Latest / Raising Daughters / Refocusing Teenagers On What’s Really Important

Transcript

Refocusing Teenagers On What’s Really Important · Raising Daughters

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hey folks, Doctor Tim Jordan's back here with a brand
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: new podcast, and do I have a surprise for you today.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Not only do I have a guest, I have three guests.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: They're sitting around my desk in the basement and we're
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: hoping that all their voices come on. We're gonna double
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: check it to be sure, because my wife said that
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes the voices don't carry through. But anyway, I picked
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the topic today based upon what I heard in our
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: last week of summer camp. But I also have heard
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it that lots of weekend retreats, and that's about the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: pressures young people are under today to have their whole
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: future figured out by the time they're fifteen or sixteen,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: or by the time they go off into the world
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: at eighteen. It's amazing how many kids are so stressed
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: out about it, like they should have it all figured out.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And so I asked these three articulate young women to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: come and tell you what what they've been experiencing, so
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: you're not just having to trust me that this is
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: going on. So thank you. First of all, thank you
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: guys for being at the table. Everybody says something so
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: then we can double check the audio hye. So you're
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: going to be a senior in high.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: School this year, mm hmm, and.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going into my freshman year of college.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Well, so they're all they're all going a transition point,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: are about to enter their transition point. But unfortunately, this pressure,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I think starts a lot earlier, all these focuses, all
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: this focus on what people or I call externals, things
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: like grades, national test scores, how many challenge classes you
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and ap classes, college applications. It doesn't it's just not academic.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It's also goes into every activity they do. You can't
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: just dance, you have to be on a competitive dance team.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You can't just cheer, you have to be a competitive
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: cheer team. You can't just play soccer. If you had
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a competitive soccer team who's vying for national championship and
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: they're practicing five or six days a week and they're
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: going out of town on these tournaments and things. Swimmers also,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: we have a swimmer in our midst How many days
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a week do.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: You practice five, five or six?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And for a lot of these girls too, it's not
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: like in the old days, in my old days, when
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you would play soccer in the fall, then you'd play
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: basketball or I played hockey in the winter, then you
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: play baseball in the spring, and then that season was
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: very you know, circumscribers like it started and ended, then
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the next season came. They're doing this year round and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: they have very little time off. So so what I've
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: said so far does it resonate? And if so, then
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: how anybody I can start?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I feel like.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: I think I think a lot of it does resonate
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: with me and my personal life at home. I find
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: very little time off and away from activities and people
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: and just time to myself.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: But the pressure is the real, the real thing for me.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm surrounded by my peers who are
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: already already filled. They've already filled college applications, they've already
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: applied places, they've already done visits, they've already.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Done all these things for college.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: And they know what they want to do, and they
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: know where they want to go and what they want
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: the rest of their life to look like. And I
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: have no idea, you know, And I'm just I'm starting
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: my senior year of high school and I've got a
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: lot on my plate and I'm trying my best to
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: figure it out.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: But it just it gets really stressful sometimes and it's
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: hard to.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: It's hard to express that to my trusted adults. I
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: feel like a lot of the time they don't necessarily listen.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: It's more of I say a sentence than they, like,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: I don't know, almost almost argue or give their opinion right,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: rather than just like fully listening to me and listening
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: to what I have to say and taking it in
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: and taking some time to just process the information. So
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's just it's definitely difficult. I feel
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: very behind for my peers. I feel almost like lost, Yeah,
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: just looking for some sort of guidance and it's I
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: don't know where to find it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So what you're you're also entering your senior year.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like it's a lot because a lot
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: of my peers they've gone to like multiple colleges and
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: they know basically like they have a good idea of
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: where they want to go, and I don't really have
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: that yet.
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: And especially I feel like in the athletic area of like,
• 5:00
  Speaker 6: I have friends who are sophomores and juniors who are
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: already committed to colleges and I'm just now starting the
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: recruiting process. So that feels very behind, and like being
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: an oldest child, I feel like I have to figure it.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Out a lot for myself.
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: I have my parents helping me, but they're learning along
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: with me. So a lot of the research that I'm
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: doing I have to do for myself. And it's kind
• 5:21
  Speaker 6: of complicated because I don't really know where to go
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: with it and there's no one to really kind of
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: help me out with it.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm just kind of finding my own.
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: Way in a world that's very confusing and large, and
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: there's a lot of pressure to be great.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I feel like, so, yeah, and you can't just be good,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you have to be great. You have to be at
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the top, right Ye.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: It's like, if you're not going to the Olympics, what
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: are you doing?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So how about you fresher in college?
