#146 Overcoming Student Procrastination with Michelle McAnaney, the College Spy Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins 00:48

is your team putting off college applications or other important tasks leaving you worried about missed deadlines and the potential limit to their future options. Procrastination is a common challenge among students, and understanding why it happens can make all the difference in supporting your team. I’m excited to have expert educational consultant Michelle McEnany join us to delve into this critical topic. Michelle founded the college spy, a full service independent educational consulting firm, and has over 15 years of experience as a school counselor and educator, including roles as director of guidance at two high schools and as an adjunct college professor. She holds a master’s degree in School Counseling and a bachelor’s in human development. In our conversation, we’ll explore the real reasons behind student procrastination, not laziness, but often an attempt to avoid negative emotions like anxiety and self doubt. We’ll discuss the three types of procrastinators, including perfectionists, bored students and independent minded teens, and share practical strategies to help your teen overcome these hurdles. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and want to ensure your teen stays on track in their college bound journey, this episode will give you the clarity and confidence you need to support them. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:17

Michelle, welcome back to the show. It’s so great to have you.

Michelle McAnaney 02:22

Thanks so much for having me back.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:24

Absolutely. So this topic that we’re talking about in October, it’s gonna be really top of mind, probably for a lot of families who have seniors who are in the throes of filling out college applications and writing essays. And, you know, I’m a mom of now adult kids, so you’re pulling your hair out, you’re frustrated, like, come on, kiddos, get moving. But you know, younger parents of younger teens also deal with that. It’s just there’s more at stake by the time we get to senior year, right? And so we’re going to talk about press procrastination today. Easy for me to say. And so let’s start with, we all know what it is, but you really have done some work around why kids are doing it, and even different types of procrastination that I think when a parent starts to take a deeper look instead of like, manages their own frustration, gets beyond what’s going inside the parent, and really looks through a different lens at the kid. I think there you’ve got some great tips for a path forward, depending on really what they see and what they’re able to discern. So let’s just start with, why? Why do kids procrastinate? Why in the world are they frustrating us?

Michelle McAnaney 03:44

They are frustrating you could be because they’re trying to avoid their own frustration. So I think the misunderstanding about procrastination is people think that the student is unmotivated or lazy, and that is often not the case. What’s really happening with procrastination is that the student is trying to avoid a negative mood. And so that negative mood could be something like frustration, boredom, anxiety, stress, sadness and depression. And the negative mood is associated with a task, and so when they’re avoiding the negative mood, what happens is that they get there’s a reward involved. So as as you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you feel temporarily better. And anything that is rewarded, any behavior that is rewarded, tends to repeat itself. And that is, I used to teach psychology is for dual enrollment at a community college level. It’s operant conditioning. So kind of you want the dog to sit? They sit. You give a treat, that’s the reward, they’ll sit again. And it’s the same thing that when you’re when you’re feeling better because you’re avoiding a task you are. Are more likely to continue to avoid the task, which can lead to chronic procrastination, and then more rewards come in, because the thing that the students are doing when they are avoiding their task is makes them feel positive. So let’s say they turn to scrolling on Tiktok or playing video games. Now they’re rewarded because that feels good, and then they’re more likely to do that again. And slowly the deadlines for applications come. They get closer and closer, and the procrastination often continues. And it is very frustrating for parents. I think it’s beyond frustrating. I think they’re stressed and they’re so worried, right?

Lisa Marker Robbins 05:40

Right? Yeah, well, because there’s a lot at stake, right? And it sounds like what you just described I was picturing. It’s a snowball effect. It’s just getting bigger and bigger, and the bigger it gets, the faster it’s rolling. And you know what you just said, we’re tying it into application deadlines, but many of our listeners have freshmen, sophomore, junior, and so as I think about what you just described, it’s like, if this starts all the way back in freshman year, sophomore, maybe even back in junior high, that Snowball’s getting bigger. So really, it’s better that we’re proactive in trying to prevent this, or at least catching it early before that snowball doesn’t like grow to the point where it’s rolling down the hill, it’s causing an avalanche by the time we get because then the stakes are really high. It might not be that big of a deal if they’re procrastinating on unloading the dishwasher or a simple assignment, you know, in 10th grade, but this cumulative effect is going to make it worse by the time we get to where stakes are really high,

