At Challenge Success, a research-based education nonprofit affiliated with the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, we know from surveying over 150,000 high school students that the college admissions process can be one of the top sources of stress for young people. This final stretch can be a time of celebration or of disappointment and heartbreak when teens receive the news. And even after they hear the “yes” or “no” from the colleges, students and their families can experience stress as they try to determine which school to choose and what the implications of that choice may be for future success.

Instead of thinking only about the finish line, it may be more helpful for parents – and students – to think of the college admissions process as a time for exploration and self-discovery where teens can consider who they are and who they want to be. The process offers opportunities to navigate disappointment, joy, and tough choices, and to practice resilience and independence.   

Here are five practical tips to help families support their teens during this last leg of the college admissions process.

1. Make a plan for how your teen (and you) will receive the news from colleges. We recommend that teens open emails from colleges in private rather than finding out in class in the middle of the school day or having a parent live stream it on social media. If the news is not good, your teen may need some support and time to grieve, and they will likely be watching your reaction as well. As a parent, consider going to a separate room from your teen after hearing the news, so you can celebrate or grieve alone and have a few moments to regulate your emotions.

    

2. Be mindful of how you share your admissions news with others. Remember that your teen’s friends and classmates (and their families) may still be nervously awaiting answers from colleges. Be thoughtful about not oversharing on social media, and don’t ask other parents if their senior got into a certain school; wait for them to share their news when they are ready.

    

3. Avoid saying “just”. When you talk to or about your teen, be mindful about using the word “just” as in: “She is just going to community college” or “My son is just a B student so he only got into his safety school.” This can convey a comparison to a fixed ideal and imply that your teen doesn’t measure up. Remind your child that they are enough as they are and that they will have the opportunity to flourish wherever they go to college.

    

4. Invest in college readiness skills. Regardless of where they go, make sure your teen has all the basic life skills needed to be independent in college. Do they know how to cook at least three meals that don’t involve cereal? Can they do their own laundry? Do they know how to clean the bathroom? Can they balance a bank account? Can they ask for help if they are feeling down or struggling at school? These skills take time to develop and are as important, if not more, than academic readiness.

    

5. Remind teens that where they go matters less than what they do when they get there. We do not say this lightly. Research supports that engagement in college is more important than where a student goes. While picking a college can feel like a monumental decision, we encourage teens (and parents) to realize that this one choice is not going to make or break their chances for future success. To see more of this research and what engagement in college looks like, explore the Challenge Success white paper, A ‘Fit’ Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Rankings.

We know that the college admissions process is daunting and can cause kids and families to experience high levels of stress. Even if your teen experiences disappointments or difficulties along the way, we urge you to take a breath, remember what is truly important to your family, and celebrate whatever adventure lies ahead for your student. 

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder of Challenge Success and a Senior Lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she specializes in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. Dr. Pope lectures nationally on parenting techniques and pedagogical strategies to increase student health, engagement with learning, and integrity. She is a 3-time recipient of the Stanford University School of Education Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award and was honored with the 2012 Education Professor of the Year “Educators’ Voice Award” from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. 

The post Support Your Teen During the Final Stretch of the College Admissions Process appeared first on Challenge Success.

• Should my child take more honors level or advanced placement courses?
• Is my child participating in the right number of extracurricular activities?
• What kind of SAT or ACT prep should my child be doing? 
• How important are internships or summer work opportunities?  
• Is it a problem that they haven’t saved the rainforests or found a cure for cancer? 

While these are reasonable questions (well, some of them!), I invite parents to pause and reflect on a different type of college prep that may be more important than focusing on test scores, extracurriculars, and AP’s.

At Challenge Success, we encourage parents to think about the value of preparing students in four general areas, all of which are backed by research on what students need to be successful in college, career, and life in general:

As I present workshops to families across the country, I have found that a lot of parents focus almost exclusively on the Academic Skills quadrant. They might make sure that students know how to study, how to ask good questions, and how to keep their schoolwork organized. These are important skills for high school and college, but too often they are emphasized at the expense of other essential skills and experiences.

Let’s take a look at the foundational skills in the other three quadrants that correlate with success in college and beyond.

Life Skills

• Household Chores: Does your student know how to do laundry? Can they clean a bathroom? Cook a nutritional meal?
• Work: Do they know how to be a good employee? How to show up for a job on time and follow instructions from a supervisor?
• Financial Management: Do they know how to manage a bank account? Set and follow a budget?
• Getting Around: Can they navigate their way around town using a map or public transportation?
• Personal Care: Can they manage their sleep needs and take steps to stay healthy? Can they schedule and keep their own medical appointments?

Positive Coping Skills

• Support from Others: Does your student know how to ask for help when needed?
• Stress Reduction: Do they have effective strategies to deal with normal levels of stress and anxiety? Do they have a plan if they feel overwhelmed?
• Self-Care and Relaxation: Will they make time to do things they enjoy? Will they build in necessary playtime and downtime?
• Risk Awareness: Do they know how to avoid risky behaviors that are unhealthy for them? How to cope with unwanted peer pressure?
• Resilience: Do they know how to learn from and bounce back from mistakes?

Social & Emotional Skills

• Emotion Management: Can your student regulate and manage their emotions?
• Decision Making: Can they make appropriate and ethical choices?
• Empathy: Do they know how to feel and express empathy?
• Relationship Management: Can they build friendships with new classmates and roommates? Navigate difficult relationships?
• Team Building: Can they work well with others? Handle conflicts maturely?