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: To be honestly, I would feel I feel like I
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: experienced a lot more of these stresses in middle school
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: and in some points in high school. It's just, for one,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: my high school prided itself in being a college prep school,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: and so you had to test, and you had to
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: get a certain score and a test to even enter
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: the school. And so of course it was full of
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: people who had very high expectations for themselves, and their
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: parents had very high expectations for them. And it's really
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: interesting when you get a lot of those kids and
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: then you put them all in the same environment. You'd
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: think it would be like uber competitive in a way,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: but I feel like we understood each other more. It's
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: a smaller school, but I feel like most of the
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: stress came from just all of the adults and all
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: the teachers and all, like our principal trying to use
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: our scores to brag about, you know, where we placed.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: And a lot of our value was placed on like
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: our ACT scores, even by the school, not just by
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: our parents. So it was like, if you're not performing
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: at this high level, you don't boolong. When it came
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: to choosing a college, I didn't, you know. I for
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: the longest time, I was like, Oh, I'm going to
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: go to some you know, really like prestigious. I'll go
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: to wash you or something. And I had that idea
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: in my mind for years up until I was like sixteen,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: and I was like, Okay, that's not for me anymore.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: And everything was kind of up in the air for
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: a few years, and it was really nerve racking. But
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: I think it's just having the faith that whatever decision
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: you'll pick, you're gonna be okay. It's it's really weird
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: because right now I'm still trying to figure out if
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: I made the right decision in the school I chose.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: But so all of you experience that feeling. It sounds
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: like being behind your peers, like they've got it all together,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: they know where they're going. Blah blah blah. Is that true?
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: What's fast? Thing is like? At the team camp two
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: of you the summer, I think pretty much everybody said that, yes,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So if everybody feels behind, hmm, wonder what that means, right,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's all I don't know. It's just fascinating. But
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I also think that some of that pressure comes from parents,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: like about applications and about what you're you know, getting
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: your g p A up and extracurricular activities look good
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: in your resume, all those kinds of things. And I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: think when did that start for you? Guys? When did
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: when did the push to like to be at the top,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to be the best you know, to have the right scores?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: When did that start to ratchet up for you?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I'd say for me personally, you know, elementary school, I
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: was told to like try my best and do the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: work and stuff like that, but it wasn't really.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: Until middle school when I started, when I had access
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: to my grades, and I had access to like C A, B,
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: C D E.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: F.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: But like, uh, just like.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: I remember sixth grade, I had all AS straight A students.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Seventh grade, I had all as and I got my
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: first be second semester and we had a teacher change,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: and I was beside myself.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I was just so very disappointed, and I made like
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: a like a what do you call it? A belief
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: that I'm just not math. It's not my strong suit.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Ever since then, and I haven't I've didn't go until
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: like a advanced math course with all my friends and
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: my peers, and I've just always been on like the
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: more like I don't know, not advanced math route, and
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know if that had any impact,
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: but i'd.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Say, like middle school, yeah, and it just progresses as
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: classes get harder and test it longer.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And I suspect a lot of people I've heard this too,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: but I suspect a lot of people write things off
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: because you know, they got to be in math or
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: something of that sort. Could have been for a number
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of reasons. You could have had a crappy teacher. It
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: could have been, you know, for a lot of reason,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you could have been sick that semester. But I think
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: when when that letter is staring in the face, like,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm not good at math. I remember maybe
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the opposite. One of my sons, John, he was good
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: at math, but he didn't really like it that much.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I remember sitting with him and my wife and I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: can't remember. I guess it was in high school. The
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: counselor there, she was scheduling his classes, and so they
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: were trying to push him to take like calculus or
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it was, some kind of high
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: end course ap whatever. He's like, I don't want to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: take that. Yeah, but you're really good at math. Look
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: at you. He's like, I know, I don't like math.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I'm good at it, but I don't like it. And
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: she pushed and pushed. They were like, he doesn't want
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to take it. We had like almost yelled at her,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: like it's okay for him not to take advanced math
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: as a junior in high school. He doesn't like it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: He can always take it later. You can always change
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: his mind. But I remember I remember feeling that just
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: from that counsel, which that's the everyday grind, being in
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: those hallways and hearing all that all around you. So
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: when did it start? All of you were saying it
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: started kind of middle school ish? Yeah, And what was
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: what was the biggest pressure? Where did it come from?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Was it from grades? Was it from your parents? Was
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: it from talking about college already? Was it from feeling
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: behind and looking around? Where do you think it came
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: from the most, like the strongest influence?
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I feel like I feel.
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: Like for me, middle school was kind of when there
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: was that split from like it was because in elementary
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: all the kids are kind of just together in one class,
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: but middle schools where it splits off to like challenge
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: courses and then grade local courses. And I was put
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: into I was an all challenge courses starting in sixth grade.
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: So I feel like there was just a lot of
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: pressure to be like, oh, I'm in challenge courses.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I have to do good, Like I have.
• 12:08
  Speaker 6: To perform and do the best that I can, rather
• 12:11
  Speaker 6: than just being like okay, like I'm just going to
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: do what I can and whatever my best effort is
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: is enough, And it was just like I have to
• 12:21
  Speaker 6: perform and I have to be the best. So I
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: think it started definitely with those challenge courses and then
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: it just kind of kept gradually getting worse as high
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: school progress too.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, getting closer to college having to do all that.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I think. I think the culture, the educational system, families,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: they push you so much to look outside of yourselves.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Now you become so externally focused as opposed to being
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: internally focused, like what do I like? You know, what
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: do I value? What's important to me? Uh? When when
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: most this sounds like exactly, but I don't think it
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: is when most of the energy is around grades and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: what classes you're taking, what kind of colleges you're applying to,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and what extra extracurricular is what teaming want. When there's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: so much energy around all that stuff out there, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: compare yourself to all your peers, is her little energy
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: or time left for what do I think? How am
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I feeling about that? True or not true?