Michelle McAnaney 06:51

because the person’s in a pattern of putting things off feeling better, but they’re only feeling better temporarily. I think that sometimes parents don’t realize that the student actually has all these negative feelings about their own procrastination, because procrastination leads to stress, anxiety, depression, shame, guilt, all the same things that they were trying to avoid feeling by procrastinating. And so what’s happening is the student is getting more and more stressed and upset, and so is the parent, and it’s very difficult to break out of that and just get the task done. Another thing that’s happening is that, just in terms of brain development, the prefrontal cortex is the last part of your brain to grow. So when you’re from the time you’re born. Your brain, this is a very simplified your brain grows from the back of your head to the front, and your prefrontal cortex is right here in the front. I know everybody can’t see me. I’m holding my forehead, yes, and the prefrontal cortex is responsible for all those executive functions, like I wrote them down so I wouldn’t forget planning, prioritizing, setting goals, starting a task, making decisions and controlling your impulses. Those are things you need to be able to do to manage a large task like the college application process. And so these students are in this pattern of procrastinating, but then, because their brain hasn’t fully developed, it doesn’t fully develop till about age 25 sometimes later, especially for students who have ADHD. So now it’s like a double whammy, because they don’t have the skills that they need to manage this task all the time, and it’s some kids do, but not everybody.

Lisa Marker Robbins 08:43

And it’s a required, mandatory task with very real deadlines, with things at stake. So now, we were talking offline earlier, and you were like, there’s really it’s not just procrastination. You’ve identified three different types of procrastination, and I think this is like every parent gets the feelings of procrastination, and they know that it’s not good for any of us, and it’s hard to not overreact as a parent to that, because we just wanted to stop. But what I love is you really sharing about discerning the difference among these three types, because they all kind of mean something different. And to me, it’s like it’s getting to the root of the real issue, right, right?

Michelle McAnaney 09:30

If you don’t understand why your child is doing this, you can’t, you’re not able to pick the strategy that’s going to work to help them. So I’ve there are different kinds of procrastinations, and I have picked out three to share with your listeners today that I think that people listening are going to relate to, and they’re going to say, That’s my kid, and some kids overlap between two of them, or even three of them. So it’s not you’re always this kind, you’re always that kind. So we ready for the first. Swim, yep. Okay, this is the perfectionist so, and I will relate this to the college admissions process and the college application process, but you can relate it to all kinds of things your child is procrastinating on. So the perfectionist the feeling that they’re trying to avoid when they’re procrastinating. Those feelings are self doubt, worry and anxiety, and their biggest worry is that they’re going to make a mistake. So perfectionists will tend to do what they’re good at and not what they’re not good at, because they could make a mistake. They put off tasks they’re not sure about, and they often this is a student that can’t complete assignments, and they can get started, they can do a great job, but they can’t finish it and hand it in because they feel it’s not perfect. And what this looks like in the admissions, or not admissions, I should say the application process, is that maybe the student won’t choose an essay topic to get started on, because they’ll be worried the essay topic isn’t going to be perfect, or they think they need to have the entire essay mapped out completely before they can even get started on it. Needs to be mapped out in their head, and so they put it off. And even in terms of the admissions process, this might be the student who seems not engaged in the admissions process, even though their grades are likely very good because they’re a perfectionist, because they’re afraid, oh, if I start looking into colleges, what if I pick the wrong one? And so they’re putting things off. That’s your first one.

