#7 Set Your Student Up to Crush College Stress Transcript

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

 

They just haven’t had the experience and being fully responsible for themselves. They’d been re to reliant on their parents. And in addition, they haven’t failed before because parents don’t want them to fail. But then when they get to college, they will probably fail. They have a hard time handling that they have a hard time making their own decisions, managing their time, all kinds of basic things.

 

And those are the things that are. Teach them and help them implement when they go to college.

 

Parents, sending teens off to college are often surprised that their teen begins to struggle. My guest in this episode is college success, coach Dale, Troy. She shares that statistically 30% of freshmen will drop out. And by now my listeners know, because I share it regularly that only 41% of. Who start college will have a degree in four years.

 

So what can you do now to set your student up for future college success? Dale identifies why college is more stressful and what both you and your team can do while they are still in high school to increase the odds that your student is part of the 70% who stay in. She shares the qualities of students who are thriving, not just barely surviving and points listeners in the direction of a successful transition to college.

 

I’m Lisa marker Robbins. And I want to welcome you to episode seven of college in career clarity, a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation.

 

So excited to introduce Dale Troy, on today’s episode of college and career clarity, Dale is a college success coach and a certified health coach. And I absolutely love her college success formula Dale, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I’m really pleased to be here. We have a lot in common about how we serve families.

 

Because as I was saying in our pre-talk, one of the things I love is that while we both have a heart and an ability to serve the needs of a student at the same time, we both know as moms, ourselves of now adult children. That we’re also serving the parents of those kids too. Cause it can be a stressful time for sure.

 

I love your well, I don’t love your rate, your statistic that you share, but I think it resonates right. You share that the freshmen dropout rate for college is currently 30%. And I, I know most of our listeners are probably going to be shocked to hear that statistic. And I don’t love the statistic, but I love that you share it because I think it catches our attention on something that I believe is really important.

 

So tell us about the work that you’re doing. Like what’s at the heart of the work that you’re doing. Essentially I have seen, and I believe that kids today, more so than in the past are really not prepared to be independent functioning adults on a college campus. There’s a huge transition for them from living at home, to living in the dorm by themselves.

 

And we’re really not preparing our kids for that. And I think that statistic proves that to some degree. But there are so many kids that are excited apparently about going to college, but once they get there, they become overwhelmed. They can’t figure it out. And we just not setting them up for success. I know that you’ve got your college.

 

What is the name of your Facebook group? College parents support community. So that’s my way of supporting parents on a larger scale in that group. And I’m in that group and I am a college parent myself. I’d imagine that you’re finding that when that happens, when things fall apart, when the kids get there, are the parents surprised.

 

Actually they are. And that’s really the sad part because in their head, college is the natural next step after high school. And they look around and think that those kids are doing fine. They don’t necessarily know about everyone who isn’t doing fine because kids hide it. Parents have. And it’s not really well-known, but the actual statistic and reality from what I’ve seen is that many kids are barely making it.

 

Their anxiety and depression is increasing on college campuses. Suicide is increasing and the failure rate. Hi. So even if they stay in college, they have probably failing classes. They may take five or six years to graduate instead of the normal four. To me, that’s not normal. No. Well, and I, I always say this is part of why I’m so passionate around college major and career coaching is as a parent, myself and I work in this industry for the last more than two decades.

 

As I save for college, I plan on or years per kid in college. And that other staggering statistic is only 41% of kids are graduating in four years for a variety of reasons. I’m serving a different side of that as a college major and career coach for these kids in your serving another side, but both are impacting that 41% graduation rate and parents get shocked too.

 

And then. Oh, my gosh. I was saving for four years of college and after four years, those merit scholarships are gone if they had them and cost goes up and they’re unplanned for expenses. So what do you think are the areas in which they’re struggling or why is it that it’s more stressful today as these kids had into college?

 

What’s different. What’s changed. They’re actually a lot of things that have changed. But when I think about it, here’s what comes to mind. First of all, social media, there’s so much more competition just by being involved in social media and kids start to not feel so good about themselves. They’re constantly comparing themselves to other people.

 

So there’s this overwhelming pressure feeling. That they’ve grown up with, but it doesn’t end when, just because they finally got to college, that feeling that pressure of that competition doesn’t end, it continues. It probably gets sticker and they start to some of them start to think, maybe I don’t belong here.

 

Maybe I’m not good enough. I used to be a great student in high school, but I can’t even get a C in college. There’s something maybe I shouldn’t be in college. All these things that are going on in their head. And so that’s one thing. The social media, another is I, I believe the way we were, we’ve been parenting.