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about that. Because you guys have opened
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to camps, so I know you value that internal stuff.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say that for a lot of my
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: for since like elementary school, I was pulled out of
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: class and they rank uple tests and I'm like, Okay,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: she's gifted. She gets to do these extra classes.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Like she was saying.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: And I feel like doing that isolates you from, like,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: like you said, looking inside, rather you're looking outside yourself.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Because I prided myself on that because I was that
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: means I'm special, and my parents were really proud of me.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And my mom she's this like math whiz, so I was,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: you know, my mom's prodigy. Like I was so excited
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: to fall in the steps of my very smart family
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: that I like I threw myself into it. So, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: going into middle school, you go into a gifted school,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: and that kind of pressure am stup. So I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: it was it was middle school when you actually spoke
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: to my dad and told him to kind of back
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: off looking at my grades, and for some reason it
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: worked and he did. And since then I was the
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: one that was kind of like policing, policing myself, directing it,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it. But since then, since
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: that point, I didn't feel like I was walking on
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: like eggshells in my house like I was. I got
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: like an eighty nine in Spanish in my sixth grade
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: or whatever. And I was like shaking because I was like,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: oh my god, it's not a ninety.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: It's I can't, you know, have an interpreter.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: So just I don't know. I my dad gave me
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: that grace to I don't know self direct myself, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: that that really opened up doors because I realized I
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: liked math and I wanted to do art, and I
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: just I don't know. I had more faith in myself
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: after that.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Remember, and I gave a talk it's been a while,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: maybe ten twelve years ago, and we were in a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: family's home and they were about about twenty adults. They
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: all knew each other, they were all friends and whatever anyway,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: so we were talking about kids and teens and blah
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: blah blah and this kind of stuff. I remember one
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: mom started complaining about her daughter, who I think at
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the time was probably like in seventh or eighth grade
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and she was saying, my daughter
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't like anything. She's not into anything, she said. She said,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: she's so lazy. She has more dear homework. She's so
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: lazy that they ever never forget it. She said, if
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: they ever invent a remote control for the TV that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: operates by blinking your eyes. She'd be first in lined
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: bout that that's how lazy she is. She doesn't like anything.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And I said, I don't believe that. I don't believe
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: she is like anything. And she's like, nope, I'm telling you.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And then one of the because these people knew each other,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: one of the other moms, said that's not true. She
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: said she's so good with kids. When she walks out
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: the door, all the kids and they were gonna run
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: come running over. My kids adore her. They always want
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: her to babysit. She's so good with kids. And this
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: mother said, yeah, I know, the kids like her. But
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and she said she wants to be a preschool teacher.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I told, you're not going to be a preschool teacher
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: because you can't make enough money. And I wanted to
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: punch her in the faith because I cannot tell you
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: how many times I've heard that, not just from adults,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: but from people like you, because that also, that's one
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: of those external things. It's like it's all about making
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: money and not about what do I love. Do you
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: get that kind of pressure, do you hear that they're
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: all nodding vigorously, would give you some words.
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: Because I started.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: I actually went out to breakfast lunch with my both
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: my parents yesterday and we were having like the college
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: talk kid talk.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Together.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: But I was telling him how I don't see myself
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: going into dance professionally anymore like I had for about
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: a year and a half almost two years, and I'm
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: really looking at a nursing and just being in the
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: medical fields.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: And my dad first thing he did.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Was googled how much registered nurse and sales was already makes,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: and then he showed it to me, and then I
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: kid you not google Google how much the owner of
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: the colversus franchise next yearly and then showed it to
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: me and then like this is this is.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Why you should own your own business, own your.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Own business, an entrepreneur, You shouldn't whatever. And then I
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: was like my mom was.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Like, look good, how much a professional dancer makes and
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: that he did, and.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: It was like it was like, yeah, it was nothing.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: It was nothing compared to a nurse who was nothing
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: compared to the cold first franchise.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So I was just like, but that was that was
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: his first That was his first reaction.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: It was his first reaction, and I was just sitting
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: there and I was like, man, this really sucks because
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to tell you what I want to do
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: and what I think i'd be good at and what
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: I enjoy doing, what brings me joy, and all you
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: care about is the money.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And I get that.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: That's a like it's it's a part of it, but
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: at the same time, like it doesn't need to be
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: the whole.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Part of it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Like yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: And then when we were walking out, my mom was
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: like she's trying to do what she loves and my
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: dad was like, well, she just gotta make money.
• 18:58
  Speaker 7: And I was like, okay, cool.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: That's just a personal experience from less than forty eight
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: hours ago for me, but it's definitely a common thing.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've talked to a lot of friends who
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: are just like I just want money and love, and
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, that doesn't sound like a fun life,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: you know, Like I want to live life. I want
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: to see things.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I want to.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Travel, I want to do this, I want to do that.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: I want to have experiences and memories and just I
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: don't know, I just want to put myself out there
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: and I feel like there's a lot of pressure financially
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: with that, and just financially in general.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I think if I can say, in parents' defense, I'm
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: not defending them, but in their defense, I think they're
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: scared the economy is kind of funky, and they want
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you to be able to take care of yourselves. And
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: now there's all these stories about people who don't make it,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and I think parents get scared too. The whole culture
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: is so you know, wrapped up and all this stuff,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and I think parents are responding to that. I don't
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: like it. I don't I don't like the answer you got,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: but I I can see their point of view in
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a sense, but doesn't mean I want you to do
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: what they're saying. But I hear their fear. And you
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: all got messages about money too, what way.
