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Substance Abuse in Teens: How to Recognize & Prevent it as Parents

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Building Your Child’s Self-Esteem

Building Your Child’s Self-Esteem

There are a lot of discussions these days about the importance of building self-esteem, especially when it comes to children and adolescents. Experts in parenting and human psychology recognize how crucial healthy self-esteem is to future success.

But building your child's self-esteem can be a challenge for parents. So, how do we create and instill healthy self-esteem in kids, and how do parents encourage their children to be confident, independent, and ready to face challenges?

What Does it Mean to Have Good Self-Esteem?

Many factors affect children's self-esteem. It's important to remember that even if you do a great job building your child's self-esteem, they will still face setbacks and challenges as they navigate through life. The way they approach these challenges will truly help reinforce and build their confidence and belief in themselves.

There are also many reasons children, particularly adolescents, might struggle with low self-esteem. Anxiety, depression, ADHD, and ASD can all play a role in a child’s self-esteem. Any disorder that makes it difficult to regulate their mood and impacts their school functioning can lower their self-esteem.

But even beyond facing a mental health disorder, kids’ self-esteem is influenced by many other factors in their lives. We can’t ignore the impact of social media on our tweens, teens, and young adults. It provides a fantasy world to compare themselves to. Social media is a place where kids are constantly exposed to curated images of others living their “best lives.” The comparison can make kids feel like they don't measure up and aren't good enough.

In addition to the challenges of social media, many kids today are overscheduled. There's no time for leisure, play, and imagination, which is essential for growth. Kids need time to try new things, different roles, and react to various new challenges to help them discover who they are.

There are other several factors that affect children’s self-esteem, including:

  • How much a child feels wanted, appreciated, and loved.
  • How a child sees themselves (often related to what parents and those closest to them say).
  • A sense of achievement.
  • How a child relates to others.

Positive self-esteem isn’t just “feeling good about oneself.” It’s about how a child sees themselves and their capacity within the world, how they feel secure and safe, and how they connect and communicate with others in their lives—peers, teachers, friends, and family.

Another crucial aspect of self-esteem is self-efficacy or the belief in one's capacity to face a given situation. Self-efficacy is related to resilience—how do children recover from setbacks and deal with disappointments and challenges?

The number one way for parents to help children build resilience is to allow children to fall down sometimes. It may sound counter-intuitive that building a child's self-esteem means letting them face failure. As parents, we may want to rescue and protect our children from facing difficulties. It's hard for parents emotionally and hard on a societal level as well.

It's important to remember that most little situations aren't going to matter in the grand scheme of things. Learning to cope with challenges builds resilience and problem-solving skills. Resilient kids have some level of accountability, know how to communicate effectively, and have parents and adults that model it for them. Many parents might not have been raised that way, so it’s challenging to learn to have open accountability and awareness of their actions.

How Parents Can Help in Building Their Child’s Self-Esteem

So other than allowing children room to navigate, make decisions, and, yes, even make mistakes, how can parents help build their child's self-esteem?

There are many positive ways to boost a child's confidence and sense of self-worth; some of the simplest and best ways are:

  • Appreciating your child.
  • Telling your child that you love him.
  • Spending time with your child.
  • Allowing and encouraging your child to make choices.
  • Fostering independence in your child.
  • Giving genuine importance to your child’s opinion and listening.
  • Taking the time to explain reasons.
  • Feeding your child with positive encouragement and positive affirmations.
  • Encouraging your child to try new and challenging activities.

Appreciating and affirming kids is critical to helping them build a strong sense of self-worth. A child's self-esteem suffers greatly when they aren't appreciated. What's more, kids know when we're being sincere and honest with them. When we're spending time with them, but we're dismissive or annoyed, our kids pick up on it. It's important that we devote time to genuinely enjoying our kids.

It's also crucial to show appreciation by thanking children and acknowledging positives. Tell your child that you love them frequently, even if you don't feel comfortable expressing it or think they already know. Thanking a child when they do something positive is a wonderful reward—children love to please, and they feel good when they know they've done something notable.

Encouragement is the fuel behind self-esteem. When we encourage a child, we help build a child’s self-esteem by allowing them to discover the path to success. Encourage decision-making, which leads to building confidence and independence.

