Has what happens after high school always seemed cut and dry to you?  There is a decades-long idea that after high school comes college and that is the way of life, but what it is wasn’t for some? What if it is for others?

Stephanie and Nellie have a fantastic and educational discussion here that you will want a pen and paper out for. Stephanie discusses the details of the 5 main pathways of post-high school education and the pros and cons of each. We discuss the ever sparkly “college experience” what that actually is and how to have conversations with our kids to start with the end and work backward to find the way.

I hope this message reaches every parent with a middle or high schooler out there today so we can help lead our kids to their best future!

About the Guest:

Stephanie Haynes, ACC is an Education Coach and Consultant providing custom educational consulting and coaching for high school students, educators, and schools that equips all stakeholders to build a pathway to future teens are excited to pursue. Specializing in post-high school pathway development, goal setting and time management, and classroom and school culture development, Stephanie’s vision is to motivate people in transition to create a compelling vision for their future, their classroom, or their school and develop actionable steps to build it into a reality. She is a veteran Educator, Speaker, and Author who balances her career with spending time with her husband of 25 years, two children, and two rescue dogs, and spending time outdoors in all the nature South Carolina has to offer.

 

https://www.instagram.com/EdCoachStephHaynes

https://www.facebook.com/EdCoachStephHaynes

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZeM0bdkwVKj-0F9xK9HtHw/featured

About the Host:

Nellie Harden is a wife of 20+ years, mom to 4 teen/tween daughters, dreamer, adventurer, servant, multipreneur, forever student, and a devoted teacher, but her ride-or-die passion is her work as a Family Life Coach & Mentor. 

Coming from a career background in marine mammal sciences, behavioral work, and a host of big life experiences, both great and not some not so great, she decided that designing a life of purpose and freedom was how she and her husband, along with their 4 daughters, wanted to live. 

Her work and passions exist in the realms of family and parent mentorship because she believes that a family filled with creativity, fun, laughter, challenge, adventure, problem-solving, hugs, good food, and learning can not only change a person’s life but is the best chance at positively changing the world. 

She helps families build Self-Led Discipline™ & Leadership Into their homes, sets their children up for a wildly successful life on their terms, and elevates the family experience with big joy, palpable peace, and everyday growth!

With a lifelong passion and curiosity in thought, choice, behavior, and growth she has found incredible joy in helping families shift perspective, find answers, and a path forward.

 

(Nellie has been coaching families for over 10 years and has degrees in Biology, Animal Behavior and Psychology. ) 

 

LINKS:

Family Success Vault- https://www.nellieharden.com/vault

Website- https://www.nellieharden.com

Online Community- https://www.facebook.com/groups/the6570project

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/nellieharden/   

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/nellie.harden/

 

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.

Nellie Harden: 00:00:04

Hello and welcome to the 6570 family project

Nellie Harden: 00:00:08

podcast. If you are a parent of a tween teen or somewhere on the

Nellie Harden: 00:00:13

way, this is exactly the place for you. This is the playground

Nellie Harden: 00:00:18

for parents who want to raise their kids with intention,

Nellie Harden: 00:00:21

strength and joy. Come and hear all the discussions, get all the

Nellie Harden: 00:00:25

tactics and have lots of laughs along the way. We will dive into

Nellie Harden: 00:00:29

the real challenges and raising kids today how to show up as

Nellie Harden: 00:00:33

parents and teach your kids how to show up as members of the

Nellie Harden: 00:00:36

family and individuals of the world. My name is Nellie Hardin,

Nellie Harden: 00:00:41

big city girl turns small towns sipping iced tea on the front

Nellie Harden: 00:00:45

porch mama, who loves igniting transformation in the hearts and

Nellie Harden: 00:00:48

minds of families by helping them build selfless discipline

Nellie Harden: 00:00:52

and leadership that elevates the family experience. And sets the

Nellie Harden: 00:00:56

kids up with a rock solid foundation they can launch their

Nellie Harden: 00:01:00

life on all before they ever leave home. This is the 6570

Nellie Harden: 00:01:05

family project. Let's go

Nellie Harden: 00:01:12

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the 6570

Nellie Harden: 00:01:15

family project podcast. No matter if this is your first

Nellie Harden: 00:01:19

time here or you've been around for a while you are here because

Nellie Harden: 00:01:22

you are a parent or thinking about being a parent and you

Nellie Harden: 00:01:25

want to help build those kids into the best version of

Nellie Harden: 00:01:29

themselves. And that's exactly what we're doing here. We are

Nellie Harden: 00:01:32

building confidence we are building respect, we are

Nellie Harden: 00:01:35

building wisdom into these kids all during their childhood so

Nellie Harden: 00:01:39

that they are equipped with that before they ever leave home. So

Nellie Harden: 00:01:44

today, this goes perfectly with us and honestly with me, I have

Nellie Harden: 00:01:50

a 16 year old to 14 year old and a 12 year old and our guest on

Nellie Harden: 00:01:54

here today. Stephanie Haynes is an education coach and

Nellie Harden: 00:01:59

consultant, you guys, she provides custom educational

Nellie Harden: 00:02:03

consulting and coaching for high school students, educators and

Nellie Harden: 00:02:06

schools that equips all of them to build a pathway to a future

Nellie Harden: 00:02:11

that the teens are excited about they want to pursue it. And she

Nellie Harden: 00:02:16

specializes in post high school pathway development and Goal,

Nellie Harden: 00:02:21

goal setting and time management and classroom and school culture

Nellie Harden: 00:02:24

development. When I sat down with Stephanie, earlier today, I

Nellie Harden: 00:02:29

was blown away because right now my kiddo is between her junior

Nellie Harden: 00:02:34

in or I'm sorry, she's in her junior, we're going into senior

Nellie Harden: 00:02:37

next year. And it's kind of the snowball effect for both child

Nellie Harden: 00:02:42

and parents. She's my oldest. So this is the first time we're

Nellie Harden: 00:02:45

going through this. This, this is the first time our family is

Nellie Harden: 00:02:48

going through this right? And what are the options that are

Nellie Harden: 00:02:52

out there. And Stephanie does such a great job in this

Nellie Harden: 00:02:56

interview of walking us through the five most common and

Nellie Harden: 00:03:02

pathways of post high school education. Now some people don't

Nellie Harden: 00:03:06

have post high school education, they go directly into business,

Nellie Harden: 00:03:09

they go directly into missions work or whatever that is. And

Nellie Harden: 00:03:13

that is good, too. But we are talking about the people that

Nellie Harden: 00:03:17

have a post high school education path. And that's where

Nellie Harden: 00:03:21

we go today. And this is so enlightening. Be sure you have a

Nellie Harden: 00:03:25

pen and paper out. I wish I would have like had a pen and

Nellie Harden: 00:03:28

paper out when my kids were like five when I was doing this, but

Nellie Harden: 00:03:31

it's all good. Right? We we love the time that we have left, we

Nellie Harden: 00:03:36

don't just think about the time that has gone on. So anyway, go

Nellie Harden: 00:03:40

grab a nice cold beverage or nice warm beverage whatever you

Nellie Harden: 00:03:44

want a pen and paper and listen in on this discussion with

Nellie Harden: 00:03:48

Stephanie. And without further ado, let's get started. Hello,

Nellie Harden: 00:03:52

everyone. Okay, you guys, I have told you about a little bit

Nellie Harden: 00:03:56

about Stephanie. I'm so excited to have her on here. So first of

Nellie Harden: 00:03:59

all, welcome to the show, Stephanie.

Unknown: 00:04:01

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to

Unknown: 00:04:04

be here.

Nellie Harden: 00:04:04

Oh, I am so excited to and so like I said,

Nellie Harden: 00:04:08

Stephanie is an education coach and consultant. And if you've

Nellie Harden: 00:04:12

been listening to this at all, you know that I am, we've had

Nellie Harden: 00:04:16

all over the place with education. And if you're brand

Nellie Harden: 00:04:18

new, I personally have four kids that are 16 1414 and 12. And we

Nellie Harden: 00:04:24

do some homeschooling we have some dual enrollment happening.

