for you all this fall, and getting really excited about some things that I'll be showing up in 2025 and some projects that we're working on. So good. How are you? How's everybody doing? Did you have a chance to re listen to my interview with Janae young on Monday. Do you remember Janae was on like, a year ago, and we had had such a useful conversation, and I figured this is the time of year to revisit that particular interview, because I know so many of you are raising kids that are in their last years of high school, and you're looking ahead at perhaps a future of them going to college, or maybe your kids are even younger, and you're just wanting to soak up all the good stuff that lies ahead. Yes, well, that's the interview to listen to. It's super useful. I love Janae, and I wanted to follow up the interview with a solo show highlighting the powerful learning opportunity of this season of college application and deadlines and essays and all these things that those of you with seniors are probably moving through, right that's what the interview was about with Janae. It was all about the college application process. I have a ton of clients who are in this experience right now, and there's a theme that comes up that I want to speak into. But before I get into that, before I go there, I want to remind all of you listeners that I have lots of things beyond this podcast going on that can support you in the trenches of raising adolescents, I have this incredible membership group that I love. I've got on demand summits. I've got workshops, classes, coaching. There's the joyful courage for parents of teens. Facebook group. There are resources for you beyond this pod and a great way to identify what you need is to book a 15 minute call with me. And you can do that. You can book 15 minutes we'll connect, go over what is currently a pain point for you and what would be helpful and what kind of support would feel like a good fit. And you can book that call by going to besproutable.com/explore dot com slash explore. Again, that's besproutable.com/explore. That'll take you to my schedule. You'll book a time, and we'll connect around what you need. And again, no matter what you're going through, chances are I've been there and I've done that, and I can offer up some useful support, and that absolutely includes the season of late adolescence, as you're imagining your kids leaving home for what's next, right? Each season matters and is real and can really throw us for a loop. So my work is always around how we can show up our best for them, always moving towards being. Helpful rather than hurtful. So book that call, I'd love to connect with you, and here we are. I am recording this in the fall, and for many parents of seniors, things are probably somewhat stressful, especially if you have a teen who's planning to head to college next year and again, before we get into it, I want to acknowledge that there are many options for our kids once they get out of school, and I don't believe there's any right path, some of our kids will graduate and opt into going straight into working some of our kids will opt into a trade program, others Community College, some of our kids choose to stay home for a bit, and others figure out how to get out there and on their own. And I think the most important thing for kids graduating from high school is that there is a sense of moving on, right? You don't want them to get stuck or feel stagnant, but instead, keep this energy of, you know, the next thing alive, right, continuing to grow and develop and live into their mindset of creating the life that they want, and that can look a lot of different ways, that can look a lot of different ways. And today, we're really going to focus in on the tension that shows up when parents have kids who want to go to college. It's been stated, I want to go to college, right? And then, for whatever reason, those same kids are flailing a bit in the process, in the application process. And then the parents again, back to the parents are having a hard time letting go of the process of their kids getting to that place that they say they want to go to college, right? And so I talked to a lot of parents lately, and even last year. I remember this time last year talking to parents who are just pulling their hair out because they say they want to do this thing, and they're not working on their application, or they're not writing their essays, or do they know the deadlines? And the parents are so freaked out and stressed, right? And, you know, nagging and really doing damage to relationships, sending messages maybe they don't mean to send. So that's what we're gonna play with today. We're gonna play with letting go and letting the college application process be your kids, right? Letting Go, letting go, right? Why is it so hard? So we're gonna start off by going through a bunch of reasons why it's so hard to let go, and then I'm going to lean into why it's so important for you to let go at this point, right? We want so much for our kids, right? We see their potential, and we want them to have all the opportunities. And because of that, it's really hard to let it go when they aren't showing up well for the college application process. So we want to save them from themselves. We want to push them along so that they can have the opportunity that we think is best for them. And this is key. You know, who knows what's best for our kids, our kids, and when we get over involved and naggy in their process, we're continuing to send the message that we don't believe they're capable, which can easily fuel their own beliefs about themselves, causing more discouragement. So that's the first reason it's hard to let go. We just want so much for them and we see their potential. Another reason it's hard to let go, we imagine the worst case scenarios right where, oh my gosh, but if I let go and they miss a deadline, they might miss out, they won't go to college. They'll become bums and live in vans down by the river like it's we go crazy, we go to crazy town, right? And it's real. And I think it's important to remember that there are no timelines. Timelines are fake, fake news, right? The traditional pathway of high school to college to career, is just one of many pathways into adulthood, right? And so when we really get stuck in that, imagining all the terrible things that'll happen if they don't follow through, or if they miss something, or if they miss a deadline, there's something there for us to really dig into, right? There's something for us to learn