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EPISODE 22: Is Your High Schooler Making These College Mistakes? · Parent's Talk with Francine Juhlin

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Speaker 1: Parents, Are you confident that your high school students are
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Speaker 1: ready for college?
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Speaker 2: Into today's episode of Parents Talk, my friend Margot Thomas
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Speaker 2: is going to talk to you about how to prepare
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Speaker 2: your kids for college.
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Speaker 3: Welcome to Parents Talk, the podcast for parents who want
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Speaker 3: to raise confident, resilient kids and build strong self esteem.
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Speaker 3: Hosted by Francine Jelene aka Princess Francie and founder of
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Speaker 3: the Confidence Club for Kids. Each episode gives you actionable
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Speaker 3: parenting tips, tools and strategies to help your children thrive,
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Speaker 3: break the cycle of negative childhood programming and grow and
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Speaker 3: is self assured empowered adults. Let's get started.
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Speaker 2: Margo tell us about you and I am really I've
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Speaker 2: known you a long time, but I never did hear
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Speaker 2: the story on how you started writing books about college prep.
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Speaker 1: I was at Tallahassee Community College now Tallahassee State College,
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Speaker 1: running a program called Take Stock and Children, which is
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Speaker 1: a Florida based program for students of I guess lower
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Speaker 1: socio economics, predominantly first generation students, although they aren't always
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Speaker 1: working with that. I realized that, okay, actually like students.
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Speaker 2: Well.
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Speaker 1: I started out working in budgeting, so I was the
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Speaker 1: office manager. Managing the grants, managing the budget, and then
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Speaker 1: segued into programming and realized that I actually liked the kids.
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Speaker 1: So once I got into that. I think at some
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Speaker 1: point I had gone to a conference and they gave
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Speaker 1: us a book, and that book was something about first
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Speaker 1: generation college students. It was simple, easy to read, and
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Speaker 1: as I looked at it, I had that aha moment
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Speaker 1: like wow, I could have written and then that started
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Speaker 1: the thought of well, maybe I could write that, and
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Speaker 1: then I had Well, usually we worked with high Midland
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Speaker 1: High school students, and I realized that our parents of
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Speaker 1: seniors would always ask fifty million questions after the students graduated,
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Speaker 1: as opposed to the whole time we were providing the
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Speaker 1: students with all this information and resources, they never asked.
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Speaker 1: And I was getting a lot of questions at the
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Speaker 1: last minute, and so I thought, well, why not just
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Speaker 1: answer those questions and put it in a book that
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Speaker 1: is simple, easy to read that my parents would be
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Speaker 1: interested in reading as a potent as opposed to maybe
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Speaker 1: a professor or a teacher. So I wanted to be
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Speaker 1: as simple and easy to follow as possible, and that
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Speaker 1: was where I started writing.
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Speaker 2: Okay, we don't have enough time today for a million questions,
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Speaker 2: not at all. But what first off, audience you're watching this,
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Speaker 2: if you have a specific question, to drop it in
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Speaker 2: the comments and we'll see if we could get back
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Speaker 2: to you on that. Of course, we're going to tell
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Speaker 2: you how to get Margo's books. So if you do
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Speaker 2: have that million questions you need answered, you can just
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Speaker 2: buy the book. But Margo give parents the number one
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Speaker 2: top answer to the number one question always asked.
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Speaker 1: How do I get my student in college free? How
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Speaker 1: do we get them through college free? And the answer
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Speaker 1: is that all doesn't always happen. It's a small group
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Speaker 1: of students that actually get through totally free. What I
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Speaker 1: would say is, if you work with your students, if
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Speaker 1: they're choosing the right major, they are choosing the college
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Speaker 1: that fits them, whether it's affordability, it's in the right location,
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Speaker 1: it offers the degrees that they're looking for, and it's
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Speaker 1: just the right fit for them socially and everything else.
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Speaker 1: Then you know those two things are usually what would
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Speaker 1: help a student make the right decision about going to college.
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Speaker 1: Then they don't have to worry about spending a whole
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Speaker 1: lot of money, wasting time, or spending spending their wheels
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Speaker 1: in college because they're trying to figure it out while
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Speaker 1: they're in college, as opposed to figure it out before
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Speaker 1: they get there.
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Speaker 2: Interesting, So your books are going to guide the families
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Speaker 2: through the process so once they get there, they have
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Speaker 2: the financial part of it taken care of and they
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Speaker 2: don't have to worry about that while they're trying to study.
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Speaker 1: Right hopefully hopefully hopefully Yeah, because I mean I talk
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Speaker 1: about in the book. I mean I do a lot
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Speaker 1: of talking about how to get scholarships, how to write
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Speaker 1: the essays. I talk about how to determine the career
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Speaker 1: that works for that student, and not a career that
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Speaker 1: someone else is telling them is good for them, or
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Speaker 1: even a career that people are saying that this is
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Speaker 1: good for you because it makes X amount of dollars.
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Speaker 2: No, do that. Let them choose their major based on
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Speaker 2: their desires, right, passions, right, what will bring them joy?
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Speaker 1: Right?
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Speaker 2: Right?