Nellie Harden: 00:04:27

We've done every kind of school into the spectrum. And now we're

Nellie Harden: 00:04:31

getting to this pivot point right that we're really looking

Nellie Harden: 00:04:34

at the future so I cannot wait to see what Stephanie is going

Nellie Harden: 00:04:39

to share with us today. So but before we get into that, you are

Nellie Harden: 00:04:44

obviously a leader and education coaching consultant, like you

Nellie Harden: 00:04:47

said, and you provide these custom educational consulting

Nellie Harden: 00:04:51

and coaching for high school students and educators and

Nellie Harden: 00:04:54

schools that equips all stakeholders to build a pathway

Nellie Harden: 00:04:58

to a future where teens are sited to pursue and how I mean

Nellie Harden: 00:05:02

not to be redundant. How exciting would it be to have

Nellie Harden: 00:05:05

your teen excited to pursue right and not dreaded or not

Nellie Harden: 00:05:09

just lackadaisical? And like, well, I guess this is what I

Nellie Harden: 00:05:12

have to do next. So I guess this is what I'm going to do right?

Nellie Harden: 00:05:15

Or the dread. And that's what you get to specialize in. So I

Nellie Harden: 00:05:19

would love to know how you've gotten to this place. And what

Nellie Harden: 00:05:23

has your journey been like to be this educational leader that you

Nellie Harden: 00:05:27

are today?

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:29

That's a really great question. And it's

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:31

a very detailed story. So I'm going to give you like the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:34

snapshot, because we don't need to talk too much about it. But

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:36

to establish that I actually do know what I'm talking about. I

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:40

have wanted to be a teacher since I was in the second grade,

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:42

I had a second grade teacher who inspired me and it never

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:45

changed. So all through high school, all through middle

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:48

school, I'm watching and learning because I'm going to be

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:51

a teacher, I need to figure this out. Before I get there. I chose

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:54

to go to top teaching school in the nation at that point, and

Stephanie Haynes: 00:05:57

still is ranked one in the top 10, which is incredible, because

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:00

I had no idea that training I received was so state of the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:03

art. I taught in California, which is where I grew up for 10

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:06

years, I taught in a public school. But I also taught for

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:09

what was preliminary charter school, if you will, it was a

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:12

school within a school and I worked with the demographic of

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:15

kids that that other teachers didn't want to work with was at

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:18

risk kids that they thought were going to cause problems. And

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:21

we're never really on task and class and all those kinds of

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:24

kids. And we got them through high school and graduated and

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:26

successful. And I learned during that time that hmm, I kid a

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:31

stereotype in one way will live up to that stereotype. But a kid

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:36

who is stereotyped or labeled in a different way, will live up to

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:40

that label too. And so I learned that if I could help them see

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:44

who they were, and who they already could be and what the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:49

future could hold for them. They kind of start believing that

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:52

too. And so helping them develop what was not even termed at this

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:56

point, because I started teaching in 1991. So it's been a

Stephanie Haynes: 00:06:59

long time. It was not even termed a growth mindset, or, you

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:03

know, limited mindset, I hope. I just understood that these kids

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:06

felt stuck. And I didn't like them being stuck because I

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:08

thought they could do better, they could definitely do

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:10

something, I never believed that somebody can't accomplish

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:13

something. And so working with those kids and training them to

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:17

believe that they could do something and then working with

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:21

them intensely for three years, I learned a ton about kids. And

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:25

I learned a ton about the education system. And I learned

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:28

a ton about the stereotypes. And so breaking those down. I

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:31

thought, Oh, this is the best thing ever, when you have a kid

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:35

who didn't believe they could graduate because they're in a

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:37

gang and they don't have any parents at home. And their home

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:40

life is like they make law and older episodes about it when

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:43

they graduate and they have certification to be an EMT. And

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:47

they're like, I'm doing something and they're getting

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:49

out of what they're stuck in. There's no better feeling in the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:52

world for me as an educator. So that was the first part. Well,

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:56

during this time, I'm also having kids I have now I have a

Stephanie Haynes: 00:07:59

25 year old got no 24 and 20 year olds, oh my gosh, you just

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:03

turned 25 No more teenagers. But I was having these kids and I

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:07

thought, well, do I stay home? Do I work? Do what is this look

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:11

like? My husband got a new job when we moved to South Carolina?

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:14

Well, that's a huge move. Yeah. And he was traveling, he said,

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:18

Let's just have you stay home and so on. So I stayed home for

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:21

a while. My kids went off to school, I was so happy on the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:24

day, both my son and my daughter were finally in school. And then

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:27

my daughter had some struggles. There's some bullying, there was

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:31

some, just some not good things. And I watched how the school

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:33

responded, and nothing against our school. They were trying to

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:37

be as supportive as possible. But you can't stop the cancer

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:39

bullying the way they were trying. And so we brought our

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:42

daughter home, and we homeschooled her fourth through

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:44

eighth and my son decided he went home to so we homeschool

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:47

him first through fifth, and had an amazing experience. So I'm

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:50

here I'm a homeschool educator from my own kids. And the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:53

program that we taught in I became a teacher for them to so

Stephanie Haynes: 00:08:57

I taught English for the homeschool program. And then so

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:00

I worked in that dynamic and I realized, oh yeah, these kids,

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:03

they don't think they cannot do things. There's an environment

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:06

here that matters. They've been shown that they have opportunity

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:09

to do things differently. They don't fit that traditional mold.

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:13

Fast for my daughter went to private school for a year

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:16

decided it was not for her went to public school, our son

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:19

meanwhile, he was doing well in the public school but not so

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:22

great. And we ended up having opportunity move back to South

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:25

Carolina because we had moved to Missouri for a while, came back

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:27

and taught I started teaching again in a charter school. This

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:31

particular charter school was based on a premise of elite

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:34

athletics, any elite academics, so kids who went there, got dual

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:39

enrollment credit starting as early as their sophomore year of

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:42

high school. And they also got elite training with a ton of

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:46

recruiting if they want to play collegiate sports. There's also

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:48

a third element if you didn't want to be that that was fine

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:51

too. He wanted to be a collegiate athlete and he is to

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:54

this at this day and he earned 45 college credits before he

Stephanie Haynes: 00:09:57

even got to college. So I watched that environment. But

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:00

when these kids showed up to the school, they were showing up

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:04

full of anxiety, anger, fear, just believing that they were

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:09

never going to be good enough, if they couldn't get a 4.0 or

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:12

higher amounts, like a six point scale, I don't even know where

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:14

that came from. If they didn't get up there, they were never

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:18

gonna get into college, which meant they're never gonna be

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:19

successful, and they were failures. Well, that's not true.

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:22

I know that you know that. But somehow our culture had

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:25

translated the message of success to one way only, you've

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:28

got to go to college to be successful. And it's not true.

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:31

But they had been molded into that belief. And their parents,

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:34

no judgment on them had been molded into that too. It started

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:37

when I first started teaching, it's been going on. And I

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:40

thought, There's got to change. I'd love teaching, got my

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:42

coaching certification and decided I'm going to change the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:46

education world, one kid at a time, and help them break that

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:49

mold. But in the meantime, I also got hired to work with

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:52

schools to help them build that culture of success, to make sure

Stephanie Haynes: 00:10:56

that all kids can be successful, not just the ones who are going

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:00

off to college, and to promote that idea of success. Because if

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:02

you or your listeners have ever been in a high school, they

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:05

promote signing day for athletes, and they promote the

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:08

college acceptance letter, when kids think about community

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:11

college or trade schools, or any of the military not often as

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:15

celebrated. And that's not okay. We need to make sure they're all

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:19

celebrated. So that's kind of that's why I hope that's enough,

Stephanie Haynes: 00:11:23

but not too much. Yeah,

Nellie Harden: 00:11:24

that's no, no, I think that's fascinating. And I

Nellie Harden: 00:11:28

was taking notes while you're going along, like, especially in

Nellie Harden: 00:11:31

the beginning with the these generational cycles that we see,

Nellie Harden: 00:11:34

right, and trying to break these generational molds. So you can

Nellie Harden: 00:11:39

be unstuck and be free. And the whole bead you have right to be

Nellie Harden: 00:11:44

the person that you you need to believe it first though, right?

Nellie Harden: 00:11:47

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I even have this tattoo on my

Nellie Harden: 00:11:52

wrist and the first step right here, it's because it's like my

Nellie Harden: 00:11:55

life journey. It's my faith journey, even. But believe is

Nellie Harden: 00:11:58

the very first thing and you need to believe it before you

Nellie Harden: 00:12:00

can be it. So be do and then you have right, it's not that you're

Nellie Harden: 00:12:04

already have it or that you are already that kind of person, you

Nellie Harden: 00:12:08

need to believe that you can be so anyway, I love that journey.

