Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #91 College Mental Health: What’s Changed and What Hasn’t, with Dr. Alexis Redding
Transcript
- liz: hi listeners. we are really excited today to have a guest on who is gonna talk about their expertise working with college students and all things mental health. And share some of the recent research that she's done, as well as a new book that's coming out. So we have Doctor Alexis Redding on, and I'd love for you, Doctor Redding, to introduce yourself. Dr. Alexis Redding: Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me, Liz and Sarah. My name is Alexis. I have been working with college students for more than 25 years now. I started my career as a college counselor, so working with students and families as they were navigating the process of getting into college. And then I transitioned into my second career, which is as a member of the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where as a developmental psychologist, I train the people who work at colleges and universities to support young adults during this period of time. Transition, not just starting college, but navigating the undergraduate years and then going through that exciting and incredibly daunting phase of figuring out what's next. I have a new book liz: Hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: that just came out about a month and a half ago called mental health in college and it follows the trajectory of admissions through getting into graduate school or launching into your first career and thinking about how we can better support young people as they are navigating these very typical but very hard periods of figuring out who they are. Sarah: I first of all, you have a cool mug too. So can we see the mug? You've got great swag. I saw that earlier. I just thought liz: love Sarah: I think this is such an exciting book. And one of the things though that there's a word that we've just said a f couple of times, developmental. And I think it's really Dr. Alexis Redding: Yes. Sarah: great because so many so much of college is just kind of what I think people see as like this black or white great college experience or college wasn't great for you, as opposed to The fact that it is four years of your life that is part of your development over you know, we develop until we are no longer alive, right? We develop until we're old. There's developmental stages that are happening when we're eighty. and this is four years where also those four years can be something that is developed and changing. And I can't wait to dig into some of the the stories that you have and some of the research that you found in this book because you studied college students across generations. Right. from the nineteen Dr. Alexis Redding: Like Indy. Sarah: seventies to today. And what would you say has remained entirely constant across this period of development? Dr. Alexis Redding: Sure. So I love approaching this work as a developmental psychologist, not a clinical psychologist, because what I'm looking at are how people grow and change across the arc of their lives. And as you note, Sarah, if we are lucky, that is a very, very long time. And so like most developmental psychologists, I focus on one narrow window. And for me, that's about 18 to 25 years old, and in particular in the college context. So what happens when what's going on in terms of our brain development is sort of meeting this really unique context that is opening the door to To explore something new. And one of the coolest things that I get to do in my work with Dr. Nancy Hill, a colleague at Harvard, is we run the Transition to Adulthood Lab, which uses recorded interviews that actually date all the way back to the 1940s. We focus liz: Wow. Dr. Alexis Redding: in particular on a cohort from the class of 1975. And so when we when I initially found these interviews, actually, our goal was to document what was different about the experience of going to college in the 40s, in the 70s from today. And we were floored when we began to listen and read the transcripts of these interviews by how much we actually had in common. So what we have that is similar across generations, you know, going through 80 years of the research, and this is a really unique archive of materials, is that it's really hard to figure out who you are, who you want to be, what you're gonna do with the rest of your life, that big question. And everyone has always struggled in that. What is different, however, is the intention. Of that. With social media as an amplifier today, the completely typical developmental things that have always been happening, the social comparison, the sense that other people have this figured out, and I alone am sort of struggling in the experience. I used to compare myself to my roommates, my closest friends, people in my community. That point of comparison is now global. And that global Sarah: Good. Dr. Alexis Redding: comparison is also a highlight reel of people's best days. So what we know is students have always Felt incredibly lonely, in particular in the transition to college, that that is typical and normal and developmental. As you're disconnected from home and friendship and what's familiar, you experience what I love, this term friend sickness. It's like a homesickness for the being known by liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: your friends. Friend sickness, it's such a beautiful term. All students have always experienced that. But that feeling of friends sickness is amplified by being able to be connected to those friends from home, to see them liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: thriving when you might be having a bad day. And of course, what we typically present on social media is the good day, unless we're on our Finsta and we're showing the reality. liz: Mm. Dr. Alexis Redding: And so the amplification of what has happened is has really changed how we understand things, but the core developmental experience is