82. How to Prepare your Teen for College Today with Counselor Lauren Wolfe, LPC

Ready to prepare your teens for college? Tune in to our latest episode with licensed professional counselor Lauren Wolfe as she shares invaluable tips for helping your adolescents transition smoothly to college life.

In this episode of the College and Career Ready podcast, we have as a guest a licensed professional counselor Lauren Wolfe. Lauren, who has over 20 years of experience supporting children, teens, and families, discusses key strategies for preparing adolescents for the transition from high school to college. She also shares her personal experience of preparing her own son for college. We cover topics such as the importance of fostering independence, executive functioning skills, managing responsibilities, and effective communication. Throughout the conversation, Lauren provides actionable advice for parents, including the benefits of part-time jobs, practical tips for building independence, and recognizing the need for supportive interventions.

Episode mentioned on the podcast:
62. Is it Stress or Anxiety? Strategies in Managing Mental Health for Kids, High-Achieving Teens and Adults with Lauren Wolfe

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Transcript

Sonia: 0:00

Hi, I'm Sonia Cacique.

Lauren: 0:02

And I'm Lauren Wolf, and you're listening to the College and Career Ready podcast.

Sonia: 0:48

college and career ready podcast. Today on our podcast, we have a phenomenal guest. Um, she is also a dear friend of mine, and I'm excited to have her here. Lauren Wolf, is a licensed professional counselor who supports children, teens, and family, and who has done so for more than 20 years. She also specializes in anxiety and children, both big and small. And she's a mom of two beautiful and wonderful children who are now going to college And so she not only brings her experience as a therapist, but also as a mom who is in the midst Of preparing her own son to go to college. So in today's conversation, we will be exploring how to better prepare our growing adolescents to transition from high school to college. And what as parents, what we can do today to better prepare them. So be ready to take notes for some actionable items that she will share with us today. And let me introduce and welcome Lauren Wolf.

Lauren: 1:58

Thank you, Sonia. Such a lovely introduction. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

Sonia: 2:03

Thank you so much for spending time with us because I know you're going to be providing our guests, um, our audience, some valuable information, Lauren. And, and let me ask you this, how is it going? Preparing your son right now to go to college. Your last one,

Lauren: 2:20

gosh, I think I'm. He's still very much right now in the weeds of like all the end of the year stuff for him with the high school and like I just on my break was uploading photos of him for his banquet dinner for baseball and he's got a dance. Oh my gosh, tonight. My husband will oversee that while I'm working, but there's so much stuff. So I haven't started wrapping my head around college yet. He has his orientation next week, so it, it will start soon, I think, but I'm, I feel like I've only got like one big toe in college land with him and the rest of me is still like in high school. Like, is this real? Is this true? Am I going to be in a

Sonia: 3:05

minester?

Lauren: 3:06

Exactly. And I will say this because I always really dreaded this time of my life. If there's anyone out there listening, thinking, Oh no, I feel so sad. Just imagining my last child going to college. I am ready. I am excited. I adore him. So it's not like I'm trying to get rid of him, but I also am just kind of done with some of the stuff that, you know, just being a parent of a kid in the school system. I'm just, I am ready. Sonia, bring it on girl.

Sonia: 3:39

I love it. I love it. And this is what I like about you. Um, Lauren is that you're just true and authentic. And I think, I think our audience will feel this. And this is why I'm so excited to have you here because we want to talk about your experience as a therapist, because you have heard it all since you deal with adolescents specifically. What is going on? What are we doing as parents? What are we doing wrong? And what can we do to better prepare our children for college? Such

Lauren: 4:10

a great question. I think that what often happens is that we really do a great job caring for our children and meeting their needs. But then Um, their needs change and then where they are developmentally changes. And it's hard to see because we are just kind of so enmeshed in the daily life as parents caring for our children. And I think at times as parents, we lose sight of the gift it is to our kids to start giving them independence and ownership. And I know we're going to talk about this over things such as homework. and projects and classwork and getting themselves up and out in the morning and managing their own schedules. And I think that one of the best things we can do for our kids to be successful in college to get that degree that they're going there for is to really start giving them independence at the very least in high school. Some of this can start even earlier so that when they leave you and they get to decide when they wake up, when they go to sleep and all the stuff in between, they can be successful in doing all that is being asked of them.