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: I just I hear a lot about like not necessarily
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: like extra like for my parents a lot.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, whenever I'm looking.
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: At like career paths and stuff, I'm like, Okay, well,
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: like how much money does this make? Because I always
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: hear a lot about like, oh, teachers, Like that's not
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: a path that I would choose for me personally. But
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: I've heard a lot from other people, like don't be
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: a teacher, Like teachers don't make a lot of money.
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: And so it's like and I've heard from my parents too,
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: and they're like, well, a job's a job, Like you're
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: not supposed to.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Love your job. But it's like, oh God, but it's
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: like what if.
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: I do want to like my job, Like it's something
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life,
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: I might as well enjoy it. So like like, yes,
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: money is a factor, but like I don't want to
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: go to work every day and hete getting up just
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: to make money. So I feel like there's kind of
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: for me at least personally, I feel like I want
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: to find that balance to where I can live comfortably
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: but still enjoy getting up and going to work every day.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how about you, mass girl? Any nine percent Spanish girl?
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: What with?
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like there's a lot of there's Well, for one,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of negative external forces with like financial
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: things online and on social media and in the news,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: and like you see all these headlines that are just
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: like crushing, and as someone who has a tendency to
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: be a little more anxious about the future, it is
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: so just crushing to like be.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Like, am I ever gonna be able to afford a house?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Or am I gonna our goal?
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, we just want I feel like, sorry, I
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: don't know. I feel like a lot of people, a
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: lot of like older generations, think that we have to, like, hey,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: what we do in order to make money because that's
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: what has happened before.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: But it's just I don't know.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: I feel like we've cornered ourselves in that way. Move on,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: that's a big question.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's easy to feel stuck. Yes, you have
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: heard me at camp talking about, you know, the doc
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: theory about how I think at your age or actually
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in your whole life, especially your age. It's good to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: for those of you haven't heard me. I think I
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: talked about this in a podcast before. But uh, my
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: dot theory is I ask girls all the time, if
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you're dentalos, connect the dot drawings and so oh yeah,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: So there'd be a bunch of dots in the page
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and you say, what's the picture? I don't know. So
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: you start connecting dots, they'd be numbered. Eventually enough dots connect,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: we go, oh, it's going to be a Santa Claus
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: or it's going to be something and then you connect
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: them all it's like, oh yeah, it's going to be that.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So I think I think in this culture, like we've
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: been saying, I think people want you to know the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: final picture, like when you're fifteen, like what's your thing?
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: What you know? What's your job? What's your career going
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to be? And there's all these other parts about when
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: you need to make money and you can't. You can't
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: be a teacher or a nurse or whatever because they
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: don't make enough money. So then you start narrowing your choices.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Whereas I think that your job at your agent, even
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: though in the next whatever, five, ten, wherever years, is
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: together as many experiences as you can, try different things
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and see what you like. If you like something, not
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: just say I liked it, say well, why did I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: like it? What about this? You know? You know? Uh
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: was it? Did I like about it? That was? I was?
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I in those flow moments? Right, I lost myself I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: liked it so much. What kind of things up till
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: now have allowed you to be in those moments where
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you were really poured yourself into whatever it is? Because
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I think if you find things along the way that
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you pour yourself into I think that's how people that's
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: one define definition of success. I don't know what the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: price tag is on that as far as how much
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: you make, but I think I've read so many biographies
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: we were talking. I have twelve bookshelves in the basement here.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I've read so many biographies and books because I love
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: reading about biographies anyway. But most successful people would say
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: that they would say that they started with what fulfilled them,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: not what made money, but what fulfilled them, and then
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: they gathered moss along the way by by starting with
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: what fulfilled them, not like you work your butt off,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: but something that's like whatever. And then someday I'll be happy.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Someday I'll feel fulfilled because I'll have this boatload of money,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I have this house, and then I'll feel like, Okay,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: now I got it all. But there's so many examples around.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Read them news about so many unhappy adults right who
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: have sort of followed that script, and it didn't lead
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: them to filled, happy life. It led them to I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: don't know, sort of the drudgery kind of life. So
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I think the more experiences the better. I was thinking.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I saw I saw and Anna Claire, one of our
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: camp counselors, and her and another of our camp counselors
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: have been doing all this traveling and one of them
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: is leaving on Wednesday. I think, uh in Alena, I
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: think she's living on Wednesday to go through the Camino Trail.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: And she's not gonna do like four days. She's gonna
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: do like, I think, a month, a month, or I
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: think the whole whatever it takes to do the whole
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Camino Trail in Spain. And they've been doing all kinds
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of other kinds of travel, kinds of things, something that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're in they're like in the early twenties.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So that's what you should I think that's what you
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: should be doing. And you can do that even as
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you gain your education. You can educate yourself in so
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: many ways. Right, I'm worried to our culture is setting
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: up and there's this one narrow path and you have
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to pick this because then you'll make a lot of money.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: And Okay, if you don't like it that much, it's okay,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: because I feel like, if I think it's hard to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: get off that track, if your whole life people have
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: been you know, smashing on that track, sure or not? True?