actually uniquely similar across generations. liz: So it's it sounds like, although there are some differences in terms of the context in which college students kind of exist and adding this, you know, aspect of social media and the ability to kind of see people's curated, you know, experiences in college, that there are a lot of similarities in terms of the anxiety or overwhelmingness that most college students have felt for generations. Is this accurate? Dr. Alexis Redding: Absolutely accurate and it sort of flies in the face of what we think is happening. We tend to tell a kids these days narrative. You know who told the first kids these days narrative? Aristotle. Like we constantly, generation after generation, have a story about kids these days are. They're less resilient, they're more the liz: Right. Dr. Alexis Redding: And and that's not actually true. That's just a byproduct of our misremembering how hard things were for us. And it does every young person a disservice liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: when we start a sentence with kids these days. And the end Sarah: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: of the sentence is some comparison that makes us feel better, but doesn't actually lean into helping in the moment what it's like to be figuring things out, which is hard and it's supposed to be hard. liz: Can you talk a little bit more? I like loved this and we'll share your TED talk and a little bit more about how people often misremember or kind of simplify their own college or young adult kind of stories. and why maybe we tend to create these neat narratives about our lives. Dr. Alexis Redding: Yeah, I mean our brain is is a terrible historian, and indeed that's not what it is doing for us. It is optimized for other things, like keeping us safe and keeping us alive and recognizing when there are things that are dangerous. And so what happens when our brain is encoding memories is something called peak-end rule. And that is that we remember the most intense emotional experience and how it resolved, and we sort of lose the messy middle and the texture and the nuance in between. Because our brain is looking for Is this something that I need to flee from? Is this something I need to fight from at that intense emotional moment? And if it was okay, we don't need all those other details. We just need to know how to react next time. And so what happens over the years is we have these sort of rose-colored glasses that we're looking through as we're talking about our lived experience. And the nuance and the complexity and the feelings along the way aren't completely lost. We can still tap into them, but they're not right at the surface. And so it makes us think, like, well, why? Why can't they figure it out figure it out? I figured it out. Why why is this so hard liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: for them? I you know had my first heartbreak, had my first B, had my first job that didn't work out. We forget Sarah: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: that this is their one contextual experience. And if we tell them too simple of a story, all we're doing is minimizing how hard it feels in that moment. liz: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: If we tap back into how hard it was for us, we can actually relate a lot better. It is hard, that first setback, not knowing. For example, in my first book, which is called The End of Adolescence, we have students who are telling these stories from the 1970s about walking into the dining hall for the first time and not knowing who to sit with, and not knowing how to open these new relationships. And we found those people who graduated in the 1970s and we re-interviewed them about their experience and then let them listen to these recordings. And they had absolutely forgotten all of those times they walked into the dining hall feeling lonely. The story that Sarah: Right. Dr. Alexis Redding: they they it just disappeared. What they remembered liz: Right. Dr. Alexis Redding: was sitting in the dining hall with their closest friends having intense amazing conversations. And so if we say to the young person who's like struggling to figure out who are their people in this new place, don't worry, these are gonna be the best four years, you're gonna make your best friends, they'll stand up for you in their wedding, that actually doesn't help them. It's just liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: a Disconnect. If we're tap back into, God, I remember that feeling. I know what it was like that first time I walked in and I looked around and everybody seemed to be all, you know, grouped up and I didn't know where to sit. That's what they actually need is to have a conversation about, okay, what are our strategies? What liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: are we gonna do in this moment so that you get to the other side? liz: Tight. Yeah. Sarah: Yeah, and and I also I'm wondering with those people who you interviewed and then reinterviewed, right? Such a big part of this time is is kind of widening your stance on what who you are, what your values are, who you want to be friends with. It for a lot of people it kind of feels like a potential for redo, right? For a lot of people Dr. Alexis Redding: Yeah, absolutely. Sarah: they feel like I I I wanna hold so I think it's just a really exciting time for that. And that's like Right on schedule in terms of the whole development piece, right? So did you find that when you were interviewing these these groups that there was this period of who am I? and then how did they remember that? Did they did they struggle with that at the time? Was that something they also misremembered? That that piece of struggle for the who they are, what what was important to them? Dr. Alexis Redding: I mean, who am I is ultimately the biggest question that we ask and answer throughout our lives. And it is in the transition to college and around this 18 to 25 and