Lisa Marker Robbins 11:29

But you know, one of the things that it makes me think of, and this is about mindset, right? So talking to the students that are working through our course, one of the things we work on is curating experiences around careers so that you’re vetting them, like up close and personal and doing informational interviews or asking someone for a job shadow. I find that’s a big question procrastination one, and I think it relates to this, because I might get rejected, or I might not word it correctly, or I might embarrass myself, right? And so I see that one frequently coming up, and maybe it, maybe it’s that type, or maybe it’s a little bit of something else as well. But it’s like it has to look exact. And the other thing that I think about too is so many times when a student or even an adult says, Oh, that was a failure, right? I failed at that. I always circle back and say, if we learn a lesson, it’s not a failure. Or like, if a kid does that job shadow, and they go, Oh, well, that was a waste of time. That was a failure, because that Job’s certainly not for me. No, that’s a win. So maybe just reframing these things of as long as there’s a lesson and it gives us information to help us move forward in a positive way, nothing’s a failure,

Michelle McAnaney 12:53

right? Yeah. And the other thing that students are struggling with in terms of the planning and they need to be able to think ahead and kind of say to themselves, this is a big task. If I don’t start it, it will not be perfect, which is what I want so but it’s difficult for them, and they know they need to do that. The kids aren’t shocked by this. When they’re being told they have to do their applications. They’re worried about it, and then they put it off even more to avoid feeling worried. Yeah. Okay. What’s the second type? Okay, the second one is the student that’s bored. This, this, and this is your ADHD student. Might be like this, right? If you have a student with ADHD, they’re just so easily, they get bored all the time. So this student is trying to avoid that feeling of boredom and frustration and disengagement and they are distracted from doing a task when the task is not exciting, and they will find something else to do that is more stimulating to their brain. And now we’re in a cycle, again, of procrastination. These students often have a distorted sense of time, so they have this belief, oh, it won’t take that long to do that. I can just get it done later. I can put it off. And what’s really motivating to them is immediate deadlines, and which works well for assignments at schools. Sometimes, because there’s a deadline tomorrow, let’s just get it done, and they’re motivated to do it. But with admissions, there’s there does come an immediate deadline. Our next one coming up is November one, but there’s not enough time to do this, a huge task of filling out the application and doing a great job on the essays all for all your colleges that you’re applying to November 1, so that it’s going to be a problem for them. I think families need to talk about the fact that with these types of students, that the application itself is tedious and a lot of it is boring. Some of it’s actually very fascinating, like those. Is a really fascinating. Students really dive into who they are. Although this particular student might find it boring, I find it fascinating, but there’s a big part of the whole application that’s busy work it and take and you have to contact different people, get your transcripts and talk to your teachers about letters of recommendation. And it is dull, but it takes a long time. It’s tedious and long, and so they need to know that going into it and expect, managing

Lisa Marker Robbins 15:26

those expectations ahead of time. You know it, I often see teens, and I’m sure you’ve seen this because you were you started in a school setting, and now you’re an independent educational consultant, where I’ve seen kids who the busier they are, like in their sports season, or they’re in the theater production, they have less time, but they’re better at getting stuff done and their busiest season, and I’ve seen that to be very common. It’s like, it’s really not a gift all that free time for a lot of kids, which makes me wonder if I could go back and and reflect on some of the students where I’ve seen like, oh my gosh, you are bringing your A game when you’re on, you’re super busy on your own tight deadlines, and there’s no wiggle room in your schedule, and you’re procrastinating when you think you have all the time in the world. I wonder if I could ping back and we’re not going to do it on this show, and think about these kids go, like, okay, so that was the bored kid probably, you know, it also makes me wonder. There was a student a few years back who was inside our launch Career Clarity course, and he was so smart, like, did no test prep, got a 36 on his AC T first time out of the gate. Really did not have to apply himself, and he was a disaster through managing this application process. And so what it also makes me wonder if those intellectually really bright kids, they’re bored. And I don’t this kid was not ADHD, for sure, because I got to know him pretty well through our Q and A that we had in the course. But he was brilliant. And so it makes me go back and wonder about a kid like that, like is the bored kid? Not just necessarily ADHD, but could it be the really gifted kids? It could be, and

