Quick question for the parents out there who are pressuring their kids to try to get into
these good colleges that are highly ranked and all that.
I just really want to know, what's your deal?
Hello parents, if you don't know what this is, this is the pop out and I'm your host,
Albert Shin.
You know, parents today, I want to have an honest discussion with you about your role
in your child's education.
And I want to speak to you as a fellow parent who I'm going to assume, like me, you care
about your child, you want what's best for them, and you find it to be your duty to help
guide your children the best you can, and that you want them to have the best of opportunities.
You want them to live up to their potentials, you want them to live a happy life, yada,
yada, yada.
I'm going to assume that this is all the case.
Even so, as we talk about what it means to try to give your child the best opportunities
and to guide them in the right way, I want you to ask yourself a question that I often
have to ask myself, which is, how much of this that I'm doing, all the things, energy,
work, money I'm putting into this, how much of this is about them, and how much of it
is really about you?
And it's honestly not an easy question to answer.
It isn't.
Because we always want to believe that we're doing something for the sake of our child.
We want to assume that when we pay for tutoring or for those additional lessons or, you know,
we drive them around to all their extracurricular activities or stay on top of them and make
sure that they're getting all their homework done or, you know, that they're meeting all
these deadlines and we're, you know, getting on top of them and nagging them sometimes,
we're doing it because we think it's good for them, right?
But I want to have this conversation specifically with regards to colleges and applying for
colleges and thinking about what kind of colleges your student, your child will apply to.
And where they might get into and your place in kind of preparing them for that, whether
it's getting them help with their SATs or, you know, helping them with projects or whatever
else it might be.
If it's really about your child, then I imagine you'd want them to go to a place that makes
sense for who they are, for the kind of skill set that they developed, for the interests
that they developed, for the kind of life they want to create for themselves.
Now, you might disagree with them and this might be a place of contention between the
two of you where you don't see eye to eye on what's best for your own child.
But we're talking about these near adults, aren't we?
Who are eventually going to have to grow into real adults, have to figure out how to figure
out how to live through and navigate through life themselves.
So is your being there and pushing them and being on top of them and doing everything
for them really helping them?
Is your pushing them to apply to a bunch of schools that they have zero interest in, not
for no good reason, but because they just, maybe they visited the university, there's
nothing appeals to them.
They don't like anything about the location or the kinds of activities they want to be
involved in.
If you're pushing them to things that they are not wanting for themselves, again, I ask
the question, how much of this is for you as opposed to being for them?
Now, I've got to be honest with you.
From my experience when dealing with students who are dealing with a lot of anxiety and
stress when it comes to college applications, the pressure is often not coming from inside
of them.
They're not putting the pressure on themselves.
Now some students, yes, that's the case.
And a few times it might be peers, especially if you're hanging around with other students
that are high achievers, then there's a lot of pressure to try to get into some of these
top notch, highest ranked schools, most competitive schools.
But the place where I find the most emotional distress for students, it comes from their
parents.
It comes from parents being disappointed in their SAT grade, their SAT scores, in their
grades, and parents thinking that they could do better, and their parents pushing them
to try something more or to achieve a bigger accolade, or asking them, why aren't you applying
for these awards or scholarships?
Why aren't you going for these leadership positions?
This is where it comes from.
Because as much as we want to think that the world and everyone else is going to have a
great deal of influence on our kids, your kids, the number one influence on their lives
are going to be you.
And they care whether they mention it or not, whether they say it or not.
How you feel about them matters to them.
And I cannot tell you the number of times when I have sat in SAT classes, in private
office hours, working with students, just working through their feelings, because they
just feel so worthless.
Because they realize, oh my goodness, the grades I got, the SAT scores that I have,
are going to make me very uncompetitive when it comes to some of these top notch, most
competitive schools.
And I feel like I have to get in there.
I mean, this is across the board with any parent who claims to really care for their
child.
Again, it's normal for you to want to push your kids to be the best they can be.
But at some point, you're going to have to start acknowledging that they are who they
are.
And they're going to have to try to figure out what's best for them in the situation
that they're in.