Nellie Harden: 00:12:12

And all the moves we did a move to we only did have a country

Nellie Harden: 00:12:16

though you did a whole country. We did have. And we went from

Nellie Harden: 00:12:19

Indianapolis to North Carolina, back in 2015. So I get the big

Nellie Harden: 00:12:23

move thing, for sure. But I find it really interesting that,

Nellie Harden: 00:12:30

especially in this elitist school you were going in I mean,

Nellie Harden: 00:12:33

you've really swung the pendulum from one side to another, you

Nellie Harden: 00:12:37

know, yeah. Oh, yeah. Before you were going there, but it gave

Nellie Harden: 00:12:42

you so much perspective. And what I find fascinating is that

Nellie Harden: 00:12:46

the kids going into the elite school had the same internal

Nellie Harden: 00:12:50

dialogue as the kids that were, you know, coming from gangs

Unknown: 00:12:55

trapped as each other there's nobody was less trapped.

Unknown: 00:12:59

Yeah,

Nellie Harden: 00:13:00

absolutely. And I find I think that's something

Nellie Harden: 00:13:02

very much keep in mind. And, you know, I came from a background

Nellie Harden: 00:13:07

of, you know, my mom didn't go to college, but darn it if I

Nellie Harden: 00:13:12

wasn't going to college, right. But I always wanted to go to

Nellie Harden: 00:13:14

college. So that wasn't an issue. But did I always want to

Nellie Harden: 00:13:18

because that was always the path. I don't know, I can't go

Nellie Harden: 00:13:21

back. And you know, and pick apart that psychology there. But

Nellie Harden: 00:13:24

I did, and I loved it. And I degrees in biology, psychology,

Nellie Harden: 00:13:28

and so. And I've been able to use them in so many different

Nellie Harden: 00:13:31

ways in my life. But when it came to our kids, you know, so

Nellie Harden: 00:13:36

many people, they're like, Oh, you have kids, you have to set

Nellie Harden: 00:13:39

up a 529. And I was like, I was like, okay, so we did it for

Nellie Harden: 00:13:43

like a year. And then we really started, you know, that was for

Nellie Harden: 00:13:47

my oldest, she's 16 now and we just started thinking more when

Nellie Harden: 00:13:51

she was even younger. And we're like, Well, I don't want to

Nellie Harden: 00:13:53

pigeonhole her into something that who knows she might not

Nellie Harden: 00:13:58

want to do there's plenty of super successful people out

Nellie Harden: 00:14:02

there. both monetarily successful but also even more

Nellie Harden: 00:14:05

importantly, emotionally successful, right, and

Nellie Harden: 00:14:09

fulfillment successful in life work for nonprofits and all of

Nellie Harden: 00:14:13

these things that I did not go to college. And so I'm like, I

Nellie Harden: 00:14:17

don't know. So we backed out of that one, and we set up

Nellie Harden: 00:14:21

different funds for our kids. And I can't tell you how many

Nellie Harden: 00:14:26

people have been like and I'm not saying something against the

Nellie Harden: 00:14:28

529 you want to do 529 You know, that's great. I'm saying for our

Nellie Harden: 00:14:32

decision for our family for our family. It just was not in the

Nellie Harden: 00:14:36

cards but we got so much flack for that and every time we

Nellie Harden: 00:14:39

brought up why people would just look at a sideways and so I find

Nellie Harden: 00:14:45

that really interesting. So tell me a little bit about that.