Some people worry that offering external praise creates kids that are addicted to pleasing others. They need the praise to feel good. Encouragement is a little different and aligns more with what kids need. Encouragement empowers kids to create positive outcomes on their own.

Parents can also build a child’s self-esteem with mutual respect. Treating children seriously and with respect helps them realize that they’re valued as human beings. When we explain a situation and treat a child like an intelligent individual able to understand and reach conclusions, we empower them to rise to the occasion. We all want to be treated with respect, and kids are no different. When kids are belittled, patronized, or teased and put down, they start to suffer from a lack of healthy self-confidence. They question themselves and feel insecure. Mutual respect fosters trust.

To encourage a child to take risks and get out of their comfort zone, explore their feelings about the situation. Everyone feels fear and anxiety when they take on a new task. Helping kids understand that some risk avoidance is due to these fears and anxiety can help them overcome these feelings. As they engage in more challenging activities outside their comfort zone, they'll build up a higher tolerance for discomfort, and their bravery will increase with each success.

Helping a Child Build Self-Esteem When They Struggle

When a child has a diagnosis like ADHD, depression, or ASD, they may struggle with self-esteem. There’s always a tension between helping a child understand their mental health issues impact and encouraging them and accepting their uniqueness.

When a child falls, they shouldn't be made to feel like a failure. There's a difference between failing at an endeavor and BEING a failure. It's vital to help children view their mistakes and missteps not as failures but rather as temporary setbacks on the road to success. We should never tell children that they've let us down or can't succeed. Instead, we can act as a mentor and a model, helping children believe in their ability to succeed no matter how long it takes.

But what about when a child acts out or does something that needs to be discouraged? How can we offer discipline without damaging a child’s self-esteem? Rather than punishment, we need to think of discipline as administering consequences. It should come from a place of calmness.

As parents or caretakers, we can say, "I'm frustrated, and there will be consequences. I need to take a second." Rather than losing it and doing something we regret later, we can take a few moments to collect ourselves—physical forms of punishment like hitting or spanking cause more harm than good. Kids are more likely to understand and accept the consequences of their actions when they are explained and delivered calmly.

Spending time with our children is crucial to their self-esteem and confidence. For all kids, their relationship with their parents or caretaker is their foundation. Their foundational family relationships need to be solid, so they feel safe exploring the world—it offers them a place of unconditional love to fall back on.

As parents, we should offer non-judgmental support to help our children feel encouraged. Give them a place where they can discuss their thoughts and feelings without judgment. They're trying to navigate the world, and that requires exploration. Kids come to their own conclusions, often in the way we want them to. If they fear that we're judging them, they might keep things to themselves instead and make impulsive decisions.

If you feel like your parenting reserves are exhausted, or you've hit a wall in terms of understanding what's going on with your child, remember that you aren't alone. At Goodman Psychologist Associates, we offer support for children, families, and parents. If you need assistance getting past a roadblock and reconnecting with your child, reach out today. We’re here to help. 

Parenting - 07/12/2022
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Too Much Instruction is a Dangerous Thing

Too Much Instruction is a Dangerous Thing: Helping Your Kids Choose a Path

Here she is, entering eleventh grade, and her father interrogates her weekly, “…so what do you want to major in and where are you thinking of going to college?”

We have moved ahead these last years.  She no longer requires a winter temperature of 70 degrees as a college selection criterion.  Her father has reduced his home lecture schedule on the importance of choosing a major by fifth grade and determining promising career paths.  Some progress, at least.

But what is there to tell a son or daughter about the future, based on our own experience?  Is any of that personal, bloody, often boring learning time relevant to the offspring? 

Let’s see, what wisdom should I impart in my note in her lunch bag for the first day of college?

A Letter to My Dear Daughter on Her First Day of College

Dear Elizabeth,

First of all, it is okay to admit that higher education is often drier education.  Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are not retiring to deliver any monologues in the classes you’ll be taking.  There will be a few teachers who touch the soul, but many are on automatic pilot.  So find the professors by the student grapevine that knows what they are doing and like doing it. 