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: True?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I mean you're not there yet, but that would be
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: my worry for you, not you, but your generation is
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that they're you're limiting yourself yourselves.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because I feel like we're one of like
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: the I don't know, I feel like this this kind
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of pressure and this kind of pressure to figure it
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: out while we're still I don't know, teenagers is a
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: little more new. Like I look at my parents and
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I look at the pressures they had put on them,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: and like, my dad has had a billion different lives.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: It feels like with the different jobs and the different
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: people in the different places he's lived, and he is
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: happy and what some would call like what people would
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: define as successful.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: So it's interesting.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Where I'm curious to know, like where along the way
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: our parents picked up that that's like the best route
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: for us to do is to not I don't know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: just to have it figured out when when they were
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: our age they didn't. And the world is ever changing
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: so rapidly, so it's like if I plan something now,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: in a year, something new might exist or it might
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: even be gone.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: So it's just.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why I encourage you guys. You've probably heard
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: me say this a dozen times. Or more. I encourage
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you to read biographies to see how people got there.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I encourage you to have a cup of coffee with
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: people you see who love what they do, and say,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: how'd you get how'd you get here? You know, the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: culture is saying you should haven't figured out when you're sixteen,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and we're making these choices based upon these and I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: know who we are much less what I like. So
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: how'd you do it? And I would? I would, I would.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I would grill people and say, tell me your path,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: how'd you get here? How'd you have the courage to
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: do your own thing? You know, and do it? Do
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: it sort of against the grain, because otherwise all you
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: hear is like the educational narrative, which is one path
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: figured out early. You know, commit go for it, and
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: then stick with it. Put your nose to the grindstone.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I wonder also because there's so much energy around, not
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: just sports but activities. They are so time consuming, like
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: five or six days a week, and not for three months,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: but for how many months? Eleven eleven months? This is
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: your whole life, right, that's not just your sport. It
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you don't do a sport, you dance anyway, all those activities.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I think even if you like doing it, it ends
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: up becoming almost a job, I would think, because it's
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: so time intensive and there's no time. Then you get
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: home during the school year, what time do you get
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: home from your your practices olock ten o'clock. How long
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: is practice?
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: Well, I go to school from eight thirty ish to
• 29:04
  Speaker 7: three thirty ish and then practice is from four thirty
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: to nine thirty five days weeks.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: And it's just it's hard because it's like when am
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: I like my days off are Fridays and then like
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: half of the year Sundays, but the other half the
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: year I have practice, but so the only days I
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: have off are Fridays and Sundays, And it's just like,
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: do I want to spend that time doing a job?
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: Like I like, I am already twisted and turning trying to
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: figure out when to get my schoolwork done because this
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: show will be taking three eight p classes, so I'll
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: have three apps and then I'll be getting straight a's
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: and then also be dancing a six out of the
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: seven days a week or five out of the seven
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: days a week. So it's just like I'm I'm so busy,
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: and then I've got f family relationships, and I'm the
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: oldest sibling, so it comes with a lot of responsibility.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure out college and then all of
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: a sudden, it's like, well, I need gas money and
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: my parents are like, well, we don't have any money
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: to give you. You gotta go work for money. And I'm like,
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: I like the midnight shift I have myself. I have
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: no process my oceans. I am just always go, go, go,
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: go go, Like.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Sleeping.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: I crave sleeping because it's just stillness. It's the stillness.
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So, and so for those of you listening to this podcast,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: this is not the exception. If any of you have
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: kids who are any nose select sports, it's the rule.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: How about you you play a real sport. By the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: way they laughing, I always say, nor for it to
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: be a sport has to have a ball or a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: ball equivalent. And what's the other point?
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: So I have been swimming for about ten years now,
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: and I recently transitioned over to water polo, which.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: I'm looking to do in college.
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: And my schedule over the summer has looked like like
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: I am getting up at five am, five out of
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: seven days of the week to go practice for two
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: hours in the morning at six.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: It's practices from six to eight every.
• 31:19
  Speaker 6: Morning in like water polo, and I like, I love
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: it to death, but it's like getting up that early
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: every morning.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: When it's spending the summer.
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: And then I have to Sundays, I would do multiple
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: practices a day because I would go to swim and then.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: In the evenings I would have work. And so it's
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: just like one to like one thing after another. And
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I you.
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: Will never see me in a pool for fun now
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: because I am.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: In a pool so often for my sport. And so
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: my family would be like.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Hey, do you want to go to the pool, and
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: I'm like, no, it's it's it's my time to be
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: away from them.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I want to go to work.