Sonia: 5:26

Understandable. And you know, the, the statistics actually say that 30, about 30, 32% Of undergraduate students will not complete their degree. Wow. 30%. Now, can you imagine the amount of money that would have been invested in a child's education for them not to complete? So let's, let's go a little bit, um, into your experience. What are students struggling with in college? So let's start with the struggle first, right. To get to the bottom of it. And then we'll backtrack to what parents can do.

Lauren: 6:02

Yeah, sure. So I see a lot of kids struggling with executive functioning, which of course means them moving through space and time. Them getting, you know, getting up in time to get to class that's a certain distance from their building and do everything, you know, from their dorm building and do everything that they need to do before they get there. Them struggling with being organized With knowing where things are, with knowing what's due when for what class, with being able to really just do some of the daily tasks that they need to do to get work in on time, to be really learning at a deep level and not just showing up at class. And some of my kids really struggle with going to classes because they have this independence and it's like, Oh, my dad's not on me. My mom's not on me. My guidance counselor's not on me. For some kids, Sonia, they really have adults in their life that are making sure they're doing what they need to do. And then when no one's really making sure they need to do what they need to do, they're like. Whatever. I'll sleep in. I was out late last night. And here's what happened with one of my students this year, which was just so hard to witness. She was a freshman in college and she was skipping a lot of classes in the beginning and then really started getting herself To class on a regular basis, but then got sick, not once, but twice, got COVID and then poor thing got food poisoning from the school cafeteria. So because she then had already missed so many classes, some of her, her teachers had policies where she automatically. failed the classes and couldn't continue. And because she didn't get doctor's notes as needed, there was no way to prove that she had been sick. And so it's really easy to kind of have that snowball effect and not realize like, no, you actually need to go to class because if something happens, then you will be missing class for a legitimate reason. And also parents who are listening, tell your kids, get a doctor's note. I don't care if it's like viral and there's nothing a doctor can do, have them see either health services or a Teladoc or someone that can give them that note and get an excused absence. I

Sonia: 8:32

love that. And actually you're already giving me an idea here with my own children. When they are absent, walk them through that process of I need to make sure I need to get a note because and explained because as parents, I mean, we're so loving, we just do it, we don't really explain and say, you know what, I'm going to get a letter, because this will remove that absence absences count, you know, make that make that more full circle for them. Right.

Lauren: 9:02

And so I think students, you know, might think they're being on top of things by saying, Oh, look, I can miss class three times. So I'm going to miss it once. And I don't really feel like going, I'll miss it a second time. You know, not realize, well, what's going to happen if you get really sick and now it's a thing. Now you need notes. Now you need to talk to the teacher. You might have to go to the Dean of students. Why set yourself up for that stress?

Sonia: 9:27

Absolutely. And if they don't even know to read their syllabus, where it clearly states where it clearly states what each individual class will have different requirements. Yes.

Lauren: 9:41

Absolutely. So well said. And again, back to that student that struggles with executive functioning, they are going to have a hard time looking at the different syllabuses, keeping track of the different classroom policies for absences or whatever that might be. And for many kids too, like kids who have ADHD or kids who are neuro, neuro, Divergent can't talk neurodivergent, they often will have a hard time with self-motivation. Again, nobody's making them do what they need to do so they can struggle with that, and that can be difficult to make themselves do what they need to do.

Sonia: 10:20

Ooh, thank you for bringing that to the forefront about, you know, the known fact that there are certain students that will struggle more with executive function skills. Mm-Hmm. amongst all the other students as well. Totally. Of course. But there are certain students that will struggle a little more. So you said ADHD and, and what other

Lauren: 10:39

kids with autism, um, kids, this is a diagnosis that used to be recognized, isn't recognized now, but I'm hearing might be recognized again, which is nonverbal learning disability, um, kids with learning disabilities like dyslexia will often struggle with. You know, kind of getting from point A to point B and can get overwhelmed at times with a lot of responsibility depending on the kid.