Nellie Harden: 00:14:49

Where do you think this comes from this? Must do high school

Nellie Harden: 00:14:53

must do college, you know grad work is is cut and paste but

Nellie Harden: 00:14:57

where? Because my mom didn't go to college. I don't feel like

Nellie Harden: 00:15:00

that was the case in the, you know, 60s 70s by any means. 80s

Nellie Harden: 00:15:05

We were kind of transitioning, but by the time I graduated high

Nellie Harden: 00:15:07

school 96 And it was a pretty set in stone. Yep. You know,

Unknown: 00:15:12

it was and you're right and say it was a it was, what is

Unknown: 00:15:17

it when you put a frog in a pot of water, and you slowly turn up

Unknown: 00:15:20

the heat and never know this being boiled, right? The same is

Unknown: 00:15:23

happening in education. So when I first graduated high school, I

Unknown: 00:15:27

graduate high school in 1987, I was not of the majority going

Unknown: 00:15:32

off to a four year college, I was definitely not in the

Unknown: 00:15:35

majority actually knowing what I wanted to do. So I had that

Unknown: 00:15:39

difference. Most of my students, my fellow classmates, went to a

Unknown: 00:15:43

community college or went right into working with their families

Unknown: 00:15:46

in their family business, or maybe went to a trade school and

Unknown: 00:15:49

got some certifications and some things so they could get into an

Unknown: 00:15:52

industry or it. That was kind of where it is, when I graduated

Unknown: 00:15:55

college with my teaching certification five years later,

Unknown: 00:15:58

and stepped back into the high school setting. That was still

Unknown: 00:16:01

kind of the dynamic. And this was a time when there were no

Unknown: 00:16:04

standards. There was no aligned curriculum, there was no

Unknown: 00:16:08

established curriculum, you could walk into one English, one

Unknown: 00:16:11

classroom and another English one class, and they be

Unknown: 00:16:13

completely different. Maybe the same books, but not necessarily

Unknown: 00:16:16

the same essay topics or tests or anything else. And so we were

Unknown: 00:16:20

doing fine. We had a great time. Along the way, more and more

Unknown: 00:16:25

parents started saying we want a better life for our kids,

Unknown: 00:16:28

understandably, now, the 80s and ushered in that whole age of

Unknown: 00:16:33

glitter and money and car phones, and you know, what is it

Unknown: 00:16:36

la law and all that kind of stuff that had started? Yes. So

Unknown: 00:16:40

they wanted their kids to go off to college, because those were

Unknown: 00:16:42

the ready got those degrees? Well, colleges were saying, Hey,

Unknown: 00:16:45

wait, these kids aren't coming prepared. They're not coming

Unknown: 00:16:50

with enough base knowledge that we need them to have to be

Unknown: 00:16:53

successful here. So they started communicating with school

Unknown: 00:16:57

districts and state education departments and partnering and

Unknown: 00:17:00

saying, especially state schools, we need you to do a

Unknown: 00:17:02

better job in the high schools to make sure that these kids are

Unknown: 00:17:05

prepared. So what suffered the arts programs, the trades

Unknown: 00:17:09

programs, you notice, as all started going away, and now you

Unknown: 00:17:13

have these graduation requirements of four years of

Unknown: 00:17:15

English, three plus years of math, four years of social

Unknown: 00:17:19

studies is four years of science, depending, you know,

Unknown: 00:17:21

you have some electives, you get to throw in there, but nothing

Unknown: 00:17:24

strategic, nothing specific about developing towards a

Unknown: 00:17:27

career pathway that has since morphed. And now everybody was

Unknown: 00:17:31

like, well, we're going this is a school that goes to college

Unknown: 00:17:34

now in school report cards. Well, what was that report card

Unknown: 00:17:37

based on? How many kids went to college? How high were their AC

Unknown: 00:17:40

T scores, how high were there SAP scores that indicated

Unknown: 00:17:44

property values, which indicated taxes that go into the school

Unknown: 00:17:46

system, right. So the system changed and what was valued and

Unknown: 00:17:50

what was important, and as that became much more widespread? Now

Unknown: 00:17:56

we add in, you know, at the time I first started teaching, there

Unknown: 00:17:58

was no Internet, none, there was no way to let anybody else know

Unknown: 00:18:02

what you were doing. Five years, and then there was internet, and

Unknown: 00:18:05

we got to all of a sudden, they expanded to the entire country,

Unknown: 00:18:08

what was going on in education. Now we all got connected in all

Unknown: 00:18:11

kinds of ways. And then you start standards. And now you

Unknown: 00:18:14

have standardized testing, because we were failing as you

Unknown: 00:18:16

know, country, and it's all ugly, when you look at it in

Unknown: 00:18:19

that perspective. So it's been a slow rise of college as the only

Unknown: 00:18:24

way. And it's gotten to the point and you indicated that

Unknown: 00:18:26

mold even that the people that your world are living in that

Unknown: 00:18:31

you have to save money for college as a parent, yes, you

Unknown: 00:18:33

have to do that 529, or you're not doing a good job, as a

Unknown: 00:18:36

parent, you're somehow, you know, putting your child at a

Unknown: 00:18:39

disadvantage. And that means you're expected to get them into

Unknown: 00:18:43

a high school and get them get good grades, and then they get

Unknown: 00:18:45

on to a good college, which is going to give them a good job,

Unknown: 00:18:47

which is going to give them a good life. The problem is,

Unknown: 00:18:50

nobody ever defines that, just as assumption, and the

Unknown: 00:18:54

millennial generation proved us wrong. They said, Wait, you told

Unknown: 00:18:59

us to go to college, you told us to take on hundreds of 1000s of

Unknown: 00:19:02

debts, because you told us you were going to have a good job

Unknown: 00:19:05

that was going to pay off his debt, and we were going to be

Unknown: 00:19:07

okay. And that didn't happen. 2008 You know, we have all kinds

Unknown: 00:19:11

of problems. So we're becoming more aware. But the system of

Unknown: 00:19:15

course, is slow to change education when the slowest

Unknown: 00:19:18

systems in the world to change. And so it's gradually deciding

Unknown: 00:19:23

whether or not it wants to move that way. And that's where I'm

Unknown: 00:19:26

coming in. As for other people like me come in who are trying

Unknown: 00:19:29

to help schools recognize it can be different, and we have to

Unknown: 00:19:32

help parents recognize it can be different. And we have to help

Unknown: 00:19:35

kids realize you can be successful in a variety of ways,

Unknown: 00:19:38

but we have to retrain the way they think.

Nellie Harden: 00:19:41

Right? I I find it so interesting. So my oldest

Nellie Harden: 00:19:45

is very, is very, very academically inclined. She just

Nellie Harden: 00:19:51

always has been. And it's really easy and it was really easy to

Nellie Harden: 00:19:56

be like oh, she's very academically inclined. She's

Nellie Harden: 00:19:59

doing very well in school, she could do you know, ABCD there

Nellie Harden: 00:20:02

for she is a well rounded great kid and doing super well. Right.

Nellie Harden: 00:20:08

And, you know, the the gears started turning a while ago, and

Nellie Harden: 00:20:14

she is, you know, a great kid and everything, but I just had

Nellie Harden: 00:20:18

an emotional intelligence expert on here a few episodes ago, and

Nellie Harden: 00:20:23

talking about how you know, when that academic is really high, a

Nellie Harden: 00:20:27

lot of times the emotional intelligence is low, the

Nellie Harden: 00:20:30

interpersonal might be somewhere in between, and things and I was

Nellie Harden: 00:20:33

like, Oh, that is so true. And it's definitely, you know, what

Nellie Harden: 00:20:36

we've seen, and it really does come down to why did getting an

Nellie Harden: 00:20:41

A become the be all end all and define who you are as a person.

Nellie Harden: 00:20:46

And I experienced that myself. I am not like my child. And I was

Nellie Harden: 00:20:50

not super academically gifted. I was definitely I mean, I wasn't

Nellie Harden: 00:20:55

terrible. I was an a B student. I don't know if my daughter has

Nellie Harden: 00:20:58

ever gotten a B in her life, you know. But I was an a B student.

Nellie Harden: 00:21:03

But my friends, I went to a high school that kind of sounds like

Nellie Harden: 00:21:06

the one that you were talking about a little bit. It was there

Nellie Harden: 00:21:09

was a lot of elite families in this high school. I was not one

Nellie Harden: 00:21:14

of them. I lived kind of across the street, but that's fine. I

Nellie Harden: 00:21:17

still was in the I was zoned for this school. I was like, What am

Nellie Harden: 00:21:20

I doing here? You know, we didn't have a downtown, we had

Nellie Harden: 00:21:23

an uptown where I went to high school. And so anyway, and my

Nellie Harden: 00:21:28

husband just laughs about that I'll beat my husband and I have

Nellie Harden: 00:21:30

been together since we were 18. And so, you know, we would I

Nellie Harden: 00:21:34

would take him to my hometown. He's like, what is happening?

Nellie Harden: 00:21:37

Why is there kids? And Lamborghinis I'm like, I don't

Nellie Harden: 00:21:39

know, I have my 1980 Cutlass, you know, going along?

Unknown: 00:21:43

Yeah.

Nellie Harden: 00:21:45

But I faced that because I have so many friends

Nellie Harden: 00:21:49

that went off to these amazing schools on amazing scholarships

Nellie Harden: 00:21:53

and everything. And I went to a great school, but I definitely

Nellie Harden: 00:21:56

didn't get any scholarships there. And so I defined myself

Nellie Harden: 00:22:01

as I am not smart, right? I am not smart I, because I don't get

Nellie Harden: 00:22:07

these grades. I don't have this interest in my academic life,

Nellie Harden: 00:22:10

therefore, I am less than, and it really did carve a path for

Nellie Harden: 00:22:15

me in some ways, until I was able to become much smarter in

Nellie Harden: 00:22:19

my 30s and 40s. And see that that wasn't the case. But that

Nellie Harden: 00:22:24

took a long time. And I never wanted to, you know, do that

Nellie Harden: 00:22:27

with with my own kids. So. So we know kind of what happened. So

Nellie Harden: 00:22:32

what are some when you go into these schools and talk to these

Nellie Harden: 00:22:35

families? What are some of these options that you are telling

Nellie Harden: 00:22:40

them? Right? It's school, isn't there? I mean, not school,

Nellie Harden: 00:22:43

college is an option, right? Yes. Yeah. But there's other

Nellie Harden: 00:22:47

ones too. So can you run through some of those?

Unknown: 00:22:50

Yeah, I actually help them focus on career pathways.

Unknown: 00:22:54

Let's talk about careers. And that's usually the premise that

Unknown: 00:22:56

I have them focus on with their kids. It's not about what option

Unknown: 00:22:59

you got to do not what college whatever is what career What do

Unknown: 00:23:01

you want to spend your time doing in your 30s? Or whatever,

Unknown: 00:23:04

right? But once we come back that we look at see, how do you

Unknown: 00:23:08

get trained to be in that career. And there's a variety of

Unknown: 00:23:12

ways, there's actually, depending on the career, six

Unknown: 00:23:15

options that you can, you can involve yourself in after high

Unknown: 00:23:19

school combinations of them are key, so that can become a lot.

Unknown: 00:23:22

The call the traditional four year college is absolutely one

Unknown: 00:23:25

of those options. It's now actually not four years, the

Unknown: 00:23:29

average length of time in a college setting is five and a

Unknown: 00:23:31

half, because most students go and they don't really know what

Unknown: 00:23:34

they're doing. And they change their major multiple times. And

Unknown: 00:23:38

it gets colleges more money so they can get to take more

Unknown: 00:23:40

classes. Psych part of that is the collegiate athlete. A lot of

Unknown: 00:23:45

people find a lot of prestige and getting the D one school

Unknown: 00:23:49

scholarship if they think their kids are that great in the

Unknown: 00:23:52

sport, and they get that scholarship or they get that

Unknown: 00:23:54

offer and so on. So that's actually a side issue, because

Unknown: 00:23:57

that requires its own preparation in order to become a

Unknown: 00:24:01

collegiate athlete. And it's a whole different dynamic when it

Unknown: 00:24:03

comes to school. The level of school indicates the kind of

Unknown: 00:24:06

education that is focused on and all kinds of things. So that's

Unknown: 00:24:09

its own option. Then you have the traditional options that

Unknown: 00:24:14

were very much important and valued before everybody placed

Unknown: 00:24:17

emphasis on the four year college. The first one being a

Unknown: 00:24:20

local community college, right. Most people overlook the

Unknown: 00:24:24

community college one because they don't think it gives their

Unknown: 00:24:27

child a chance to get that college experience. In my

Unknown: 00:24:30

personal opinion, why that freshman sophomore college

Unknown: 00:24:34

experience is so important. I'm not quite sure because as a

Unknown: 00:24:37

college student, as a parent of a college student, and as a

Unknown: 00:24:39

person who's on college campuses, it's not really about

Unknown: 00:24:42

education, it's about all kinds of things, right? And you're

Unknown: 00:24:44

paying for it. So, but most parents overlook it because of

Unknown: 00:24:48

that. And there's a stigma if you go to community college

Unknown: 00:24:51

because you weren't smart enough to get into four year college,

Unknown: 00:24:53

which is not true. Community colleges today offer a ton of

Unknown: 00:24:57

resources from apprenticeship programs to certified Keishon

Unknown: 00:25:00

programs to associate's degrees, and associate's degrees that

Unknown: 00:25:04

transfer. And so all of that is something you can find on any

Unknown: 00:25:08

community college campus. And that can do a variety of things

Unknown: 00:25:11

that for students, you can stay home, save money, get your

Unknown: 00:25:15

general education requirements out of the way, and transfer to

Unknown: 00:25:18

a four year college and you will have saved depending on where

Unknown: 00:25:21

you are anywhere from 1000s to, you know, 500, that depends. A

Unknown: 00:25:26

lot of community colleges are offering their classes for free.