where our brain development is that we answer that question in a new way for the very first time. It's when we are becoming what's called self-authoring. The ability liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: to take from the people who know us and love us and have a vision for our life, to take insights from that, but to ask ourselves often for the first time, but what does that mean or what does that look like to me? And to begin to differentiate from the story you've been told about who you should be, what you should do, that is innately hard. And all of our participants who reflected back in their 70s, listening to recordings of themselves at 20-something, they remembered stories of, well, I always knew I wanted to do X, and so I did that. What they heard on the recordings was uncertainty and exploration and a fear of liz: Mm. Dr. Alexis Redding: failure. And ultimately they got. To that place, but they had forgotten what it was like to feel so uncertain of is that the right path, especially for those who were launching into something that was disconnected from the vision that their parents had for their lives or that they were hearing, you know, from the culture at large about what you should do. We saw this in particular for students who, for example, wanted to go into education and their parents wanted them to go into a more lucrative field, or Sarah: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: for people whose families wanted. them to be lawyers and who as they began to understand what law was, that didn't fit. That didn't fit their vision of what they had. They remembered feeling like, that's great. That'll be wonderful. Their experience, that's hard. I'm not sure. I don't know what to do. And what was very cool about talking to people in their 70s who are basically at the point of retiring and having them listen to recordings of themselves in their 20s beginning their careers is that they saw that disconnect And when they came back to talk to us, they all had some version of, I wish I had heard this sooner. I wish I had better understood or better remembered my own story, because I would have parented differently. I would have taught my students differently. liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: I would have been a different grandparent. It is the tapping into the authenticity of that that empowers the next generation, but it also is really interesting for ourselves to understand with nuance what we overcame in order to become who we wanted to be. And liz: Mm. Dr. Alexis Redding: times we were allowed to pivot, that we didn't just have to make that decision one time. Sarah: Right, because I know lot of students feel pressure to have this life plan, right? And so you talk to these people who said, I would have been a different parent, or but what about what do you think a college student could do kind of to take that wisdom that has been learned and now use it in terms of the question of who am I? But also what is my life plan, et cetera. Is there anything we can now have them use in real time? Dr. Alexis Redding: Yes. Absolutely. I love that question. I think so. This is really on us to reframe the conversation. And the conversation is not asking, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? What are you going to major in? What are you going to become? It's what's your first career going to be? What is the impact that you want to have? How are you going to translate this thing that you care deeply about into something that allows you to craft the first career and recognizing that for most people they are going to have multiple careers and pivots throughout their lives? And telling the story of what that is differently. So for me, I'm in my second career. And when I talk to my students, when I talk to families, I talk about what I learned in that first career that helped to introduce me in into this pivot point that I could change and do something else. And it's, I needed the first career in college counseling to understand what it was like for students and their families to be navigating these moments so that I could ask the right questions in my research today. But we've had people in this cohort who are now in their settings. Have completely dramatic pivots, you know, moving from advertising to becoming clinical social workers and recognizing that that's also okay, that the story of our life doesn't have to be this perfect, linear, I knew at 18 what I wanted to do, I became that and never changed my mind. If we're doing it right, we might change our minds. If we're continually interrogating that question of who do I want to be in this moment? Who do I want to be now? And as the world changed, as our experience. Change, as our relationships change, what we want to do every day can change as well, and that's okay. And it's important for young people to know that. liz: And I wonder a little bit, yeah and you talk a little bit about this and your work about mentorship and I'm just like wondering what what do you think the role is of colleges? What are you seeing colleges are doing to kind of help with this developmental phase and the uncertainty that college students are facing? Dr. Alexis Redding: I think the first and most important thing that colleges and the the folks who are working with college students are doing is beginning to change the narrative. So not living with the college will be the best four years of your life liz: Right. Dr. Alexis Redding: story. Recognizing and naming that college has some great days and college has some hard days and giving students the language and empowering them to talk about what's hard and indeed recognizing that it's in the hard that we grow and change, which is ultimately the point of what we're trying to do. I think we have also begun, and I hope some of the work that I do with Dr. Hill has really contributed to thinking about mentorship in a different way. So one of the things that we found in the Transition to Adulthood Lab is that