+ Episode Transcript

Thor Challgren 0:00
Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for listening, I appreciate you being here. In this episode, I'm going to do a recap of the previous episode, which was my interview with Todd Mitmesser. If you haven't heard that interview yet, I encourage you to give it a listen. Todd is a college counselor, he helps kids get into college. So he has a lot of interaction with them and their families. And we talk about his perspective on how we as parents can deal with what goes on when our kids are getting ready to leave for college, and then also how to adapt to the new relationship we have with them once they are gone. In this episode, I'm going to share with you my top three takeaways from my conversation with Todd.

Thor Challgren 0:55
If you are wanting to perhaps manage this transition in your life better, maybe you want a little encouragement and support to discover what's next for you. That is something that I specialize in. I am a certified life coach, and I work with parents just like you. So if you are in that season of life, I'd love to talk to you. Let's jump on a free discovery call and talk about what's next for you. You can go to discover.yourturntofly.com and schedule that free call. That's discover.yourturntofly.com.

Thor Challgren 1:36
Okay, so my first big takeaway came as a result of our discussion about how to manage the disappointment of getting into your top choice school. I was asking Todd about what it's like in the spring of senior year when students have to choose from the various schools that they actually got into how they evaluate what offer makes sense for them. And my question was, What if a student doesn't get into their top choice school? How do they deal with that disappointment. And Todd's perspective was interesting, because from his point of view, he is like, if I've done my job, right, we ensure that every school that you pick is one that you will love. He then said, you always want to be in a place where you have many great options. And that is my number one takeaway, which is to create great options for yourself. And you can hear that and the perspective of a college student picking a school, obviously, it makes sense, like the more schools that you love, that are your top choice, then if you get into more than one, you've got lots of great choices. But I think this is really good advice for all of us. Because so often we get into a binary way of making choices where it's either I'll do this thing, or I won't do this thing, or I'll do thing a or thing B so we limit the number of choices. And so necessarily one of those choices is going to feel like it's a compromise, or we're not going to be happy with it, or it isn't our first choice. And so when it comes to choosing from only one option that you love, you are inevitably going to be in a situation where you don't feel great about what you did. So whether it's choosing a college, or maybe for our kids, their first apartment, or a new job or a new car, what I heard, and my takeaway from what Todd said is create great options for yourself. Make sure that those are all options that you would love. You know, we hear this advice. When you're buying a new car, they say never fall in love with the car, at least don't let them see that you're in love with the car because you want to be dispassionate about it. And I think that's true to an extent. But what it's really saying is, that's an example of a binary choice, you're either going to get that car or nothing at all. And so that's not a place you want to be in much better if you're buying a car to come at it from the perspective of I've got three car choices, all of which I'd love. Three different ways of doing the deal, all of which I love. So in that instance, you are in a much stronger position of choice. So how can we apply this to our students? Well, I would remind them to create great options. Look for multiple internships, look for multiple apartments, look for multiple classes, maybe when they're filling out their schedule instead of getting locked locked into, I want this or nothing at all. Look at it from the standpoint of multiple choices that you would love. If they're nearing graduation, perhaps or getting ready to think about that their last year or to look for multiple jobs that they would love, look for multiple places that they might want to live. If you do that, I think you're gonna be much happier. So I love this advice. So that's my number one takeaway create great options for yourself.