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Speaker 1: Because if you choose a major, and you know, you
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Speaker 1: choose a major that you don't really like, and then
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Speaker 1: you get into your career, at some point, you're going
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Speaker 1: to realize that I don't really like doing this, you know,
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Speaker 1: And so if you if you are like For example,
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Speaker 1: I had a student who was a computer programming major,
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Speaker 1: and she was good at computer programming. Her problem was
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Speaker 1: she had to put a whole lot more effort into
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Speaker 1: it and someone else who really enjoyed it. And every
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Speaker 1: at the end of every semester, I'd say, before finals,
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Speaker 1: she would call me in a panic because she realized
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Speaker 1: that it was she wasn't sleeping, she was spending so
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Speaker 1: much time doing the work. And then her classmates were
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Speaker 1: just you know, sailing through this. And then when she graduated,
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Speaker 1: she was the semester she was graduating, she called and
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Speaker 1: she said, I don't know if I really want to
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Speaker 1: do this. She had done an internship, and she'd done
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Speaker 1: a virtual internship because we were right in the middle
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Speaker 1: of the pandemic, and she called and said, hey, I
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Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know if I really enjoy this.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if I really want to go so
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Speaker 1: far away. I don't want to go to Silicon Valley.
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Speaker 1: I want to stay close to my family. And so
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Speaker 1: we had to talk have all these conversations, and then
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Speaker 1: finally I said, well, stay another semester, talk to your
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Speaker 1: talk to your professors, and find out if there is
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Speaker 1: a way that you can segue this degree or with
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Speaker 1: the classes that you were having in this degree into
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Speaker 1: something that maybe you just take an extra semester and
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Speaker 1: work through it. And she did, and she ended up
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Speaker 1: still staying in computer programming. But you know, I think
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Speaker 1: she was going to just suffer it through and I
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Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't necessarily agree with that, but she
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Speaker 1: that was a decision she made.
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Speaker 2: Gotta wonder if the parents were pushing her in that
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Speaker 2: direction because of the lucid field.
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Speaker 1: Well, so she was Asian and her father had passed
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Speaker 1: away a few years back. I don't think her mother
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Speaker 1: was pushing her. I think she was pushing herself a
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Speaker 1: little bit more because she felt like that was expected
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Speaker 1: of her. I think her sister wanted to do education
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Speaker 1: and her mom was okay with that. I don't think
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Speaker 1: the mom was pushing so much. But I think with
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Speaker 1: the culture, there was this this is something that you
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Speaker 1: had to do. You couldn't really go and do like
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Speaker 1: maybe social work or I mean, she probably would have
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Speaker 1: done okay in accounting if that was something she would
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Speaker 1: she liked, but she chose that. I mean, we did
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Speaker 1: so working with her. I did a career assessment with
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Speaker 1: her interest assessment with her, and when we walked through
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Speaker 1: and talked about the careers that came up, nothing came
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Speaker 1: up with computers. But she said, no, well, I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: stick through it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. And I haven't talked to her
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Speaker 1: in a while, so I don't know how she's handling it,
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Speaker 1: but I saw that as being something that maybe she
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Speaker 1: would quit that sooner than later.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk about the career assessment. Is that something that
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Speaker 2: you do in your coaching or is that something they
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Speaker 2: could find in the resources in your book?
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Speaker 1: A combination? I use. I use an assessment, an interest
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Speaker 1: assessment from onnet online. It's a government website and a
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Speaker 1: lot of I know, well, I will say I know.
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Speaker 1: Florida Department of Education also has a separate assessment as well,
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Speaker 1: but I use that one because it's easy. It's like
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Speaker 1: sixty questions, things like do you like working with your hands?
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Speaker 1: Do you like working outside? Do you like working by yourself?
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Speaker 1: And it's just a agree, strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree,
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Speaker 1: strongly disagree, and as you go through answering those questions,
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Speaker 1: like I would usually tell students don't think about it.
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Speaker 1: It's it's what the first answer that comes to mind
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Speaker 1: is the one that you answer. And then once it's done,
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Speaker 1: you get a report of the type of somewhat personality
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Speaker 1: that you have and then the type of careers that
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Speaker 1: people who have similar interests are interests it in. And
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Speaker 1: so I do work with that with students when I'm
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Speaker 1: coaching them. But it's also I don't go through the
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Speaker 1: details of it in the planner, but I tell them
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Speaker 1: where to go and then kind of help them walk
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Speaker 1: through it a little bit there. But one on one
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Speaker 1: or in a group setting, we would definitely go through
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Speaker 1: the process of doing the assessment and then you know,
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Speaker 1: going through it and just saying, okay, I've let's say
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Speaker 1: you get you have twenty potential. It's going through and
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Speaker 1: saying definitely not that, definitely not that, definitely not that,
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Speaker 1: and then narrowing it down to maybe five, six, seven,
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Speaker 1: and then do some research on those to decide, Okay,
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Speaker 1: which one of these do I think I would really
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Speaker 1: be interested in, because I know, for me, like in
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Speaker 1: high school or before I got into high school, I
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Speaker 1: said I wanted to be a lawyer. And I'm saying
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Speaker 1: this to you as a Toastmaster. The reason why I
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Speaker 1: did not pursue law was because I was afraid to
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Speaker 1: talk in front of people.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. And now you are the queen of
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Speaker 2: toast Masters. And for anyone listening that doesn't know what
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Speaker 2: toast Masters is, Margot and I belonged to an international
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Speaker 2: organization where we practice our communication and leadership skills. If
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Speaker 2: you have a child approaching college age and they're getting
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Speaker 2: ready for the interviews for college, if they're getting ready
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Speaker 2: to write their essays, I highly encourage you to find
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Speaker 2: a toast Masters club and get them practicing.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that will be amazing. And I you know,
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Speaker 1: a lot of times people don't think about how that
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Speaker 1: would work for them, but a lot of I went
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Speaker 1: through college unable to speak of people. I started my
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Speaker 1: career unable to speak in front of people like one
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Speaker 1: on one. I was fine, but when I had to
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Speaker 1: go into a meeting and have to give a presentation,
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Speaker 1: I flooded. I mean, red face. Everything in my heart
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Speaker 1: would be pounding as I get you know, as I'm
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Speaker 1: waiting for my name to be called, I could hear
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Speaker 1: the heartbeat in my air, and it was terrible. And
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Speaker 1: then finally I said, okay, Margot, I'd taken over a
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Speaker 1: position as the manager in the accounting firm, the office
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Speaker 1: of the accounting firm that I was in, and still
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Speaker 1: could not just it was terrible. And then I heard
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Speaker 1: about toast Masters before and thought, well, maybe I should
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Speaker 1: try that. But then when I went in and looked at,
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Speaker 1: you know, watched other people, I thought, nah, I can't
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Speaker 1: do that, and so I didn't go back for years,
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Speaker 1: and then finally I said, okay, you have to do this.