Get the classes you need to qualify for what you are generally aiming for.  There is a great debate between education and vocational training, between learning to think and learning a skill.  Both are necessary.  Knowing computer programs and your way around the internet makes self-expression a whole lot easier.  Using a computer makes writing a lot less laborious.  At a more advanced level, keep checking to be sure you have the courses necessary to qualify for admission to the next level of study or the certificate and/or diploma required for practiced in the field of choice.

There is rarely enough said for steady persistence.  Expect that a few people or committees will decide you don’t have “the right stuff.”  Rejection hurts, but it doesn’t kill.  Learn what you can from the disappointment.  Even though your heart says no, share it with friends and family; it normalizes the experience and everyone has been rejected at one point or another in their lives.  Remember, too, the length of this game is a lifetime and, if you’re going to play, it’s never too late to score.

Look at what works for you.  Find your groove – it may take 25 years.  There needs to be a match between what you do well (talent) and what you love to do (desire).  Once you own that connection, good things will happen.

Finally, take the above and mix it with your own experience.  Use what works and discard the rest.

Love,

Dad

Well, that is what I would put in the note for my daughter’s first day of college lunch bag; but what would you tell her?  If you drop me an email, tell me your age so I can see if wisdom alters over time. 

Blog / Parenting - 05/02/2017
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The Best Way to Fight With Your Teenager

The Best Way to Fight with Your Teenager

As children and teens and college students are home from school this summer, conflicts and bending and challenging the rules is more apparent. No parent looks forward to fighting with his or her teenage child. But the friction that comes with raising adolescents might be easier to take when we see it as an opening, not an obstacle.

No matter how good your overall family relationship is, fighting with your teens is a constant battle of wills.  How disagreements are handled at home actually shapes both adolescent mental health and the overall quality of the parent-teenager relationship.  Also, the nature of family quarrels can also drive how adolescents manage their relationships with people beyond the house.  So how do we raise teenagers who see disagreements as a challenge to be resolved?

4 Ways Teens Fight Back at Their Parents

Research that suggested teenagers approach disputes in four distinct ways:  Attacking, Withdrawing, Complying and Problem Solving.

Adolescents who favor either of the first two routes — escalating fights or stubbornly refusing to engage in them — are the ones most likely to be or become depressed, anxious or delinquent.  But even those teenagers who take the third route and comply, simply yielding to their parents’ wishes, suffer from high rates of mood disorders. Further, teenagers who cannot resolve arguments at home often have similar troubles in their friendships and love lives.

In contrast, teenagers who use problem solving to address disputes with their parents present a vastly different picture. They tend to enjoy the sturdiest psychological health and the happiest relationships everywhere they go, two outcomes that would top every parent’s wish list.

So, how do we raise teenagers who see disagreements as challenges to be resolved?

Compelling new research suggests that constructive conflict between parent and teenager hinges on the adolescent’s readiness to see beyond his or her own perspective. In other words, good fights happen when teenagers consider arguments from both sides, and bad fights happen when they don’t.

Conveniently, the intellectual ability to consider multiple outlooks blossoms in the teenage years. While younger children lack the neurological capacity to fully understand someone else’s point of view, adolescence sparks rapid development in the parts of the brain associated with abstract reasoning. This leads to dramatic gains in the ability to regard situations from competing viewpoints. There is also evidence that parents can make the most of their teenagers’ evolving neurobiology by being good role models for taking another person’s perspective. Adults who are willing to walk around in their teenagers’ mental shoes tend to raise teenagers who return the favor.

While all this is good information, research findings rarely translate cleanly to the realities of family life. Conflict comes with heat, and we can only contemplate another person’s viewpoint when heads are cool. Imagine an adolescent announcing his plan to spend Saturday night with a former friend known for serious wrongdoing. Any reasonable parent might respond “Absolutely not!” and trigger an eruption, retreat or gloomy submission in a normally developing teenager.

An interaction that ends here is an opportunity lost. But hard starts can be salvaged and first reactions can give way to second ones. The parent in this scenario might soon find a way to say, “I’m sorry that got ugly. I need you to help me understand why you want to spend time with Mike when you don’t even like him that much. And can you put words to why I’m so uncomfortable with the idea of you hanging out with him?”