Michelle McAnaney 17:24

it also just could be their personality, right? And way their their brain operates. It doesn’t have to be ADHD, but those are some examples, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. The other thing with this, this our board student or our board procrastinator, they often will hold a belief that they have to be motivated in order to get something done, that I have to wait until I have feel motivation. And when I feel motivation, that’s when I get started on things. And those kids feel motivation near deadlines. And that’s a belief. It’s not true. You can actually do things that you don’t feel motivated to do. It’s just harder. Well,

Lisa Marker Robbins 18:05

it’s taking apart. I always talk about there are feelings and there are facts. So sometimes a student in and are that we’re working within the course will be like, oh, oh, I’m behind. Now, is that a feeling or a fact. So I encourage parents to have conversations with their students around interrogating the truthfulness of that statement. Right now, if somebody’s in our course and they’re a sophomore and they have a whole year to get the work done, it truly is a go at your own pace. You know they’ve got that year, but it’s like, okay, well, you’ve got more ease. Like the earlier you start, you’ve got more ease. If someone says, I’m behind, and they’ve got one month left of access to their year inside the course, and they’re getting ready to start applications in the next few weeks, that is a fact. So having conversations around I love what you said about they they feel the motivation from the deadline. So let’s, let’s talk about differences with kiddos, about facts versus feelings, and sometimes the feelings just a feeling, and it is not based in truth at all. Right.

Michelle McAnaney 19:20

Yeah. The next kid is the independent kid. This is probably the student who gets under a parent’s skin the most, and they’re just so frustrated and worried. This is the student that values independence above all else, so they want to be thinking for themselves and doing it themselves in their way, and they have a belief often that they can’t give in to other people, and things have to make sense for them to want to do it. So if something in the process is doesn’t make sense to them, and they’re like, it shouldn’t be that way, or it’s inefficient. And they’re like, I’m not doing that. So for example, there are some times where a student might need to play a certain game with admissions, right? There’s, there’s some, for example, showing your interest to the college, right? So some colleges care about that very much, and when going on to college tours and clicking on their emails and following them on social media is really important. The Independent procrastinator is going to say, I’m playing that game, and they’re going to shoot themselves in the foot because of it. The other thing they’ll do is, sometimes, let’s say, a parent has a really good idea for a college essay. They didn’t come up with that idea by themselves. The student so it’s not a good idea, they’ll say, No, I have to think of my idea on my own without just considering, oh, is that a good idea? Or what parts of that idea can I use, which can be very frustrating. They want ownership of the task, and feel robbed when the somebody else takes that from them, or they feel that it’s taken from them.

Lisa Marker Robbins 21:01

I think you’re right. I mean, I know you’re right. Actually, in this idea, this one, feels very hardwired into personality to me. So being a master certified Berkman personality coach myself, I’ve looked at 4000 plus students Berkman results and their hardwired personality, and this is a hardwired DNA piece, and it is very apparent now, these will maybe be our entrepreneurs, right? These are going to be our innovators. Like there’s, it’s so frustrating as a parent or someone who’s working with one of these kiddos, or I ping, I was also, I was a high school teacher, you know, way back at the beginning of my career, for a very short period of time, yeah, for for eight years, um, right, when I came out of college, before I started my first educational company. And, you know, they can be frustrating with a classroom teacher as well, right? Yes, or in a group project setting where somebody else is a strong personality as well. And so this one truly is it can be their superpower. This independence is just hard to manage and the short term. And so, you know, I’ve always found like asking questions, being curious instead of directive with them, works a lot better.