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Speaker 1: And as I you know, the longer I was in it,
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Speaker 1: the more confident I've become, and I always say that
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Speaker 1: that was that was what I got out of toast
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Speaker 1: Master is confidence, which confidence, and.
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Speaker 2: That is so important. Parents. Don't let your kids wait
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Speaker 2: till they're an adult. Help build that confidence at a
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Speaker 2: young age. And toast Masters has youth leadership. Yes, if
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Speaker 2: you want to start a youth leadership organization in your
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Speaker 2: school or in your church, please contact one of us
13:38
Speaker 2: and we could get you connected with people who can
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Speaker 2: help you do that. Let's talk about something else that's
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Speaker 2: really exciting going on now. We are both children's book authors,
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Speaker 2: so not only does Margo write books to help you
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Speaker 2: get your kids into. But do you have any young
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Speaker 2: ones in the house, any littles. She writes books for them.
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Speaker 2: Two tell them about your is It's in Yours of
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Speaker 2: Christmas book.
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Speaker 1: One of them is a Christmas book. It's called Christmas
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Speaker 1: Christmas with Alex and pop Up. I lost my husband
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Speaker 1: a few years ago and I wanted my grandson to
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Speaker 1: remember him, and so I went through and looked at
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Speaker 1: photos that they had taken over the years, over the
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Speaker 1: Christmases and decided that I would write about the adventures
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Speaker 1: that they had at Christmas. And so that was the
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Speaker 1: start of it. And once I got it done, I realized, Okay,
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Speaker 1: I spend enough money on this. Maybe I need to
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Speaker 1: not only let this be a Christmas gift, but I
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Speaker 1: need to publish this so that others could actually enjoy it.
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Speaker 1: So that was what I did with that one. And
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Speaker 1: then I have two others. Children's book which is The
15:03
Speaker 1: Summer We Said Goodbye. It's a fiction book, and they
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Speaker 1: also The Summer We Said Goodbye, which is a fourteen
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Speaker 1: day journal, and that one is more for preteens. Again,
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Speaker 1: we talk about confidence is the confidence de grief. I
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Speaker 1: was asked in a grief group when Initially, when my
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Speaker 1: first husband first passed away, I was asked how did
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Speaker 1: I learn how to grieve as a child, and I
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Speaker 1: couldn't think of anything. And that made me then think about, well,
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Speaker 1: how is my grandson and granddaughter working through these processes?
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Speaker 1: How are they learning to grieve from me? And I
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Speaker 1: decided to write a story about it, and it worked
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Speaker 1: out pretty well. I liked it. I liked how it
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Speaker 1: turned out. I got a fifteen year old to read
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Speaker 1: it and give me some feedback, and she was the
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Speaker 1: one that said, well, maybe your audience is probably more
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Speaker 1: preteen to early teens for it, But it is talking
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Speaker 1: about these two preteens again, Alex and Abigail, the name
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Speaker 1: of my grandkids. They are moving their Gigi loosely based
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Speaker 1: on me, from her home to their city to be
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Speaker 1: closer to their family, which is loosely based on my
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Speaker 1: life and based on theirs. But the story is them
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Speaker 1: talking through and working through their grief.
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Speaker 2: I love that because that's one subject that's really not
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Speaker 2: It's almost taboo, and it shouldn't be. Yes, I love
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Speaker 2: that you're bringing that into mainstream to help families going
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Speaker 2: through that situation.
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Speaker 1: Yes, because you never know. I mean, until you get
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Speaker 1: until you get to that point. I had never even
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Speaker 1: considered it before until I mean, and even going through
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Speaker 1: the last three years, I hadn't considered it until last year.
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Speaker 1: Late last year I thought about it like, Okay, maybe
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Speaker 1: I should write something that relates to Abigail because Alex
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Speaker 1: has a book, Abigail doesn't. And then as I was
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Speaker 1: writing it, it just kind of morphed into both of them,
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Speaker 1: and so she wasn't necessarily the main character.
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Speaker 2: They both were equal opportunity.
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Speaker 1: And it's a legacy because now you know that's something
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Speaker 1: that they could share with their children at some point
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Speaker 1: that that brings up the conversations of their pop pap
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Speaker 1: as they go as they get older. It keeps a
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Speaker 1: memory of him, but also it creates a legacy for
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Speaker 1: him as well as for me.
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Speaker 2: And I encourage the audience to get this book because
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Speaker 2: even if you didn't have a recent loss in your family,
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Speaker 2: talking through it before it happens could be very beneficial.
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Speaker 2: Then in the situation arises a year later, you'd say,
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Speaker 2: remember this book we read, right, take them through the process.