Unknown: 00:25:29

So you're not paying for those general education courses, that

Unknown: 00:25:32

at a regular four year university, you're paying

Unknown: 00:25:34

anywhere between 16 and 25 $45,000. In that year for

Unknown: 00:25:38

right, so there's a big difference, and you're not

Unknown: 00:25:40

paying living expenses. But you're also looking at

Unknown: 00:25:42

particular certifications. So you can get trained in any

Unknown: 00:25:45

number of industries. You get trained in cosmetology,

Unknown: 00:25:48

hospitality, culinary, you can work as a chef you can work as a

Unknown: 00:25:52

baker, all kinds of careers can be housed in a to me 18 to 24

Unknown: 00:25:57

month certification program, which often has an associate's

Unknown: 00:26:01

degree attached to it. Parents often balk because like, well,

Unknown: 00:26:05

it's only skills training, they need some college. Not quite

Unknown: 00:26:08

sure why. But it's okay. Go get your A with it, it's fine. You

Unknown: 00:26:11

get business you can I mean, there's a ton if you haven't

Unknown: 00:26:13

looked at what the offerings are of your local community college,

Unknown: 00:26:16

you're missing out. So there's one option. The next option are

Unknown: 00:26:20

the trade schools and apprenticeship programs that are

Unknown: 00:26:23

local to your areas. The trades, as we've now seen, are in a huge

Unknown: 00:26:28

demand, huge, all of us locked down on COVID wanted everything

Unknown: 00:26:32

to be done to our house. And there were no people to do it.

Unknown: 00:26:35

There's not enough. Yeah, right. Learning how to build things,

Unknown: 00:26:38

fix things, create things, all of those hands on learning that

Unknown: 00:26:41

what a trade school can do, in addition to things like

Unknown: 00:26:44

cybersecurity, you can learn all kinds of about it and taking

Unknown: 00:26:48

care of computers and building computer systems. I mean,

Unknown: 00:26:51

there's endless opportunities for people who go into trade

Unknown: 00:26:53

jobs, or trade careers, right. So trade schools provide that

Unknown: 00:26:57

the benefit of trade schools is one, they're usually less

Unknown: 00:26:59

expensive than a four year college, definitely. But also

Unknown: 00:27:03

you're being taught by industry experts, people who are actually

Unknown: 00:27:06

working in the industry still versus edit, sometimes at a

Unknown: 00:27:10

community college, but also the four year college. These are

Unknown: 00:27:13

teachers who are teaching about the subject. They may have been

Unknown: 00:27:16

in industry at some point, but then probably not currently in

Unknown: 00:27:19

it. Right. So you're getting real hands on mentorship and

Unknown: 00:27:22

experience. And trade schools are set up to want to guarantee

Unknown: 00:27:25

you employment, their popularity, their success is

Unknown: 00:27:29

based on the success of their graduates. Whereas a four year

Unknown: 00:27:32

college relies on the fact that as a career center here, we'll

Unknown: 00:27:35

help you try and get a job if you come to us. trade schools

Unknown: 00:27:38

are focused on we're going to help you get it career by the

Unknown: 00:27:40

time you graduate. How can we help you? What do you need? It's

Unknown: 00:27:43

a very different dynamic. An apprenticeship program is

Unknown: 00:27:46

actually paid work experience with college degrees or college

Unknown: 00:27:51

credit added to it. And it depends on your area, whether or

Unknown: 00:27:54

not they're they're offered. Traditionally, a across the

Unknown: 00:27:58

Atlantic. Dynamic apprenticeships are huge in

Unknown: 00:28:02

Europe. Huge, right? They're starting to become more popular

Unknown: 00:28:06

here. In South Carolina, where we live. We're the nation's

Unknown: 00:28:09

leading apprenticeship program. And we partner with all these

Unknown: 00:28:12

big industries, who came to us from Europe, we have Volvo, we

Unknown: 00:28:17

have Blackbaud, we have an O Boeing, you have all these

Unknown: 00:28:20

things here. Well, they came they went, we need apprentices.

Unknown: 00:28:23

We didn't have any, so they built programs. And so you can

Unknown: 00:28:26

go as an adult work for two years, they pay you a scalable

Unknown: 00:28:30

wage during those two years, you have a mentor who's working with

Unknown: 00:28:33

you training with you, you also take college classes at the same

Unknown: 00:28:37

time. So by the time you're done, you're self sufficient,

Unknown: 00:28:39

plus two years of experience, and industry networking. What's

Unknown: 00:28:44

not to like about that, in my estimation, right? Yeah, some

Unknown: 00:28:47

you can also do some of these programs as a high school

Unknown: 00:28:50

student. And there is some definite determination about

Unknown: 00:28:55

these because you have to finish your high school classes and do

Unknown: 00:28:58

some of the college classes and you're working. So it's for a

Unknown: 00:29:01

definite unique person who is really driven because there's a

Unknown: 00:29:04

lot of work into that. But the industry areas vary by location.

Unknown: 00:29:09

And so if your child's interested, I think here we have

Unknown: 00:29:11

a huge hospitality one because Charleston is you know, huge in

Unknown: 00:29:14

hospitality. And we have a lot of air airplane mechanics and

Unknown: 00:29:18

mechatronics and all kinds of things. So that's the second

Unknown: 00:29:20

one. The third one is a gap year. And everybody when I talk

Unknown: 00:29:24

to gap year, they freak out. No, my kid can't sit on the couch

Unknown: 00:29:27

playing video games and working minimum wage for a year. That's

Unknown: 00:29:30

nothing. Okay. gap years are very different than that.

Unknown: 00:29:34

There's actually a gap year Association. It's an accredited

Unknown: 00:29:37

program that goes out and looks at all the programs that are out

Unknown: 00:29:40

there and offers its certification so you know,

Unknown: 00:29:43

you're getting something valuable. Plus, they offer

Unknown: 00:29:46

financial aid through the FAFSA. So you're not just doing some

Unknown: 00:29:50

willy nilly trip here. But what they do is they offer several

Unknown: 00:29:54

things to students. One can be a mental break from the burnout

Unknown: 00:29:57

they've probably achieved trying to get into that Great college,

Unknown: 00:30:01

if they still want to go to college, they always recommend

Unknown: 00:30:03

deferring it for six months to a year. And then taking your gap

Unknown: 00:30:07

season before you start college. There's no reason not to at that

Unknown: 00:30:11

point, especially for gaining experience, it's going to help

Unknown: 00:30:13

you for your career, or just help you in personal

Unknown: 00:30:15

development, right. The second type is doing a missions trip,

Unknown: 00:30:19

right? If you're based in your faith, and you want to go and

Unknown: 00:30:22

serve in your faith, then go do a missions trip. This can be

Unknown: 00:30:25

done while you're in high school, before you go to

Unknown: 00:30:28

college, in between semesters, it can be done at any point,

Unknown: 00:30:31

right? There are fees associated with them. They're not for free,

Unknown: 00:30:34

for sure. But the experience you get is invaluable. And it does

Unknown: 00:30:38

come to a certain kind of good. Is your kid ready to go off on

Unknown: 00:30:42

to the world not knowing anybody, right and being part of

Unknown: 00:30:45

a group and learning on their own? Is that something they can

Unknown: 00:30:47

handle? So you've got to take a look at that to the community

Unknown: 00:30:50

colleges out? Next one is the military often overlooked. And I

Unknown: 00:30:55

can I just tell you, when I was doing research for the book I

Unknown: 00:30:58

wrote about all of this, the military impressed me the most.

