Your Kid Graduated High School. Are they Ready for What's Next? Are You?

It's now, and yesterday, and last weekend, last week, and last month.

High School seniors are tossing their caps into the air to the wild applause of parents and grandparents, as bored younger siblings look on. It's a big deal. Lotta pride. And if you look deeply into sets of parental eyes, you may see this lingering fear:

Are they ready?

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I know a lot about this.

As a college dean, my job was to welcome college freshmen into our community and to help them navigate this most momentous phase of their lives.

As a mom of two, I watched as they tossed their own caps into the air and made their way on someone else's campus.

I'm the author of a book for parents on how not to micromanage our kids' lives.

I'm the author of a book for young adults on how to thrive.

It's a good and simultaneously scary thing to have offspring about to fledge the nest. I have a huge heart for this – for YOU – and for THEM – in this very moment.

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In the last few months, a lot of you have been asking for my specific advice about what to do this summer to help get you and your high school graduate ready for what's next, whether that be college, community college, trade school, the workplace, the military, or a structured gap year. So, here are some things I think you should consider. (Note, even if your kid will still be living at home, the opportunity for them to level up their skills and independent decision-making is presenting itself, so take it! Better yet, expect it!)

It's not always pretty. It can be almost painful to watch your kid struggle to figure something out. Preparing our kids to fly takes teaching, and teaching takes TIME, and all of that time is spent on an iterative process called trial and error and a willingness to let the process happen.

Everyone's personal and family situation, and needs, are different. But what holds true, regardless, is that at some point, you, me, and all of us parents will be dead. 😳 And when that day comes, our children will be expected to be able to fend for themselves, barring significant special needs. So, zoom your mind way out for a just a sec to grasp that biggest of pictures: We're supposed to be parenting not for our kid's perfection today but for our kid's competency tomorrow in the face of our own looming mortality. In the end, when our kids can figure things out for themselves and handle stuff, it's goddamn beautiful. Trust me, I'm watching it happen in my kids' lives (20 and 23 years old) as we speak.

*An important note for parents like me who are raising kids with ADHD, neuro-divergence, and other challenges: We're deeply interested in them becoming more capable, independent, and better able to advocate for themselves, right? In fact, far sooner than parents of typical kids, we get clear that we need to accept and embrace and love our kid in the fullness of their situation whatever the inherent challenges and limitations there may be, and we also know that we will not be able to be their primary support forever. We of all parents need to know in our bones that we’ve done our best to teach them to do as much as possible for themselves given their circumstance, while also teaching them how to self-advocate to get the support and resources that they may need. I'll go so far as to say that teaching them to do as much as they can for themselves is the highest form of love. (This goes for parents of all kids.)

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Here's my advice:

Herald the Change. Sit down and have a conversation with your kid in which you enthusiastically acknowledge that a big shift is underway. Indicate that you want both them and you to succeed at it. The main aspects of the transition are greater responsibility and independence for them, and less information and onus on you. Of course, your love is as strong as ever. That never goes away!

The following is how I would frame it to my own kid.

Hey kid, congrats. We're so proud of you. A lot's going to be different once you're [insert what's happening next] and I want you, me, and all of us to be ready for a successful transition. I'm talking the degree to which we do stuff for you that you'll want to start being responsible for yourself, and also the extent to which we know where you are and what you're doing all the time, those kinds of things. I'm going to pull back some, because you need independence in order to grow. But I don't want you to feel abandoned. So, I'm going to teach you how to do more for yourself while starting to prepare myself for being less on top of what's going on with you.

[If your kid will still be living at home, I might say, Hey kid, you're done with high school and you're not a kid anymore. Since you're headed off to [insert plans] we're going to give you the autonomy that adults deserve, and we expect that you'll contribute around the home as adults do. Then steer your conversation to what shared responsibility might look like when it comes to errands, buying groceries, meal prep, dishes, garbage and recycling, keeping the household clean, and laundry. With freedom comes responsibility!]

Teach Them Many Things. Almost everything you're still doing for your kid is something they need to learn to do for themselves. Support their agency, needs, and opinions by asking them which skills they want to develop?

E.g. We've been handling a lot of things for you. Maybe too much, who knows. So, it's time to help you level-up. I have some thoughts but I'm curious, what are some things you'd like to learn to do for yourself?

If they need ideas, consider the following: Are you making their appointments and refiling their prescriptions? Are you handling their travel arrangements and solving any travel related snafus? Are you routinely buying/making all their food and doing their laundry? Are you filling out their forms and tracking their upcoming deadlines? Are you filling the car with gas and calling AAA when a tire blows out? Are you talking to the people at the front desk of restaurants, doctors' offices, and other places where talking to strangers is required?