• 31:57
  Speaker 6: Like so it's just it's kind of a thing where
• 32:00
  Speaker 6: like it's taken I love my sport and what I do,
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: but it's taken the fun out of other aspects of
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: that for me because it's just work, work, work, work, work.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: And there's some kids on my swim seam. I'm not
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: as devoted to swim as some of these other kids,
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: but I've heard from my like some freshmen that they
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: skipped homecoming to go to swim practice, and they're missing
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: out on some of the most fun things in their
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: high school career to do something that they might not
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: even want to do when they're older.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, wow, that's so sad. That And the other
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: part is there's you sort of mentioned it, kind of
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: there's no time to think about do I like this?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Who am I? Or am I learning about myself? I'm seventeen. Yeah,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I'm seventeen years old. That's part of what I should
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: be doing at this age is figuring myself out. Yeah,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and I need to have some time to take some walks,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: or to journal, or to be with my friends. God forbid,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you have some time. You just goof off with your friends,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: trying to do journaling, time to do whatever anything, read books,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: read biographies. There's there's so little, there's no time for that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: That's that's the kind of getting to know yourself stuff
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: that would help. I think you'll make those decisions about
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: where do I want to do I want to go
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to college. If I do where, why what do I
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: want to study? At least for now, I think that
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: takes thought, It takes quiet time. I feel like your
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: generation is lacking that because your schedules are so that's
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: oh god, it's horrible. Am I look guess I'm I'm
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: a little older than you guys play like one hundred years.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like that back in the day, and we
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: don't know. I worked in a lot and I did
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: sports a lot, but it wasn't like that we had
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: more time to goof off or if you want, if
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: you're if your parents get worried, like I don't want
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you guys to have time to goof off because any
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: might get in trouble. Is that every part of the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, I.
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: Feel it in my home personally, but just like.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Do you everything?
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Do you ever talk about this stuff with your friends?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Like the part about having to be perfect and not
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: having any time to just goof off, the part about
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I feel so behind you guys? Do you guys ever
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: talk about that stuff with your friends?
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I'd say.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: This past year and like March, I contacted my best
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: friend and I was like, Hey, when are you free next?
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: And she was like. I was like, I really want
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: to hang out with you and she was like, I'm
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: not free until June. Ably me too, me too. Looking
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: at my schedule, I was like me too. Okay, So
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: it's just like, I don't know it. I do feel
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: like there's a part, there's a there's like a fear
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: in a lot of adults nowadays that it's just like
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: if I, if I don't keep you doing things that
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: you're you can do and that you're allowed to do,
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: and you're supposed to be doing well when I let you,
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: when I let you off the hook, what what are
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: you gonna do?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: You know, Like, I don't know, it's hard to explain,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: but it.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Seems like you'd be more likely to go crazy and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: do some things when you're so cooped up ninety five
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: percent of your life. Maybe you know, what would you
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: what would you all like from your parents? How would
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: you like them to approach this time in your life?
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: If it's not gonna be about urging you to take
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: all the AP classes and all that stuff we've been
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: talking about, how would you like for them to to
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: approach you or or to parents you are to be
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: there for you.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I one big thing for me that you guys might
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: well you'll basically soon or later.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: I'm leaving it for college, and I'm about two hours
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: away from home.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm what I want from.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: My parents is I'm I'm like a little nervous that
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: we won't be able to communicate well when I'm gone,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: because my parents don't really text a whole lot. Sometimes
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: they'll call, but they're not super techy. But I just
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: I want a consistent way to contact like my family,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: and I want them to ask questions about how am
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I feeling about every new thing that's going on, because
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I can tell you every new thing that's going on,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: because trust me, I'm thinking about it, but I don't
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: know if I've stopped to assess how I feel about it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that even just a simple phone call
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: from someone I love would be great.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: If you can look back just in the past year
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: or two, is there anything how would you have liked
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: you for your parents to have some toward to you
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: differently if you do want them to as far as
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: this whole process about college and your path and all that.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I think my.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: I think I would have liked a little more encouragement
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: to explore options when I was younger, because I said previously,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: I was very narrow minded, Like my mom was really
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: smart and she was an engineer, and I was like Okay,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be an engineer and I'm going to
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: do this, so I can, you know, be this like
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: star child for my parents, And I wish I don't know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: I kind of wish they like that's probably amazing to
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: see as a parent, being like, oh my god, I
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: made a little mini me, but it's also to encourage
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: growth outside of that would have maybe made myself feel
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: like I was okay to do that because I felt
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: I had to be that prodigy som.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Okay about you and you're a junior, So how would
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you want them to support you at this point in
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: your life.
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: I feel like I have always been kind of since
• 38:14
  Speaker 6: since kind of like the COVID era started. It's kind
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: of like I've supported myself and I've kind of been
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: like the easy child, and so I kind of do
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: I kind of do my own thing, like academically and stuff.
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: And I wish that they had been just kind of like.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: I was, like, my parents have always done a pretty
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: good job.
• 38:36
  Speaker 8: They've never really excessively pushed the grades on me.
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: But I guess I always wish there would kind of
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: be like a lot of a little bit more like
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: I don't live I live in the physical household, but
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: like I wish I would get.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: A little bit more like like just.
