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From Nest to Next: Navigating the College Transition with Dr. Dylan Larson-Konar and Laura Barr
Episode 322nd August 2023 • Growing Good Humans Podcast • Laura Barr
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Thank you to for his knowledge and expertise surrounding students entering College. He provided useful information about student well-being, how to prepare your student for the start of college, and how to have conversations with your student while they’re in college and set healthy expectations. This is a great thirty minutes to share with your student as Dr. Dylan Larson-Konar speaks to healthy habits and tricks students can use to combat depression and anxiety in the first year of college. Check out the whole video below!

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Oh, excited to host again, Dr.

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Dylan.

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That's what I'll call you.

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Cause I know that's what most people call you, right?

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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And you've become our kind of a partner in mental health.

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And, um, we have a longstanding relationship with Birch psychology

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and, uh, shout out to Alice and their whole team, and especially Dylan for

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offering this service to our community.

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It's really important, you know, Getting kids into college is one thing.

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Having them thrive when they get there is another part of our, um, belief in

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philosophy is that parents really need to be a big part of that conversation.

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I don't think in our culture we honor enough.

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This incredible transition from having a child from birth to high

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school, 18, and then suddenly they're gone and there's a lot, a lot, a

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lot of emotions come with that.

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And a lot of emotions come as the, between 16 and 18.

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And then also when the students are gone, um, I also just want to call

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out that I just got back from a.

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Sprint run.

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So I am bright red and stopping wet.

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But, um, if you are in, um, need of some encouragement of taking care of

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yourself, let me model that for you.

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So there we go on that.

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Dylan, I want you to go ahead and just introduce yourself.

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And then we do have some questions that have come through and,

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um, let's just get started.

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Lovely.

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Yeah.

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So I'm Dr.

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Dylan Larson Konar.

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Um, I wanted to introduce myself just in the context of this conversation

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and sort of where I'm coming from, uh, in terms of working with

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adolescents and college students.

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Um, so, of course, myself was, was the college student a long time ago,

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transitioning, um, since that point of work to 2 different college counseling

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centers at the University of Florida, and then also at the University of Colorado

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in Boulder, where I imagine, um, some.

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Some parents have Children going to or wanting to go.

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And then right now I work at Birch Psychology as a postdoctoral fellow,

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and I'm currently working with some college students and also with a fair

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number of sort of late adolescence.

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So around like 16 to 18 and have been working with them as they've moved

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to a point where they're going to get ready to go to college or are

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starting to think about it as well.

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All right.

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Thank you.

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I'm just going to dive in.

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Dylan, is there, is there like a road map for preparing kids?

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And parents emotionally and mentally for the transition to college.

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Yeah, I was, I was thinking about this question a lot as I work with my clients.

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I would say that right now, uh, for students who are about to go to college

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and say, August or maybe September.

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The task is 1 of sort of building autonomy and being, uh, sort of at a

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place where you can feel more independent and more autonomous from your parents.

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Uh, so then the task is really less about.

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Yeah.

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Like a parent doing something necessarily to emotionally prepare their child

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and more about sort of this joint task of sort of letting go, which

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I think can be equally difficult.

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And you talked about this not being something that we talk

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enough about in our culture.

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And I think that that process of sort of letting go is another

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thing that we probably don't talk enough about in our culture.

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And what's difficult.

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I think is there's, there's an aspect where you have to sort of let your child.

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a little bit through this process, potentially feel some discomfort, uh,

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while also sort of preparing them or creating like a sense of scaffolding

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around what it might be like.

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So just to offer a kind of a quick example of this that I've seen be effective is

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that, um, rather than, for example, uh, calling the counseling center for your

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child, uh, telling them who they are, setting up the appointment for your child,

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talking about your concerns, maybe that looks more like, uh, Talking to your,

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to your child, figuring out maybe that's something that they want, giving them

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sort of the website or asking them, um, you know, is this something that you've

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thought about and then giving them space to, to make those decisions themselves.

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So, I think a lot of what emotionally preparing your child looks like is, is

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sort of stepping up in the sense of, of course, you know, like, maintaining

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that care for them and, and, and sort of thinking ahead for them to certain

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degree, but then also stepping back and I think for a lot of parents that

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stepping back is actually the harder part.

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And the stepping up, you know, we, um, Hannah, maybe we can add later, but

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we create, we have a launch checklist.

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Cause I think part of what you're talking about is like, we can be doing

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that now, but in some ways I think it has to start like two years early.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Right.