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Speaker 1: Yes, And then you're looking at with kids nowadays, I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's happening, so much earlier. Your eleven eleven year old
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Speaker 1: twelve year old may lose a friend at school. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and it's the same process of figuring out how to
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Speaker 1: navigate through the grief by talking it through as opposed
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Speaker 1: to bottling it up, which is a lot of times
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Speaker 1: how we do it. We just let it bottle up.
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Speaker 1: And I always think of, you know, when I think
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Speaker 1: about grief or how we deal with grief, is I
18:51
Speaker 1: always feel like, you know, you have a say, a
18:53
Speaker 1: coke bottling, and you shake it up, and you keep
18:56
Speaker 1: shaking it up, and you keep shaking it up, and
18:58
Speaker 1: eventually one day you crack that top and everything explodes.
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Speaker 1: And so that's the way to me grief is if
19:08
Speaker 1: you keep it bottled and bottled and you're pushing it
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Speaker 1: down and pushing it down, eventually it's going to bubble
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Speaker 1: up and explode. So I think younger kids need to
19:20
Speaker 1: learn how to process that grief in a positive way.
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Speaker 2: And like any kind of healing, it's like peeling an onion.
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Speaker 2: You peel that first skin off and you think everything's okay,
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Speaker 2: and then it bubbles up again and then you peel
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Speaker 2: another layer off. When you were talking about you know,
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Speaker 2: maybe your child loss of a school friend. I immediately
19:44
Speaker 2: saw a vision of my old dog on her you know,
19:47
Speaker 2: her last days. Yeah, it bubbled up again.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because because that's true. I mean, it could
19:54
Speaker 1: could even be that child is trying to navigate loss
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Speaker 1: of a pet, right, It's the same grief or even
20:03
Speaker 1: we think about, you know, sometimes we don't think about
20:07
Speaker 1: in the grief world, people kind of cringe when you
20:11
Speaker 1: say divorce. You know that it's but it's still a loss.
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Speaker 1: It's still a grief. And so you may have someone,
20:19
Speaker 1: you may have a you know, parent split, and the
20:22
Speaker 1: child is still trying to figure out how to navigate
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Speaker 1: that grief.
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Speaker 2: Working in the adult confidence like I do and public
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Speaker 2: speaking coaching, writing coaching, I am constantly helping people process
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Speaker 2: grief that they pushed to the side when they were younger.
20:45
Speaker 2: I'm helping one of my friends write her story now,
20:49
Speaker 2: and she said it's almost like a therapy session because
20:54
Speaker 2: she'll be writing and all of a sudden a memory
20:57
Speaker 2: will come up and it's like that ugly monster in
21:01
Speaker 2: the closet. Funny, I just posted a short on YouTube
21:06
Speaker 2: about this, but she called it the monster in the closet.
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Speaker 2: He's got to pull that monster out and deal with it.
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Speaker 2: That way, it won't bubble up again later. And if
21:19
Speaker 2: we don't help kids, That's why I keep saying, let's
21:23
Speaker 2: raise strong and confident kids today instead of fixing broken
21:27
Speaker 2: adults later. Yes, if Heidi had taken care of these
21:37
Speaker 2: feelings when they were occurring, rather than shove them in
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Speaker 2: the closet, she wouldn't have to go through this now
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Speaker 2: of the pain of bringing it all back up again.
21:51
Speaker 2: But I love working with writers because as they're writing
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Speaker 2: their stories, things bubble up and it just makes the
22:03
Speaker 2: story so much richer.
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Speaker 1: Yes, I think you just remember because there are things
22:08
Speaker 1: that you forget. Oh.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was writing this book, the Magic Library,
22:17
Speaker 2: the kids go through the magic Hallway of mirrors where
22:22
Speaker 2: it's self reflection. Right. Well, as I'm writing this, I
22:27
Speaker 2: was only gonna put the one where I fell off
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Speaker 2: the horse and that's where I got the scar. Okay,
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Speaker 2: But then as I'm writing, I remembered sitting on attack
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Speaker 2: in the third grade and everyone making fun of me
22:42
Speaker 2: because I didn't feel it. Oh, because I was fat
22:46
Speaker 2: and her butt is so big she didn't even feel
22:50
Speaker 2: the attack. Well, it's stuck in the scene and skin right.
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Speaker 2: But then in this children's book for first through fifth graders,
23:04
Speaker 2: I wrote that Princess Rancy remembered that and how mortified
23:09
Speaker 2: she was when it was happening, and now she could
23:12
Speaker 2: giggle about it because it's that funny story.
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Speaker 1: Now, right, right, right, right, yeah, And they do become
23:19
Speaker 1: some of them do become funny later on now in
23:22
Speaker 1: the moment, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 2: But it's funny when you look back on it with
23:30
Speaker 2: a new perspective.
23:31
Speaker 1: Right.
23:32
Speaker 2: That was one of my vocabulary words in one of
23:35
Speaker 2: my videos.
23:36
Speaker 1: This perspective, perspective.
23:38
Speaker 2: This tree behind me at the beginning of the book,
23:42
Speaker 2: this is the tree of sadness, and Prince ancis sitting
23:45
Speaker 2: there sad that she has the scar on her lip.
23:48
Speaker 2: Then when she meets Sparkle Feathers and goes to the
23:51
Speaker 2: magic forest behind the other side of the tree, her
23:56
Speaker 2: perspectives changes and now it's the magical Wow.
24:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you talk about perspective. I was. I
24:05
Speaker 1: wrote something the other day and my Bible study was
24:10
Speaker 1: talking about it was it was an example of faith,
24:13
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, when we think about you're
24:16
Speaker 1: driving on the expressway and it starts to rain, and
24:20
Speaker 1: it's raining, so hard that you can't see in front
24:22
Speaker 1: of you. Yes, So now you have two options. You
24:28
Speaker 1: can either stop and you know, you pull over on
24:32
Speaker 1: the side of the road and just sit in the rain,
24:36
Speaker 1: or you can continue driving and realize that maybe two
24:41
Speaker 1: miles down the road there is sunshine. So yes, I
24:46
Speaker 1: forgot that that we drove back and all that range
24:49
Speaker 1: from Orlando.
24:50
Speaker 2: Yes, listeners, viewers, Margot is a fantastic driver, So glad
25:00
Speaker 2: I was in the passenger seat that day.
25:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate driving through rain, but you know, we
25:07
Speaker 1: gotta do what we gotta.
25:08
Speaker 2: Do as it sometimes just like who wants to go
25:11
Speaker 2: through the grief process, but sometimes you gotta do what
25:15
Speaker 2: you gotta do.
25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, either you sit there and let and let it
25:20
Speaker 1: consume you, or you walk every day. I had a
25:23
Speaker 1: conversation with someone at a book event last month. The
25:28
Speaker 1: lady had just lost her husband, maybe two or three
25:30
Speaker 1: weeks before, and she was like, well, how do you
25:33
Speaker 1: I mean, like, how do you get through it? And
25:35
Speaker 1: I said, well, you just keep going and she said,
25:39
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear that, you know, I don't
25:41
Speaker 1: want to hear some can response. And I said, well,
25:44
Speaker 1: I mean it's not a can response. It's you. You
25:48
Speaker 1: just keep going. I mean, I said, today, maybe I
25:51
Speaker 1: took a shower. Oooh tomorrow it maybe you know, I
25:55
Speaker 1: actually ate something. I you know, another day, maybe I
26:01
Speaker 1: got out of bed. But it's every day, every little thing.
26:06
Speaker 1: And that's with life in general. It's every little thing.
26:09
Speaker 1: You have to keep going if we have if there's
26:13
Speaker 1: challenges happening in your life, and I guess we could
26:16
Speaker 1: bring it back to children. If your child is going through,
26:20
Speaker 1: is experiencing some type of challenge right now, it's there
26:25
Speaker 1: is still a choice. Either they can sit there and
26:29
Speaker 1: wallow in it, or they can decide to look at
26:33
Speaker 1: it from a different perspective. And every day I will
26:36
Speaker 1: choose to do one thing that takes me forward. And
26:41
Speaker 1: whatever that is. It could be, you know, maybe I
26:44
Speaker 1: talk to someone. It could be maybe I just sit
26:47
Speaker 1: here and cry about it for a little while. You know,
26:49
Speaker 1: maybe I decide as an older child, maybe it's you know,
26:54
Speaker 1: I give myself maybe fifteen minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes
26:59
Speaker 1: to just sit in it and deal with it, you know,
27:03
Speaker 1: the every the emotional part of it. Let them deal
27:06
Speaker 1: with it in that moment and then move. You know,
27:10
Speaker 1: I find that sometimes culture says, we'll stop crying. Why
27:15
Speaker 1: are you crying about it? Why are you crying about it?
27:18
Speaker 1: Just just move on, Just move on. And maybe that's
27:20
Speaker 1: a generational thing as well. It's it's, you know, stop
27:23
Speaker 1: crying about it and just move on. But it's sometimes
27:26
Speaker 1: we need to be able to cry about it, because
27:28
Speaker 1: then you cry and you get the emotion out, and
27:31
Speaker 1: then you are you have a clara understanding of Okay,
27:34
Speaker 1: now what do I do. I've gotten the emotions out
27:36
Speaker 1: of it, so now I can I can think more
27:40
Speaker 1: clearly about what I need to do next. And tomorrow
27:44
Speaker 1: it may be I'm going to be emotional again and
27:47
Speaker 1: I have that emotion, but then, okay, now that that's out,
27:53
Speaker 1: what do I do next?
27:56
Speaker 2: And not everybody will take as drastic a measure as
27:59
Speaker 2: I did, because I didn't have Margo's book to teach
28:03
Speaker 2: me how to apply for scholarships and student loans and
28:07
Speaker 2: all of that stuff. And because of my family situation,
28:11
Speaker 2: there were a lot of programs that were closed off
28:15
Speaker 2: to me. So I joined the Navy. But that is
28:20
Speaker 2: a valid option. Not every child is meant to go
28:25
Speaker 2: to college. I had a wonderful career, learned to trade
28:30
Speaker 2: aircraft electrician for over thirty years. So just know that
28:37
Speaker 2: if your child does not want to go to college,
28:41
Speaker 2: it's not the end of the world. Trade school is
28:45
Speaker 2: a valid option.
28:47
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I mean, and I talk about college all
28:50
Speaker 1: the time in college prep, but I also tell my
28:53
Speaker 1: students decide what's going to work for you, because I
28:59
Speaker 1: can you go to college all I want? Right, And
29:02
Speaker 1: so you go to college and now you have two
29:04
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars one hundred thousand dollars and student loan
29:07
Speaker 1: that that you have to climb your way out of.
29:10
Speaker 1: And if you could go to trade school and do
29:14
Speaker 1: something that gets you closer to what it is that
29:16
Speaker 1: you really want to do, because I think it makes
29:19
Speaker 1: no sense for someone to spend a whole lot of
29:22
Speaker 1: money to go to school to come up with an
29:24
Speaker 1: English degree that they never use, right, or come out
29:28
Speaker 1: with a you know, some type of social science degree
29:32
Speaker 1: that they will never use. If whatever you're interested in,
29:38
Speaker 1: if you're interested in being a plumber, you know, Honestly,
29:41
Speaker 1: I talked with a group of tenth grade students last year.