Sonia: 11:07

Thank you for noting that. And for our parent listeners, there are special services in the college setting that will help support your child. So let me ask you, let me ask you this, uh, Lauren, how do you think a child could benefit an adolescent if they actually had a child? For example, just throwing it out there. Not because, um, it's something that I might have under my sleeve, but what if they had a course or a community where we, on the first session, we talk about reading the syllabus

Lauren: 11:40

and going over the syllabus and maybe even. I don't know, Sonia, but I'm thinking maybe even like printing out every syllabus because I know everything's online and having them all together in a folder where you can access or maybe just electronically putting them in a Google drive where you can easily boom, boom, boom, look at each of them. 100%. I think that would be helpful. And I will say this too, Sonia, that some kids have an executive functioning delay so that when I, I. don't remember exactly what it is, but at different ages, there is like an amount of time we can plan ahead for. So for some children, even though. And I apologize, I should have looked this up ahead of time. I didn't think of it. But even though in college, there's a certain amount of time that kids really can develop mentally, see ahead, plan ahead, navigate ahead to like be studying for upcoming tests and beginning upcoming projects. Some kids are just behind where their peers are. So for them, it's just even more difficult. So it's not like they're just being slackers. They, their brain, it's just like some kids walk earlier than other kids walk, right? We don't say, Hey, why aren't you walking? You're in that window. As long as you're in that developmental window, we trust kids are going to walk at some point. They, you know, in many cases do for some kids. Um, they are just having a harder time with all of those executive functioning skills and they do eventually kind of catch up to everyone else, but need some support in the meantime. So what you're talking about, I think would be phenomenal because there's no one that does that. And also for kids that have like, they've been part of special education in grade school or they have some sort of accommodation for, you know, Any particular type of reason, like they are able to access services. So maybe they have autism or ADHD or very high anxiety around perfectionism. Very often what I find is there's some level of support for them at school, but to access an additional level of support, you have to pay for that as parents. And so that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's I had a kid recently and it was really expensive and not something the parents could pay for. So something that's accessible for kids to get some support, I think is phenomenal. Very helpful.

Sonia: 14:15

Yeah. Well, and especially, you know, I have a student that I was coaching it's something as simple as, you know, I asked, I asked him where he put Our meeting. So he's an entering college student, right? So mom's letting him be a little bit more independent. And I said, where did you put our meeting? He's like, actually didn't put anywhere. I just remember. I was like, okay, how about, how about we download a Google calendar? And sweet boy, I love it. It's actually one of my favorite students. And he said, I'm going to do it right now. I said, okay, you do that. And you know, he, he downloaded the Google calendar and said, all right. Now I'm going to send you the invitation and you're going to receive it. And, and it was funny because he downloaded it. So this is really cool. He downloaded the Google calendar. And I think because it automatically attached to his Gmail, it automatically populated our, our, um, meeting to his calendar. So when I pulled up his calendar, it was already there. He's like, Oh wait, the meeting's already there. I was like, I know, cause your phone is smart. That is awesome. It's things like those that we just need to put it in the forefront. And I actually told him, um, the hardest thing, and I, I wants to validate this because I don't want students to feel like this only happens to them. This happens to us adults too. Yeah, I said the hardest part of my calendar is actually opening it in the morning and seeing it. That's the hardest part. Is that just opening it and seeing what my schedule is for the day. And so anyways, we talked about strategies on how to include that into their daily habit. Um, so thank you for sharing that. Okay. So let's hop into tactical items, things that parents can do today to help students prepare for that transition. Yeah. I would say