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And so we created a little checklist for our families.

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That's like, are your kids making their own doctor's appointments?

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Are they advocating at school for needs and, and doing that gradually?

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So it's not like a big shock.

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So I really appreciate what you're saying.

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I think, um, one of the things that I've noticed, and especially since COVID is

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students aren't leaving home as much before they're not getting practice.

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It seems like summer camps aren't.

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Kids don't go to summer camp as much and there's not like go stay

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with your grandma for a month like when I was growing up and so I am

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hearing a lot of students homesick.

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Um, advice on that.

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Yeah.

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Well, one is I just want to reiterate that point that you made about

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sort of preparing almost like two years in advance for some of that

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points, because I think that that's.

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Like at this stage, when your child is late 17 or 18, and they're actually

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going to college, a lot of what you're doing is relying on sort of the modeling

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or the lessons that you've implanted up to this point, rather than really

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doing anything active right now.

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So in terms of advice for homesickness, if I can kind of go back a couple of years.

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One piece is that one thing that I really see a lot, um, with college

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students is just stuff around avoidance, whether that's like emotional avoidance

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or not feeling comfortable feeling their feelings or things like avoiding

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scheduling that doctor's appointment to get to your point of homesickness.

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Maybe it's like avoidance of, of reaching out and trying to find

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a new community, which could be something that would really like help

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bolster that sense of homesickness.

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And the students that I see that are often the most successful are those

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that have this sort of instinct where if they feel a sense of fear or discomfort

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or anxiety, they're able to sort of identify maybe where that's coming to and

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then they take steps to approach that.

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So there's a lot of ways to model that right?

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Like.

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If you're, if you're, if your child or student is sort of nervous about

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something, whether it be like a summer camp or something smaller,

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uh, providing support, but then encouraging them to actually do the

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thing that they are then afraid of, um, and then modeling that in yourself.

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So that's 1 thing that I think is really preventative for, for homesickness.

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In terms of initial steps, I would say like that home sickness is

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really, really normal and typical, especially I don't know if we have any

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international parents or parents of international students, but especially

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in that case, it's like, very normal.

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And if it's something that your child is talking about, or worried

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about for like, 1, 2, 3 months, it's, it's just not something I'd

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be particularly concerned about.

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Um, if it led to, if it's the, we're talking like, 6 months, or if we

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feel like they're isolating, then I'm going to be more concerned.

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Um, but I think that again, like, supporting them, calling them, talking

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them through that, connecting them, friends, maybe from high school, uh, maybe

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fall break is a time where they can sort of get, uh, sort of like reintegrated

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a little bit into their, into their sort of high school friend community.

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But I think that that discomfort.

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Is like pretty normal and also maybe beneficial because that's often what

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leads people to then push out and do some things that might be out of

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their comfort zone, whether it's like joining a club, or whether it's sort

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of sitting down to someone else at lunch and introducing themselves.

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So a lot of those things for some students, especially

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more introverted students.

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They just don't happen unless they feel some homesickness or

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unless they feel some anxiety.

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So, yeah.

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Yeah, I would, I would just say that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

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And I think we're going to talk a little bit more about sort of like

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warning signs for real concerns.

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I was actually just going to ask you that because there's like a fine line, right?

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There's like, okay, you're doing okay.

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I actually, as a parent 10, when my kids went to college, I was so over

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trained on like letting them go.

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And I think sometimes I wasn't paying attention to some of

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the warning signs because I was like, you got it, you can do it.

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You don't need me.

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I'm the parent who launches great kids.

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And then like, what, what is the difference between that anxiety that's

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good and the anxiety that's not good?

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And how do we know from far away?

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Yeah.

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Right.

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Yeah, it can be hard to know from far away.

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Um, and then everyone has really different routines about how they,

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like, for example, would like call or FaceTime their child during college.

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Um, I mean, 1 thing is like setting up a regular time, maybe like once a week where

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you're doing that and you're checking in.

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Um, another thing would be like trying to figure out ways of contacting your student

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in case something like that word happens.

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So you would know.

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So maybe that looks like getting the numbers of roommates.

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Um.

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I was also an R.

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A.

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Like a resident assistant when I was a junior and senior when I was an undergrad.

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Um, and we tended not to have direct communication with parents,

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but we're like, working for the student in a lot of ways.

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Your R.

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A.

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Is like the 1st responder to your student.

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So, like, for example, I was, if if a student was like.

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Drunk to the point of being incapacitated.