No parent or teenager can, or needs to, turn every dispute into a thoughtful consideration of opposing outlooks. And some families weather toxic battles that go far beyond the squabbles inherent in raising adolescents. Still, the balance of research suggests that garden-variety disagreements offer the opportunity to help young people better understand themselves and others, building in them the lifelong skill of finding room for civility in the midst of discord.

(Information in this article is attributed to The New York Times “Well Section” March 16, 2016)

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Anger / Behavior / Blog / Parenting - 07/21/2016
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Why Can’t My Child Make Friends?

Why Can't My Child Make Friends: Common Reasons Kids Have Trouble Making Friends

A pretty 10-year-old girl sat across from me in the office tearfully struggling, “I don’t understand why I don’t have friends. Amanda’s (another girl in her class) teeth stick out like mine, but the kids will play with her, so it isn’t that. I am smart like Brad (another boy in her class) and he has friends, so it isn’t that. I just don’t know?”

Why can’t some children make friends? This can be a difficult question to ask yourself, but if your child rarely gets invited on play dates and spends most of his time alone at home, it can be hard not to wonder—and worry.

For kids of all ages, friendships offer the acceptance, approval and sense of belonging they crave. If your child struggles to connect with other kids and form friendships, it can be a blow to his self-esteem. It can leave him feeling alone and frustrated.

What Can Cause Trouble With Making Friends

If your child has a hard time making friends, it may have nothing to do with his personality. Trouble with forming friendships can be the result of learning and attention issues. Sometimes communication skills or listening comprehension skills are lacking, which can make conversation difficult and sometimes there are a variety of other behaviors that can get in the way of making friends.

ADHD: Kids with ADHD may lack self-control, be overactive, talk too much, talk without thinking or not pay attention to what other people are saying.

Executive functioning issues: Children with executive functioning issues may have trouble sharing, taking turns, controlling emotions and accepting other viewpoints.

Nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD): Kids with nonverbal learning disabilities may miss social cues like body language, expression and tone of voice. They may not understand humor or sarcasm and may take what others say too literally.

Language disorders: Children with language disorders may not understand the rules of conversation or may have trouble finding the right words. They may avoid talking when around other kids.

Auditory processing disorder (APD): Kids with Auditory Processing Disorder may miss the point of what others are saying, miss words in conversation or have trouble following the directions in games.

Trouble Making Friends: A Common Problem

Not all kids with learning and attention issues struggle to make friends. For some kids, social skills are their strength! But if it’s a trouble spot for your child, he’s not alone. Kids with learning and attention issues often face social challenges. When compared with their peers, studies have shown they’re more likely to be:

  • Poorly accepted by their peers
  • Socially alienated from teachers and classmates
  • Viewed by teachers as lacking social skills
  • Not chosen to play or join in group activities
  • Willing to conform to peer pressure

Kids can feel that they don’t “fit in” at school or at outside activities. They may even feel that way at home with siblings.

It’s a very real issue because many kids with learning and attention issues do stand out sometimes. They may require additional time and attention from teachers, parents and others. They may call negative attention to themselves by asking inappropriate questions, seeming uninterested in other kids’ conversations, and interrupting or moving around a lot at the wrong times. Other kids may react badly or turn away.

How Social Troubles Can Impact Your Child

Your child may be resilient and bounce back from social setbacks. Or he may enjoy spending a lot of time alone. But for many kids, difficulty making friends can have negative effects. It can hurt their self-esteem, wear down their confidence and keep them from trying new activities. They may feel self-conscious, sad, angry, helpless or hopeless.

It can be hard for kids to manage these intense feelings and find ways to cope. Encouraging your child to talk about his feelings can help him feel better about himself. Just knowing he can come to you for support and comfort can make a big difference.

Ways You Can Help

If your child feels his learning and attention issues are making him stand out, there are ways you can help.