Lauren: 16:00

if you have a kid who is in high school and you are still looking at a transition. Like, for us, we have Google Classroom. And if the parent is still looking at Google Classroom to access assignments, and if the parent is still asking the kid, did you do this? Did you do that? Are you studying? I think it would be really beneficial to give ownership to your child. Now, I know, easier said than done. And you're probably doing it because. Your kid maybe has a learning disability or ADHD or is struggling in some way. So to do that gradually for them to come up with a plan with them, you know, sit down and talk to them. I want you to be able to be independent. I know you're talking about wanting to go to college, so I want you to start owning this. Where can we start and really having them on board and understanding, like if you pick, okay. I'm not going to check your homework anymore. You're in charge of homework assignments and getting them in. And then really, and this is the hard part, allowing natural consequences where your child goes into school without homework completed and, you know, has to talk to the teacher about it. Ideally, Sonia, I think this would happen. in grade school and at the very least middle school where stakes are low. I get a lot of perfectionists that stress out about their middle school grades and I say, no one is ever going to ask you for your middle school transcript. This is time to practice being a good learner, but you don't have to do it perfectly. So that's a great time for parents to really let go in middle school and for kids to get that autonomy to be able to do it themselves later on.

Sonia: 17:43

Ooh, great, great point. And you're making me feel much better because, um, with my own fifth graders, I have to have twins. And so with my own fifth graders, I did that a lot of staying back. This one's gonna hurt and parents, you're gonna feel the pain right now in just a minute. Yep. We did the, the award ceremony and one of my child, one of my children, um, got a B honor roll. Beautiful. I, I will always, whatever they get, they have earned and I am proud of them. We always, we always look after the fact as far as progress, right? If there's progress, great. But it wasn't until after the fact that my daughter. I didn't want to say who it was. It's okay. That my daughter said, mom, guess what? I said, what? I'll had one 89. And because of that 89, I didn't get the Ollie on a roll. And I was like, It's okay. You did great. You got A's and B's. I'm excited. But in my heart, in my mind, I was like, But I did say that. And I wanted, I wanted her to notice it. So now she has, has suffered that little icky feeling of like, Ah, if it would have just been one point, I would have gotten all these. So guess what? I'm sure next year she's going to keep up with her grades and know that that one point makes a big difference. And

Lauren: 19:13

even more or importantly, or at least as importantly, Sonia, she sat with that uncomfortable feeling and she was okay, right? She was able to say, Oh, I was one point away and, and she was able to deal with it, which I think is huge, huge. Because I know that we know as adults, like, you know, I'm 51, I know you're a bit younger, but still old enough that we have experience to say, I've learned so much from my mistakes from my failure. We all make mistakes. We all fail at things. And often that puts us in the direction that later is really. Rewarding.

Sonia: 19:55

Yes. No, I agree. And, and as a parent, I had that second thought afterwards, like I should have checked your grades so much more closely, but no, I'm

Lauren: 20:05

doing what I'm supposed to. You know, my daughter and see, this is where I'm like, some people are going to think I'm a terrible parent Sonia, but when my daughter was just in second grade and she's my oldest, she had an assignment where they made. I guess it's called a diorama. They make like a, um, a scene in a shoe box and it was something to do with like the ocean and I let her do it on her own because it was her project. And I said, Hey, if you need help, I'll help you. I helped her like get the, the, um, supplies and what she was using. She did it on her own. It took her about five minutes. It did not look amazing. And so I said, Hey, you, you know, you did that really quickly. And I need you to know that when you see the other kids assignments, a lot of them are going to be created by people's parents and they're going to be amazing. And I need you to be okay with what you've created. And she said, yeah, I'm fine. I said, okay, great. So she went to school. She came home the next day in tears telling me how amazing all of the others were. And so I said, okay, well either, you know, for next time or if you want and see, this is where as an older kid, I would have said you can talk to your teacher, but she was seven. So I said, yeah. I can email your teacher and see if it's okay for you to bring it home and work on it some more. Of course, her teacher said, fine, Lena brought it home. She herself worked on it more, brought it back and felt better about it. But, you know, I think that goes for, if that's a high school student, do that. They can email the teacher. I always love for at least the first few times your kids are emailing a teacher, look at it with them. Because I know from when I communicate with, with some of my kids who are clients, they're not always good with the formality of formalities of dear so and so or hi, so and so. And then, you know, a little nicety, like I hope you're having a nice day. I wanted to reach out and ask you X, Y, Z, and then a thank you, you know, signing the name like they don't know how to do that. Or they often don't reply, right? I'll have a kid reach out and text me with a question and then I'll, Um, respond back and I don't get a thank you or a got it or a like. So they need to learn those skills because we know as adults that helps you to make and keep connections. And it's often not what you know, but who you know, you want them to form those good positive connections with professors and the other adults in their lives.