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I'm the one who's going to send them to the hospital, or if a student is

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isolating in the room for like a week at a time, I'm going to be the one to know.

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Um, and then I notified it for us.

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It was the director of student life.

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So, finding out like, who that person is for your student for

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your child in their school.

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Um, and then you're probably not gonna be able to talk directly to the R.

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A.

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Just because those positions are they're sort of like shielded from

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managing parents, just because that's that's a lot of extra work for them.

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Yeah, right.

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Exactly.

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But they're going to report to someone else.

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He's part of the administration.

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And then that person is also going to be a point person that you can have

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their email or their phone number.

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Um, and if you are concerned, they might be a point of checking in.

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Um, I would say you're right that that line is really hard, right?

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And it's going to be different and context based for each student.

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Um, we talked about sort of like healthy anxiety or healthy stress.

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And that's the kind of stress that might push your student to do something

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that is empowering for them or sort of like, it makes creates more

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independence or creates more community.

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And then often I can see with when I work with people who might Reach that

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level of clinical anxiety or clinical depression that there's a little bit of

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a, like, a sort of vicious cycle going on.

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So, for example, student is so anxious that they feel as if they kind of

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aren't going to interact with anyone, or they're not going to go to that next

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event and that's sort of happening.

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And then, and then in doing so, maybe they feel like.

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A loss of community, which then sort of saps our energy and you can

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kind of see where you would hope that that would push them forward.

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But instead, it seems to be pulling them back.

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And if you're sort of noticing that pattern of that vicious

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cycle enough, that's, that's when I would start to be concerned.

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And by enough, I think I just mean a certain amount of time.

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Um, I think what I like about what you're saying is that, I mean, it

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actually goes back to what you're saying is building in some systems from the

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beginning, the communication piece, like, at least I want to hear from you.

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Once a week.

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Yeah.

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I mean, it's so different when I went to college, like we had a telephone, right?

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My parents didn't even expect me to call him.

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Like I went to school and then maybe I called him a couple of times.

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Then I went on Thanksgiving and now I think parents may have the expectations

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that their students would be in close touch and they don't hear from their

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kids and they get kind of anxious.

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And so it's hard for us to know because we don't know what's happened.

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We don't even know what's happening.

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So, I guess, not hearing from kids would be a pretty big red flag if

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they don't respond to you at all.

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Or if they're responding too much, that could be, if they're constantly

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calling you, that could be a red flag.

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But what about...

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How do we tease through, like, are there specific questions that could

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lead us to, because I really appreciate what you're saying, but it feels,

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it felt like if I were a parent, I'd be like, how would I even know that

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that's happening to my students?

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Yeah, right.

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And I think that it is more limited, right?

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Like, your knowledge of it.

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And I think having maybe certain expectations around calling or

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around like how frequently that is, when are we checking in,

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uh, is one way to actually know.

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I think one answer is that you're probably just like not going to know as much.

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And that's part of that.

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Like you said that like, in a lot of ways you are encouraged to let go more.

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And I think I'm imagining that different parents are at

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different places on that spectrum.

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Yeah, so I think knowing less is going to be part of that discomfort for parents

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that like, they might just have to manage in the same way that you're, you know,

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the child has to manage more anxiety.

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Uh, in terms of specific questions, um, I mean, I would be curious

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about, um, I'll, I'll lump this into three different categories

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based on a psychological theory.

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I like, it's called self determination theory.

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Self determination theory is based a lot on on the development of sort of intrinsic

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or internal motivation to sort of succeed.

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Uh, and it's interested in 3 different broad categories.

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1's autonomy, 1's relatedness and 1's competence.

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So, this, this is like a, you can kind of think about this

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almost as like a checklist.

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So, with relatedness, I'm going to be.

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Asking about or thinking about, like, their relationship to their

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roommate, their relationship to other friends, uh, their feeling of

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connectedness potentially to, like, classmates or to professors or to T.

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A's and the extent to which they're feeling as if, like, that they sort of

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care about me and I care about them.

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That's probably the number 1 thing I'm gonna pay attention to.

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Uh, the next is more academic and that gets around competence, which

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is do they feel like they have, uh, like, the ability to sort of master

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the content that they want to.

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Thank you.

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Academically that also may be like different things in their own life.

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So, like, maybe they don't, they're not comfortable with laundry, but they

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feel as if they can sort of, like, take steps to get to that point where they

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can do it, you know, and that gets to the last point of autonomy, which is

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like the ability to feel like you can sort of control your own path in life.