Whatever the skills they need to develop may be, don't cut them off cold turkey (that would be cruel, and you're not cruel)! Instead, use this four step method for teaching any kid any skill:

1. Do it for them (you're probably already doing that well 😉)

2. Do it with them (show them how to do it and explain as you go)

3. Watch them do it (be there, but step in only to prevent a TRUE disaster)

4. They can do it without you.

*I narrated a cute little animation that illustrates this four steps method, which you can watch here. It depicts young kids, but the concept applies to all ages.

So, each week this summer, I encourage you to identify a few more things to teach them. You might even get them this awesome book for young people who want to live their best adult lives, written by yours truly, called Your Turn: How to Bean An Adult which is available wherever books are sold!

Resist Your Natural Urge to Solve All the Things. As you move from Step 2 to Step 3 (and ultimately Step 4) and things start to be less than perfect or downright messy, resist the urge to jump in and solve or outright take over. (Of course you can handle it – you're the certified adult; the point is that now it's THEIR turn to try.) For a visual reminder of what this looks like, picture your adult kid in the driver's seat of their life, while you are in the passenger seat for a little while longer and ultimately waving to them with a confident smile as they drive off!

So, let's say they text you about a missed bus or train, about a store that's closed or out of stock of the needed item, or about a mean barista, employer or clinician, about a forgotten deadline or obligation. Again, of course you can handle it: YOU'RE GROWN. But it's problematic when you do so, because: 1) it subconsciously tells them that you don't think that they can handle it; and 2) you're depriving them of going through the steps that will teach them how to handle it. Remember, you're raising them not for perfection today but for competency tomorrow. They can do this. So can you.

Outside of a true emergency (i.e. someone is hurt or in danger) or a truly important life moment (they oversleep on the day of the big presentation) resist the temptation to swoop in and solve the problem, and instead empathize and empower. Here's the difference:

"Swoop in and solve" equals you owning the situation as your own. (It's where you think of ideas, investigate options, and make inroads toward a solution. Shorthand: you handle it. It gets handled, yes, but your kid hasn't moved an iota toward being able to do it themselves.)

On the other hand, "empathize and empower" equals you staying in the passenger seat and believing that they can handle it.

Empathy sounds like:

• Oh no!

• So sorry that happened.

• That sounds frustrating/confusing/painful.

• Are you ok?

• I love you so much.

And then you empower:

• How do you think you're going to handle it, honey?

• I'm here for you. Let me know how it goes.

• You can even add, Do you just want to vent, or do you want ideas? (But resist, resist, resist being the person who will follow up on those ideas by getting into the driver's seat. Cuz, it's their job. Yes, they can, and it may not be pretty, but trust that they can try to figure it out and follow through.)

• Another of my favorites is This sounds hard. But you know what? You do hard things!

• You might even ask Where do you think you can turn for help in figuring this out? This will particularly apply once they're on a campus or in a workplace situation where you (the parent) have no insider info that would allow you to fast track the solution.

Sometimes we parents need to tack a third step onto "Empathize and Empower" which is EXIT. In other words, you may need to step away from your phone or outright leave the room to prevent yourself from over-helping. Don't do that if they're in true danger, obviously. But ask yourself if you're treating every little thing as potential danger, and if so, consider getting some support around why you may be so anxious about that. (Discussed in more detail in the section "Get the Support You Need.")

Respect Their Greater Independence and Privacy. As our children age and become adults, they’re entitled to more independence and privacy. Along the way, they're supposed to learn to use good judgment and make good decisions rather than always rely on us, their parents, to be watching (actually or virtually), reining them in, and perhaps scolding.

So, I was shocked and saddened recently when met with seniors at an elite school in Michigan and a few sought my advice on how to handle the fact that their parents were planning to move to the city in which their college is located. Others said that their parents GPS track them constantly and planned to continue when they left home. This is not just overparenting, (or perhaps underparenting, in that you're letting a piece of technology stand in for a parent-child communication). It's also paranoia, people. If this is you, I encourage you to ask yourself: Why am I depriving my kid of the autonomy I enjoyed as an 18-22 year old? What am I so afraid of? How does tracking them on an app actually help them and me know they've actually developed the skills to be smart and safe out there? Why don't I trust them and what can I do about that? What do I think will happen if I'm not watching?

Our privacy needs increase as we move from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Regular communication between parent and young adult is fantastic, but surveillance of a person's every move is creepy. And we now live in a state of constant surveillance thanks to social media and apps.

Maybe I’m old school, but I don’t believe a college student should have a curfew or be GPS-tracked by their parents. Put differently, I want to know that they've learned how to do the right thing even when I'm NOT watching. So, in my house, the summer after high school graduation was the time to practice giving my kids greater freedoms in the form of no curfew while I tried to get comfortable with falling asleep without knowing where they were or if they were even home at any given time. (Yes, I may be curious about what they’re doing. I may really want to know. But I know that they’re supposed to be practicing making their own choices without being hovered over.) A relationship built on trust and conversation is far healthier than hovering and smothering.

So, if you're currently GPS tracking your high school graduate, I encourage you to talk with them about how you will pare that down and only track them at certain agreed-upon times, with an eye toward winding it down completely. (For a much deeper exploration of my thoughts on the surveillance of kids, read here.)

Lean Into Mental Health. As their parent, it's quite likely that you're able to detect any important changes in your kid's mood and degree of engagement in life. Tell them NOW that their mental health matters more to you than any work they do, or any accomplishment. If they are in treatment or therapy now, or if they're on any medications, talk about how THEY will manage that while at school and how you can support them.

Create a Communications Plan for the Fall. They're about to have a really big new life. You're still a huge part of their life, but now that their world is expanding you will occupy a smaller fraction of it. You continue to matter to them and they to you, but you need to give them space to become a part of whatever community they're entering which will entail new people, work, activities, habits, expectations, mores, and maybe a new time zone.

A few weeks before they transition to whatever is next, sit down with them and talk about how communication will be different going forward.

E.g. We want to stay in touch when [insert whatever is changing] but we also want to give you your space. How about we have a plan for a weekly or twice-weekly video phone call so we can get caught up, but aside from that we'll let you dictate the frequency of communication. Meaning, if you text us, we'll reply, but we'll try to dial back the frequency of our texts so you have space to do what you need to do.

You want to be in touch, but you want to give them space. That's the balance you're trying to find and addressing it in advance helps. When you're on these calls, resist asking about grades or scores, and lean into how they're feeling:

• What's something you're learning that really interests you?

• How's that friend you mentioned last time?

• Are you getting involved in any clubs or activities?

• Where do you like to hang out?

End with We're always here to talk if you are struggling or worried about anything. Don't hesitate. Ever. We love you.

Get the Support You Need In Order to Be the Parent They Deserve. If you start to feel quite sad or at sea as your kid takes these big and important next steps away from you, those feelings are valid!!! But, try not to burden your child with your feelings – it’s not their fault, they’re not trying to hurt you, they’re just growing up and they need to be in charge of that. Also don't turn your younger children into your sole focus now that this older one is gone – that's guaranteed to drive them nuts; they may even feel resentful.

Instead, talk about your feelings with someone who can hold space for you, such as close friends who have been through this phase of life. Consider therapy as a safe space to explore your deeper sadness or anxiety. And as for what to do with all the extra time and head space you may now have, consider taking up a new (or long-neglected) passion, and reconnect with friends you've lost touch with. Maybe even spend more quality time with that partner with whom you have this kid, if such is the case. Pat yourself on the back for helping your kid get this far, and enjoy some of the greater freedoms and options you've got in store!

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What happens next is largely out of your control.

Have hope that they've chosen a place that's a good fit for them.

Encourage them to access the guidance, resources, and supports available there. That plus your love and your tuition dollars will get them far.

The rest is up to them.

Root for them to be successful at it. There will be moments that are rough. They'll be sad, scared, think they can't handle it. And they are likely to outgrow that by persisting through it and getting support on campus. Be on standby with empathy, patience, and grace. If they ask for advice, share your thoughts but then sit back and say, "You've got a good head on your shoulders, I know you can figure this out!" Work hard to believe it! (When you believe it, they're more likely to believe you.)

Resist the urge to take THEIR transition challenges on as YOUR task in the form of daily calls or regular visits (in either direction) – this might look like it would be helpful but surrounding them in the cocoon of home can actually undermine their ability to make a complete transition into this new community of theirs. If they truly need that kind of daily lifeline support from you to make it through a day or week, that's valid – and it means that they just might be in need of regular treatment, rather than to be in school right now. (A hard but necessary conversation to have.)

I'm rooting for you. For them too!

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Perhaps you've "been there." If so, what advice would you give parents going through this process for the first time? If you're in this situation yourself right now, what do you most want to know about this transition? Share your comments below!

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