Sonia: 22:41

Absolutely. All right. So that, those are great tips, especially for, um, parents who still have high school students, right? Who are still going into high school, but some of the tips that I know you're going to share with us, they can actually do today if they're actually already going to college and for those who are still in, in grade school. So tell us some of those tips. Cause I know one of them was about setting an alarm. Absolutely.

Lauren: 23:07

Yeah. Oh my gosh. A hundred percent. And this, you can do this with your college kid. You can do this with your third grader. Let your kids be responsible for getting themselves up in the morning. They can set an alarm. They will tell you, Oh, I won't hear it. Well, they can put their phone across the room. They can have an old school alarm clock as a backup if they really need it. I actually had one kid, Sonia, that had this. thing that it was an alarm clock, but it somehow attached underneath her mattress and it would vibrate the mattress because she would sleep through alarms. So there are so many devices out there nowadays to make sure that they get up and let them be responsible for getting up and out of the house on time. They need to do that in college.

Sonia: 23:55

Hmm. Good, good point because that's. Part of the problem right there, they're not getting to class if they're not responsible for time, especially if your adolescent is going to college in the fall, you're not going to be calling them

Lauren: 24:11

to wake up. Right. And even if they don't have to be somewhere early to just have them start practicing getting up at a certain time. I have parents that I work with that have high school students and they tell me, Oh, it takes him four or five times to wake up. And I'm going in there and I'm, you know, turning on the lights and like begging him to get up and no, that is not going to serve them when they go on after high school.

Sonia: 24:36

Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? I had a parent just actually this week mentioned this to me as well is, um, they're working on getting their child. on time to events. So even if it's not, you know, early morning, getting 15 minutes early to every event rather than like just lying by the second. Absolutely.

Lauren: 24:59

Yeah, that's good too. So when children do struggle with executive functioning, they actually are not seeing the final picture. And I'll tell you what I mean. If you are getting out to work, Sonia, like say you're leaving early afternoon after your kids are in school, at least that's when I leave off and I start work at one o'clock, right? So, um, if you're leaving at say 12 o'clock, you've All right, I'll just use myself. Cause this is my life. I leave at 1215, I eat my lunch at 1130. So at that point, I imagine like, as I'm moving through the morning, I imagine myself at the door that I'm leaving through. And. All that I have with me. I have my dinner packed for the evening. I have my work clothes on. I have my computer. I have my work bag. I have my, my physical planner that I use. I have my phone. So I think about all those things that I have. I think about being at the door at 1215 and now I have to work my way back. I have to work my way back in time to make all of those things happen. But when kids struggle with executive functioning, they do not see that final picture and they do not naturally find their way through space and time. So for them, you can practice with them by using, I like to get little clocks from like HomeGoods or TJ Maxx or wherever they're inexpensive that have either a plastic or a glass face. And you can actually use. markers, like dry erase markers and write on them. So like, if you have say a high schooler who is. Getting up at like 6 45 to leave the house by 7 30. And so you could talk to them. All right, we're going to practice getting up and out on time. So yeah, you wake up at 6 45. Let's talk about all the things that you have to do. You've, you know, if it's a teenage boy, not a lot, they're going to throw on their clothes. that are probably on their floor, brush their teeth, go to the bathroom, grab a granola bar and out they go. Right? So you can say, okay, these are the things. So you need to be out the door at seven 30. So you can like color it in on the clock so they can really see the It's this amount of time. You can also buy something called the time timer, which does that. It kind of like is a color on the clock and then that color goes away as the time is almost over. You, they also have an alarm you can use or you don't need the alarm, but it just starts helping kids to see their way through space and time. I like to also use this with them when they're doing homework. So if they're kids who you're like, why is it taking you four hours to do this little amount of homework? You can say to them, estimate how long your Spanish homework is going to take. Okay. You've estimated half an hour. All right. So take this time timer, let's set it for half an hour and let's see how long it takes you. And then if it takes them like an hour, you can say, what happened? Did you start responding to text messages? Did you start surfing the web? Did you get up to play with the dog? Like what happened? Are you just not estimating well, and there was no way you were accomplishing that amount of work in half an hour. So you can use the clocks. You can also just ask your kid, like when it comes to leaving for school, like imagine you have everything that you need, work your way back. How long is it going to take you? And then adjust as you go, because they're usually, they're usually wrong. It usually takes more or less time than what they're estimating. Usually more.