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And then, as their freshman, they're not going to feel like that initially,

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but if you can see sort of growth in that, um, that's another thing I'd be

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paying attention to for a student is, like, how much control do they have?

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How much control do they perceive that they have over the

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different elements of their life?

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Because when that, when that's at zero, that's when we see things like learned

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helplessness, if people are familiar with that, that's sort of this idea of you

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feel helpless to resolve the different conflicts or situations in your life.

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And then even when you actually can resolve them to such an extent,

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you sort of learn that you can't or perceive that you can't that you

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then don't take steps to even try.

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Um, and that would be sort of, like, the bottom end of that feeling of

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autonomy so that hopefully that offers a little bit of a guide.

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But you're right.

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It's hard to know.

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And as your student distances, I also am not I wouldn't be shocked if

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they, like, offered less, you know, in terms of how things are going.

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Then they then they might have before, uh, though it's hard to say, because

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often I see students when they're seniors in high school are actually

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pulling away more from their parents and are providing more resistance.

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And then, once they get to college, the, like, the natural distance that

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college provides sometimes actually improves those relationships, or

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actually makes a student, like, more interested in talking to the parent or

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providing more because I think that they feel less of they feel less of like a.

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Pulled actually separate because they are separated already so you can just

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go in a lot of different directions.

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I love that.

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Um, that's self determination.

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That is really helpful because that gives a framework.

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It's a framework for questions to ask.

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Um, if you're on that call with your parent, I mean, your child on a Sunday

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evening asking questions like, you know, not so much like, how are the classes?

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Is But more like, do you feel prepared for the classes that you're in?

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Do you feel like your high school prepared you?

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Um, are you, how do you feel like you're managing your time?

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Um, so instead of being like, how are you?

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Or, you know, how are the classes?

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To get more specific in the question asking.

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Um, I'm thinking even that around competence, like the academic

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question, but also like, just curious, have you done laundry yet?

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Uh, um, or, you know, when do you think you're going to do that?

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Just more out of fun, not like trying to be a nag.

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And then the relation piece to, um, I think asking questions like,

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Hey, have you ever taken time?

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Tell me about a professor that you've met.

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All right.

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Or do you ever have a chance to go out to dinner with your professors?

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Like maybe asking really specific questions.

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It reminds me, actually, I was a kindergarten teacher for years and I

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used to teach my parents, um, don't ask.

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What did you have a good day to a kindergartner instead,

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say, who did you sit next to?

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Yeah.

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Who did you, um, what book did your teacher read today?

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Um, what was the song that you sang?

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So in some ways, and I've said this for so long, that mentoring high

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schoolers is not that different than mentoring kindergartners.

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It's really just a different level of that building autonomy, right?

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Right.

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And self determination and competence and all of that.

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And the whole point of being a parent is to get them to the point

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where we can launch them, where they get to play in a bigger field.

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And when you play in a bigger field, it's going to be harder.

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You have to have more stamina.

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You have to be, you have to use those muscles in a new way,

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which means there's going to be times that are going to be rough.

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Yes, yeah, exactly.

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Yeah, I think that's great points.

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Um, I think that, especially for the 1st, like, 6 months of freshman year, I

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think the highs are higher than normal and the lows are sometimes lower.

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So, like, I think that if they feel loneliness, like, they hadn't

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experienced before in high school.

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But, but it's like, they feel that for a night and then the next

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morning they're feeling better or even for a couple of days.

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Like, I'm not that to me is just part of going to this new community.

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That's you're probably gonna feel more lonely.

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But then also, like, that's sometimes are often paired with, like, a sense

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of excitement and hopefully there's like, excitement around classes.

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There's an excitement around being able to control their own schedules.

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There's like, an excitement around, like, living around so many different peers.

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Um, so.

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Yeah, I see both of those things to your point.

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It brings up for me, um, in some ways, no matter what, no matter what

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learning profile your student has that really, it might be advantageous

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to front load some of these things.

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Yeah, say this like I never thought about ever saying that to my kids

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like, Hey, I want you to know that you should expect to feel highs and lows.

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Yeah, you should expect to be like, I'm on top of the world.

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I have the best friends in the world.

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And then you like crash when you don't get invited.

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Or you don't get, um, you don't get the bid for sorority or fraternity.

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Those kinds of things can really, I've actually, I actually had, um, I

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won't get too into it, but somebody that I knew who did not get into

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the sorority that she wanted and she left the school within a week.