 

I include myself in this. We we’ve been hovering much more over our kids. We’ve been much more involved in their daily life, reminding them about their homework, making sure they get up for school, bringing things that maybe they forgot because we don’t want them to. Fail in any respect, we want to just keep protecting them and the way we all feel guilty on that one.

 

Don’t we, well, that’s in episode number two, right out of the gate of the college and career clarity podcast. I had a former Dean of freshmen students at Stanford in New York times, bestselling author on, and we talked about. Julie’s book is how to raise an adult, that we shouldn’t be raising them to be adults.

 

And we are over parenting. So anybody listening I’ll link to that in the show notes, like it’s resonating with so many of my guests, it’s just unbelievable. So you’re seeing it as a definitely contributing factor of these kids that you’re trying to help them. Yeah, absolutely. They just haven’t had the experience and being fully responsible for themselves.

 

They’ve been re to rely on their parents and in addition, they haven’t failed before. Because parents don’t want them to fail, but then when they get to college, they will probably fail. They have a hard time handling that they have a hard time making their own decisions, managing their time, all kinds of basic things.

 

And those are the things that I teach them and help them implement when they go to college. So you would attribute the social media aspects, which I always say we have everybody’s highlight reel, right? It’s not reality, which is probably why other parents don’t realize other kids are also struggling because the parents have their own highlight reel out there.

 

We love our kids. It’s hard to not brag on them and share their stuff, but that isn’t reality. So social media. And our over-parenting. Those are the two biggest contributing factors to, for the kids who do fail the 30% or the ones that stay in and stay have to stay on longer to be successful. Any other contributing factors to that?

 

I think also the fact that our world is more international than. Kids realize that they’re competing for jobs with a much larger population. It’s harder to get a job. And I know, you know that because you’re focused on the career path. So I think that kids are, are, are worried about that. What am I going to do with my life?

 

And they don’t really get enough direction on what that should be. So. Going to college, kind of not knowing why they’re there and what they really want to do. So that’s what they all should be working with you. Awesome. Well, thanks. I, that’s why I love our conversations and, and we know we talk offline.

 

And we met through the work that we do because it just resonates. Right. We just want to set these kids up for success. It’s it’s at our heart. And when you share your 30% are going to drop out, so 70% are going to stay in and we know just under 60%, they’re going to graduate on quote on time. We both like that word on time.

 

So there are kids that are out there being successful. And what do you think are the important skills. For the kids who are experiencing success in college, the ones that don’t need a Dale, Troy, and your college success formula, because there are some of those kids out there. What do they have that the other kids don’t have.

 

I think the number one habit or skill you could call it is how to manage their time, how to create their own schedule, how to stick to a schedule, how to just be on top of everything that they need to do. Not missing assignments, not forgetting to go to a class or sleeping through a class, staying up super late because they didn’t study for it to.

 

Until the night before somebody who really understands that in essence school is like a job. There are things that you need to do in a certain order. You can’t miss things because you get behind very quickly and then you become overwhelmed. I actually love teaching time management. I had a student last night, actually, who is a high school senior, and we were on the time management lesson and I told him we were going to use a physical planner.

 

He’s definitely started shaking a bit that day. You said, oh, I’m doing, I do it on my computer. And I explained to him the reasons why a physical planet would be a good idea. Why don’t you share those? I mean, I, cause I, I bet you, our listeners are like, yeah, I know. How would I sell that to my student high school or college in you’re doing it with this high school students.

 

So I guess you would suggest to us that we sell it. How do we tee that up? Like why does the electronic planner not. Well, it, it can work. The advantage of the physical planner is you have a week view of your schedule. You can see the way I do it. You can see your free time. Very clearly. It’s very, it’s just very organized so that you want what you’re going to do throughout the day.

 

And in. What I have them do is I have them take a picture of the week on their phone so that they always have it with them. If it’s on your computer, were you going to be opening your computers? No, that’s just not going to work. In addition, they’re scientifically, it’s been proven that writing is much more effective in getting that information into your brain.

 

As they’re writing it down, it’s actually kind of becoming part of what they’re, they’re not. Overall, it just works really well. And also I think kids are very visual. So when they see that late. It’s very clear what time they have and what time they don’t have and where they need to be. It works so well.

 

And, and I will tell you that by the end of our conversation last night, he said, I can see why this would be good. He was like totally changed. And that I was so happy and his mom confirmed that. So I was really pleased to, and that’s usually what. No teenager goes into anything going like, oh, I can’t wait to work with a college success coach and time management.

 

Some kids are ready and excited to do the college major and career coaching piece. But some of the times the parents are, this is a need. We as parents often. No what’s needed, I think. And so we resource our kids with them and oftentimes the kids don’t go into it excited. But then when you see the light bulb go off in a shift, it’s so satisfying and exciting that they’re going to be more successful.