we've been thinking about mentorship Quite wrong, but adjacent to what's right. We think about having a constellation of mentors, of having a lot of people who are weighing in and giving us advice. The thing is, when we're 18 to 25, having a whole group of people who maybe have very different opinions all weighing in can be more confusing than we want liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: it to be. What we actually want is three different tiers of mentorship, starting with what we call mirror mentors. And a mirror mentor is somebody who's close to you, it can be a family member, a partner, a Roommate, a friend, a teaching assistant, somebody often close to your own age or in your same generation, who sees you very clearly and can reflect back to you what it is they're hearing or seeing. This is the roommate who says, I know you say you want to be a doctor, but when you come home from your internship, you are miserable, and you are talking about hating the bright lights and having blood and seeing people cry. Have liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: you thought about maybe that there's another way to be in the medical field that isn't being Being in practice in that way. Or we had one person in the original study who I love, she was really feeling dubious about her goal to become the next great American novelist, sort of recognizing that she wanted more financial stability in her life. And she didn't really like a lot of criticism. And becoming a novelist sort of doesn't have the stability guarantee she wanted, and it also would come with a lot of potential critique. And so her roommate said to her, you know, when you light up, It's when you come over to my desk and you help me with an assignment. When you're explaining to me why I should phrase something differently or how to polish up my idea. And in that conversation with a mirror mentor, with her roommate, that was five minutes. She actually had the spark of, wait, I could do that. And she became somebody who actually founded a writing center at a college and liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: did that for her career. And that was not, that's not a typical story of mentorship. We think of mentors as being somebody who's, you know, powerful. And a leader, liz: Ya. Dr. Alexis Redding: and it's many years. That was the person who she slept with, slept, sorry, let me say that differently. liz: Ha ha. Dr. Alexis Redding: You say that differently. That was the person, sorry. That was the person she shared a dorm room with who saw her day in and day out liz: Right. Dr. Alexis Redding: and saw the way that she was able to light up. And it was minutes long, and it was transformational for her career. And so recognizing that sometimes those insights come close to home. Sarah: I love all of this. I actually had a question though, it might feel like a little bit of a pivot, but so much about what we're talking about. Every now and then I laugh. I'm like, God, God, we're such psychologists. But it seems like there's a thread of trying to tolerate uncertainty by trying to occasionally be certain too quickly. Right? so Are there are there ways you can see that managing uncertainty can be helpful? Dr. Alexis Redding: Yeah. Sarah: or how normal do you see uncertainty? Another Dr. Alexis Redding: Mm. Sarah: question, I I know it's a lot in one, but like do you think people are even comfortable admitting that they are uncertain? Dr. Alexis Redding: Well, I think you just answered the question in the second part of the question, which is life is being uncertain. The process of growth and change is being uncertain and having to take risks despite the uncertainty. And we as human beings hate that feeling. We hate the feeling of not knowing. liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: And so the answer is in recognizing that everyone experiences this, that we are not in it alone. In 25 years of working with college students and now 10 years of interviewing thousands of college students. The one consistent thing is that every single person thinks that they are struggling in a unique way and they are uniquely doing something wrong. That everyone else has it all figured out, my roommate knows what they're doing, my best friend has figured it out, my parents, it was easy for them. I'm the one who's doing something wrong. And so what we actually need to do is not only normalize that uncertainty, the uncertainty is just part of the process, but we need to empower them to know that they're not doing it wrong and they're not alone in it. And so one of the things that I teach all of my students who work at colleges and universities around the globe is that when we tell our stories, we have to tell the messy middle. Tell the uncertainty because we have to model for our students that yes, it might look like we've settled into our careers and everything was easy, and we might tell that too simple story if we're not thinking about it, but it wasn't easy. It was uncertain. And the uncertain is where it's where the good stuff happens if we can just normalize and make that a safe thing for students to do and to experience. Sarah: That's a good point. Like they you talk a lot about story, but if if you open up a book, it doesn't say, Hello, first chapter hard. end of chapter things were good. Like the author has to work a little harder, right? A story worth reading, you know, a life worth living. Dr. Alexis Redding: Yes. Yes. Yep. Yeah. Sarah: And so I I love that idea. Dr. Alexis Redding: I think that the tricky thing is we have to live forward and connect the dots backwards, right? So as we're reflecting on our life, everything that didn't work makes sense or we can make it make sense. Like the job you didn't get, the school you didn't get into, the pivot that you made for your major, the career you left for a different one. In retrospect, all those dots can line up and make sense and become part of this tidy story. But the experience of it, not knowing what's going to come next, not knowing how it's all going to turn out, does feel uncertain. And so trying to remember what that was like. When you I mean, for me, when I I had a a stable career that I loved being a college counselor and had done it for a decade, that process of leaping into going back to graduate school with this sort of ethereal sense that I could help in a different way, but not knowing that I would end up a faculty member getting to do this work. That was really scary. That was really uncertain. I absolutely could have fallen down in that. and so it's more important for me to actually tell my students about how I made that decision. What were the risks? What was the calculation? How did that feel? Rather than the, well, now, 25 years into my career, of course I needed that first part, which is actually how I told the story a couple of minutes ago. So liz: Right. Dr. Alexis Redding: Fall into it. We fall into it so easily. We have to be very deliberate about you know telling the whole story in a way that that lands for young people. Sarah: I love that liz: I would Sarah: term. Live it forward, connect the dots backward. That is beautiful. I think that's sometimes when you find a term that c says things really easily that make so much sense. I think I I can picture that being really helpful on both sides of the equation. Like if if it's a parent listening to this podcast, remember that you're connecting your dots backward, which is different than your kids who are currently connect living the experience. liz: Mm-hmm. Sarah: And are are living their life forward at this point. So you're not able to really, yes, sometimes those connections can get can help, but you have to kind of remember where you are versus where they are. And also Dr. Alexis Redding: Yeah. Sarah: for the college kids to say, hey, sometimes people might have been able, you know, they have the benefit of time and are shared experiences does not mean that they didn't have these these bumps, right? They now can connect the dot backward to backwards and make a nice little pretty narrative of things on their website page or description or r resume, right? But Dr. Alexis Redding: Absolutely. Sarah: yeah. liz: W I I was thinking when you were saying this about how, you know, we have a lot of parents that listen to the podcast and college students and again parents could serve this role of mentorship, right? In terms of being able to discuss their experience. And I was thinking if someone's a few years ago had said to me when they were trying to figure out their career, they're like, I don't wanna end up like my dad. He sits in a cubicle all day, he's miserable, like, you know, does something in business, like didn't even know exactly Sarah: Ha ha ha liz: what their father did. And I said to him, like, have you ever talked to your dad? Like about his job and like how he kind of ended up there. Anyway, and out of that conversation, his father had shared the regrets he made, he was very risk-averse, right? And there were maybe some inflection points in his life that he wishes he went kind of in a different direction. And I think that really helped my client take some risks in terms of maybe not just going the Safe route in his mind of the business school, go pursuing an interest, thinking that he could weave maybe two things together in terms of a career. So, any thoughts on how? So I feel like my client was lucky, right? He kind of was able to have me and have this conversation. But if a college student was listening and they maybe want to be able to have more thoughtful conversations with their parent about their college experience, their lived adult, the young adult kind of hood experience. What do you think are some questions that they could ask their parents? And I think some parents have some fear, maybe this d disclosing. so maybe even for parents, what what's the roadmap for them? Any like questions or ways that they could kind of start some of these conversations? Dr. Alexis Redding: Yeah, I mean I love the idea of facilitating these conversations as a point of exploration, and especially not having it be the parents saying, here's what I did, you should do the same, but having this be a genuine interrogation. I I think the first question is that there are so many college students who don't actually know what their parents do day in and day out. They know the parts that they maybe see, or the frustration that sometimes will bubble over and come home. But just asking simple questions about what is the day-to-day? You know, what is exciting about your work, what's frustrating about your work? You love about what you do? What would you change? Tell me a little bit about the path that got you here. And I I think a really interesting question is you know what did you think you would be when you graduated? What liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: were you studying to be? How has that panned out and how hasn't that? What pivot points have you experienced? What are some things that you did right and what are some things that you did wrong? I have for Christmas I gave my mother one of those like story things where you send a question every week and then they liz: yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: I think it's called story worth. And so one of the recent questions was about you know tell me about your Career trajectory, which is a really simple prompt to sort of open up a conversation. And it was one of the most beautiful entries that she has sent so far, talking about, you know, she started her career in engineering and she became an executive that sort of leveraged that first role. And it was beautiful to see how she was talking about not just what she was thinking about professionally, but how she was thinking about her responsibilities to her family and how she wanted to show up as a mother and all of these. These ways that she had to figure out and prioritize one thing over another at different points in her career. And I think that's also an important conversation for young people to be having. That we do make compromises and have to make choices as we liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: are on this path to our career. It is not just singularly about what we do for the work part of our lives. It's about how we want to show up, what is our construction of family want to look like if we're going to build one? How do we want our relationships? To unfold. And so maybe let me go back because maybe that's the question to ask your parents is about where does work fit in your life broadly? What are the things that you're liz: Hm. Dr. Alexis Redding: excited about? But what are the ways that you also built this family? What are the ways that you think about all of the ways that you show up in the world, not just professionally? liz: Hm, love that. Sarah: I I'll ask one, this might be a last question, and and perhaps I'm asking this well as one of those kind of a asking for a friend vibes. But let's Dr. Alexis Redding: Mm-hmm. Sarah: let's say that let's say that you've gotten some feedback as a parent that you talk too much. Let's just say. that you over talk and you over explain. and I I'm imagining either Student college students listening to this saying, like, the last thing I want to do is talk to my parents about this. They're not, you know, they might not have that kind of relationship, or maybe they've just been talked out. and I want to validate that, right? Or you might be a parent being like, if I try to bring this up to my kid, they Dr. Alexis Redding: Ha ha Sarah: would roll their eyes, they'd be like, Okay, next. But are there ways you can, you know, I always think about like show, don't tell. So there's some ways that you feel like if you're a college student, you can be curious without maybe having to have a deep long conversation 'cause that's not apparently that's not everyone's vibe, says my fourteen year old son. Dr. Alexis Redding: So there are a couple of things. I think the first thing is it doesn't necessarily have to be a parent. It can be any adult in your life, anybody who's had, you know, 10 more years of experience than you. So if that's not the dynamic you have with your family, that's fine. There are other people you can have those sort of mirror mentorship conversations with. If it is with a parent, I mean, we all know that it's the driving in, you know, both looking out the windshield, those are the great places to liz: Mm. Dr. Alexis Redding: have conversations. Those are where wonderful things unfold. But I think the advice is not the students it's for the parents which is that you actually need to listen more than you talk and the instinct liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: for most parents is to fix is to make things easier to make things better to have an answer and I think what most young adults need is actually help and space to interrogate the question together. And so one thing that we can do any adult who is in conversation with a college student Is ask questions to allow them the space to process before we dive in with an answer. They often don't need that answer. They're going to come to an answer liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: on their own. They need time and space to process. And so holding ourselves back when we're like, I know, I know what you should do. Let me tell you what you should do. No, let's not do that. Let's let's Sarah: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: sit with, well, what do you think you should do? How does that feel? How let's unpack the different options or what's an ideal outcome for you? Carving out this space, it's sort of the do you need help or a hug? But it's something Between. liz: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: You just need space, space with somebody whose opinion you trust to really reflect and talk things out. And if we don't carve out that space, where are they gonna find it? On ChatGPT? Like that's not where they need be having that conversation. liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: They need to be having that with caring adults in their lives who can who know them, you know, in different contexts and who can ask the right questions. Sarah: I love that. Thank you. My son loves that too. liz: this is so good, Doctor. Sarah: My son thinks you in advance. For giving him space. liz: Mm. Dr. Alexis Redding: I mean, maybe that's the other thing is like telling the student to begin the conversation of like, I have a puzzle I'm trying to figure out and I actually don't need you to fix it for me. I just need Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: you to help me think through and maybe that will also be helpful too. Sarah: Right, right. I that I think that it's it can be really helpful for the students listening. If you tell your parent, hey, here's what I need and don't need, they'll they'll benef they will most likely appreciate the tip. Dr. Alexis Redding: Absolutely. liz: Mm-hmm. Dr. Alexis Redding: And know that they're only trying to help. Like the way that our parents annoy us when they are trying to solve something, it comes from a place of love and support and wanting us to have things easier than they had it. But sometimes we need them to just stop, hold the space, and Sarah: Right. Yep. Zip it. Dr. Alexis Redding: let's figure it out together. Sarah: Right. liz: Well, this has been such a great conversation. We know that this is kind of coming out at the beginning of the semester, where I think a lot of families and college students are looking for like a roadmap to navigate all this uncertainty. And we're so grateful that your book is out. We will share that in the show notes as well as information about your lab and the research that you're doing. And yeah, we're so excited to see more of what what's to come. Sarah: Yeah. Dr. Alexis Redding: Wonderful. It was great to be in conversation. Thank you so much. Sarah: You too.