  1. Talking to your child’s teacher is a good first step. The teacher may be able to find ways to put your child in positive group experiences or match him up with classmates who are more accepting and share his interests.
  1. At home, you can work on changing the dynamic between your child and his siblings. You can also try to change the way you respond so your child isn’t singled out as much. And you can take steps to make social events like playdates, sleepovers and birthday parties more successful for your child.
  1. If you see that your child is struggling with his emotions, you might want to consider counseling. Counseling can help your child build communication skills, improve social cues and become more resilient. Strengthening those skills may give him the confidence to try new ways to connect with other kids.
ADHD / Behavior / Blog / Parenting - 12/15/2014
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Parenting and Passing On Life Experience

Parenting and Passing on Life Experience: Why Parents Give Advice to the Next Generation

If there were a contest for the one activity on the planet that parents try most often and fail at most regularly, I’d vote for “passing on life experience.”  With all the research drug companies do, you would think they would come up with a pill, maybe an injection directly into the head, that would stifle the urge to give advice based on experience to the next generation.  Now before I get mail on what Santayana said about “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” let’s at least question whether his strategy worked with his own kids.  Nobody reports whether Santy, Jr. had a more productive life because he listened to the old man; of course, I would sure like to believe the kid did.  Some distinctions would help.

First, I think parents can learn a great deal talking with other parents in their own generation.  When people speak from their own experience to others in their own age group, credibility rises since the expectations and personal meaning are easier to understand.  As worthy and helpful as this dialogue can be, most parents are reluctant to share with others for the essential reason that such disclosure is emotionally risky.  One needs only to be zapped once by another’s judgmental remark to learn never to open up that way again.

Second, the very withdrawal parents do when hurt by a jerk’s comment is the principle to remember when speaking to our children.  Life is tough enough without feeling Mike Ditka is providing color commentary on one’s choices.  Most people nod to the truism that experience is the best teacher.  I am beginning to think that experience is the ONLY teacher.  The task for parents is to set up the conditions where the lessons taught by making mistakes are not catastrophically expensive for the child.

Third, parents can profit by occasionally examining what leads them to “hover.”  The desire to protect the young is a fortunate human trait.  Overprotection, though, can be as disabling as abandonment.  Perhaps, it is a need to shield ourselves from loss that prompts us to overstep the bounds of helpfulness.  One does not have to read the newspaper very much to see the heartache life dishes out.  It is better, though, to take our own responsibility for healing and own our anxieties than to minimize our children’s opportunities for growth.

Fourth, I believe the best parents can hope for in raising the family is that the encouragement is present for both generations to talk about their concerns.  The way for that kind of communication to happen is for the adults to take the initiative in talking about the feelings present in the urge to give advice.  Specifically, I mean talking about those brief, meaningful events in our own life and what those experiences came to represent for us, whether or not the child feels these experiences have relevance for them.  This kind of disclosure invites sharing and it is the sharing, I think, more than the lessons that matter in the long run of life.

Fifth, parents need to be gentle with themselves.  This parental job requires making mistakes in order to find out what works for our children.  In fact, living would be a mighty dreadful and dull event if everything we needed to know we knew when we were born.  That is the charm of growing up for children and parents:  learning what works.

If you need help implementing these suggestions or with other parenting concerns, please give us a call.

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Blog / Parenting - 07/27/2012
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Happiness, Addictions, and Letting Go

Happiness, Addiction, and Letting Go

I hope this time of year finds you and your family happy. I want to share some thoughts on this topic of happiness and also to inform you of developments in the office since our last blog.

One happy note since then, Dr. Kevin Cubala has joined our practice with a particular specialty with children and adolescents. He also sees adults and has worked with a geriatric population. He has an added clinical focus as a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. I have long thought that much of the unrecognized distress in individuals and families is how to deal with addictions in ways that promote early focus on problem solving.

Can We Predict Our Own Future Happiness?

Regarding the area of happiness, there is a psychological concept called Affective Forecasting. The main idea behind this research by Dan Gilbert (Harvard) and Tim Wilson (University of Virginia) is that we have a bias when we predict future affect states in relation to positive or negative events. As it turns out, we are terrible at predicting how we will feel in the future. Our feelings in the present blind us to how we will make decisions in the future when we might be feeling differently, e.g., will that new car make you happy for as long as you imagine, will a job failure be as crushing as you assume, will the death in your family leave you bereft for year upon year, forever and ever?