 

I’m a huge written planner fan myself. Yeah. You don’t have to sell me on it. I towed it around everywhere. I use the full focus planner and I always say. People probably think I’m an affiliate for them because I’m always pushing their student plan or their adult plan. I’m like, it’s just an amazing tool.

 

I get nothing from them, but it’s an amazing tool. So, so that is something that I always love to give actionable advice you would say, and we don’t need, or want all of your secrets because you’ve got a great program that I want people to check out. But shifting before college, And high school and focusing on those time management and allowing our kids to fail, but getting a paper planner would be a step.

 

I love that idea of having like a global view of the whole week. That is so fantastic. And I did tell him, I said, I know what you have to do now in high school is not at all what it’s going to look like in college, because what we did is we did a fake college week and I had him create it using their planner.

 

I gave him all sorts of classes and activities and homework, and that he had a fit into the planner. So it was really fun, but he’s going to use it now while he’s still at home and just start getting into. So I think once he gets there in college, it will be so easy for him. He’ll be ahead of the game. Ah, so fantastic.

 

So, Dale, I know you’ve shared in the past that we, as parents were parenting these kids through high school. Feeling convicted a little bit ourselves, although read Julie’s book and you’ll, there’ll be times where you’ll go like, oh, I’m a rock star. And then the next chapter would be like, oh man, I still have work to do.

 

Right. So we’re, we’re parenting over parenting, helping them. There are people out there, maybe they’re doing it. All right. And they’re not over parenting, but we’re, we’re going through what these teenagers through high school. And I’ve heard you say. A lot of us think we’re going to go to this college orientation.

 

They’re going to do all these fantastic things. It’ll flip a switch and bam, we’re ready. We’re off to be successful in college. And it just doesn’t work that way. So I want to hear more about that and what you think, your advice. We know one work on time management and let our kids fail. What else can we be doing with our teens?

 

Because most of our listeners have teenagers, what can we be doing as parents? And what could our kids be doing so that they’re ready to be part of the 70% who stay in and part of the 59% who graduate on time. Great question. And just to give some perspective, the orientation is really. Orientation about the school orientation about the kid.

 

That focus is the school. Where is everything? Where’s the health center where the dining halls, what are the rules around? Having students on the opposite sex in the dorm, what are the rules about alcohol? All sorts of things like that with your in trouble. What do you do? Who do you call? Where do you go?

 

Maybe they talk about the academic advisor and what the RA role is in the dorm. Things like that. Like it’s really about. The environment, what the student needs to know. And it’s not about because they can’t teach. They’re not going to teach every student how to do time management. I think that that’s just not going to happen.

 

And if, if you believe which I do that, that’s the main, the main skill that is missing from most students. Being responsible for themselves and in being able to create their own schedule and state stay with it and so forth, that’s not happening in an orientation. So orientation, maybe parents are thinking, everybody goes to college, everybody has orientation, everything.

 

But that’s not nothing to do with what’s inside your child and how they’re going to function alone without you. They call us campus. That’s a problem. I will say. That’s more colleges now are creating first year experience. Where they do try to have more support for freshmen, but that’s not widespread.

 

And, and I still believe that even if they do have that, I mean, isn’t it better to have your kid know how to use the planner before he gets there? Three weeks in there talking about time management, when they’ve already, they’re already feeling overwhelmed and they already are missing a bunch of assignments and that kind of thing.

 

So I’ve always been a, someone who believes in being proactive. And I think in this case, It will really make a huge difference. Why I say all the time, even with the college major and career coaching, the resources that high school students have available to them to do the work now in a proactive manner are no different than the resources available to college students who get there and are like, oh, I was pursuing this major and it doesn’t fit.

 

Or I liked the major, but I never even considered, what am I going to do career wise with this, the resources available. In the work that I do. And the work that you do are the same. It’s just, are you going to be proactive with them or reactive with them? It’s funny as you’re sharing the time management stuff, my, my brain is thinking back to when my kids were in middle school and high school and I’m doing.

 

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Every time I had to run something up to the school, it really was probably a lack of time management on their part, or they wouldn’t have forgotten it. Right. And I’ve never thought about it that way until you were saying that I’m having flashbacks for sure. On that one. So, yeah, totally agree.

 

Talk to our parents through, we know. What advice are you giving? On what to do while they’re in high school. If our kids get there, it can be scary when we’re thinking like there sometimes even half an hour away, but you know, my oldest started out eight hours. How do I know that things are going okay, or what would be signs that a parent can look for high school or college students, but particularly college they’re no longer living with you.