Sonia: 28:42

Well, in us as parents, we can't have a gauge already in our mind for them, how long it really takes them and make that the starting point. And then they can adjust as needed to just get them on the, you know, get them started.

Lauren: 28:55

Or even worse, Sonia, I think a lot of parents, and I've certainly done this before where you go, Oh, Oh, oh, it's seven 15. Like, you gotta get up. Are you gonna have time? You still gotta, you know, you've gotta get going. Oh, don't forget this. Hey, isn't it music today? Go grab your trumpet. And we're like micromanaging for them.

Sonia: 29:15

Good point. What about, how do you see the benefits of a part time job, volunteering job, something that they can do this summer to help them prepare, whether it's going back to school, um, high school or college. Yeah.

Lauren: 29:28

I love for kids to have a part time job because I think that really teaches them some great skills. They've got to be on time or they're going to have some natural consequences. Their boss is going to be annoyed with them and I'm sure express some of that. themselves. They have to learn new tasks. They have responsibilities. They have to meet new people and get along with people on the job. You know, I think that in a similar way being in clubs or on team sports can be helpful too, but a part time job really very much encompasses, I think, some of the skills they need to have going to college.

Sonia: 30:08

You're right, because a part time job is, it's a little bit more, there's a little bit more responsibility behind it. And there's, there's more, the consequences are a little higher. So then they, But they have to put a little bit more of an effort than if it's a volunteer or a community service project.

Lauren: 30:23

A hundred percent. Yep. The stakes are higher. The stakes are definitely higher. And it's motivating for a lot of kids because they get a paycheck and then they have money to do some of the, some of the things they want to do. You know, my son is, he is late to high school quite a bit. He drives himself to high school and it really used to stress me out and I would tell him Be micromanaging him and then I was like, this is not good or healthy for our dynamic. I was like natural consequences. But then I'm like, dude, why is nothing happening? You've been late like eight times and not like super late Sonia, but by like five minutes, like three to five minutes. Well, I recently found out that they don't penalize the kids for being late because Our district shares buses with the middle school. They drop at the middle school first. So some of the kids are just late from the buses. So he hasn't had that natural consequence, but interestingly, and this gives me hope he did up until recently when baseball started, he had a part time job for about a year where he was busing tables at a restaurant and he always left on time for that. So. I think sometimes kids do know like kind of what they can get away with versus what they can't. But it was good for me to see he was always on time for the job. They seem to really love him there and rely on him and ask him to cover shifts at times. And I think it taught him some really good skills.

Sonia: 31:52

Very very awesome. I think that's something that's much needed for all of our students. Yes. And so, so the last thing I want to ask you about is. What is your take on students social skills, communication skills? What do you see? Where are they struggling and what can we do to help?

Lauren: 32:11

Yeah, I think this goes back a little bit to what we were talking about with emails and text messages and how to really address and communicate with adults, like, you know, who are going to be in positions of, you know, stress. being professors or bosses at jobs. Um, I think it can be really helpful too. And this starts when they're younger, just teaching them eye contact and, you know, um, nice to meet you too, or thank you for having me. Just some of those basic skills. I mean, hopefully by the time they're a high schooler, they're already doing those things, but if they're not, then I think those are important skills for them to have and just, you know, You know, I know they don't want to hear it from us as parents, but however, your child is receptive to listening to you. Just again, letting them know, yeah, there's so much about life that is really about the connections that we make. And here are just some simple ways to make positive lasting impressions. Just, you know, being friendly, maybe shaking a hand, saying it's nice to meet you, thanking people for having you, if you've been to their home, or for meeting with you, if it's a job interview or something of that sort.