29:47
Speaker 1: I would go into this class at one of the
29:48
Speaker 1: high schools here, and I talked about alternatives to your career,
29:54
Speaker 1: and we walked through different We did the career assessments,
30:00
Speaker 1: but then I also gave out these cards with different
30:04
Speaker 1: careers and I asked the students to go and research them.
30:08
Speaker 1: So they would research them. They had to tell me
30:09
Speaker 1: what the salary was, what type of skills, what type
30:13
Speaker 1: of education was needed, and then we talked it through.
30:17
Speaker 1: And then as we were going through the worksheet, by
30:20
Speaker 1: the PowerPoint I talked, I listed at some point maybe
30:26
Speaker 1: I think it was like thirty forty top thirty forty
30:30
Speaker 1: careers that don't require a traditional like a bachelor's degree.
30:35
Speaker 1: You can get maybe an associates degree. There are so
30:39
Speaker 1: many things in the health and medical field that you
30:43
Speaker 1: can do two years in college, a year and a
30:45
Speaker 1: half in college and get to work, yeah, and make
30:50
Speaker 1: decent money.
30:51
Speaker 2: I got an associate degree in electronics and I worked
30:53
Speaker 2: in a manufacturing plant making electronic music equipment. Wow, that
31:00
Speaker 2: was in between the Navy and the Army. Okay, but
31:07
Speaker 2: I just and that's where I learned I did not
31:09
Speaker 2: belong in a factory. I needed to be outside m H.
31:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and seeing that. But but but the good thing
31:17
Speaker 1: about that is understanding that, right right. So, so there
31:21
Speaker 1: are there are people who would say I'm an introvert
31:25
Speaker 1: and I don't like working with people, like, you know,
31:29
Speaker 1: I don't want to be working in a team all
31:30
Speaker 1: the time. Well, then maybe there's there are certain types
31:33
Speaker 1: of careers that you can work towards that don't require that.
31:38
Speaker 1: So like if you don't if you are not a
31:40
Speaker 1: people person and you don't like people, then nursing or
31:44
Speaker 1: being on the front line of the medical field, it's
31:47
Speaker 1: probably not what you want to do.
31:49
Speaker 2: Right, Please don't take a job as a cashier.
31:54
Speaker 1: No, please don't. But you know, and and speaking of
31:57
Speaker 1: like cashier, when you think about so, my and works
32:00
Speaker 1: for Target, and there's when you look. I never looked
32:08
Speaker 1: at retail as a career until she got into it, right,
32:13
Speaker 1: she did. Her degree was related to retail management, and
32:19
Speaker 1: when I was not, you know, she's in it. She
32:22
Speaker 1: does HR and they paid extremely well. I thought about
32:29
Speaker 1: it at some point and I said, I shouldn't have
32:31
Speaker 1: gone and did this for your degree in accounting. I
32:34
Speaker 1: could have gone and do retail. I liked my weekends.
32:36
Speaker 1: So then that's that.
32:38
Speaker 2: Yes, my husband was a store director for Elberton's Grocries
32:44
Speaker 2: and he said, number one, he never wanted another employee
32:47
Speaker 2: again after he retired, and number two, he wanted a
32:49
Speaker 2: job where he could have his weekends back because he
32:52
Speaker 2: never had a holiday. He never had a weekend. He
32:55
Speaker 2: you know, worked every shift. Yes, so that's another thing
33:01
Speaker 2: to consider. Do you are nine to five, would you
33:04
Speaker 2: rather work varied hours?
33:06
Speaker 1: Right?
33:08
Speaker 2: So? Right?
33:08
Speaker 1: Or even if you think about you know, sometimes there
33:12
Speaker 1: were a lot of work from home jobs. There aren't
33:14
Speaker 1: as many of them now. But I think about it
33:18
Speaker 1: as do I want a work from home job that
33:21
Speaker 1: I'm sitting like I clock into a computer in the morning,
33:25
Speaker 1: and then you know, I have to clock to SAM
33:27
Speaker 1: going to the restroom, clock the sam going to lunch,
33:30
Speaker 1: clock out at five o'clock. Or I'm stuck on the
33:33
Speaker 1: phone all day and I need to you know, there's
33:36
Speaker 1: this all of this FaceTime. Or would it be better
33:40
Speaker 1: for me to do a project based job where I'm
33:43
Speaker 1: still working from home, but you know, I have a
33:47
Speaker 1: project that needs to be done, and as long as
33:49
Speaker 1: I can show that the project is being done, no
33:52
Speaker 1: one really cares if I really work eight hours for
33:55
Speaker 1: that day, because one day I may work six hours
33:58
Speaker 1: and then another day I work ten because something needs
34:03
Speaker 1: to be done, and I'm okay with that type of
34:06
Speaker 1: work and not necessarily just sitting there all the time.
34:11
Speaker 1: And then even when you think about, like I said,
34:13
Speaker 1: my degree is in accounting, there was when I first
34:17
Speaker 1: started doing accounting, I realized that I couldn't do accounting
34:22
Speaker 1: like the traditional accounting because at the beginning and end
34:26
Speaker 1: of the month you can't take vacations. You are stuck.