about ourselves. And I had that experience. I had deep, deep, deep learning. When my oldest dropped out of high school, I didn't realize how attached I was to a particular narrative, which was, Oh, you just graduated from high school. Go to college. Move on, right? And because I had this attachment to that narrative, I was doing harm, it was so hard for me to be with her and her experience, because I was so distracted by, well, this is what it's supposed to look like, right? And it's easy to be open to multiple pathways. You might be listening to this like, yeah, of course. Like, there's a lot of different scenarios. I'm open to it, and you might be open to a lot of different pathways. And it becomes more challenging to remain open when those alternative pathways actually are sitting down at the table, when, when it's your kiddo, not somebody else's. And. And you know, this is an opportunity to really notice your resistance, right? And notice, you know, what is fueling your fear of them not following through and not getting what they want and having things look a different way, right? This is really useful to dig in and to notice what your come from is and what your conditioning is actually fueling for you, right? But that's another reason why it's hard to let go, right? We go to the worst case scenario. If they don't follow through, they lose all their opportunities, which isn't true. Another reason it's hard to let go, we aren't practicing. We aren't really well practiced in lifting up and out of the situation and seeing the bigger picture and the learning that exists in the process, right? Yeah, deadlines do matter. You know, I

Casey O'Roarty 10:50
just said timelines aren't real, right? Like, timelines aren't real, but deadlines are, deadlines are, you know, hard and fast deadlines matter quality of essays and short answers on the applications matter. I'm not going to argue that. What I am saying, though, is there are life lessons built into this process, and they're so ripe. Your young person is potentially going to be out on their own in less than a year they get to and it's important for them to feel the tension of going after what they want in a meaningful or a half assed way, and feel the results of their effort. Some of our kids are going to feel the results of their effort, and it's going to look like acceptance letters or wait list letters. Some of the kids are going to feel the results of their efforts, and it's going to look like, oh, a letter saying, you know, your application came and passed the deadline, we can't accept it, or simply realizing, like, I missed it, I missed the deadline. And then there's an opportunity there. Like, what's the pivot? Right? Oh, man, that sucks. That's too bad. What other applications are due. And maybe double check the deadlines there. Like, what can they learn from the experience of not following through, because there's equal amounts of learning when we make mistakes, when we don't follow through, when we fail or flail as there are, when we dot all the i's and cross all the t's and, you know, follow through and do what we're supposed to do. There's equal amounts of learning in both of those, right? Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 12:25
and so it's important, even though we are in it the in the day to day, and it's driving us crazy, not seeing more effort in the process, or not seeing better, you know, them showing up better follow through in the process. Mind boggling, but

Casey O'Roarty 12:43
in those moments like, Okay, I'm in it, let me lift up and out and look at it. What is my kiddo learning? What's the opportunity for learning here and again, there's learning happening no matter what, if we stay out of it, right? We get to stay out of it. Another reason, it's hard to let go when it comes to the college application process is that we don't believe that they're capable. We don't think our kids are capable. And this is a big one, and I mentioned above, when we get over involved and naggy in their process, we're continuing to send the message that we don't believe they're capable. And I talk to parents all the time who say, Casey, I hear you say, Have faith, believe in them. What if I don't? If you don't think your kiddos capable of finishing a college application, then why are you willing to look ahead a year and throw down tons of money so that they can step into the responsibility of college? Right? You have to believe that they're capable of doing this part, if you're gonna drop them off and say goodbye and spend a ton of money in the college process, you know, in the college experience. So my guess is, you believe they're capable, but you are worried. History has told you that their follow through isn't great. Okay, okay, we nag because we are afraid that they won't do what we want them to do, or what they're supposed to be doing, right? If we don't nag them, they won't do it. And it's funny. I know you believe that your kid could do all the things, and yet you treat them as if they won't right. What happens? What might happen if you experiment with Hey, I trust that if this is important to you, which you said it was, I trust that you'll get it done. And I'm here to support, right? I'm here to support another reason, it's hard to let go. And something that comes up with parents is we don't fully, and I get this because I'm kind of a micromanager, controller person, but we don't fully trust the other adult supporters, right? There's a reason we hire college counselors. There's a reason that many high schools have classes and interest in getting their students into college. It looks good for them. Let those supporters do their job, get out of the way. And when you get messages like, hey, you know your student isn't meeting the deadlines or is getting behind. Mean, you get to say like, you know, I hear you and I see you, and I'm really trusting that your relationship with them and your conversation with them is what will help them catch up. And I'm here to tell them I love them and believe in them, but I'm not going to micromanage them, and I'm not going to nag them, right? You get to trust your supporters and also be really direct. That's their job, right? Get out of the way. Let them do their job. Let them do their job. Trust the process. Another thing that makes it hard to let go is parents are so often focused on the short term, right? And I've heard parents say this to me like we believe if we just get them there, everything's going to fall into place. And guess what? Getting them there