As junior year winds down, you may have started to sense an inchoate foreboding, that senior year won’t be all fun and games. Well, guess what? Your intuition is on point. Whether you’re aware of it or not, there will be a stranger living in your house soon, as you launch your final year of high school. And that stranger has a name, and its name is STRESS.
Hahaha, Dr. Yo, you retort. You don’t know me and my family. OUR family is no stranger to stress. Not a problem! Let’s hope so. But the stress having a high school senior in the house places on a family system is a particularly unkind, unforgiving, and insidious type of stress, and for several good reasons. First, whether acknowledged explicitly or whether it remains an elephant in the room, parents are facing having an emptier nest just a year away. Likewise, as excited as the grown fledglings are to fly away from the nest, they are also apprehensive and sometimes even worried or anxious.
Add to that background the daily grind, especially in the fall, of the typical high school senior (not to mention those of their parents). They’re taking the most academically challenging classes the school offers—often taught by the most demanding teachers—ascending to leadership positions in sports, activities in and out of school, and community service (whether you have a title or not, as seniors you have become de facto campus leaders), making second and third round visits to college campuses, writing and polishing applications, and, oh yeah, trying to squeeze in some semblance of a social life in the nooks and crannies. Yeah, it can be a stressful.
Having seen hundreds and hundreds of families go through this process over the years—some with demonstrably greater grace and aplomb than others—I want to offer some unsolicited, though well-founded, advice to both parties involved.
Parents
If you’re like most moms and dads, there will be times when you’ll find yourself storming down the hallway toward your kid’s room ready to burst in and rip ’em a new one they surely deserve. My advice is (adopted from the Brady Bunch’s, picture everyone in their underwear if you have to give a big speech) before opening the door, picture the kid on the other side at an age when they were still in feety pajamas. Yup, feety pajamas. So cute! Who can be angry for long at a kid in feety pajamas? Hopefully, this brief self-intervention will serve to remind you that as big as their bodies have become, and as mature and grown-up as they can sometimes sound, as high school seniors they are still in, um, HIGH SCHOOL. Whether they admit it or not (most adolescents like to rebel to a certain extent and a low-level sign of that rebellion is their “I got this by myself, and I don’t need any help, thanks” attitude which belies the fact they still have one foot in the wonderful world of childhood. What they really want to do, despite their sometimes overwhelming day-to-day agendas is to go outside and play, to know when dinner is and what you’re serving. As they should because they’re still teens, even if we have to remind ourselves of the fact. The idea is this little mental exercise will help you maintain a modicum of cool and enable you to soften in the face of the stranger called stress. This can’t hurt, but it can and very likely will promote a greater sense of peace and teamwork in the house, and that’s the holy grail of families working to get a kid into a college of their choice.
Seniors
There will come a time late summer or fall when your parents are driving you nuts. Nag, yell. Nag, yell, Wash, rinse, repeat. When did your parents’ ability to communicate devolve into only two modes, nag and yell? you wonder. (Trust me, it didn’t, it just seems that way under all the pressure.) Try this exercise on for size: next time your parents are flapping and twirling and barfing up yet another garlic milkshake all over you, try to tell yourself something like this: it may not not seem this way, but I know my parents love and care about me. They chose the very location where we have our home and live in part just so I could attend a good school, or perhaps pay huge homes of money every year for that privilege; they’ve given me not only almost all the food, clothing, and shelter I’ve enjoyed my whole life (and have likely taken for granted, cuz what little could even wrap their young brains around that?) but also my very existence! They already went to college so all the nagging and yelling to get my stuff done nut not be for THEIR future well-being, maybe in fact they’re in my corner, expending all this energy for me. Remember that no matter how sideways the emotional energy of what they’re trying to tell you comes out, what lies underneath is love and care and a sense of responsibility to launch you toward the very best future they can. This, too, can create a modicum of cool and enable you to soften in the face of the stranger called stress. It will contribute to the holy grail of families working together to get a kid into a college of their choice.
Why is household peace and working together as a family so important, Dr. Yo?
Why is household peace and working together as a family so important, Dr. Yo? (Parents might be tempted to take an icy “Fine! DO it yourself attitude and see if we care–you’ll find out!” attitude while seniors might be equally tempted to tough out the grueling college application battle in single-handed combat.) Great question, glad you asked.
This time next year, seniors will be getting ready to cross a stage, shake a high-ranking school administrator’s hand or two, and take hold of a shiny new diploma (well, actually, there usually printed matte, I’m just trying to paint a picture). As participate in that HUGE RITE OF PASSAGE, you may well want to believe all credit goes to you. After all, it’s only YOUR NAME on the diploma, only YOU went to the classes, YOU did the homework, YOU took the quizzes and tests, and YOU wrote the papers. True, but who got you to school most of your life? Who got you the books and school supplies and computers and internet access? Who arranged for all your activities and made sure you were involved? Who asked you (okay sometimes nagged you) about your homework and progress on big assignments? Who came to your games and performances and cheered you on since the days of, “You can do! You can walk all by yourself! Hooray!”). And, um, who’s about to pay for college that you’ve worked so long and hard to attend?
Have no mistake about it, future graduating senior: Even though only one of you gets the diploma, high school graduation is a FAMILY ACHIEVEMENT. One way or another, through thick and thin, through believing everyone in the house has gone nuts, through all the highs and lows, you ALL made it this exciting moment! The whole family gets props. Knowing this fact in advance may also help stave off the ugly household visitor to seniors home, the stranger called stress!
High school graduation is a FAMILY ACHIEVEMENT. So are acceptances to college.
At CPE we are sending each and every family unit positive, helpful, calm, and peaceful vibes!