34:30
Speaker 1: And then I did auditing, and part of that was
34:34
Speaker 1: during the busy season, we worked ten twelve hour days,
34:37
Speaker 1: so it's like you go to work in the morning,
34:39
Speaker 1: you work through lunch if you want to go home
34:42
Speaker 1: at a decent time, and then seven eight o'clock in
34:46
Speaker 1: the night, I'm driving home. So there's no life outside
34:51
Speaker 1: of work. And I decided that I didn't really want
34:54
Speaker 1: to do that, so in that same accounting firm, I
34:58
Speaker 1: switched and moved into the con Celtic side, which then
35:02
Speaker 1: I worked an eighty five.
35:04
Speaker 2: So I highly suggest parents when you are talking to
35:08
Speaker 2: your kids about what they want to do when they
35:12
Speaker 2: grow up or well, some people never grow up, you know.
35:17
Speaker 2: In my fifties, I had to decide what I wanted
35:19
Speaker 2: to do when I grew up when I got out
35:22
Speaker 2: of the military environment. But when you talk to your
35:25
Speaker 2: kids about what they want to do in their future,
35:29
Speaker 2: take all of this into account. And when they're young,
35:33
Speaker 2: they might not know the ramnifications of everything we just
35:38
Speaker 2: talked about, but it's all stuff that they should research,
35:43
Speaker 2: all stuff that they could ask Grandpa, they could ask grandma,
35:48
Speaker 2: they could ask their aunts and uncles about their careers
35:53
Speaker 2: and find out the pros and the cons of everything.
35:58
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, when you think about it, is you go
36:01
Speaker 1: to the doctor's office, you go to the dentist office
36:05
Speaker 1: to get your teeth clean. Hey, how do you get
36:08
Speaker 1: that kind of job?
36:09
Speaker 2: Like?
36:09
Speaker 1: What do you you cleaning my teeth? What do you do?
36:13
Speaker 1: How much education do you have to get for that?
36:16
Speaker 1: And you realize that they do a two year degree
36:19
Speaker 1: right right, they're doing this, they're doing an associate's degree,
36:22
Speaker 1: and they are ready to work.
36:24
Speaker 2: There's so much more to consider than can my kid
36:28
Speaker 2: go to college for free? Right? Definitely, so much more
36:32
Speaker 2: there there's so many options out there. I got paid
36:36
Speaker 2: to go to school by joining the military, and I
36:41
Speaker 2: got to travel the world getting paid to go to school,
36:46
Speaker 2: right because I joined the military and I wouldn't have
36:50
Speaker 2: traded that experience for anything. And I know people who
36:55
Speaker 2: became electronic technicians in the military, so when their time
37:01
Speaker 2: was up, it could go to law school.
37:03
Speaker 1: Mmmm.
37:04
Speaker 2: So military is a viable option. And if you don't
37:11
Speaker 2: want to do that as a career, learn it. Get
37:17
Speaker 2: that experience right, and then that'll pay for your college.
37:22
Speaker 1: Right right, because you don't have to stay in it forever.
37:25
Speaker 1: Exactly because I'm in and you think about it, it's
37:28
Speaker 1: some of us work on jobs that we hate, and
37:31
Speaker 1: we work on that forever. So we go and get
37:33
Speaker 1: the degree, and you work a job that you can't stand,
37:36
Speaker 1: but you continue doing it because at that point, you
37:39
Speaker 1: have a student loan that you know, you have that
37:42
Speaker 1: that you maybe maybe you've bought a house, maybe you
37:45
Speaker 1: bought a car, maybe you started a family, and now
37:48
Speaker 1: you have these kids that have to go to college.
37:50
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that you have to pay to
37:52
Speaker 1: go through school and think about college and all that stuff,
37:56
Speaker 1: and so you get to the point where you're like, oh, well,
37:58
Speaker 1: although I hate this job, I have to keep going.
38:02
Speaker 2: Because I have bills to pay. When you help your
38:05
Speaker 2: children decide, it's got to be their decision, yes, because
38:14
Speaker 2: think about if you hate your job, how did you
38:19
Speaker 2: get there in the first place. Figure out the root
38:22
Speaker 2: cause of what got you in the position of being
38:27
Speaker 2: dependent on a job you hate. Reverse engineer that and
38:34
Speaker 2: then try to prevent that from happening to your kid.
38:38
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and let them find the job that they
38:41
Speaker 1: are interested in, but do some research. It's like, not
38:46
Speaker 1: just jump in and say, oh, yeah, this is what
38:48
Speaker 1: I want to do. I had a student that said, oh,
38:51
Speaker 1: you know I want to do I think she wanted
38:54
Speaker 1: to do nursing. What's the nursing, nursing or social work?
38:58
Speaker 1: And I said, well, why did you choose that? And
39:01
Speaker 1: she said, well, I like helping people, so I'm going
39:05
Speaker 1: to choose that. But she was doing terribly in science
39:07
Speaker 1: and math, and I'm looking at her. You know, we're
39:11
Speaker 1: having this conversation. We did an assessment and I said, well,
39:14
Speaker 1: I mean, based on this assessment, you are teaching seems
39:19
Speaker 1: to be you know, education academics. That seems to be
39:23
Speaker 1: more of what you based on your interests, what you
39:26
Speaker 1: should go into. And she said, well, no, I mean yeah,
39:30
Speaker 1: I thought about that, but you know, I like helping people,
39:36
Speaker 1: and so we you know, we were having this conversation
39:38
Speaker 1: and I said, well, okay, I am I helping you
39:41
Speaker 1: And she said yeah, and I said, well, my degree
39:43
Speaker 1: is in the county. I said, so one particular degree
39:49
Speaker 1: does not. You don't need a particular degree in order
39:52
Speaker 1: to help people. You can help people with whatever degree
39:55
Speaker 1: you have. You just have to figure out how to
39:58
Speaker 1: make that degree work for whatever it is that that
40:02
Speaker 1: you're going to do. But if you're going into nursing
40:06
Speaker 1: just because you know, you think you want to help people,
40:11
Speaker 1: you're for rud awakenings.