isn't enough. I know a lot of families, a lot of parents whose kids make it maybe the first semester, the first quarter, the first year, and then they're taking a break because it's too much. They don't have the skills that they need to navigate the responsibility of being off to college, just getting them there isn't enough. A kid who isn't ready to take on the college application process or ask for help or be actively engaged in it may not be ready to go to college. It's not our job to just get them there. It's their job to get themselves there through their hard work. It's our job to provide opportunities for them to develop the tools that they need. And college is freaking expensive. You might be a family that's taking out loans, or maybe you've been saving, whatever your situation, you're ready to throw down a big investment. Don't you want to know that it'll have a good ROI, a good return, right? You want to know that your kiddos ready to go to college? Well, this is the first step in the wobble that they're going to get to move through as they get closer to launching this application process. And you can just be really transparent about that. Be really transparent about that. Like, not, hey, you know, if you can't do this, you can't go to college, but really, like, Man, this is so cool, because the college application process and the season of applying to college is really the first step in that autonomy that you're gonna have once you're out there on your own, right. That's awesome. And finally, you know, another reason we can't let go, you know, and let them let this process be theirs, is, and I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. I talk about this a lot. We can't tolerate their disappointment and their discomfort. No kid gets into every single college on their list. My friend, very few Anyway, do maybe there's some out there that are just crazy superstars and yeah, it's hard when our kids realize that they've missed a deadline or are experiencing the consequence of a door closing because they didn't fill out the whole application or whatever, right? They get upset, discouraged. You know, who knows how Blamey, where they're throwing blame. They have an emotional experience, and it is hard, it's hard to be with that. How do we show up to their experience and not point out that it was actually them that put themselves in the situation they're in, right? That's not useful, by the way, but, and we're going to talk about showing up neutral. We can show up in a way that allows them to be reflective and to consider what they could do differently. You know, as they pivot towards something else, right? What do they want to do? How do they want to how do they want to shift this? What do they need to keep moving forward, right? But all of these questions come after we meet them where they're at and their emotional and allow them to have their emotional experience. Yeah, that sucks. I'm so sorry. That's really discouraging. I see you having a hard time, right? Nothing else, I believe you. You're so pissed about this. Just see them in their experience, and then once you feel like they've really moved through it, you get to say, so what are we going to do now? You want to go to college. How can that look? Right? And believe me, everybody gets to go to college. There are so many options. There are so many options. So, you know, I just spent some time kind of going through why it's hard to let go, right? And you might even have more reasons that I didn't cover why it's hard to let go. But now let's shift into why it is important to let go, letting go of this process, letting go of what it looks like, trusting, right? This is the first life lesson of college. This is why it important to let go. This is the first college life lesson. There's no hand holding. There's no hand holding in college. This is theirs. This is theirs. What is next is theirs to create their. To experience, and it all starts with this application process, letting go and allowing it to be theirs gives them a taste of what lies ahead. You aren't going to be holding their hand next year. You're not going to be proofreading their papers right, and if you are, don't do that, send them to the tutor, send them to the library. There's resources on campus. They do not need you to be their editor, right? Too involved, too enmeshed. Be transparent about this like I love you. I trust you. I am here to support you when you ask for it, and this whole application process thing, it's yours. And I'm so excited to see what you create for yourself, right? And you might say, like, I'd be happy to you know, if you feel like the resources at school are useful for the process, or if you want a college coach or a college application consultant, like we can look into that, I'm going to stay out of it, because this is yours, right? No hand holding. This is the beginning. You know, if you haven't already, this is a great time to start parenting a year ahead. Now is the time, and I've talked about this on the show before. How can you create an experience for your kiddo to practice living in the freedom and decision making they will be invited into next year, right? This isn't permissive. Anything goes. This is an intentional move that you share with your teen about supporting them in developing the skills and the mindset that will best serve them when they launch right parenting a year ahead. I mean, it's the bomb. I definitely leaned into that last year. And you know, I've got my freshman and college kid who's having the traditional college experience, and he's made so far so good, right? He's in week five, and he's making great decisions, and he's staying focused, and he's also having a lot of fun, right? But I feel like he's had a lot of opportunity to navigate. What do I want most versus what I want now? How am I going to work on these distractions? What do I need? I feel like really given him a lot of opportunity to be in that tension before he actually was in it? Does that make sense? The other piece about letting go during this time of college applications is that this is natural consequences at their finest. We talk a lot about natural consequences, what happens when you stay out of the way. That's a natural consequence. They don't want to fill out the college application, they're not meeting deadlines, they're not following through with what they say they're going to do. Stay out of it. I love you, and I trust that if something matters to you, you're going to make time to get it done and then get out of the way.