 

That would be signs that there’s anxiety, there’s stress, there’s depression. What are those early warning signs? So we get it before the F’s start coming and we find out all the things. One of the issues is communication. So number one, I think it’s essential for parents to set up some regular communication with their child when they’re in college, because otherwise you do.

 

Really know what’s going on. You don’t have access to any information even about their grades, unless they sign the FERPA waiver, which is another whole issue. But I always say that a once a week face-to-face meeting, whether it’s zoom or some other way, Is really essential because your child, you can tell by just the way they look, the way they speak, if there’s something going on, you might not be able to tell that from a text.

 

Generally, if some, if a child is having problems, they’re probably going to text less, say words like on. You know, be very short and not really want to talk that much to me that would be assigned. I know from my own, my own kids, because they don’t want to fail and they’re embarrassed. They want to protect themselves and maybe they think, oh, I can figure it out.

 

I don’t want to bother my parents. I don’t want them to worry about it. So that’s, that’s a real problem. So communication is probably the number, the best way to be proactive and be aware of what might be going. I would also try to get my kids to be open about their grades. Not because the grade itself is so important, but that is an indication of a problem.

 

I’ve had so many parents find out at the end of the semester, literally at the end of the semester, when it’s too late, that their kid has failed a bunch of classes. And if they had known that they could have offered some suggestions, but in, in addition, in, in conjunction with that, one of the missing pieces also is self-advocacy and that’s something that you can start working on when they’re in high school.

 

The reason why a lot of them fail is that they don’t want to admit that there’s a problem. They don’t, they’re not using these tutors. They’re not going to talk to the professor there. They’re just kind of sweeping it under the rug and it’s almost like it doesn’t exist. They might even stop, stop going to a class that they’re not doing well.

 

And not to us that doesn’t make any sense. But to somebody at that age, who’s just kind of feeling bad about themselves and doesn’t know how to deal with it. That is frequently the reaction. So if you can start to really get your kids to understand that it’s okay. If they don’t understand something, that’s, they’re learning, they’re there in college to learn.

 

There are all these resources that are there to support them. Colleges wouldn’t have tutors and office hours and all those kinds of things. If kids didn’t need them, they understand that they’re there because they’re they’re needed, your child needs to use them. That’s part of. So you’ve given us fantastic tips today.

 

Stop the over-parenting. This is our second episode and just our first six, that’s driving that home or for six or seven, and then to really work on time management, which quite frankly, if they master that, they’ve solved a lot of other problems and to work on self-advocacy while still in high school. So.

 

If our families want to work with you proactively with their teens or reactively, if things do go awry, because sometimes they do, when they’re in college, how do people best connect with. Well, one simple way is just have a conversation with me. I offer that and it’s talk with dale.com. Great. And we’ll put that in the show notes for sure.

 

Otherwise, please join my Facebook group and also connect with me on my website, crush college stress.com. But my Facebook group is a great resource and you get to know me that way and see if you feel comfortable, then we can have a conversation later. I’m a member of the Facebook group and we’ll put the link to it in the show notes.

 

But. Dale, you also share terrific resources in that group that are adjacent to the space that you’re in, but not always centered on the space that you’re in around those things. So, well, thank you for taking time out, to be on the show and you are so appreciated, Dale. I love the work that you’re doing and let’s stay in touch.

 

It was really a pleasure for me. Thanks.

 

Another episode. Fantastic advice from an expert who is resourcing students to successfully launch. It took me well into adulthood to fully embrace a paper planner as Dale suggests. I really wish I’d have started sooner because it was a game changer for me and made new things possible. I’d probably not be on this podcast.

 

Had I not done it? So I encourage you before the end of this. To carve out time to talk with your teen about time management and perhaps ease into a paper planner. I’d suggest teeing it up as an experiment, not something permanent. And you’ll be more likely to get buy-in from your team. Personally. I love the full focus planner that I mentioned, and they have a student version too.

 

I’ll link to it in the. And no, I’m not an affiliate. I don’t get anything for mentioning it. I just love their system, regardless of which system your teen adopts, just do it. I agree with Dale that this is one action of better time management that has the power to solve many problems now and avoid them in the future.

 

And parents, Dale hit on a common theme. I hear from him. The downside of helping our kids to the point of hurting them over parenting. If you’ve not already listened to episode two with Julie lith cot, Hames, former Dean of freshmen at Stanford, please do yourself a favor and listen, it changed how I view my own parenting for the better.

 

I’ve got the link to this episode in the show notes. If today’s episode was helpful. Please share with a friend who needs us to share, following the podcast rating and reviewing helps us resource more students to lodge and to be successful. Thank you for listening to the college and career clarity podcast, where I help your family move from overwhelmed and confused to motivated, clear and competent about your teen’s future .