40:14
Speaker 2: Because that person at the front desk at the hospital
40:17
Speaker 2: without the nursing degree didn't need as much math in
40:22
Speaker 2: science as they nurse did. That's what they are're right,
40:29
Speaker 2: The person the orderly is still helping people. Yes, that
40:37
Speaker 2: dietitian in the hospital is still helping people. Now, get
40:43
Speaker 2: out of the medical field. I worked for the federal
40:49
Speaker 2: government after I got out of the military, and we
40:53
Speaker 2: fixed the aircraft that the military flew on. Okay, okay,
40:58
Speaker 2: so yes, that's helping people. Yeah, Yes, an art degree
41:05
Speaker 2: can help people. Right, So you're any the profession you
41:13
Speaker 2: enter is helping people. Think about during the pandemic and
41:21
Speaker 2: how we thanked the grocery store clerks for opening and
41:26
Speaker 2: risking their lives so we could buy food.
41:30
Speaker 1: Yes, restaurants, restaurants right when they were you know, spacing
41:35
Speaker 1: you out and only so many people could sit, you know,
41:39
Speaker 1: or they cooked and someone brought the food out. We
41:43
Speaker 1: were grateful for that. They were helping people.
41:47
Speaker 2: Right, So you don't have to directly be involved with
41:52
Speaker 2: patient care. Right to help people, right the kindergarten teacher
41:59
Speaker 2: who tied that little boy shoe five times a day.
42:03
Speaker 2: That's the greatest help you could possibly give somebody, right
42:10
Speaker 2: or childcare. Mom just needs a couple hours to herself.
42:18
Speaker 2: You could make fifty bucks.
42:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, you take you take the load off of her
42:27
Speaker 1: for an hour. She can drive down the street to
42:32
Speaker 1: the park and sit in her car and take a
42:34
Speaker 1: nap herself.
42:37
Speaker 2: I know someone who just started a business like that.
42:41
Speaker 2: She has a flyer set up. I'll do your laundry
42:45
Speaker 2: for X number of dollars an hour. I will, you know,
42:49
Speaker 2: take your kids to the park so you could have
42:51
Speaker 2: some quiet time. That is the biggest you know, that's
42:56
Speaker 2: help right there.
42:58
Speaker 1: Yes, and you know, and she's her own boss.
43:03
Speaker 2: Yes, And the only thing she needs is a certification
43:07
Speaker 2: in CPR and one day she'll get a website. She
43:12
Speaker 2: doesn't even have that now. She has cash app and
43:15
Speaker 2: a flyer.
43:16
Speaker 1: And at this point that's all she needs until she
43:19
Speaker 1: establishes it to a way that she makes enough money
43:22
Speaker 1: to pay for those things.
43:23
Speaker 2: Right. So college is great, but it's not for everybody.
43:29
Speaker 2: The military is great, but it's not for everybody. Writing
43:36
Speaker 2: books is so much fun everybody because writing the book
43:43
Speaker 2: is great. But then there's the promotion. So let's talk
43:46
Speaker 2: about that now. Okay, we have a children's author's group
43:52
Speaker 2: called Children's Authors Unite, and we are doing a book fair.
43:59
Speaker 2: It's going to be live streamed all over social media
44:03
Speaker 2: on December sixth and December seventh. Margot's gonna be one
44:08
Speaker 2: of the authors featured. I'm gonna be one of the
44:10
Speaker 2: authors featured. You have about twelve or fourteen authors. We're
44:15
Speaker 2: gonna talk about our books. We're going to read from
44:18
Speaker 2: our books, We're going to I don't even know what
44:22
Speaker 2: everybody has planned, because everybody has their time slot to
44:26
Speaker 2: talk about what they do and their passions. So I
44:30
Speaker 2: just want everybody to tune in and if you're watching
44:36
Speaker 2: this episode of Parents Talk after December sixth or seventh,
44:41
Speaker 2: I will link the live stream to this video. How
44:49
Speaker 2: could people get to know you better? How could people
44:54
Speaker 2: get your coaching in your books?
44:57
Speaker 1: And so I am also Margot Thomas on Instagram and Facebook.
45:02
Speaker 1: I haven't mentioned on to TikTok yet. I'm still holding out.
45:05
Speaker 1: I'm still holding out. So it's on Facebook and Instagram,
45:10
Speaker 1: Author Margot Thomas. Obviously you will see Margot Thomas. You
45:14
Speaker 1: will see my face. I prefer for you to do
45:17
Speaker 1: author Margot Thomas because you know, that's that's where I'm
45:20
Speaker 1: trying to build up people where I really talk a
45:24
Speaker 1: lot about my books. I talk about things related to college,
45:27
Speaker 1: I talk about things related to grief. I give updates
45:31
Speaker 1: on what's going on with me and so author Margot Thomas.
45:34
Speaker 1: You will also have a link to my website, which
45:37
Speaker 1: is also author Margot.
45:39
Speaker 2: Thomas dot com.
45:42
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, and then I'm my books are also on Amazon.
45:47
Speaker 1: All of my books are on Amazon.
45:48
Speaker 2: And that's Margot Thomas on Amazon. Yes, all right, Well,
45:54
Speaker 2: thank you so much for sharing this time with me
45:58
Speaker 2: and sharing your knowledge and expertise with the audience.
46:06
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having me, friend Sine. I
46:08
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, enjoy sharing information with your viewers.
46:13
Speaker 2: Thank you,