Michelle McAnaney 22:25

I was just gonna say the same thing. You have to be a good listener so that they will have buy in with you, kind of like, okay, you heard me now. Now I’m willing to listen to one little, tiny thing. You said, yeah, make it a good thing. But they, they, you have to be you have to ask questions and be curious. I completely agree with one

Lisa Marker Robbins 22:44

of my own children. They’re all now, you know, 23 and over this time, um, who would fall into that category? Not going to name which one we have five total between my husband and me, um, but that kiddo. What I found, especially when that’s, I’m not even say what gender it was, because we have a we have a mix. When that child of ours was in high school, even younger, I would say stuff like, if I had something I wanted to say as a directive, this is our incredibly independent child. I would just say like, you know, that makes me wonder. I wonder if anybody’s ever thought about or I wonder if whatever would work with that. Because if I would have said it as a directive, I guarantee it’s not going to happen. And what I noticed was, the more I did that, just like me, kind of acting like I was processing aloud, and I was unsure if it would be a good outcome, let them take ownership, and I would see, like, four days later or a week later, them doing what I was sub, you know, subliminally, trying to suggest instead of being directive. And so, you know, curiosity, wondering aloud, asking questions. Let’s feel that autonomy, right? Yep, yeah, I

Michelle McAnaney 24:11

talk about other students. Sometimes, of some of my other students have asked for letters of recommendation this early because they’re really worried about this. The teacher filling up. That’s it. And then it does take a week, like it needs to marinate a little bit, and then the student will come back and be like, Oh, I asked for letters.

Lisa Marker Robbins 24:28

Yes, it’s, you know, our most popular episode the first year of the podcast was with Ned Johnson on the book the self driven child. And so I’m going to put a link to it in the show notes, because he talks in that episode a lot about, like, the autonomy and how to, you know, validate their feelings while also allowing the autonomy, and, you know, a degree of it, right, so that they become self driven. So I’ll put a link to that. It was our most popular episode. Episode The very first year of the podcast, and now we’re finishing up year three, which is wild to me, wow. So okay, we’ve got these three types that there’s all sorts of procrastination, but these three really do kind of resonate with, like, teens and this college bound journey. So other tips we’ve we’ve put some tips in throughout about like curiosity and wondering aloud and but other tips for parents so that they can help themselves deal the parents are like, I need a lifeline right now, just not my kid only right so, how can they help their children? How can they help themselves through this challenging time?

Michelle McAnaney 25:40

I got a bunch for you. Do you remember Newton’s first law of motion, the one that says, This is paraphrasing, that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion will continue in motion unless the force acts upon it. So you kick a ball, it’ll keep going infinitely, except that we have friction, that’s the force. So it’s this is the same kind of thing with kids that sometimes just getting started with the smallest little nothing task, can get a student to continue, because one of the things they’re struggling with is task initiation. So if we pick one small, tiny, manageable task and say, let’s do this, or just do this, one thing they might continue. So for example, let’s say we want our student to brainstorm their college essay topic. So instead of saying, You need to go brainstorm some topics and come back to me with topics, the one little task is go read the prompts for the essay, for the college essay. That’s it. You don’t have to do anything else. Let’s just read the prompts. Just one thing. Sometimes that works, because it’s really hard to get started well,

Lisa Marker Robbins 26:53

and that felt when you said, like, let’s brainstorm topics. That feels small to us in an adult brain who’s capable of doing more and has a fully developed frontal lobe, as you indicated before and that, but it’s not like can you. So the challenge of the parent is try to step back and make it even smaller, like tiniest, tiniest step,

Michelle McAnaney 27:18

and assure the procrastinator, that’s all they have to do, right? That’s it, that one thing, and it could help, and it’s it could not be the right thing for your child, or it could be not the right task, and try it more than once, but just getting started and getting helping the student get started, then they can take it from there. Often. The next tip I have for your listeners is to break everything into tiny parts, like, really teeny, tiny, just like you said. So with our example about brainstorming, the essay topic, we have, you know, you’re just going to read the prompts. Well, other small, other ways to break that down for a student would be, you know, your next step is to think about what are the qualities you want admissions to know about you? And then the step after that is what qualities are missing from your application that we would want to add and then continue from there. Love it.

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:16

Okay, what’s how many? I don’t even know how many you have. What’s another one?