And putting in certain benchmarks for what they should accomplish, really, the only thing
that serves is to make them miserable, make them hateful towards themselves.
I mean, I don't know if this is what any parent would want for their kid, for the kid to hate
themselves.
I think that's an awful thing for a kid to experience.
But this is a common feeling that I've had to deal with when it comes to a lot of these
high school students who feel like they're not living up to their parents' expectations.
Now, sometimes the parents might not be doing this explicitly.
Sometimes it's simply offhand remarks that they might have.
Or it might just be, if parents went to a very successful, had a very successful career
or has accomplished quite a bit themselves or have a lot of accolades or went to some
of these competitive colleges, the kids will naturally, if they have a good relationship
with their parents, will probably want to also go to those same places, or at least
be on the same level.
And so, you know, you might not have intentionally put that sort of pressure on them.
But if you haven't had that conversation with them, to talk them off the ledge and say,
hey, you know, our love for you is not conditional.
It doesn't depend on you accomplishing X, Y, and Z.
If this university is the right fit for you, regardless of their rankings or regardless
of reputation or regardless of, you know, how others might view it, right, if it's the
right place for you, it's the right place for you.
Because let's be honest, a lot of parents are going to feel ashamed to say, oh, my kid
who I had such high hopes for ended up going to a state college or ended up going to a
community college, right?
Now if the parents don't have that sort of expectation, then so be it.
But the parents that do, you know, a lot of them are going to feel very disappointed when
they're not going to some of these more competitive colleges.
They're going to do that comparison game, right, between their kid and other parents'
kids, right, and then figure out, oh, my goodness, what could I have done to get my kids into
this better place?
Or they might talk about it in conversation where it's kind of hush-hush, right, let's
not mention it.
And I think this sort of culture needs to change among parents more than anything.
We all have value, and we are all trying to find the way to live our life that is best
for us.
And no matter what the parents say, the kids at the end of the day are going to have to
live their lives.
They're going to have to figure out what is going to be the right path for them to follow.
And you can be a part of helping them in that journey, or you can be the one to direct their
life.
I'm going to tell you right now, if you try to do the latter and you try to be the director
of their life, you're going to be doing this, A, probably for the rest of your life, which
would create a bunch of grown children.
But I think B, more importantly, it's going to lead to a miserable life for your kids,
where they don't feel a sense of empowerment, that they can make decisions on their own,
whether they make mistakes or not, that they're able to go ahead and figure out what they
want to do, make those mistakes, and learn from them.
If they don't go through that experience and have certain regrets, that's not good putting
them in a position to be able to really grow.
They need to have those experiences.
And unfortunately, you do need to let them fall.
Now, I do want to say it's not really falling.
I'm saying falling in your eyes, maybe.
But it's not really going to be falling.
Because the truth, and this is what I think I hope I've covered in the first several episodes
of this podcast, the truth of the matter is that as long as they get a college degree
from a reputable university, not one of these for-profit ones, they're going to have a good
shot at life.
They're going to have a good shot.
They're going to be able to make a living.
They're going to be able to have a family, if that's what they want.
They're going to be able to pursue their dreams.
They're going to be able to open up opportunities, again, as long as they take advantage of the
opportunities they're given, they'll be able to do all those things.
You don't have to worry about it.
Your anxiety, again, you got to ask, where is this anxiety coming from?
Are they really doing something that is detrimental to their well-being?
I mean, if they're snorting cocaine every day, then it's a genuine worry.
But if they are actually pursuing something good, it's just that it's not exactly what
you might have wanted for them, but it's something that brings them joy, it brings them life,
it fits with the kind of person that they are, it fits with the talent that they have
and cultivate it, it fits everything about who they are.
Why the anxiety?
So I just wanted to take a moment before we move on in this podcast to say, hey, parents,
it's okay.
It's okay to care about your children and to push them into being the best that they
can be.
It's okay to teach them what competition looks like and how to deal with it.
It's okay to show them how to respond to disappointment.
It's okay to give them information that is necessary for their well-being.
It's good to do all of these things.
But I hope that you, like I am having to learn to do almost every day, is to ask myself the
question, am I doing this for them or is this really about me?