Unknown: 00:31:02

Yes, there are their political stuff. And I'm not going to

Unknown: 00:31:06

touch that, when I'm talking to you is about the opportunities a

Unknown: 00:31:09

student has in the military. And there's three ways to do the

Unknown: 00:31:13

military, you can enlist, you can go through an ROTC program.

Unknown: 00:31:16

Or you can go through a service academy, enlistment usually

Unknown: 00:31:19

comes right after high school. ROTC programs usually come after

Unknown: 00:31:24

college, and a service academy. You have to be accepted into it,

Unknown: 00:31:28

your education is free at that service academy with the caveat

Unknown: 00:31:32

that you're paying it back with your service to your country in

Unknown: 00:31:35

the military afterwards. Right? So there's all of these

Unknown: 00:31:38

dynamics, the difference between the military and any other

Unknown: 00:31:42

option is that the minute you enter, you are getting state of

Unknown: 00:31:46

the art training, because the government has to have the state

Unknown: 00:31:48

of the art training to protect our country, right. You're also

Unknown: 00:31:51

getting paid and getting housing stipends and getting food

Unknown: 00:31:55

stipends and getting full benefits. From the minute you

Unknown: 00:31:58

are in. No other option offers all of that to any student

Unknown: 00:32:04

right. Now I get it your mama hardest thing, but they might

Unknown: 00:32:07

die in the front line. Yes, that is true. There are two things I

Unknown: 00:32:11

have a response to that in my research indicates that in you

Unknown: 00:32:15

when you choose to enlist in the military, or go to service

Unknown: 00:32:18

academy or so on, you get to choose your career field. Not

Unknown: 00:32:22

all career fields are combat based. You don't have to be in

Unknown: 00:32:25

combat. So there's not a guarantee that the military puts

Unknown: 00:32:28

you on the frontlines. Second, should you choose that if that's

Unknown: 00:32:32

your child's heart, that's where they really want to go and serve

Unknown: 00:32:35

their country should something happen, their family is taken

Unknown: 00:32:40

care of. For life. That doesn't happen in any other option. So

Unknown: 00:32:45

those are some things I don't ever want anybody to think that

Unknown: 00:32:48

they have to do this so they can get anything. I'm just saying

Unknown: 00:32:50

this is one of the benefits, but it can also be a drawback.

Unknown: 00:32:54

When I interviewed a captain in the US Navy, she's in the she

Unknown: 00:32:57

served on an Air Force aircraft carrier, she said, think about

Unknown: 00:33:01

an aircraft carrier. It is a microcosm of a city. Anything

Unknown: 00:33:07

that you can think of that exists in the civilian world

Unknown: 00:33:10

exists on an aircraft carrier. There are chefs, there are

Unknown: 00:33:14

barbers there are veterinarians for the dogs they might have on

Unknown: 00:33:18

hand. There are mechanics, there are it there are cybersecurity,

Unknown: 00:33:23

everything you can think of is on that aircraft carrier. The

Unknown: 00:33:26

same is true for any military branch. Any career you can think

Unknown: 00:33:29

of is in the military. And someone who gets into the

Unknown: 00:33:33

military gets that training and then graduates from it or you

Unknown: 00:33:36

know, does not renew their contract, they end up getting

Unknown: 00:33:41

what's called the GI Bill. So when you're in the in the

Unknown: 00:33:44

military, you can get up to one year of college paid for and

Unknown: 00:33:48

that's basically all the time for every four year contract.

Unknown: 00:33:51

After that you get up to three years of college paid for and a

Unknown: 00:33:54

housing, housing stipend to pay for housing while you're going

Unknown: 00:33:57

to college. There's no other option that gives you that

Unknown: 00:34:00

either. So there's there's a whole host of benefits to this.

Unknown: 00:34:05

But it also depends if you go to a service academy. So if you go

Unknown: 00:34:08

to college first, you enter in as an officer versus after high

Unknown: 00:34:12

school, you enter in as an enlistee, and that just causes

Unknown: 00:34:14

different ranks. And that causes different trainings and a whole

Unknown: 00:34:17

bunch of other things. I tell parents, if your student is at

Unknown: 00:34:20

all interested, go talk to a veteran, get the full honest

Unknown: 00:34:24

story. Let your kid talk to veteran privately Do not be in

Unknown: 00:34:28

that room. They got to get it honest from themselves, then

Unknown: 00:34:31

made it recruiter with bunch of questions and don't sign

Unknown: 00:34:33

anything that day. Because the one thing that is a definite

Unknown: 00:34:37

difference is once you sign a contract with the military, it's

Unknown: 00:34:40

a contract you cannot decommit so it has to be a very solid

Unknown: 00:34:45

definition of the decision that you're making.

Nellie Harden: 00:34:48

Wow. Oh my goodness. Okay, well, I know

Nellie Harden: 00:34:52

that everyone listening took a bajillion notes like I did and

Nellie Harden: 00:34:56

like I said, I have this coming up like word It we're going

Nellie Harden: 00:35:01

she's at the end of her junior year. And I was like, Well, I

Nellie Harden: 00:35:03

guess we have to start doing, you know, college visits and

Nellie Harden: 00:35:07

things like that. And she personally wants to go into

Nellie Harden: 00:35:10

psychology herself. And so yeah, but it's just interesting to

Nellie Harden: 00:35:15

hear all of these different things. A gap year is definitely

Nellie Harden: 00:35:18

not off the table, though. We've talked a lot about that she has

Nellie Harden: 00:35:21

a travel bug in her like her parents do. And so, yeah,

Nellie Harden: 00:35:25

whether that's, you know, studying somewhere or doing

Nellie Harden: 00:35:29

missions work, I don't know. But wow, thank you for so much for

Nellie Harden: 00:35:34

laying this all out. And you've given I have lunch with my

Nellie Harden: 00:35:40

husband soon. And so I'm going to just bring my pad of paper

Nellie Harden: 00:35:42

and be like, so we have all of this to talk about,

Unknown: 00:35:46

can I can I give you kind of give you a little bit of

Unknown: 00:35:49

a direction on that conversation that you've had with your

Unknown: 00:35:51

daughter, and this is for all parents, we often take a look at

Unknown: 00:35:56

what do you want to do? And they say, Why do I want to do

Unknown: 00:35:57

something with psychology, which is fantastic. But rarely do we

Unknown: 00:36:01

have them explored the actual different careers within that

Unknown: 00:36:04

industry area, to define specifically, what they want to

Unknown: 00:36:08

do something that they think associated with psychology

Unknown: 00:36:12

actually fall under sociology. And so we want to make sure that

Unknown: 00:36:15

they really understand the dynamics of the potential

Unknown: 00:36:18

careers, if she wants for, for example, to work in a clinical

Unknown: 00:36:22

setting and be able to dispense medications. That's a whole

Unknown: 00:36:25

doctorate program, right? Completely different. And that

Unknown: 00:36:28

sets you up for a whole different dynamic in terms of

Unknown: 00:36:31

financing college and all kinds of things, right. But if that

Unknown: 00:36:34

what she wants to be is a clinical therapist, or, you

Unknown: 00:36:37

know, someone who a counselor and a counseling setting, that

Unknown: 00:36:40

can be done in very different ways, right. So that can really

Unknown: 00:36:44

help the conversation. And this is what I counsel parents on all

Unknown: 00:36:46

the time, help your child define the career or careers within the

Unknown: 00:36:52

industry area they're interested in, and then look at see how do

Unknown: 00:36:56

you get into those careers? What does it take to get there? And

Unknown: 00:36:58

that tends to help you see what you need to do. Right then?