Michelle McAnaney 28:21

I have three more,

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:22

I think, yeah,

Michelle McAnaney 28:25

so the next one is to plan for distractions. So these are things like turn the phone off or put it in another room, or make sure snacks and drinks are available. If your students the type to get up and go get a drink every two seconds and putting off the task doing that. Well, that’s

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:43

always a great excuse, right,

Michelle McAnaney 28:45

right? I’m thirsty, yes, since you were a little kid, getting out of bed because you’re thirsty, you’re putting off going to sleep or do your work somewhere else, don’t So change your location. Stay at school after school, go to the library, go to Dunkin Donuts, wherever that can be helpful for students. The next one parents will ground it’s use a calendar. But I want to say something very specific about using the calendars around the admissions process, which is, help your student put everything on their calendar, everything they’re responsible for doing so they can see, okay, this month, it’s October, beginning of October. Things are due in November. Applications are due in November. This is how much time I actually have to get this done, so that they’re less likely to put it off the task when they actually have the time. You

Lisa Marker Robbins 29:37

know, one of the things that I use when I suggest that as well is because I’ll even, I’ll even say to families who feel like, Oh, we don’t have time for all these college visits. And you and I, the last time you were on talked about college visits. So we’ll be sure to ping back to that great episode in the show notes as well. But I’ll say, you know, even beginning of junior year, or even. The sophomore year, sit down with a family calendar. You might not even know where you’re going to visit yet, but go ahead and plan the days that you’re going to visit. But the what I apply to that is, I say, when you get out that calendar, put all the fun stuff on first, put all the stuff that you know for sure, because that doesn’t make it feel as heavy. And so it’s like, oh, you know, here where I live in Cincinnati, they just had homecoming dances and and games and whatnot. You know, put homecoming on there. Like, that’s homecoming weekend. We’re realistically not going to get a lot done that weekend. You know, put your every first week out of school every year on vacation, on the calendar. Put your practices and your social things, because then it doesn’t make it feel like the hard stuff has to dictate the calendar. We’re making room for fun and ease as well, and then they can be more open to getting the hard stuff on the calendar.

Michelle McAnaney 30:55

I love that, that that’s great. Here’s the last one. Okay, walk the walk and talk the talk. So you want to, it’s hard. Is this is hard. So you want to, so, not just so people always talk about modeling the behavior. And what I’m adding to this is, as you’re modeling the behavior of not procrastinating, the best you can all are, have procrastinated. You want to talk about it, say it out loud what you’re doing, like I’m putting everything on my calendar now because I want to see where I’m going to have space to get my taxes done. So you’re just saying that, and so that you’re the student is seeing you implement some strategies to help you with procrastination. Now they can do the same thing. I

Lisa Marker Robbins 31:39

love it. Well, this is fantastic. I think it gives us some different lenses to look through this with and not, you know, hopefully help parents not be nearly as frustrated, and give them some real, practical advice. And I mean, I honestly, whether you have a freshman, sophomore, junior like, start working on these tactics now, when there’s less at stake, because Michelle and I can tell you from have worked, having worked for many, many years with many, many students, it’s a big lift to do the college application process, and there are very real deadlines, and there’s no grace on the other side of a deadline. That’s

Michelle McAnaney 32:18

right, yeah, it’s hard. Well, it’s hard, Michelle,

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:22

we will have you back again. This was fantastic. Thank you for joining me.

Michelle McAnaney 32:26

Thanks for having me. Glad to see you.

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:34

I hope this conversation with Michelle McEnany has provided valuable insights into why teens procrastinate and how you can support them in overcoming it. Understanding the root causes can make significant difference in helping your teens stay on track with college applications and other vital tests to further assist you in guiding your teen through their college bound journey, I’ve created a comprehensive college planning timeline that’s useful from ninth grade all the way up to high school graduation. This resource outlines key milestones and deadlines so you won’t have to worry about missing critical steps. You can download it for free at flourish coaching co.com, forward slash timeline, and I’ll also put it in the show notes. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who also might get benefit, sharing, following the podcast, rating and reviewing helps us support more families navigating the college admissions process. Thank you for listening to the College and Career Clarity podcast. You.