Casey O'Roarty 22:42
It's not a trick, right? It doesn't mean that you say that and they'll be like, Oh, thanks, and now I'm gonna do all the things, right? It's real. And if they don't follow through, maybe college isn't what they want, or maybe that four year college across the country isn't what they want, right? Maybe they're not ready, and you get to, like I said, being transparent. So listen, college application season is here. It's going to feel stressful, or maybe not. I'm going to do my best to stay out of it, because this is the beginning of college, right? This is the beginning of you and your autonomy and personal responsibility and accountability. It's all built into the college application process. So like I said before, if you need support, let me know we can make that happen. I am going to be your cheerleader, your encourager. I'm here for support when you ask for it.

Casey O'Roarty 23:39
Some of our kids aren't big talkers, and they might be unwilling to share with you what's going on with them, and you still get to offer a version of that statement above and follow it with again, I'm here to help or partner with you and looking for the help you need and step back. Don't disappear, but leave the energetic responsibility for filling out the common app, writing essays, sending in their stuff, leave that energetic responsibility in their court and trust them. It's important for us to let go during this time, because it gives space for what is the right thing for your kid to show up? Right? You don't know what the gifts of failure or flail your R you can trust that no matter how things unfold, they are unfolding and back to you knowing what's best for your kids. There are so many possibilities and storylines that could unfold that may just be the exact right thing for your kid, right after they've missed a deadline, after they've not followed through on an essay, or they've sent in kind of a half ass application, you don't know what's going to show up because of however they are following through. And I know this is hard, and I speak from experience when I say You can't predict the future, right? What feels hope? This and hard and dark may just be the foundation for the most incredible growth. Shout out to my girl, right? My daughter, she exists as a living reminder of this for me and so many of you who have followed her story, it's really incredible, and remember that this is an opportunity to send the energetic message around trusting and having faith and believing in your teen. And you know that I love energetic messaging. What is that? When I talk about energetic messaging, energetic responsibility, it's really to me what lives beyond our words and beyond our body language. It's the most real thing. It's the raw real thing to me, even though we can't see it, touch it, feel it. And it's that energetic messaging that can sabotage things when it's not in alignment with what we're speaking right? So really believing and sending that like what does faith in your child feel like in your body? And if you could close your eyes, it helps us humans to see something. So if I close my eyes, and I imagine trust and faith believing in my kiddo, there's like this sparkly cloud of energy, and I imagine it just like pouring out of me and making its way to Tucson and just encapsulating my kiddo so that he can feel it coming from me or into town to Rowan, you know, as she makes her way through her studies, whatever works for you to generate this energy and then send it out to your kids. Do it? Do it align the energy that you're offering with the words that you're speaking. And get out of the way. Leave the college app process up to your kids. It sends a direct message about what we think, even when they aren't following through, we get to send that energy of faith and trust on the regular, because we're going to increase the likelihood that they will have faith and trust themselves when we unabashedly generate that for them. Right? Again, what does it look like? It could look like a visual where everything's working out. It can look like what I just described, that like sending the energy out, it can look like surrendering to the not knowing but believing that everything is happening for them. Right again. Shout out to Rowan. She really taught me how to surrender to the not knowing and being okay with not knowing and trusting that there was a future that was being generated for her, and it was going to be okay, right? Letting go of being overly involved in the application process helps us stay neutral. Again. That's back to trusting the process, trusting the unfolding. What if, instead of thinking, Oh, the college application process is what will get them into college, instead, we think the college application process is what will help them identify what they want, right? Or even I trust that this process is exactly what my kid needs right now, no matter how it looks. Or I trust the unfolding of this process and know this is taking my child in a useful direction. What if we sit inside of those beliefs, right? And you get to use whatever mantra, whatever belief helps you to stay neutral, because when you're neutral, your kiddo is more likely to feel that sense of responsibility and why it's important for them, not for you, but for them, to follow through. And I think it's really important to keep in mind that our kids want to create their life. They want to be the creators of their life, even as they don't have the experience of life, a lot of experience of life to fine tune their vision. They know what they want, and they are continuing to evolve in what they want again, lessons from my oldest, dropping out of school, getting some mental health support, going to trade school, having the life experience around working full time, after a while, developing a bigger vision for what she wanted, recognizing that means actually going to college. Went back to school with this deep desire to learn, like really focused, not interested in college as the whole like college movie College, like party scene and all the extras, but really going