Sonia: 33:26

Good point. Good point. I like to, um, put my kiddos, I know mine are a little younger, but I like to, to put them in front of, um, placing orders. So when we're, you know, at a drive through or ordering at, Chick fil a or Starbucks. Now, you know where we go and you know, I tell them, okay, place your own order. I don't place it for them. I let them order. And it's funny because, oh my gosh, I know they've learned because they'll start. imitating some of the things that I say, like, Oh, I would like this kind of special milk and, you know, this and that. And they're very specific on their order. I'm like, Oh my gosh, they're learning that from me.

Lauren: 34:10

That's awesome. I love that Sonia, but yes, that's great. Right. Giving them opportunities to speak up, to place orders or have interactions with adults. I think that's really helpful.

Sonia: 34:22

Oh my goodness, Lauren, thank you so much for all the information that you have shared with us today. Is there something that I have not asked you, um, that you think I should have or a takeaway for our parents?

Lauren: 34:36

Oh, such a good question, Sonia. You know, I am just thinking there are instances where they also. Could use a little bit of help. So on the one hand, I think we really should instill them with as much independence as possible, but on the other hand, to also offer them some grace and understanding that they are just figuring things out their prefrontal cortex, where all that decision making and where executive function Thing happens, that part of their brain is not fully developed until they're in their early to mid twenties. You know, I just had an instance with 1 of my clients where she is going to 1 university and then over the summer going to take classes at another university because she did not pass all of her classes this 1st freshman semester or freshman year. And she told her parents like, Nope, I can do this. I can figure out how to get my transcript and sign up at this other university and do the summer sessions. And when I saw her today, Sonia, she was panicked because she said, I got the email that I'm registered, but I haven't gotten my schedule. I said, I can see you're really stressed. You want to try to figure this out together. And we did. And what turns out was that she had accidentally registered herself for fall classes, which is not what she needed. So luckily, we figured this out early. And, you know, I helped her to call the registrar's office and got this all hopefully fixed. Fingers crossed. But, you know, we were writing notes to each other as, you know, you know, in talking to the registrar's office, she started crying, got upset. So I, I took over and just said I was helping her. Um, and I wrote down, this is something, you know, that probably your parents should have helped you with. And she wrote back and said, no, I said I could do it on my own. And so I would say no one is at fault. But it's just one of those things that is really confusing and hard to do. And it was hard for me to figure out in helping her. So we also need to give them grace when they do make mistakes, they are doing their best and they are still learning.

Sonia: 36:44

Beautifully said friend. Thank you so much. And please tell our audience a little bit about yourself, where they can find you, where they can connect with you, because I know you are filled with lots of helpful information for parents of teens, young ones, and even our adolescents. Ah,

Lauren: 37:01

thank you, my friend. So, if you are local in Connecticut, I do have a private practice, Firefly Counseling and Wellness, where myself and a clinician who works with me, we do work supporting kids. Adolescents, you know, children, adolescents, and families specializing in treating anxiety. I also have a podcast that's completely free with lots of content to support both children and their mental health, as well as parents to really help them foster a great connection. And because I know as a parent and working with parents, we have to care for ourselves in order to have patients to care for our children. I also always work on helping parents to do that. My podcast has a full length episode each week, as well as a short guided meditation. Oh, and did I say what that's called? I didn't say. You did not say. You did not say. That would be helpful perhaps. It's called Your

Sonia: 37:55

Zen Friend. I love it. Make sure y'all listen to it because it is a great podcast. And I love the, drop of Zen episodes because they are so just relaxing and so Brings back to my Zen because guess what? We all need to balance our Zen every once in a while. Oh, thank you.

Lauren: 38:15

Sonia. And thank you for everything you're doing. It is much needed. I think what you have to offer is so helpful.

Sonia: 38:23

Thank you so much. And also I wanted to mention to our audience, uh, Lauren was also a guest on episode number 62. So if you have a child with anxiety, she shared some great tips on that episode, it's episode number 62, and I'll have link on the show notes. All right, sweet friend until next time. I know you'll be back. So thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you so much, Sonia..