Nellie Harden: 00:37:01

Yeah, absolutely. And for her, we have done that

Nellie Harden: 00:37:04

work. And that, so she wants to work with kids. And she wants to

Nellie Harden: 00:37:09

be in do therapist in a clinical setting with kids. And so

Nellie Harden: 00:37:14

there's definitely different paths you could get there as so

Nellie Harden: 00:37:18

many. But the common theme seems to be like, get a psych psych

Nellie Harden: 00:37:22

degree from a four year or sociology, but it's usually

Nellie Harden: 00:37:26

Psych. And so, but yeah, and she's doing dual enrollment. We

Nellie Harden: 00:37:31

talked a little bit about this before we started recording, and

Nellie Harden: 00:37:34

she's doing dual enrollment. So she'll go in probably as a

Nellie Harden: 00:37:37

second semester sophomore, into college, which is good that she

Nellie Harden: 00:37:41

knows what she wants to do. Because by that point, you're

Nellie Harden: 00:37:44

like, you need to lock in and start, you know, getting the

Nellie Harden: 00:37:47

gears going. Yeah, but we'll see. She's also 16 You know, and

Nellie Harden: 00:37:52

I am not, I am not going to be you know, she wanted to be a

Nellie Harden: 00:37:55

teacher for a really, really long time. And, and then, you

Nellie Harden: 00:38:00

know, it kind of moved into this over the last few years. And I'm

Nellie Harden: 00:38:03

not going to say, well, you're 16, you made your decision. And

Nellie Harden: 00:38:06

this is what you're doing until you're 65 You know, so yeah,

Nellie Harden: 00:38:10

we'll just see where life takes us. But knowing all the options

Nellie Harden: 00:38:13

is so important. And knowing it's not about the education,

Nellie Harden: 00:38:16

it's about the kid, it's about the person, it's about their

Nellie Harden: 00:38:19

life, right, their confidence and respect in themselves in

Nellie Harden: 00:38:23

understanding and being wise out in the world. That interpersonal

Nellie Harden: 00:38:27

emotional intelligence, like we talked about interpersonal

Nellie Harden: 00:38:30

relationships, so they know how to connect with people. And and

Nellie Harden: 00:38:35

move through life and become, you know, the the self driven

Nellie Harden: 00:38:39

leader so that they can be in whatever capacity that looks

Nellie Harden: 00:38:41

like, right? Oh, my goodness, this was so good. Okay, well,

Nellie Harden: 00:38:46

before we I know, we are running a little bit late. But this is

Nellie Harden: 00:38:49

such great material. And I want to touch on just for a second,

Nellie Harden: 00:38:54

this idea of parental burnout, because I think so many

Nellie Harden: 00:38:59

especially I work with a lot of teens and tweens, we were

Nellie Harden: 00:39:03

talking about all the different labels those groups have. But

Nellie Harden: 00:39:07

anyway, pretty much like 10 and up I work with, I work with

Nellie Harden: 00:39:10

everybody. But that's the bulk because that is where a lot of

Nellie Harden: 00:39:14

parents are paying a little bit more attention. They're noticing

Nellie Harden: 00:39:17

some things that they aren't, you know, so keen on maybe

Nellie Harden: 00:39:21

there's some separation, some space there, and all of these

Nellie Harden: 00:39:26

things happening. But with that there's a lot of parental

Nellie Harden: 00:39:30

burnout that happens there too, right? There's a lot of opinions

Nellie Harden: 00:39:33

when kids get into middle and high school and it can feel like

Nellie Harden: 00:39:37

everything that you say, especially when you're talking

Nellie Harden: 00:39:40

about education or talking about their school. They they see it

Nellie Harden: 00:39:44

your child can see it as you're coming at them and you're always

Nellie Harden: 00:39:47

in warm mode, right and reprimand mode, and that's not

Nellie Harden: 00:39:51

necessarily where your heart is, but it's their truth that

Nellie Harden: 00:39:54

they're seeing So, and that can really lead to burnout. So can

Nellie Harden: 00:39:57

you tell tell me a little bit more About the parental burnout

Nellie Harden: 00:40:02

and what that looks like and what you see.

Unknown: 00:40:05

Yeah, absolutely. You know, parental burnout is a real

Unknown: 00:40:09

thing. It's it's heaviness that we have towards our

Unknown: 00:40:12

responsibilities. As a parent, it's the easy one to just

Unknown: 00:40:15

abdicate those responsibilities. Because we don't want to fight

Unknown: 00:40:17

with our kids anymore. We don't want that angst. We want to love

Unknown: 00:40:20

our little babies that we used to have these to look up to us

Unknown: 00:40:23

all the time. And now they're not anymore what happened? And I

Unknown: 00:40:25

don't even know, right. So this is what I've noticed. And again,

Unknown: 00:40:29

I'm a parent of a 20 year old, a 24 year old, my daughter is a

Unknown: 00:40:33

strong willed child, if you've ever heard of Dr. Dobson, strong

Unknown: 00:40:36

willed, she could be the cover of that time, that book, I mean,

Unknown: 00:40:39

my goodness. And she ran me ragged, because I was trying to

Unknown: 00:40:43

control what she did. Because I was afraid as a parent that what

Unknown: 00:40:46

she did was reflection on me, it's apparent, very much afraid

Unknown: 00:40:50

of that. And I think a lot of us, first and foremost struggle

Unknown: 00:40:53

with that we believe that what our children do is reflection on

Unknown: 00:40:55

us as a parent. And it's not, it's just not your children are

Unknown: 00:40:59

individuals, they were created uniquely for themselves. And

Unknown: 00:41:02

what they are is a reflection of themselves, not you. So I think

Unknown: 00:41:05

that's the first part that I actually do talk with parents

Unknown: 00:41:07

about is how much are you owning your child's life as

Unknown: 00:41:11

representative of who you are as a parent? And that's a big

Unknown: 00:41:14

question a lot of parents don't stop to think about, I can

Unknown: 00:41:17

definitely honestly tell you that my daughter, I owned what

Unknown: 00:41:20

she did as my value. If she was behaving well, in class, I was a

Unknown: 00:41:24

good parent, she was acting out in class, man, I had to fix it

Unknown: 00:41:26

at home because I was messing up. It's not safe. It's not a

Unknown: 00:41:30

good environment for your children or for us. And that

Unknown: 00:41:32

definitely contributed to a lot of burnout as I became a coach,

Unknown: 00:41:37

and I'm going to tell this short story, and then we'll move on to

Unknown: 00:41:39

how the burnout was affected. I had to do some practicing. And

Unknown: 00:41:43

my daughter happened to call me one night, she was in college at

Unknown: 00:41:45

the time. And she said, Mom, I got this problem. Like I said,

Unknown: 00:41:49

Wait, I'm in this coaching program, can I just try coaching

Unknown: 00:41:51

you through this? Do you mind and she said, Okay, she had no

Unknown: 00:41:55

idea what's doing.

Unknown: 00:41:57

At the end of that conversation, we spent 45. On the phone, I

Unknown: 00:42:01

didn't offer a single shred of advice. I only asked her

Unknown: 00:42:04

questions. And she said, Mom, this is the best conversation

Unknown: 00:42:07

you and I've ever had. I feel like you finally saw who I am.

Unknown: 00:42:11

And now I know exactly what I want to do. And you help me

Unknown: 00:42:14

figure that out. You can't get a better connection with your kids

Unknown: 00:42:19

than that. And so the more I work with teenagers, I say the

Unknown: 00:42:22

exact same things in a way that all parents do. I just get the

Unknown: 00:42:26

kids to say it, not me. Yeah. So when you're talking with your

Unknown: 00:42:30

kids, the problem is we tend to talk at them, we tend to tell

Unknown: 00:42:34

them, we tend to offer our advice, all with an amazing

Unknown: 00:42:38

heart. But we own all the research, we want to learn

Unknown: 00:42:41

everything about all these things, we can be intelligent

Unknown: 00:42:43

enough to tell them all about it. And we want to make sure

Unknown: 00:42:45

they're getting their grades done in class, and we're

Unknown: 00:42:47

communicating with teachers, and we're taking on all of these

Unknown: 00:42:49

responsibilities, because we're afraid our children won't be

Unknown: 00:42:53

able to do it. Well, what message does that send to your

Unknown: 00:42:56

child? tells them they're not capable. So why would they try?