These are the “adulting” skills that have helped to make this word a verb and not just a noun in today’s vernacular. As parents, we have the opportunity and, really, the responsibility to help young people develop and practice these skills now, so they can truly be prepared to lead balanced, healthy, and fulfilled lives when they eventually leave their childhood homes.

References

A Complete Definition of College and Career Readiness (2012), David T. Conley, Educational Policy Improvement Center

Improving College and Career Readiness by Incorporating Social and Emotional Learning (2013), College & Career Readiness & Success Center at American Institutes for Research. 

Overloaded & Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids (Chapter 8, 2015), Denise Pope, Maureen Brown, & Sarah Miles

Redefining College Readiness (2007), David T. Conley, Educational Policy Improvement Center

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder of Challenge Success and a Senior Lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she specializes in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service-learning.  She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. Dr. Pope lectures nationally on parenting techniques and pedagogical strategies to increase student health, engagement with learning, and integrity. She is a 3-time recipient of the Stanford University School of Education Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award and was honored with the 2012 Education Professor of the Year “Educators’ Voice Award” from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences.

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My physical therapist used the acronym SEEDS to represent five vital elements for good health: Sleep, healthy Eating, regular Exercise, Drinking water, and Stress management. He recommended that I follow the SEEDS plan every day to speed up the healing process. Since these are all topics that we discuss in our Challenge Success presentations about “The Well-Balanced Student,” I was already bought in and had a pretty good head start for following his advice. I review the five SEEDS elements below to encourage you to buy in as well and to strive for your entire family to follow the plan.

Sleep

Adults need 7-9 hours of sleep each night, and adolescents need 8-10. It is absolutely critical to try to meet this goal each night and to remember to get off of all devices (phones, computers, televisions) at least one hour before bedtime in order to get better sleep. We know that the blue glow from technology can affect our melatonin and disrupt our sleep and that the content we view on the screens can cause stress or heightened emotions that may make it difficult to fall asleep and stay sleeping through the night. Even though I regularly preach this in my presentations to schools, and had all my devices set to dim their bright lights at nighttime, I would typically do a quick email check before bed. Not anymore. I am now religious about non-screen time at night in order to improve the sleep my healing brain so desperately needs.

Eating

My physical therapist encouraged me to eat more fruits, vegetables, healthy proteins, and fewer fried foods and sugary snacks. I ate a pretty healthy diet pre-concussion, but, in my injured state, I would often find that I would wake up really hungry in the morning and had trouble stabilizing my blood sugar throughout the day. I didn’t realize how much our brains require a steady supply of healthy food to function – and healing brains seem to require even more. A good reminder for students (or any of us) who tend to skip breakfast: we need to feed the brain before we can do any good thinking and learning.

Exercise

I walk and hike regularly, but, in my new state, I found that even 10 to 15 minutes of getting my heart rate up could make me feel better during one of my brain fog moments. Many studies show a strong connection between brain functioning and exercise which is why most educators try to incorporate physical movement into students’ daily routine. Recess, mid-class stretches, movement breaks, and PE periods help students focus and prepare to learn. Parents can support this by encouraging kids to walk or bike to and from school, if safe and feasible, and to get physical exercise each day.

Drinking Water

I was told to avoid sugar-sweetened beverages and to drink a minimum of 64 ounces of water every day to prevent dehydration. This is well-known advice for anyone (with or without a concussion). Schools and families can support students by encouraging them to bring water bottles to school and to refill them regularly throughout the day.

Stress Management

I often talk about mindfulness and meditation as great stress-reduction strategies in my school presentations, but I will now admit that I never regularly incorporated these into my daily life. I had tried a few times, but my mind wandered, and if it wasn’t scheduled on my to-do list for that day, it wouldn’t get done. My physical therapist told me not to worry about losing focus during meditation. He wanted me to set a timer for five minutes, sit in a comfortable chair with my feet flat on the ground, and try to concentrate on my breathing. If my mind wandered, simply try to bring it back to focus. At first, it was really hard for me to keep my eyes closed and focus for the full five minutes, but with practice, it got easier. Now I meditate two or three times a day for five minutes, and I have found this to be one of the very best ways for me to calm my brain and handle the dizziness and nausea. I plan to add these daily “brain breaks” to my calendar to ensure that I consistently make time for them in my regular routine.

Another important recommendation was for me to do one thing at a time and not try to multitask. I used to regularly talk on the phone (hands-free) while driving, or check emails while eating lunch, but my injured brain wasn’t able to handle more than one task at a time. When I was finally cleared to drive, I was shocked at how much brainpower and focus it took for me to drive 20 minutes around my neighborhood. I had to come home and take a nap right after the trip – and that was without the radio on or attempting to make a call. Imagine how much brainpower our new 16-year-old drivers are using and how important it is for them – and all of us – not to be distracted on the road. Now I try to focus just on driving, just on eating, or just on listening to work calls, instead of attempting to do multiple tasks at once.

When I speak to students at school assemblies, I always tell them that they have one body that has to last for their entire life. What they do in terms of health (sleeping, exercise, stress management, eating, and drinking) will affect them for years and years to come. This line has a whole new meaning to me now. We all need to be kind to our bodies, including our brains. We need to feed our brain, water it, and give it a break when necessary so it will indeed last a lifetime.

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder of Challenge Success and a Senior Lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she specializes in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. Dr. Pope lectures nationally on parenting techniques and pedagogical strategies to increase student health, engagement with learning, and integrity. She is a 3-time recipient of the Stanford University School of Education Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award and was honored with the 2012 Education Professor of the Year “Educators’ Voice Award” from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. 

The post SEEDS for Good Health: My Lessons from a Concussion appeared first on Challenge Success.