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: Like hugs and like physical love and stuff because my
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: parents are really busy too, and so because my dad's
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: out like every four days, he's on for two days
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: at work, and so sometimes I just feel like I
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: wish we could do more stuff as a family because
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm leaving in a year to go to college,
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: and so I want to spend as much time with
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: my family as I can. But it's like everyone's constantly
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: doing stuff, and so I feel like we don't, like
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: we don't eat family dinner as much together as we
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: used to because we're all just we're all just really busy,
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: and so sometimes I'm just like, man, like I wish
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: we could just do stuff together as like.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: A family and just kind of hang out like, well
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: we can.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: So I guess the family dinner has to be at
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: midnight last swimming practice, Yeah, right, I was. I was
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: similar in my childhood. I had I had seven siblings,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: two older brothers and then five younger sisters. But I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: was the good kid. I got good grades, and so
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I think they this is my assessment. It looked at
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: me like he's fine, we need to focus on, you know,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: the problem kids quote unquote. And so in the way
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: it felt good because they trusted me. But and it's
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: also like, well, also, I have needs too, even if
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I'm getting good grades, you know or whatever. Just to me,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I don't have needs. Yeah, how about you? How would
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: you like for your parents to support you at this
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: point in your life?
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of the time it's just like.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Either my parents are coming up to me and being like,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: you need to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: like this week, this is your main priority. Then you
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: have this and then you have this and then you
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: have this, or like my parents will wake up and
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: be like, all right, you're your scheduled for today. You
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: have this, this, this, this, this, this, this, These are
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: the things you need to get done.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: These are the things you need to do for me.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And it's just like it's either that or.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: They pay absolutely no attention to me and and their
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: like main focus is like.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: My little sisters. So I kind of going into senior year,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I feel like what would be most beneficial.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: For me is if they could just not be all
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: up in my face all the time about what I
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: need to get done and what my schedule looks like,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: like have a little faith that I know what I
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: need to do this week. I know I have danced today,
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: I know what classes I have today, Like I know
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: I have music lessons today.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Like have just like a little more faith.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: And that I don't need that direct like here's what
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: you need to get done. But then also like still
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: be a part of my life and still come up
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: to me and be like, how how can I support
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: you this week? Or how can I help you with this?
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Or what can I do to make your life a
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: little easier today? Or like is there anything I can
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: take off your plate? Just like being more supportive vocally
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: rather than like telling me what I need to get
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: done and then leaving me to go do it without
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: any guidance or support or anything like that.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: And it's just I would think too. I think one
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: of the things I hear you saying is you would
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: want them to check in period and to say how
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: you doing anything you need from us. I don't want
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: to get in your hair. I don't want to be
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: all in your business. I trust you can figure this
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: out house. No, it's it can be a stressful process.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: The whole college thing so we're here. We're here, you know,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: maybe we can sit down every week or two just
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: check in and how you're doing with all that, and
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: we can ask you again, what do you need now?
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: What what you need now? You know, at the end
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: of the summer may be different than what you need
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: in October. I don't remember what the deadline start for college,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: but there's I'm sure there's different times where you might
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: need some things from them. Perhaps. I also wonder what
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: you could do with your friends. I mean, our camp
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: is such a nice community where people trust each other,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: they talk, they share. I mean, so they all on
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: load and so they all hear each other. Oh okay,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: they get to know each other so deeply, so quickly.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering how you could do that with your friends.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: So you one, in fact, you're the only one. It
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: feels like you're behind.
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: That.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Does that sound weird or is that some doable?
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I think that's doable. I I don't know. It's like
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: you did say, it's different than camp. It's a little scarier,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: but I mean it's just just for me.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: A lot of the times I've asked my friends who
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: are going through like the whole college process, I'll ask
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: the questions like, oh, do do.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: You have anything picked out? And you know, they might
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: answer me.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: And then it's just it's a requirement on your part
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: to be a little uncomfortable and take that step of
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: being like, how are you feeling about that? Because a
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: lot of the times we don't introduce that aspect of like,
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: you know, we're having real emotions, not just going through
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: the motions of oh, I'll choose this school and now
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: I hope I'll get this scholarship and there's a lot
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: of change, and I mean I would ask my friends,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: I'm like, how are you feeling? And we did talk
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: a little bit about being anxious about it and the
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: anxiety of like financial aid and all of that, and
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: it was it was really good, But it is.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: It's awkward. It's a lit uncomfortable.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I just hate to sit hearing you guys walking around
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the hallways thinging I'm the only one. I'm the only
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: one who's behind everybody else's got direct together. You know,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I'm the only one who's feeling all this when it's like,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: of course you're not. They're all I don't know if
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: they all are, but I would think everybody's thinking some
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: of it, some people maybe more than others. What what's
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: what's the this is the million other question. What's what's
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the answer to for the educational system? What could they
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: do to support you guys better through through this kind
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of process.
• 44:43
  Speaker 8: I feel like definitely like pushing the narrative of like
• 44:48
  Speaker 8: all the acts and stuff like they just like push
• 44:51
  Speaker 8: it a little bit less because it's like some kids,
• 44:54
  Speaker 8: like some kids aren't good at standardized testing, Like.