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And it's hard to put yourself out there and to not be accepted and to be able

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to, like, as you said, like readjust.

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I will make a quick, um, call out to, um, This you can get these on Amazon

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talking college card deck and this is, um, these are, this is created

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by the woman who we're actually going to be interviewing her soon.

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I'm super excited.

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Her name is Andrea Hannah.

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Do you know her last name?

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Uh, Malcolm.

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Perfect.

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She did these cards and she wrote a book called, um, doing

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college or something like that.

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And I think these, um, these are ones, you know, again, maybe

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we should be talking about it.

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Yeah.

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earlier, not just a month before college, but heck, why not?

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I mean, if I had kids college, I'd probably have these on my table because

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there's a whole bunch of things in there that do kind of front load and

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prepare that we might not, if parents even remember, and even psychologists

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might not be thinking about this, right?

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These little things, but sometimes it's those little details that can.

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Blow up in our face and have those.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah, I love those cards too.

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I have a similar sort of card deck for, uh, for like different forms

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of therapy or coping strategies.

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And I find that like the cards are actually a lot more helpful than a book

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because they're just more accessible.

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That's right.

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And then you can practice some more.

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Yeah, totally.

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Let's see.

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Um, what about, let's just assume we kind of get through

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that first beginning period.

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What about sustainability of mental health over time?

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I mean, we've had incredible conversations in, in our, um, this, I'm kind of

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calling it a podcast, even though it's not really a podcast, but it feels

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like a podcast growing good humans.

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We actually interviewed an amazing amazing expert in the field on title nine.

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Um, and she really addressed a lot about sex, alcohol, drugs, and the role that

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that plays in mental health in college and the kind of things that can happen when

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students are drinking and doing drugs.

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And, um, man, that can really create some, some serious challenges.

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Um, how, what's, what's, what's your psychology, like, what, we

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need another, um, we need another theory to help us through this.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I was, I was thinking about substances as we were having our

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initial conversation, because it's obviously a huge part of, of college.

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And it's, I mean, high school students come into college with different levels

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of experience or different levels of use around alcohol and marijuana in Colorado.

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I mean, I'm seeing a lot of high school students who are, who are

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vaping nicotine really frequently.

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And we're also smoking marijuana or like, eating it very frequently to, um,

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what's probably different there though, is that there's not like an adult present

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to sort of like, moderate that use.

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Um, so, I mean, I don't know.

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I've seen, I see a lot of college students.

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Especially freshman or sophomores who have pretty problematic drinking, and then it

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resolves itself through time, but then also sometimes it doesn't resolve itself.

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Um, and like, a lot of college is weird with the norms.

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So, like, I'm gonna bring this up in two ways.

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One's with alcohol and one's with socializing.

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So, with alcohol, there's such a norm.

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Around, uh, like partying and alcohol use and like, maybe like 6 or 8 drinks being

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normal when we know that that's considered binge drinking and can be really harmful,

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but, like, being around it as a norm sort of, I think, really impacts.

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The way that you drink and the way that you encounter substances,

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uh, and there's this, there's this finding in social psychology.

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It's called pluralistic ignorance.

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It's this idea that, like, when people have an idea of a norm, then

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sometimes that will impact their behavior, even if the norm is wrong.

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So, for example, in, in, uh, my undergrad.

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Uh, there's this idea that like people drank a lot, uh, and then if you were

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to ask someone like, how, what's the percentage of students that really drink

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a lot on campus, people would probably say like 80, 90% of students, but the

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number was actually like 50% when they, when they were asking people and, and

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like, because of that false norm, I think it actually increases drinking, uh, which

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could be a conversation with your student or just something that they could be more

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aware of is to sort of watch out for that.

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The other way this comes across is through socializing.

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It's a little bit different from your question, but, but I wanted

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to point it out from an earlier.

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Earlier conversation we had, and it's not like when you're on college

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campus, it's easy to get the idea that everyone is always social constantly.

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And it's because when you're out and about, you're seeing people

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often who are also out and about.

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And what that can create is like an enhanced sense of loneliness,

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because you feel like, man, like everyone's always socializing.

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And like, I'm not seeing as many people as other people are seeing.

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So it's another way in which sort of like a false norm gets in your head.

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And through social comparison.

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Which we know among our teens and then college students is like is intense.

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It can make you feel as if you're more isolated than you actually may be.

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And in comparison, other students, maybe you feel like you're more

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lonely or more isolated than they are.

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And that's usually not the case.