to college to learn what she wants to learn, which is really cool, and now she has her eyes on a bachelor's degree. She has her eyes on medical school, and we'll see how it all unfolds and where her mind changes and where her vision evolves. And I am doing what I encourage you all to do, which is staying neutral, trusting her and having faith in her, to follow through on what's important to her, right? Our kids. Want to create their life. It's important for us to let go during this application season, right? And, you know, I want to say something about both and versus either or. Parents often get trapped in this binary mindset of I'm either, like way too involved over involved hands all in, or I'm not involved at all in this application process, so my invitation is to be in the both, and I'm here for support and encouragement, and this is yours to navigate, right? I have total faith in you. So as I share all of this with you, I'm positive that some of you are listening, and you're like, Yeah, but my kid, my kid, right? So here's a couple, yeah, buts that I thought I would maybe play with. First one being, what about poor self esteem? My kid will be devastated if they don't get to go to college and don't get in so I have to be there pushing them along, right? Uh, no, the ball is in their court if they're navigating depression or screen addiction or something else that's leading to poor self esteem. Get that handled. College will not cease to exist if they take time to get the support that they need and get ready for the experience everyone gets to go to college. There's a million options, including Community College, which is so much less expensive than a four year school. Ride the train, friend, encourage it. It's a smaller experience and a better fit for so many of our kiddos. So if what's getting in their way has to do with mental health or just issues that they haven't confronted, those issues are going to go to college with them. So best to deal with it now, and if the college application process is what's kind of bringing some of those issues to the surface. Great, great. Let's deal with it,

Casey O'Roarty 31:46
right? Let's deal with it. What about perfectionism? My kid isn't following through because they have to be perfect, or they're scared of rejection. Again, if this is where they're at and it's getting in the way of them filling out a college application, they need help, right? If not again, this will follow them right along their path, no matter where they end up, and continue to get in their way of what they want, right? So handle it now. Get support for it. Now, I kind of touched on this, but I wanted to mention it again. So some of you have kids that won't talk about any of this, right? So you get to state the obvious to them, like, Hey, we're pretty disconnected. We don't talk about a lot of stuff. And since you want to go and I want to support you, we have to be able to talk about college. What can that look like? How are we going to have hard conversations? Right? And then you get to brainstorm with them what it looks like when you're going to talk about things. Ask what they need. Ask for what you need. What's their plan? Right? Again, spark a conversation that gets them thinking about, what is their game plan? I'll just do it sounds good, but what does that mean? What does I'll just do it mean, right? You want to make an educated investment in their future, and that looks like having some information about what they want, what they want, to study, right? And at the end of the day, I'm just gonna do it. Get off my back, okay? And then get off their back. Let them do it. See what happens, right, see what happens, and then move from there. And you know, be honest, this process is a great indicator of how badly your teens want to go to school. Lagging effort with follow through here doesn't bode well for their effort once they get into college. And while College is a good time, what we're investing in is their future and their development. And again, what is the return on the investment that you want? What do you want most for them? Right? Do they know what you want? Maybe have a conversation around that, or what you're hoping for. And do they know what they want, right? And what are you willing to pay for? Because if they want to go to college to party, that's a lot of money to spend for your kiddos to party. There's so much here. I know, I know, I know. There's so much to this, and it's simple, not easy. It's a lot of our own personal growth work 100% I see you in the struggle, or I see you imagining the struggle that might show up in the years to come. If your kiddos are younger, and it doesn't have to be a battle, it doesn't have to be a battle, you can retreat and let them lead. Let them lead, and believe in them be a resource provider, an encourager, and trust that everything is always working out for them, even when it doesn't feel like it or look like it. Yeah, I see you. I know this is a wild time. And then once the applications are in, it's the waiting. So I get it. I know I was just there. I was there a year ago. So that's what I've got for you today. I hope that you found this useful. I hope that you found it useful. I hope that you are appreciating some things that you're taking away. If you have any questions, let me know. And remember, if you feel like you could use a little extra something, reach out and book that 15. Minute call besproutable.com/explore, I've got you. And if you love this episode, please pass it on to a friend, share it on social media, write a review, help me to continue to grow the show. And finally, take some deep breaths, my friends, move your body. Drink some water and visualize everything being all right. I'll see you next week.

Casey O'Roarty 35:33
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my sproutable partners, Julieta and Alana, as well as Danielle and Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay better [email protected] tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview, and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day. You.