• 44:58
  Speaker 9: I one hundred percent believe that the act is not
• 45:02
  Speaker 9: a reflection or like even the sat or they're not
• 45:05
  Speaker 9: reflections of how smart you are.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: It's how good you are at that kind of test.
• 45:11
  Speaker 9: Because I have friends who are extremely intelligent, but they
• 45:16
  Speaker 9: have like ADHD and so they can't finish the test
• 45:20
  Speaker 9: in the time that you need to finish the test
• 45:24
  Speaker 9: because they give you like for like, shoot, which portion
• 45:28
  Speaker 9: is it? It might be the grammar portion of the act,
• 45:30
  Speaker 9: Like you get like less than a minute per question,
• 45:33
  Speaker 9: and you're having to read these passages and analyze what
• 45:38
  Speaker 9: you think the correct grammatical answer is. And so I
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: just feel like pushing these standardized testing a little bit
• 45:43
  Speaker 9: less would just help, because like most colleges are test
• 45:46
  Speaker 9: optional anyways, and so it's like you don't even need
• 45:50
  Speaker 9: the test score to get in, So it's like, why
• 45:52
  Speaker 9: do I have.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: To have a perfect score?
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: So how about you?
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I just feel like going along with that, Like it's
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: just I don't feel any sort of like support for
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: my trusted adults at school, Like I feel like they're
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: just kind of like, I don't know, it's it's hard
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: to It's it's hard for them. I feel like to
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: understand the struggle to sit still in one spot for
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: an hour and a half and be a a tentative
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: for multiple classes throughout the day. Like that's why I'm
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: an orchestra and I really enjoy it because I'll like
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: take two classes where there's three hours where I'm just
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: sitting in one spot having to like be focused and
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: listen and work, and it's just it's hard. It's hard
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: for me personally. And then I'll get to orchestra and
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: I can get up and I can move and I
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: can stand up and play my violin or I can
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: sit down and play my violin, and it's just like
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: it's a lot different from just looking at a screen
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: for three hours being able to actually play the music
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: and connect with the people around me. So I feel
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: like if there was more just like I don't know,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: like maybe even just like brain breaks, I don't know,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: I feel like it'd be a lot more helpful for
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: me personally. That's what I would enjoy or benefit from,
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: if I could just like have like a five to
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: ten minute break every hour, rather than the walk through
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: the hallway, the five minute walk from class to class.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: That's nothing, that's not a break. That's it's less.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at during school, at school to have some most breaks, yeah,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: after school, have some of those breaks, because if you're
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: going from that to a five hour practice, there's there's
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: no break in there. People might say, well, well you're
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: you know, dancing, you're swimming, you're playing basketball, whatever. Well yeah,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: but there's a coach screaming at you, and there's all
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: this pressure. It's like, that's not really a break, like
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: a mental emotional break. It's it's different. But well, thank
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: you all so much for adding your expertise. And I
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: hope this is is I hope parents have heard this.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: If you have a son or a daughter who's in
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: middle school or high school, especially and or earlier. I
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: see some girls in my counseling parts sometimes who are younger,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: who are already starting to feel some of that by
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: fiftish grade, especially about time they're in late middle school
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: or high school. I think this is not just a
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: private school thing. There's not just a certain part of
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the country thing. This is everywhere. I think this pressure
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: is everywhere on young people today, and I think it's
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: undue pressure. It's unreasonable. I don't think it helps. I
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: don't think it fits with most people's life narratives. If
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you talk to adults, do like I didn't read you know,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of biographies, that's just not how the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: world works for most people who end up being happy
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and fulfilled and doing cool things. That's not that it
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: hasn't been their path. So I hope you take this
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: to heart and more importantly, listen to your kids. Ask
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: them how they're feeling about where they're at. It's with
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: their life, with school, with their activities, because I think
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of times the girls I work with, they're
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: afraid to tell their parents they're done with soccer because
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: they say they've invested so much time and so much money.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: And that's who that's our our whole social life is
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: that's their family, and that's their friends. It's like if
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I quit, it's like the whole the whole system will
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: blow up. But they I'm laughing, but they feel that way,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: like I can't quit because because of all those reasons.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: So I would like to let you. I would like
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: for your kids to know that if they're tired of something,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: if they're done with it, it's okay no matter what you've invested,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: that it's okay that they got wherever they got out
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: of it, and to get somebody else out of something else,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: especially why the pressure about all those externals that we
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: spend way too much time focusing on test scores and
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: grades and what team they're on and what you know,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: what level and what level of a you know, travel
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: team they're on, all those kinds of things. As always, uh,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: check out the website at www dot d R Tim
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Jordan dot com for other resources I have I've done.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I've done some other podcasts on similar kind of topics
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: that you might find interesting. I'll put some of those
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: in my show notes as well. I really appreciate you
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: showing up every week to listen to these and also
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: for passing them on to your friends. I think this
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: would be a good one. Two things. Number one to
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: pass on to your friends. Number two, pass on to
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: your daughter or son, and maybe that can spark a
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: conversation about how they're feeling about all this stuff. That
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: might be the opening that you need to have have
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: them open up and be more real about what they're
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: feeling and what they're experiencing. I'll be back here in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: a week with a brand new topic and a brand
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: new podcast. Thank you, as always for stopping by.