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It's usually just a misperception of how often people are socializing.

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Wow.

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I mean, I think a lot of students have some familiarity.

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Familiarity with that just related to social media and that, you know, right.

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Fear of missing out.

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And it's so present everywhere.

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And here I am alone on a Friday night at college reading a book.

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And, um, I mean, it's.

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I think that's another way to kind of front load like these are things it's

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like I want all my students to know before they before they go because

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it's set it resets the norm, right?

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Because what is actually the perceived norm is not the perceived norm.

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And if students have maybe a self talk around that, like, I know, I

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feel I know that I feel Um, lonely.

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I know that this is a feeling.

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I know that this feeling is maybe out of line compared to

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what Is actually happening.

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I mean, I don't know.

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Maybe you could give me the self talk because I'm not.

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Yeah, no, I think that that's that's totally right.

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Uh, it's sort of like I'm having this feeling of loneliness.

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Uh, that feeling is, is like real.

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And I want to validate that in myself.

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Uh, part of the reason I feel like this is I think that other students

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on campus are doing better than I am.

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I kind of know logically that that's not really true.

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So I want to like validate.

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The feeling that I'm having, but like all the thoughts around it, I can

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identify as like, yeah, those are probably those are probably not true

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and that, like, it's okay for me to take time to myself if that's what I need.

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Or sometimes I don't get invited to stuff that that's okay.

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That's that's the norm, you know, and that, like, other students

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are also feeling the same way.

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I am.

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Do you, um.

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Do you, I'm thinking back to, um, when I was back when I was parenting

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and I used to say stuff to my kids, like be okay with saying no, but then

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I always tried to say what to let me help you what you can say yes to, so

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let's just say we're alone on a Friday night of that feeling of loneliness.

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What's that next?

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Let's see.

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I'm gonna see if I can get this right.

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What's the next?

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I mean, in that self determination, it would be maybe just that

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ability to control your own life.

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So it would be autonomy, right?

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What would be the autonomous next move in one's thinking at that moment?

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Yeah.

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Well, one thing I really liked, um, helping students doing it works for myself

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too, is like when I'm having that feeling rather than trying to like fix it now.

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For example, by going to try and find out to do something is to plan like a social

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activity into the future, uh, that I can then like, And then I often find that

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that like really helps the feeling or provides relief to that feeling now Um,

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see I would often people are more likely to say yes to because people are more

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likely to be like Oh, I can hang out, you know in four days or tomorrow as opposed

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to like, what are you doing right now?

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So i've had i've had a little bit more success with that.

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I really like that.

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Do you Are you in a position to explain why, why that works better?

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Yeah, go ahead.

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Oh, I just think that it's, I think it's more likely to, for people to say yes.

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I think that like often, uh, one way that like, and we're,

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we're talking about just sort of.

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Normal loneliness here.

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But one way that depression works is when you're feeling really down, depression

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can convince you that the feeling you're having right now is gonna last forever.

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And that it's also like broader and more global than it actually is.

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So maybe like you didn't get into your sorority to use your example,

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and then maybe the thought is like, I'm alone, people don't like being

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around me, and that's gonna be true.

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For the rest of college.

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So if you can just do something into the future that sort of convinces you that

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what's happening now is actually quite specific and quite time limited, then it

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has a good way of just sort of cutting or like deflating that like natural expanding

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sense of like depression or anxiety.

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Cause those, those emotions, those like tendencies will take up a lot

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of space if you sort of let them.

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Wow.

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That's great.

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I just looked at my clock for the first time and it's 1230 and I'm

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like, Oh my gosh, that was so amazing.

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Dylan, we can, we plan our next session after this, you know, let's

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get our next topic on the books.

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Your input is so valuable.

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I am, I, we are going to send this Hannah to.

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All of our people who are leaving.

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And actually I think we should send it to our students because I think even though

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we're kind of like, how do parents help?

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I think this is really valuable, specifically that self determination

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piece, I think it's really valuable.

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And as always, we like to stop on time.

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So we get people keep coming and watching.

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So we're so very grateful for you and everything that you do for our community

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and we can't wait to see you again.

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Yeah.

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Thank you so much.

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Can't wait to, can't wait to join back.

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And thanks, Hannah.

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I forgot to introduce you.

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Oh, I'm good.

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I just sit here.

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You're a very amazing moderator.

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And I always forget to introduce you and express my gratitude for you, too.

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So, thank you.

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Of course.

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Thank you, Dylan.

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Bye, everybody.

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