Unknown: 00:43:00

Right? So as your child ages, what I tell parents to do is

Unknown: 00:43:03

start backing away from owning anything within their world. And

Unknown: 00:43:09

when they come to you with a problem, I don't know what to do

Unknown: 00:43:11

my friends are upset with me. What would you like to do about

Unknown: 00:43:14

that? How do you want to handle that? What do you think is the

Unknown: 00:43:18

cause of that, don't tell them what you should do, don't take

Unknown: 00:43:21

on the ownership of their emotional drama, let them own

Unknown: 00:43:24

it, and then walk away. They have to figure out their

Unknown: 00:43:28

futures, you can offer I'm here, when you want to talk about your

Unknown: 00:43:32

future, just know that your dad and I or your mom and I or

Unknown: 00:43:35

whatever, we decided that by the time you're 18, if you're not

Unknown: 00:43:39

taking care of you're not in it in some kind of education

Unknown: 00:43:42

program, you're going to be paying full rent here. So just

Unknown: 00:43:46

so you know, we're here to help you figure it all out. But this

Unknown: 00:43:48

is the boundary we're setting. And we never set those

Unknown: 00:43:51

boundaries, expectations, we don't take the time to think

Unknown: 00:43:54

about it, because we're too busy fixing our kids problems.

Unknown: 00:43:57

Instead of thinking about the kind of adult we want to raise.

Unknown: 00:44:00

We want to raise resilient children, we want to raise

Unknown: 00:44:02

problem solvers and critical thinkers, but we don't allow

Unknown: 00:44:05

them to solve the problems in their own way or to critically

Unknown: 00:44:08

think about what they want to do. This is why we have burnout.

Unknown: 00:44:12

We are overwhelmed trying to fix our work problems, our marriage

Unknown: 00:44:16

problems, our kids problems, our friends, problems and everything

Unknown: 00:44:20

else. Because this is what we are supposed to do. Which is not

Unknown: 00:44:23

true. The more we ask our children to own their own world,

Unknown: 00:44:28

and don't engage in the battles when they fight against it, the

Unknown: 00:44:32

better off we're helping them. It's tough. It's not an easy

Unknown: 00:44:36

transition at all. But can I tell you, my daughter and him

Unknown: 00:44:41

back to her she has a ton of struggles when she was in

Unknown: 00:44:44

college and we had told her she should come home and she didn't

Unknown: 00:44:46

want to she wanted to finish it out. strong will. And so she did

Unknown: 00:44:50

and every time she called the cringe because of me some new

Unknown: 00:44:53

drama, but when I started coaching, I was like, Well, what

Unknown: 00:44:56

opportunity was she going to figure out for herself today?

Unknown: 00:44:58

How is she going to figure this out for herself. Let's see what

Unknown: 00:45:01

happens a whole different dynamic, right? So this is kind

Unknown: 00:45:05

of what I hope parents learn to do is instead of increasing the

Unknown: 00:45:09

mold around them by keeping them in it, we let go the entire mold

Unknown: 00:45:14

itself and let our children create it for themselves. And we

Unknown: 00:45:17

get to guide them along that journey.

Nellie Harden: 00:45:19

Oh my gosh, yes, this is exactly. I was just

Nellie Harden: 00:45:23

talking with someone the other day and doing some coaching. And

Nellie Harden: 00:45:25

this is exactly what I was talking about, like we, we are

Nellie Harden: 00:45:28

leading them, and we are helping them. And we are doing exactly

Nellie Harden: 00:45:33

what you said, we are just asking them the questions and

Nellie Harden: 00:45:35

helping them figure it out, giving them the tools to figure

Nellie Harden: 00:45:39

it out, right? Oh, my goodness, well, this was truly amazing. I

Nellie Harden: 00:45:45

hope that everyone listening has been able to crack the mold, if

Nellie Harden: 00:45:49

not break the mold in your understanding and in your

Nellie Harden: 00:45:52

thinking about what is going on in these teens, and especially

Nellie Harden: 00:45:57

in their path toward their future. And what that's going to

Nellie Harden: 00:46:01

do so tell us, tell us where we can find you and get more

Nellie Harden: 00:46:05

information?

Unknown: 00:46:07

Yeah, the best place is Stephanie haynes.net. And that's

Unknown: 00:46:10

my website. And there's a specific page dedicated just to

Unknown: 00:46:13

parents, and I put on free resources on there. You know,

Unknown: 00:46:17

when you sign up for those, I send emails each week just kind

Unknown: 00:46:19

of encourage you equip you give you stuff, right, because I give

Unknown: 00:46:22

a ton of stuff away. The second place, if you're on Instagram,

Unknown: 00:46:25

go to Ed coach, Steph Haynes, and you can follow me on there

Unknown: 00:46:29

and see what I've got in terms of advice and suggestions and

Unknown: 00:46:31

just strategies. The third place, and the newest place I'm

Unknown: 00:46:34

most excited about is on YouTube. I just launched a new

Unknown: 00:46:37

YouTube channel that is talking to parents and educators. So

Unknown: 00:46:41

from no both sides of that experience I'm talking into how

Unknown: 00:46:44

can we best equip teens. And it's not named yet because I

Unknown: 00:46:47

need 100 subscribers. So I'm offering a contest if you want

Unknown: 00:46:50

to do it, but go to Stephanie Haynes LLC on YouTube, and you

Unknown: 00:46:54

will be able to find my channel there. And there's just a ton of

Unknown: 00:46:57

free content. And I feel like it's important to just equip

Unknown: 00:47:01

parents as best as I can equip educators and schools as best as

Unknown: 00:47:04

I can, because they're the ones that influenced the teams around

Unknown: 00:47:06

them. If you're interested in more of what I just talked about

Unknown: 00:47:10

today, my book is on Amazon. And it's called College is not

Unknown: 00:47:14

mandatory, a parent's guide to navigating all the options

Unknown: 00:47:17

available to our kids after high school. And it has the

Unknown: 00:47:20

background, we kind of covered all of the options. And then I

Unknown: 00:47:23

give a coaching guide. How do you have these conversations

Unknown: 00:47:26

with your kids? How do you set them up? What does it look like?

Unknown: 00:47:30

And what kind of questions do I ask? I put them all in the guide

Unknown: 00:47:33

there. And you of course, customize them for your own

Unknown: 00:47:35

child.

Nellie Harden: 00:47:37

All right, well, I just subscribed to your

Nellie Harden: 00:47:40

YouTube. So yeah. And I hope you listening do too. This was a

Nellie Harden: 00:47:45

wonderful talk. Thank you so much for being here. And all of

Nellie Harden: 00:47:49

the topics that we covered. I know it was super impactful to

Nellie Harden: 00:47:51

me, and I know it was for others as well. Thank you so much, you

Nellie Harden: 00:47:54

guys and I will see you next week on another episode of the

Nellie Harden: 00:47:58

6570 family project podcast. Happy building. Thank you so

Nellie Harden: 00:48:03

much for listening today. And I hope you were able to take

Nellie Harden: 00:48:06

something from our discussion that you can use to build the

Nellie Harden: 00:48:09

foundation of selfless leadership in your own family.

Nellie Harden: 00:48:13

If you are a parent with children 17 or younger, and

Nellie Harden: 00:48:16

especially those around nine and up, I would love to extend an

Nellie Harden: 00:48:21

invitation to you to the best club in town. The family

Nellie Harden: 00:48:25

architects Club is a private club where intentional parents

Nellie Harden: 00:48:29

go that want to love support, connect or reconnect and really

Nellie Harden: 00:48:34

truly help guide their kids and teach them how to self lead in

Nellie Harden: 00:48:38

discipline and leadership. This is an online community and the

Nellie Harden: 00:48:42

you are welcome to it. Parenting is a project and you are the

Nellie Harden: 00:48:47

architect of this one. You plan you design and oversee the

Nellie Harden: 00:48:51

construction of the beginning of someone else's life. And that's

Nellie Harden: 00:48:55

what goes into these first 6570 days. And it will be the

Nellie Harden: 00:49:00

foundation for the rest of their lives. So come join the club.

Nellie Harden: 00:49:03

You can find your invitation on the front page of my website

Nellie Harden: 00:49:07

Nelly hardened.com that is n e ll ie H AR d e n.com. Thank you

Nellie Harden: 00:49:15

again for being a part of this conversation today. And if

Nellie Harden: 00:49:17

something really resonated with you, or if you have a question,

Nellie Harden: 00:49:21

please don't hesitate to connect with me. You can find me on

Nellie Harden: 00:49:24

Instagram at Nelly Hardin. And lastly, if you love the

Nellie Harden: 00:49:27

information, please please leave a five star review and a comment

Nellie Harden: 00:49:32

so more and more families can be impacted by harnessing the

Nellie Harden: 00:49:36

strength of these ideas and tools in their own families. So

Nellie Harden: 00:49:40

thank you so much. Happy building you guys and I'll see