Thor Challgren 5:33
My number two takeaway is where we talked about how to tell if your student is feeling normal amount of homesickness versus something that's bigger. And this is key, because most of us have not ever seen our kids in this kind of situation before, meaning they're away from home for a long time, maybe months. So we don't really know how they're going to react to a new situation like this. So we're not only communicating with them less, because we just don't see them every day. And we're not probably calling them everyday. So how do you know how they're doing that fall semester or that winter semester, when you know, they're going to be away from home for months? They're going to be away from their friends from their own room? How do you know if they're doing okay? So Todd's advice was to first look at past instances of them being away and use that as a baseline. So if they've been away at a summer camp before, maybe they were away for a week, or they traveled and they're away from home, how did they behave in that instance? So think back to that and go, Okay, I remember that time they were in camp, and this happened. So this, what I'm seeing right now is like that, or it's not like it, so you at least have a baseline to be able to compare it to the next point was to have the right kind of communication with them. And Todd's point was, you know, as parents, we can all tell, within two or three minutes of conversation, how things are going if they're okay, so he gave some example questions that we could ask like, what did you do last weekend? What's your roommate? Like? How's the food? They're like simple questions that are easy enough to answer. And if the conversation is just sort of like, you're not getting fuller answers, that doesn't elicit much of a response, like you go, what did you do last weekend? I don't know. How's your roommate? Like is fine. Like, if you hear that, and you go, you know what, this doesn't sound like my kid, then there may be something bigger going on. However, if their answers have a little more detail, they're feeling like you know, this is sounds like how they normally are, you'll be able to tell things are probably going pretty well. Now, having said that, we did discuss and you've probably seen that parents are amazed at how little their kids want to talk to them. I wrote an article about this, and I'll put it in the show notes, but just know that they are off living their own life. So they may not always have time to talk. So it's not a sign that something's wrong. If you're like, oh, my gosh, we haven't talked for a week, because that may be normal. Again, you'll know your kid. I also like related to this topic, something Todd said about communication. What we were talking about the final college selection process, Todd said that it helps to approach the conversation with curiosity, get curious about their process. You know, he said, for instance, you could say something like, Hey, if you want to bounce something off me, I'm right here. I love that reminder, because our job isn't to make decisions for them. Now, it's to support their decisions. Yes, they are still somewhat under our roof in the sense that many times we're financially supporting them to go through college. So we have a stake in it. But it's their job to make those decisions now, and it's our job to support them. And that doesn't support doesn't always mean, affirm or say yeah, that's right. I'm fine with that. But I love the idea of saying if you want to bounce something off me, I'm right here because what you're saying is, I'm available to talk I'm here to support you. You do the best when you let them know that you're around to just listen that you're available to help them. So to sum up, my number one takeaway create great options for yourself. Number two, was use curious questions to suss out how things are Going and let them know that you are there to support them.

Thor Challgren 10:04
My third takeaway from our conversation was something Todd said near the end of interview. And this is a great reframe for how we can think about our relationship with our kids. He said, How can you help your child? Find the answers? want to repeat that? How can you help your child? Find the answers? Boy, there is so much valuable wisdom in that one question. First, and perhaps most important, who's finding the answers? They are? Your job, if you even have one, and it may not even be needed, is to help them find their own answers. I'll just speak personally, when it comes to this sort of situation, as a parent, look, we get it. You're brilliant. I want to feel vindicated. I want to feel good as a parent that I got to solve somebody else's problems. I mean, that feels good, doesn't it? I certainly know when I've done it feels good. It makes you feel needed, it makes you feel valuable. But this is not about me anymore. It's not about you. It's about how can you help your child find their answers? The other part I love about that is the structure of the question assumes, there are in fact answers, you start out knowing there is an answer, which makes it a lot easier to find it. You know, if you start off looking for something and you don't believe you'll find it, you don't believe it's possible. What are you going to find? If I said to you, there's not a box of cereal in the pantry, don't even bother looking for it. I mean, you may look for it, but you start off believing it's not possible to find it. And I think that's a key here is to transmit to them in that question, your belief that there are answers. I mean, it may not be the answer that they're totally thrilled with. But there is some kind of answer some kind of solution to that. The other part that I love about this is, Todd mentioned how you go about doing this. He said, When you're having this conversation with them, lower the stress level, keep it low key, be positive, affirmative. Praise what they've done up to this point. Such great advice, you know, we can get so much more by affirming the things that they did well, which gives them confidence to keep going in that path.

Thor Challgren 12:56
So those are my three takeaways from my interview with Todd number one, create great options, things that you would love, and then you have more choices. Number two, was used curious questions. And number three, always ask, How can I help you find the answers? Those are my top three takeaways from my discussion with college counselor Todd Messer. I've put Todd's contact info in the show notes below and our fuller conversation you'll find in episode number 32. I hope you'll take a listen. As always, thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai