Latest / Beautifully Complex / 312: Discovering the Right Career Path for Neurodivergent Kids, with Hannah Maruyama

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312: Discovering the Right Career Path for Neurodivergent Kids, with Hannah Maruyama · Beautifully Complex

0:03
Speaker 1: Success is your child getting what they want out of
0:06
Speaker 1: their life. It does not matter if that is a
0:09
Speaker 1: homestead with chickens in rural Montana. It does not matter
0:13
Speaker 1: if that is a paid off brownstone in Manhattan. It
0:17
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if that is being able to work as
0:20
Speaker 1: a freelance painter. Success is them getting what they want
0:24
Speaker 1: out of their life. And that is the easiest definition
0:27
Speaker 1: and also one that's attainable for everybody.
0:31
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights
0:35
Speaker 2: and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches.
0:40
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author
0:43
Speaker 2: and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey
0:47
Speaker 2: of raising your a typical kid. Let's get started. Welcome
0:54
Speaker 2: back everybody to Beautifully Complex. I am thrilled today we
1:00
Speaker 2: have a Hannah with me of degree free to talk
1:03
Speaker 2: about why college isn't the only way, how kids can
1:09
Speaker 2: find success in adulthood in alternative ways, and what that
1:15
Speaker 2: sort of mechanism looks like to help our kids figure
1:18
Speaker 2: that out. Will you start, Hannahed by introducing yourself. Let
1:21
Speaker 2: everybody know who you are and what you do.
1:25
Speaker 1: I would absolutely love to Penny, thank you so much
1:27
Speaker 1: for having me on. I really appreciate you sharing your
1:29
Speaker 1: platform and inviting me on. I am thrilled today to
1:35
Speaker 1: go over a bunch of questions parents have, but a
1:37
Speaker 1: little bit about my background and degree Free. So I
1:40
Speaker 1: run a business called degree Free. We are an educational
1:42
Speaker 1: design company. We are the bridge because right now there's
1:46
Speaker 1: this massive disconnect between school, education and career. Nobody can
1:51
Speaker 1: quite figure out which ones which, how they connect and
1:53
Speaker 1: if they even should or shouldn't and then how And
1:56
Speaker 1: we have solved that problem. And the solution to the
1:59
Speaker 1: problem problem is to customize education based on the needs
2:03
Speaker 1: of the individual, which sounds overly simplistic, but unfortunately that's
2:07
Speaker 1: not the way that we actually prep young adults to
2:10
Speaker 1: go into the workforce and to leave high school. And
2:13
Speaker 1: we definitely don't talk about these things before we send
2:15
Speaker 1: them off to college and put them in one hundred
2:17
Speaker 1: thousand dollars worth of student loan debt. And so this
2:19
Speaker 1: is something that I feel very strongly about. My background
2:23
Speaker 1: is an AI and machine learning. As it's somebody who
2:25
Speaker 1: is degree Free, it was very by opening to see
2:29
Speaker 1: how working with large companies and how they're hiring policies
2:33
Speaker 1: were changing on the inside, and then seeing this wave
2:36
Speaker 1: before it hit. And so that's a lot of the
2:40
Speaker 1: experience and expertise that I have used in order to
2:43
Speaker 1: build out the resources that we have and the process
2:46
Speaker 1: that we have for helping parents and their young adults
2:48
Speaker 1: make successful transitions into jobs that they actually love that
2:52
Speaker 1: help them live the way they want.
2:53
Speaker 2: Help them find purpose too. I think right now the
2:56
Speaker 2: world is hard and feel scary, and finding that purpose
3:01
Speaker 2: can feel a little more daunting. This conversation is so
3:05
Speaker 2: important for our parents of neurodivergent kids because they often
3:10
Speaker 2: struggle in school. They often struggle with that traditional learning
3:15
Speaker 2: and career path, and we often need permission to say
3:20
Speaker 2: it's okay, if my kid doesn't go to college, they
3:23
Speaker 2: can be successful. They might even be more successful than
3:27
Speaker 2: if they happen to go to college and get a degree.
3:30
Speaker 2: And it's a conversation I feel like we need to
3:33
Speaker 2: be having so much more. But I want to find
3:35
Speaker 2: out from you, Hannah, where do we start with our kids,
3:40
Speaker 2: Where does the conversation start. How do we get them
3:43
Speaker 2: engaged in thinking about this.
3:46
Speaker 1: There's almost pre work that needs to get done before that,
3:49
Speaker 1: and you said quite a few things just now that
3:52
Speaker 1: I feel like deserve unpacking as well. So the first
3:55
Speaker 1: is success. What is success right at the core of it.
3:59
Speaker 1: There's always a simpler question to answer, there's always another
4:02
Speaker 1: root point of something, and one of the biggest things
4:05
Speaker 1: is success. So parents, for many of us, especially for
4:09
Speaker 1: I would say Generation X, it's really hard to separate
4:13
Speaker 1: college and the definition of success because those things were
4:17
Speaker 1: always taught as gospel truth. You must get a degree
4:20
Speaker 1: to be successful, and really that's residual because what happened
4:24
Speaker 1: was we a lot of us don't realize what happened
4:27
Speaker 1: that caused this change in our society. Because it's interesting
4:30
Speaker 1: too to refer to college as traditional. And I always
4:33
Speaker 1: find this so fascinating because actually most of the employed
4:35
Speaker 1: US workforce has not bought college degrees. Sixty percent of
4:38
Speaker 1: the employed US workforce does not have a degree. And
4:41
Speaker 1: not only that, but even Harvard Business for You found
4:43
Speaker 1: that sixty three percent of mid to high skill managers
4:47
Speaker 1: that are in roles that say they require degrees actually
4:49
Speaker 1: a degree free. And so the way that employers behave
4:52
Speaker 1: has a complete disconnect from what a lot of people
4:54
Speaker 1: perceive to be true about degree requirements, and then whether
4:58
Speaker 1: or not those things make people successful. So first we
5:01
Speaker 1: have to define what is success, and this is really
5:03
Speaker 1: hard for parents, I think, but if we can get
5:06
Speaker 1: this definition right, it makes everything else so much easier.
5:10
Speaker 1: Success is your child getting what they want out of
5:13
Speaker 1: their life. It does not matter if that is a
5:16
Speaker 1: homestead with chickens in rural Montana. It does not matter.
5:20
Speaker 1: If that is a paid off brownstone in Manhattan. It
5:24
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. If that is being able to work as
5:27
Speaker 1: a freelance painter, It doesn't matter if that is a
5:30
Speaker 1: career as a software developer at a fortune and fifty company.
5:34
Speaker 1: Success is them getting what they want out of their life.
5:37
Speaker 1: And that is the easiest definition and also one that's
5:40
Speaker 1: attainable for everybody. And that's something that I'm really really
5:44
Speaker 1: passionate about redefining, because what you want out of your
5:47
Speaker 1: life and if you don't get it, then you feel unsuccessful.
5:50
Speaker 1: But there's no one size fits all definition, which is
5:52
Speaker 1: a huge problem with the way that we currently teach
5:54
Speaker 1: people to have these conversations. So say, that's really the
5:57
Speaker 1: core of it.
5:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we talk so much here on the podcast
6:00
Speaker 2: about redefining success. For the individual kid that we have,
6:05
Speaker 2: because they don't often fit those traditional paths what I
6:10
Speaker 2: think of traditional. You know, at my age, when I
6:13
Speaker 2: was a kid, we were pushed towards college right college
6:15
Speaker 2: was everything, and even you know, another kid that I
6:20
Speaker 2: have who has gone to college feels sort of dooped
6:25
Speaker 2: despite the fact that we said you don't have to
6:27
Speaker 2: do this, and we're okay if you don't do this,
6:30
Speaker 2: all that messaging all those years in K through twelve
6:34
Speaker 2: stuck and motivated that path and it's difficult. It's difficult
6:39
Speaker 2: to override that. But we talk so much about with
6:42
Speaker 2: our nerudiversion kids. We have to figure out what the
6:44
Speaker 2: path looks like for them. And I love your term
6:48
Speaker 2: that they're going to have the life that they want
6:50
Speaker 2: or they're going to get what they want of their life,
6:52
Speaker 2: because that really broadens it to be anything.
6:56
Speaker 1: And when you look at success that way, it becomes
6:59
Speaker 1: so much ea easier to figure out what you need
7:01
Speaker 1: to do in order to be successful because when you
7:04
Speaker 1: put an actual, quantifiable, measurable thing on that, when you
7:09
Speaker 1: have a measurable goal. Now, so if your child's goal
7:12
Speaker 1: is to have a lot more time to spend with
7:14
Speaker 1: family or to hike or what have you. Then helping
7:18
Speaker 1: your child find a career where there's a four day
7:21
Speaker 1: work week is going to become something that's easily successful.
7:24
Speaker 1: And now we go, okay, what career paths serve that need,
7:27
Speaker 1: and then which ones are the most interesting to them,
7:30
Speaker 1: and then which ones are within our time and budget,
7:33
Speaker 1: And now it becomes much easier to pick work. And
7:36
Speaker 1: picking work in that way is a lot more common sense,
7:39
Speaker 1: is a lot more strategic then the way that we're
7:41
Speaker 1: having young adults do it now, which is kind of insane.
7:44
Speaker 1: If you think about the way that we teach them
7:45
Speaker 1: to pick their careers, it's really crazy. And we do
7:49
Speaker 1: that because the school system is designed to push them
7:52
Speaker 1: into college, even though for most of them it's not
7:55
Speaker 1: going to serve them. Most people who enroll in college
7:58
Speaker 1: do not end up finish, which means that we have
8:01
Speaker 1: far too many people going to college that do not
8:03
Speaker 1: need to be there. And that's just a measurement of statistics.
8:06
Speaker 1: So sixty two percent of graduating high school seniors end
8:09
Speaker 1: up going to college, but only seven point seven percent
8:12
Speaker 1: of all of the jobs in our entire country legally
8:15
Speaker 1: require college degrees, and only fourteen point five percent of
8:18
Speaker 1: job listings even say degree preferred on the listings. That's
8:21
Speaker 1: where we are right now in the market. And people
8:23
Speaker 1: just don't realize that this has shifted so rapidly in
8:26
Speaker 1: the last ten years, because it started really in twenty fourteen.
8:29
Speaker 1: The mc burning glass Institute has been studying this and
8:31
Speaker 1: has analyzed fifty one million job listings over that time,
8:34
Speaker 1: and there's been a steady trend of down credentialing, and
8:37
Speaker 1: parents just don't realize that the shift has happened so quickly.
8:41
Speaker 1: But the colleges have just doubled down on their marketing
8:43
Speaker 1: because that's all they have, So that is their path,
8:47
Speaker 1: right and so for parents, the way that they can
8:50
Speaker 1: really approach these discussions. What's nice about this is it's
8:53
Speaker 1: so simple and so accessible to everybody. Four key things
8:56
Speaker 1: the degree free Four. They need to figure out where
8:59
Speaker 1: their child wants to live and do life, because you're
9:01
Speaker 1: aware of happiness is very important. The second thing is
9:04
Speaker 1: going to be the schedule that they work, and that
9:06
Speaker 1: is how much time they're spending on their work. Some
9:09
Speaker 1: kids are going to be way more willing to invest
9:11
Speaker 1: eighty hours a week. Some that's just really not going
9:14
Speaker 1: to work for them, and they're more concerned about the
9:15
Speaker 1: amount of time they have that's not at work than
9:18
Speaker 1: they are with actually spending eighty hours a week, even
9:21
Speaker 1: if it's something they enjoy, but they enjoy their life
9:24
Speaker 1: or their free time more than they enjoy their work.
9:26
Speaker 1: And so this is why the beautiful thing about this
9:28
Speaker 1: is that everybody has a place, everybody has a fit,
9:32
Speaker 1: and there's so many more options when you look at
9:33
Speaker 1: it this way. And then the third thing they're going
9:36
Speaker 1: to have to figure out is they're going to have
9:37
Speaker 1: to figure out income. How much do they need to
9:40
Speaker 1: make to live the way that they want. That's different
9:42
Speaker 1: for everybody. That's different for everybody. You will have some
9:45
Speaker 1: kids that will be so content and a studio apartment
9:48
Speaker 1: that you know, with a thousand dollars rent and a cat,
9:51
Speaker 1: they're going to be so content with that. That's the
9:53
Speaker 1: life that they're okay with as long as they're able
9:55
Speaker 1: to do the things that they care about and you know,
9:57
Speaker 1: play there, like go to their dungeons and Dry Dragons
10:00
Speaker 1: meet ups and be able to go and you know,
10:03
Speaker 1: just go to their work and not be stressed out
10:05
Speaker 1: and have a nice commute home and a paid off
10:07
Speaker 1: car and they're happy with that, whereas others, you know,
10:10
Speaker 1: they have other they have other goals they have you know,
10:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to travel the world. I want to build
10:14
Speaker 1: my own house. And they've got all these things that
10:17
Speaker 1: by nature are going to cost them more money. And
10:19
Speaker 1: so because of that, they need to earn more to
10:21
Speaker 1: be able to live the way that they want because
10:23
Speaker 1: those are the things that to them are their goals.
10:26
Speaker 1: And then the fourth thing is going to be work environment.
10:28
Speaker 1: This one's a little harder to nail down. And I
10:30
Speaker 1: want to clarify for parents listening, this is not industry
10:34
Speaker 1: or job title. That's not how we're picking. The reason
10:37
Speaker 1: we don't pick that way is because most of your
10:40
Speaker 1: kids can only name about six state jobs. They don't
10:42
Speaker 1: know what the job titles are. Schools teach them from
10:46
Speaker 1: a college menu. So the jobs that they're going to
10:48
Speaker 1: be aware of. If everything's nail, you only got a hammer, right, Yeah,
10:52
Speaker 1: that's just how it works. And so if you think
10:55
Speaker 1: about work this way and you only choose from what
10:57
Speaker 1: college or from what high schools will teach your kids,
11:00
Speaker 1: your kids are going to be nurses, psychologists, therapists. They're
11:04
Speaker 1: going to be occasionally you'll get an athlete, doctors, lawyers, cops, firefighters, teachers,
11:10
Speaker 1: that's pretty much all they're going to teach them. That's
11:12
Speaker 1: because the teachers themselves often have a very limited view
11:14
Speaker 1: of what's available because of the way the career that
11:17
Speaker 1: they went into is very structured and has a very
11:20
Speaker 1: very regimented path that's very well laid out that they
11:24
Speaker 1: have to follow legally in order to get licensures. So
11:26
Speaker 1: they're actually teachers fall into that seven point seven percent
11:29
Speaker 1: figure I was talking about because they must get degrees
11:31
Speaker 1: in order to get licensed in order to teach, and
11:34
Speaker 1: so they just don't really have a good concept of
11:36
Speaker 1: what's out there. And many teachers when they leave the workforce,
11:40
Speaker 1: when they leave teaching, you'll find that they actually go
11:42
Speaker 1: into careers that they'll say, I had no idea this existed,
11:45
Speaker 1: which is a lot of the really indicates the huge problem.
11:50
Speaker 1: The same thing is true of your guidance counselors and
11:52
Speaker 1: your career counselors, sometimes even more so because they spend
11:55
Speaker 1: more time on a college campus than your regular teachers do,
11:58
Speaker 1: and so they even have a limited view and the
12:01
Speaker 1: resources they use are designed to fit kids into specific funnels,
12:05
Speaker 1: and typically the funnels are going to be four year college,
12:09
Speaker 1: the military trades. That's it. That's all they got, and
12:13
Speaker 1: the trades is relatively new. The thing I want to
12:15
Speaker 1: drive home to parents, though, is that trades are still college.
12:19
Speaker 1: Trade school debt is still student loan debt. And just
12:23
Speaker 1: because your child's not going to a four year college
12:25
Speaker 1: does not mean that a trade is the right option
12:27
Speaker 1: unless they've gone through those four things, those four degree
12:30
Speaker 1: freeform criteria, and the trade fits what your child wants
12:33
Speaker 1: out of their life. If they have a goal of
12:36
Speaker 1: wanting to go out and not be behind a desk,
12:39
Speaker 1: you know, work environment and be able to go out
12:41
Speaker 1: and do projects and come home, but they're okay with
12:43
Speaker 1: being on call, then running a trade based business that
12:46
Speaker 1: allows them to build out and eventually higher makes a
12:49
Speaker 1: ton of sense. Check that with them first, though, because
12:51
Speaker 1: I see this really unsuccessful a lot of the time.
12:54
Speaker 1: I'll see kids that go into a four year college
12:56
Speaker 1: and then that doesn't work and they hate it, and
12:58
Speaker 1: so then they transfer to community call and oh, we
13:01
Speaker 1: hate that too, And then the next thing that they
13:03
Speaker 1: do is they go to trade school. Because that's a
13:06
Speaker 1: big talking point right now, everybody's real keen on the trades.
13:09
Speaker 1: And while there are a lot of open jobs, it
13:11
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it's the right fit for your child
13:13
Speaker 1: just because it's there. And that is also going to
13:15
Speaker 1: have a bad result still bankruptcy except student loan debt,
13:18
Speaker 1: and now your child just keeps continually feeling like a
13:21
Speaker 1: failure when really what you just need is to have
13:23
Speaker 1: those conversations and what might be a better fit is
13:25
Speaker 1: like a sterilizing tech at a hospital, three day work week,
13:29
Speaker 1: twelve hour shifts, good pay, sometimes even six figures on
13:32
Speaker 1: the job. Training at a hospital fits their needs a
13:34
Speaker 1: lot better than going to be a plumber or an
13:36
Speaker 1: h back tech, right, And it's just a matter of
13:39
Speaker 1: thinking through what they really need and narrowing that down.
13:42
Speaker 1: Don't let them limit by job or industry. That's a
13:44
Speaker 1: huge thing. That's because that's how we're taught to do
13:46
Speaker 1: it now, and it just doesn't make any sense because
13:48
Speaker 1: they don't know, they don't know what those things are.
13:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was going to ask you about the
13:53
Speaker 2: testing that our kids are often given, like towards the
13:56
Speaker 2: end of high school, they take these tests. What's your APPTITU? Right?
14:00
Speaker 2: What jobs would fit you, and both of my kids
14:03
Speaker 2: were always so shocked by the things that would come up.
14:07
Speaker 2: Like my daughter had train conductor and she's like, where
14:10
Speaker 2: did that come from? And that sounds like a nightmare? Right,
14:13
Speaker 2: And it didn't really fit from these other standpoints, right,
14:18
Speaker 2: it fit maybe logically from like one answer that she
14:23
Speaker 2: gave to something. So how do we maybe break the
14:28
Speaker 2: mold of testing like that? Like how do we figure
14:31
Speaker 2: out what to dig into? You know, because you're saying
14:36
Speaker 2: we know like six or eight jobs, right, yeah, how
14:39
Speaker 2: do we figure out all these other ones? How do
14:41
Speaker 2: we find them? How do we sort of figure out
14:45
Speaker 2: what that might be like for a kid? Right, Like
14:47
Speaker 2: my kid is thinking surgical technician. Now it's a two
14:50
Speaker 2: year training program. He's really into science. He thinks surgery
14:55
Speaker 2: is cool. It's you know, a shorter maybe work week,
14:58
Speaker 2: but it also gives him money for electronics and gaming
15:02
Speaker 2: and things that he really likes to spend money, huh
15:04
Speaker 2: and right. And so it's taken us years to sort
15:07
Speaker 2: of figure that out. And it was never like on
15:10
Speaker 2: all of these aptitude tests you took, never did that
15:13
Speaker 2: come up or anything close to that. And I find
15:16
Speaker 2: that really interesting, And we didn't even know it was
15:18
Speaker 2: a job until we just started pouring through lists of jobs,
15:22
Speaker 2: right what might be available around us?
15:25
Speaker 1: You've laid out such a good question and also an
15:28
Speaker 1: exact use case for exactly how this is used. Because
15:32
Speaker 1: the way he's picking now is going to work because
15:34
Speaker 1: it's based on what he needs and it needs first
15:38
Speaker 1: availability after that's the thing that's the key right there,
15:42
Speaker 1: And that's why the answer to this is not one
15:45
Speaker 1: that most parents are going to like. It's a ton
15:47
Speaker 1: of research, yes so much or answer at work. And
15:50
Speaker 1: the reason I know that is because that's exactly what
15:52
Speaker 1: we do in the Degree relaunch program. And it takes
15:55
Speaker 1: hours to find these things based on your zip code,
15:58
Speaker 1: based on what's available, measure in grants, work programs, all
16:02
Speaker 1: these different things and just finding oh there's pay training
16:04
Speaker 1: for this, Oh this small business has this open, you know,
16:07
Speaker 1: and you just have to look. But what becomes much
16:10
Speaker 1: easier because the reason it feels so overwhelming to look
16:12
Speaker 1: now is because you don't know what you're looking for.
16:15
Speaker 1: But once you figure out what schedule is going to work,
16:18
Speaker 1: and you figure out how much around about how much
16:20
Speaker 1: money they're going to need, and then what tide of
16:22
Speaker 1: training they're willing to do. Then looking becomes much simpler
16:27
Speaker 1: because you know what shape you're likely, you know what
16:29
Speaker 1: animal you're hunting. Now you go, okay, well this looks
16:32
Speaker 1: this looks right. And so the way to do this
16:34
Speaker 1: is to prioritize those things, so those degree free for
16:37
Speaker 1: it's overwhelming to look for all four of them. What
16:39
Speaker 1: you want to do is find one priority that And
16:42
Speaker 1: the way that I explain this to parents is if
16:44
Speaker 1: your child does not get this out of work, they
16:46
Speaker 1: do not want that job. So if they don't earn
16:47
Speaker 1: what they want to earn, that's a negative. If they
16:50
Speaker 1: don't live or they want to live, no, right, If
16:52
Speaker 1: they want to stay in their hometown and that type
16:54
Speaker 1: of work is not available there, then that's a no.
16:57
Speaker 1: Because we want to live near family, we want to
16:59
Speaker 1: live near the cousins. That's important to us, and so
17:01
Speaker 1: that's not going to be something that we're interesting. We're
17:03
Speaker 1: not moving to the big city. We don't want to
17:05
Speaker 1: do that, and so that would be something that then
17:07
Speaker 1: you would cut off. You say, well, this job's not
17:08
Speaker 1: really good option because it'll require me to leave and
17:10
Speaker 1: fundamentally for my life to be successful. In my life,
17:13
Speaker 1: I want to be near my family, so that's not
17:15
Speaker 1: something I'm going to do, or it makes them work
17:18
Speaker 1: too much and they just don't want to do Then
17:19
Speaker 1: they just don't want to work that many hours because
17:21
Speaker 1: they just don't want to work an eighty hour week. Also,
17:23
Speaker 1: that's where for health needs and different stuff like that,
17:26
Speaker 1: this becomes a very useful framework. So this is something
17:29
Speaker 1: that I've seen. It's universal because it doesn't matter if
17:31
Speaker 1: your child has cerebral palsy, if they're autistic, if they
17:35
Speaker 1: are an amputee. You can change these things around based
17:38
Speaker 1: on what they need. Right because a location may be
17:40
Speaker 1: more important to someone who needs to stay near a
17:43
Speaker 1: certain area versus income to somebody. You know. I worked
17:47
Speaker 1: with the young lady who had a really chronic health condition,
17:50
Speaker 1: and one of the things that she needed was she's like,
17:52
Speaker 1: I just need to work from home. I can't go
17:54
Speaker 1: out to work, but I do want to work. And
17:55
Speaker 1: so now we're looking at different options because for her
17:58
Speaker 1: work environment was priority. Not always, but now you just
18:02
Speaker 1: stack these things differently and then you look and see
18:04
Speaker 1: what's available. And you do that by going out to
18:07
Speaker 1: the wilds of the internet and hunting.
18:09
Speaker 2: Hunting for sure, so it sounds like we're taking those
18:19
Speaker 2: huge list and we're sort of funneling it out based
18:23
Speaker 2: on our kids' answers to these four criteria, right, and so,
18:27
Speaker 2: like I can give another example. For a long time,
18:30
Speaker 2: my son talked about eldercare. He's very interested in helping
18:35
Speaker 2: the elderly, which is amazing that he at his age
18:38
Speaker 2: has the patience and the interest in that. But you know,
18:42
Speaker 2: in our area it tops out at like fourteen bucks
18:45
Speaker 2: an hour, and you can't live here on fourteen bucks
18:47
Speaker 2: an hour, Like, it's not possible, and it definitely wasn't
18:51
Speaker 2: going to provide the life that he wanted. So we
18:54
Speaker 2: had to think, Okay, well, what other uses for this
18:57
Speaker 2: interest could there be? What other jobs there be? But
19:01
Speaker 2: we did have to get rid of that one, sadly
19:03
Speaker 2: because it just wasn't practical at all. From that standpoint.
19:08
Speaker 1: It's so frustrating to me to see what a disservice
19:11
Speaker 1: that mentality has done to young people too. That whole
19:15
Speaker 1: interest first thing, This is something that I have personal
19:18
Speaker 1: experience with. I was a good writer, I would say,
19:21
Speaker 1: an average average high student. I wasn't anywhere I was
19:24
Speaker 1: doing great, largely though, because I have my own diagnoses,
19:29
Speaker 1: and I have a hard time concentrating. I was incredibly
19:31
Speaker 1: bored by anything that I didn't see the purpose of,
19:33
Speaker 1: which you'll find with a lot of ADC and autistic
19:37
Speaker 1: kids actually, because I find that they can really if
19:40
Speaker 1: you give them something that they understand the why behind
19:43
Speaker 1: it unbelievable. It's like a superpower. I've never seen anything
19:46
Speaker 1: quite like it, and it's so frustrating to me to
19:49
Speaker 1: see because I do work with quite a few folks
19:51
Speaker 1: that fall into that neurodivergic community, and I would say
19:54
Speaker 1: that it's so frustrating and disappointing to see that the
19:56
Speaker 1: way the school system really just does not serve that.
20:00
Speaker 1: And when it's channeled, and when I say channeled, I
20:02
Speaker 1: mean the individual is channeling it, not they're being forced
20:04
Speaker 1: to because that's unsuccessful always. But when they see the
20:08
Speaker 1: why and they know what, they're going to get unbelievable motivation.
20:11
Speaker 1: I have never studied like I studied when I was
20:14
Speaker 1: starting to get into tech and I was studying for
20:16
Speaker 1: tech certifications, I was so unbelievably focused. I was able
20:21
Speaker 1: to retain everything because I knew I had a clear
20:23
Speaker 1: why of what I was learning. The application and then
20:26
Speaker 1: what it was going to get me at the end,
20:28
Speaker 1: because that's a question you'll find a lot of your
20:30
Speaker 1: kids if they fall into this category, they would ask
20:32
Speaker 1: why do I need this? And no one I was
20:34
Speaker 1: ever able to answer it for them, And that's very
20:36
Speaker 1: frustrating as somebody who has the ability for intense focus
20:40
Speaker 1: if something holds their attention. I think that the interest
20:43
Speaker 1: based thing at that age, in that high school range
20:47
Speaker 1: is a real, like I said, kind of a crazy
20:49
Speaker 1: way to pick work. And you'll see it. It has
20:52
Speaker 1: basically two real downsides one and I have seen this
20:56
Speaker 1: with Zello, which is the current software that they're using.
20:58
Speaker 1: I've had somebody walk me through the back end of
21:00
Speaker 1: that and show me what her son's profile looked like
21:03
Speaker 1: and then how it was suggesting things to him, and
21:07
Speaker 1: it was just insane, like, oh, you like to work
21:09
Speaker 1: with your hands, it should be a plumber. What they're
21:14
Speaker 1: software developers that like to would work in their spare time.
21:17
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be software developers. That's
21:19
Speaker 1: an insane Yeah, that's an insane way to kneecap somebody's
21:23
Speaker 1: career choices at this age when they're so uninformed about
21:26
Speaker 1: what's out there. And I especially see these affect girls
21:29
Speaker 1: where they have a much steeper hill here. But oh,
21:33
Speaker 1: my goodness, heaven forbid, you have a child, a female child,
21:36
Speaker 1: a girl that says, oh, I like to I want
21:39
Speaker 1: to help people, or I like listening to people, or
21:41
Speaker 1: I like children. My goodness, teacher, nurse, psychologists, they'll do it.
21:46
Speaker 1: See them all day, social work immediately and they pinpoint
21:49
Speaker 1: them into these pink collar jobs is what I'll call them.
21:53
Speaker 1: But they're high cost degrees. Often because the degrees are expensive,
21:57
Speaker 1: you need them to get a license to do those jobs.
22:00
Speaker 1: Then you get at the other end and you're not
22:02
Speaker 1: able to even you're barely able to service the debt
22:05
Speaker 1: that you have, and it traps people. And it's really
22:08
Speaker 1: horrible because I work with people all the time, especially,
22:11
Speaker 1: like I said, very passionate about this, with young women.
22:13
Speaker 1: But someone clearly should have sat them down and listened
22:16
Speaker 1: to what they actually wanted out of their future and gone, oh, okay, Actually,
22:21
Speaker 1: what you're saying now is that you would like to
22:23
Speaker 1: get married, and you want to have three kids, and
22:25
Speaker 1: you want to be home with your kids, not that
22:27
Speaker 1: you want to work with other people's small children for
22:29
Speaker 1: the rest of your days. That's not the same thing.
22:32
Speaker 1: And again needs because some people do need that that
22:35
Speaker 1: is what they want. But for a lot of people,
22:38
Speaker 1: they'll talk through this and you go, oh, okay, so
22:40
Speaker 1: what you need is you need. I worked with the
22:42
Speaker 1: young lady in California who's five. She had five sisters,
22:45
Speaker 1: all of them were nurses, all of them all five
22:47
Speaker 1: of them crazy right, But she wasn't sure she wanted
22:52
Speaker 1: to go into nursing, but her dad wanted to make
22:54
Speaker 1: sure that that was the right fit for her, so
22:55
Speaker 1: he put her through the Launch program. So she comes
22:57
Speaker 1: through with me and we go through okay, and I
23:00
Speaker 1: found all these different specialties that she had no idea existed,
23:03
Speaker 1: and she found one that she really was super interested
23:05
Speaker 1: in that really fit. And then we were able to
23:08
Speaker 1: through that research find okay, like, here's a way that
23:11
Speaker 1: you can turn this into telehealth during this later period
23:14
Speaker 1: of your life. Because one of the things that's really
23:16
Speaker 1: a big deal to her she wants to be home
23:18
Speaker 1: with her kids at some point and when her children
23:20
Speaker 1: are little, and it's finding these levers of what they
23:23
Speaker 1: need and then shifting them in so they're able to
23:26
Speaker 1: get what they want. And that is just a completely
23:29
Speaker 1: different way to pick work. But really it's the way
23:31
Speaker 1: that people used to pick work. Does this fit my needs?
23:34
Speaker 1: If it does, then I worry about interest, and then
23:37
Speaker 1: I worry about all of that stuff. And the college
23:40
Speaker 1: first sales process, which is what i'll call what we
23:43
Speaker 1: currently have, doesn't do that because the goal is to
23:46
Speaker 1: get them to sign the loans. That's it, because it's
23:50
Speaker 1: bankruptcy exempt debt. So the whole system is designed to
23:53
Speaker 1: just sell these loans. Every single young adult that comes
23:55
Speaker 1: out of an American high school has one hundred and
23:58
Speaker 1: four thousand to one hundred and fifty six dollar price
24:00
Speaker 1: tag on their head. And when you realize the motivation
24:03
Speaker 1: is so big and the college industrial complex is eight
24:07
Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight billion dollars, to start to go,
24:09
Speaker 1: oh okay, I see why we're just pre making our
24:11
Speaker 1: customers here. It's a very clear incentive. There's a very
24:14
Speaker 1: clear incentive to do that. And so the way that
24:17
Speaker 1: we teach through K through twelve is very much self feeding. Right,
24:20
Speaker 1: We just teach them to this is how you pick work,
24:23
Speaker 1: even though many of them you'll find so many college students,
24:25
Speaker 1: so when I work with eighteen to twenty year olds.
24:27
Speaker 1: They've never they don't know, they've never thought about these
24:30
Speaker 1: things stones ever. Ask them, they'll they'll be in college
24:32
Speaker 1: and have no idea what they're going for. What are
24:34
Speaker 1: you doing here spending twenty six thousand dollars that you're
24:36
Speaker 1: not knowing what you're doing. That's so insane.
24:38
Speaker 2: So many of them at the end of their sophomore
24:40
Speaker 2: year are like, I have to pick a major.
24:41
Speaker 3: I don't know what to pick. You already invested two years.
24:45
Speaker 3: Or you ask them what they're going to make yeah,
24:47
Speaker 3: and they don't know. Or you ask them what the
24:49
Speaker 3: schedule of that type of work looks like, and they
24:51
Speaker 3: don't know, and they're going to be horribly unhappy because
24:53
Speaker 3: they didn't think these things through.
24:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we need to give kids so much
24:56
Speaker 2: more time before we if they want to go to
24:59
Speaker 2: college that what is determined to be their path, they
25:03
Speaker 2: should not Most of them be starting that at eighteen,
25:05
Speaker 2: right out of high school. I don't think you just
25:08
Speaker 2: don't know enough about what you want.
25:10
Speaker 1: Think the bare minimum is twenty two Yeah, Yeah, I
25:14
Speaker 1: think they have to work first. I personally don't believe
25:16
Speaker 1: we should be issuing student loan debt before age of
25:18
Speaker 1: twenty five, your brain is not fully formed. Your prefrontal
25:21
Speaker 1: cortex is not fully formed. The vast majority of people,
25:23
Speaker 1: I believe, would find that if they worked for that
25:26
Speaker 1: period of time instead of being funneled directly into the
25:28
Speaker 1: student loan system, they would find one they don't need
25:31
Speaker 1: a degree to. If they did need one, they would
25:34
Speaker 1: be absolutely positively sure. And then when they go back,
25:37
Speaker 1: the loans are no longer attached to their parents' income
25:40
Speaker 1: on the fast but and so the cost drops through
25:42
Speaker 1: the floor all of a sudden.
25:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh, I didn't think of that.
25:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:46
Speaker 2: My daughter calls it soul crushing debt. That's what she causes,
25:50
Speaker 2: soil crushing debt. I'm like, I'm so sorry, Kew, Like,
25:53
Speaker 2: we gave you options, but yeah.
25:55
Speaker 1: And it's so hard because they're in this period where
25:57
Speaker 1: as you said, I'm sure you guys even hold her.
26:00
Speaker 1: You said, you said, you don't have to do that.
26:02
Speaker 1: But the pressure, it's like a wave, and it just
26:04
Speaker 1: pushed it. I call it the college cliff. And really
26:06
Speaker 1: it's just shoving them off the edge of this cliff.
26:08
Speaker 1: And and and it's just the social pressure that does that,
26:11
Speaker 1: it just goes and even parents, you know, parents, even
26:15
Speaker 1: if they by the time it gets to that decision point,
26:17
Speaker 1: they go, hey, I don't know if that's I don't
26:19
Speaker 1: you don't have to do that. It's almost too late.
26:22
Speaker 1: It's just this avalanche and they just fall over the edge.
26:25
Speaker 1: And it's such a bummer because it's like, it's so
26:29
Speaker 1: much harder. I used to work with adult job seekers,
26:31
Speaker 1: and it's so much more difficult for them to find
26:34
Speaker 1: what they need later because the pressure is more, especially
26:38
Speaker 1: if they have student loans. Now all of a sudden,
26:40
Speaker 1: it's so it's and I just there's a couple of
26:44
Speaker 1: people who when I talk about this, I can just
26:46
Speaker 1: picture their faces and just the stress of the money
26:50
Speaker 1: and they have. Now they want to get married, and
26:52
Speaker 1: they want to have grow you know, they're growing families,
26:54
Speaker 1: and it's so much more difficult for them to just
26:56
Speaker 1: pick their careers correctly because they have to undo the
26:59
Speaker 1: sunk cost of what they already spent in college, let
27:01
Speaker 1: go of whatever that is, relearn everything with less time,
27:05
Speaker 1: with less money, and it's just so it's just such
27:07
Speaker 1: a bummer because all they needed at the beginning was
27:10
Speaker 1: a little bit more guidance and clarity about what the
27:13
Speaker 1: end result was going to get them in the way
27:15
Speaker 1: that they wanted to live, and so thinking about it
27:17
Speaker 1: differently just changes everything. Also, the side effect of that
27:21
Speaker 1: is if you start thinking like this in high school,
27:24
Speaker 1: it changes everything. It changes everything. The amount of stress
27:28
Speaker 1: that just evaporates because it's completely unnecessary. It's all fake.
27:31
Speaker 1: It's all fake. And that's the thing for parents. You know,
27:35
Speaker 1: as long as your child is graduating with the diploma,
27:37
Speaker 1: that's all they gotta do. That's it. Diploma ged they
27:40
Speaker 1: will be okay. The rest of it is you helping
27:43
Speaker 1: them figure out. They do need for momentum and they
27:45
Speaker 1: do need a plan, but who cares about their GPA?
27:48
Speaker 1: Literally who cares? As soon as they leave, it doesn't
27:51
Speaker 1: matter anymore. And so you don't have to fight them
27:54
Speaker 1: and there can be peace in your home, and what
27:56
Speaker 1: a feeling that is to have that unity And also
27:59
Speaker 1: a time when your child really needs an ally in
28:02
Speaker 1: your home because they are about to go out and
28:04
Speaker 1: they're kind of an adult, but they're kind of not.
28:06
Speaker 1: And we have this really gray financial area of responsible
28:09
Speaker 1: adult responsibility area that's for better or worse in our society.
28:13
Speaker 1: In the US is very gray and they need your help.
28:17
Speaker 1: But when there's this clashing where you guys have just
28:19
Speaker 1: been fighting for the last two years trying to get
28:20
Speaker 1: them to oh, your tests, your homework, you're this, you're that.
28:23
Speaker 1: But what if you didn't have to do that and
28:25
Speaker 1: you don't amazing right, and you don't, you don't it's
28:28
Speaker 1: all fakes.
28:29
Speaker 2: Just releasing that pressure. And I would even say starting
28:33
Speaker 2: having these conversations earlier than high school, yes, because if
28:36
Speaker 2: you can catch your kid younger and help them believe
28:40
Speaker 2: that that isn't the only path that you know, doing
28:44
Speaker 2: their best is important, but a three point you know,
28:48
Speaker 2: nine to eight gpa is not the be all, end all.
28:52
Speaker 2: Then you're relieving a lot of the pressure. You're making
28:56
Speaker 2: learning more enjoyable for them, and you're setting that foundation
29:01
Speaker 2: for them to really be able to choose in the
29:03
Speaker 2: way that you're laying out here, Yes, to really find
29:07
Speaker 2: the fit for them, not just a fit, which is important.
29:12
Speaker 1: One of the best ways to practice that, and I
29:14
Speaker 1: completely agree that earlier you teach this, the less likely
29:17
Speaker 1: they already get pushed off the cliff. But anything everything,
29:21
Speaker 1: and this is kind of like you've probably seen that
29:23
Speaker 1: sell me this pen a video before. Right. But one
29:27
Speaker 1: of the best things you can do is something an
29:28
Speaker 1: exercise that my husband I invented called vocational creativity. And
29:32
Speaker 1: this is the phrase that we came up with to
29:34
Speaker 1: describe the lack of understanding about jobs, but also how
29:37
Speaker 1: parents can teach it. So you're driving past a billboard,
29:41
Speaker 1: who did work in order to put that billboard there? Right?
29:45
Speaker 1: Not only the physical labor. There's a copy on there.
29:48
Speaker 1: There was a copywriter. Somebody sold the space on the billboard.
29:51
Speaker 1: Somebody is doing the accounts, payables, accounts, receivables as a
29:54
Speaker 1: bookkeeper for that company. Somebody is doing external marketing for
29:58
Speaker 1: that company online. They have digital marketers, they have website designers,
30:01
Speaker 1: they have procurement and going at you know, go to
30:04
Speaker 1: lamar dot com and you look and see, oh, like
30:06
Speaker 1: what jobs do they have open? But when you see
30:08
Speaker 1: somebody doing work, especially the visual jobs are easy. Right.
30:11
Speaker 1: When you see somebody putting cones out on the side
30:13
Speaker 1: of the road, Oh that's and you know you can
30:15
Speaker 1: just do that to kids and just say, oh, that's
30:17
Speaker 1: a job. Did you know that that's their work. That's
30:19
Speaker 1: how they get the things that they want in their life.
30:21
Speaker 1: You know, somebody running a roadside coffee stand and just saying, oh,
30:23
Speaker 1: you know, that's a business owner. This is somebody's job.
30:26
Speaker 1: They choose this as their job of it they order
30:28
Speaker 1: stuff and they make drinks and they post on their
30:30
Speaker 1: Facebook page to get people to come out to their
30:32
Speaker 1: coffee shop. And just thinking through and showing them defining
30:36
Speaker 1: for them what work is outside of this traditional like
30:39
Speaker 1: you have to go to college and get this paper
30:41
Speaker 1: and then get this license and then clock in every
30:43
Speaker 1: day for the next thirty years. Because that's also just
30:44
Speaker 1: not how work is anymore. And that's something that that's
30:47
Speaker 1: where my background in AI really you know, this is
30:51
Speaker 1: something that I am a huge, huge fan of. But
30:54
Speaker 1: just parents can change this entire conversation by just talking
30:58
Speaker 1: and visualizing to their kids. And it's going to be uncomfortable.
31:00
Speaker 1: At first. It feels really uncomfortable. It feels fake, and
31:03
Speaker 1: then you feel silly because you don't know and you're
31:05
Speaker 1: just kinda like, I don't know. Maybe you know, you
31:08
Speaker 1: pick up something, you pick up a package in the
31:10
Speaker 1: grocery store, you're like, oh, a product designer, you know,
31:12
Speaker 1: looked at this. And then they had a nutrition specialist
31:15
Speaker 1: who did this, and then they had you know, a
31:16
Speaker 1: package designer, and then somebody drove it here on a truck,
31:20
Speaker 1: and then there's visual merchandisers who put it on the
31:22
Speaker 1: shelves where it's supposed to go. And you just think
31:24
Speaker 1: through all the different types of work that touch the
31:27
Speaker 1: things that you see every day. Services or you know,
31:30
Speaker 1: you go to the nail salon, you you just say, hey,
31:32
Speaker 1: you know, this is a this is the job. This
31:35
Speaker 1: is a job that they do, and you just help
31:37
Speaker 1: them understand that there's work everywhere they look, there's opportunity,
31:40
Speaker 1: there's options everywhere they look, and that just opens their
31:42
Speaker 1: world like crazy.
31:44
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Hannah tell us where people can find you
31:48
Speaker 2: online and be able to maybe work with you or
31:53
Speaker 2: learn more about your process.
31:56
Speaker 1: Sure degree free dot com. Forward Slash podcast is going
31:59
Speaker 1: to be the podcast We have been running a podcast
32:01
Speaker 1: for going on four years now where we just talk
32:04
Speaker 1: about current events, trends that we see, stories, write ins
32:07
Speaker 1: from parents, and where my husband and I, my husband
32:10
Speaker 1: Ryan and I answer questions if you are interested, if
32:13
Speaker 1: your kid is about to graduate, which is coming up
32:16
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. This is a very stressful
32:18
Speaker 1: time of year for a lot of people. We do
32:20
Speaker 1: a one on one service called the Degree Free Launch
32:22
Speaker 1: Program where we actually do all of that work I described,
32:25
Speaker 1: all of that research that I just described. We go
32:28
Speaker 1: through that process with your child so it's guided and
32:31
Speaker 1: the end result is a custom career plan that tells
32:33
Speaker 1: them what three jobs are going to work for them,
32:36
Speaker 1: and the learning options, how much they'll cost, how long
32:38
Speaker 1: they'll take, where you need to apply, if there's any
32:41
Speaker 1: grant money, if there's any work program, if there's any
32:43
Speaker 1: paid on the job training, and then helping your child
32:46
Speaker 1: create a checklist that says all right, I'm going to
32:47
Speaker 1: apply here, I'm going to do this, I'm going to
32:49
Speaker 1: put this on my resume, and then having them creating
32:52
Speaker 1: a clear plan of action so that you know exactly
32:54
Speaker 1: what they're going to do, exactly what they're going to
32:56
Speaker 1: get out of their work, and then the type of
32:58
Speaker 1: work that's going to work for them.
33:00
Speaker 2: All of that up too in the show notes for
33:01
Speaker 2: the episode, which are at PARENTINGADHD Autism dot com slash
33:06
Speaker 2: three one two for episode three hundred and twelve, so
33:10
Speaker 2: that you guys can jump over and access that quickly
33:14
Speaker 2: and learn more. Thank you so much, Hannah for being here.
33:17
Speaker 2: For sharing some of your time and your wisdom and
33:20
Speaker 2: permission to do it differently, to help our kids do
33:23
Speaker 2: it differently. It's so important in our community and I
33:27
Speaker 2: just appreciate it so much.
33:28
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
33:30
Speaker 2: Take good care everybody else, See you next time. Thanks
33:35
Speaker 2: for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If you
33:38
Speaker 2: enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't forget
33:42
Speaker 2: to check out my online courses and parent coaching at
33:45
Speaker 2: PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com and at Thebehavior Revolution dot
33:50
Speaker 2: com