I want to share with you a personal story. More than a few years ago, my wife and I drove our 18-year-old son off to college.  Michael had not said much about his upcoming college adventure to either of us. I suppose one might expect a psychologist’s son to be a little more chatty, but he takes after the dairy farmer side of my family: work hard, observe, and let your actions speak for you. So, figuring that no news is, of course, trustworthy, I was prepared to say good-bye to Michael and deal with my own grief of letting go. This adult strategy crashed completely with Michael’s tear constrained voice saying he was scared as we were driving toward the first campus meeting. I felt powerless to protect the one I loved from the fear of leaving home. I tried some fatherly advice that felt hollow. I talked with my wife who was feeling equally distressed, teary, and frustrated at comforting and leaving this man-child. Overall, I was miserable; he was miserable; we were all miserable. My wife wondered if we should not have let him choose a school so far away and was this a terrible mistake? Not a Kodak moment.

Blessedly, the next day we attended several orientation sessions that blunted a chunk of this heartache.  As we prepared to drive home, Michael did not want a long good-bye. He gave us all a hug, told us he loved us, and walked off to his dorm with his younger sister, Elizabeth, walking beside him for their final words. I will never forget this picture of my son walking away from us and towards his future. Shortly, my daughter returned to the van and we all climbed in and cried.

Two weeks later…as you might expect, with the passage of 14 days, my head, my heart, and my son were all at different spots. Michael regularly e-mailed and called us since the college launch. We provided regular advice that he continued to discount as typical parent advice and out of touch. I was glad to see, however, that he was reluctant to spend his own money on entertainment because “…things cost so much.” Was this be the beginning of financial wisdom. . .not quite?

So you can see, Michael was now at a better place and so were we. It is seductive to say the crucial difference is the passage of time, but I think not. Michael’s regular communication from the front made the difference.  Also, once again and not for all time, I learned that both sadness passes and the micromanagement of children, even 18 year olds, is not for the manager or one being managed. Life and separation from my son felt better, not perfect though.

The enduring principle is that happiness or sadness cannot be held onto with a conclusive grip. We falter when it comes to imagining how we will feel about something in the future. It isn’t that we get the big things wrong; but we overestimate the intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions to future events.  Happiness is related to the process of letting go. Bad events prove less intense and more transient than you will predict and good events prove less intense and briefer, as well.

There is wisdom in working on letting go in several areas, including:

  1. The need to control others and nature (I like the latter area, as I have labored long and hard trying to control my lawn and garden).
  2. The need to be right.

Experiment with the notion of letting go and see if practicing release does something positive to your heart.

Behavior / Blog / Parenting - 12/11/2011
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Too Much Instruction is a Dangerous Thing

Here she is, entering eleventh grade, and her father interrogates her weekly, “…so what do you want to major in and whereabouts are you thinking of college?”

We have moved ahead these last years.  She no longer requires a winter temperature of 70 degrees as a college selection criterion.  Her father has reduced his home lecture schedule on the importance of choosing a major by fifth grade and determining promising career paths after the year 2016.  Some progress, at least.

But what is there to tell a son or daughter about the future, based on our own experience?  Is any of that personal, bloody, often boring learning time relevant to the offspring?

Let’s see, what wisdom should I impart in my note in her lunch bag for the first day of college?

First of all, it is okay to admit that higher education is often drier education.  Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien are not retiring to deliver any monologues in the classes you’ll be taking.  There will be a few teachers who touch the soul, but many are on automatic pilot.  So find the professors by the student grapevine that knows what they are doing and like doing it.

Get the classes you need to qualify for what you are generally aiming for.  There is a great debate between education and vocational training, between learning to think and learning a skill.  Both are necessary.  Knowing how to type makes self-expression a whole lot easier.  Using a computer makes writing a lot less laborious.  At a more advanced level, keep checking to be sure you have the courses necessary to qualify for admission to the next level of study or the certificate and/or diploma required for practiced in the field of choice.

There is rarely enough said for steady persistence.  Expect that a few people or committees will decide you don’t have “the right stuff.”  Rejection hurts, but it doesn’t kill.  Learn what you can from the disappointment.  Even though your heart says no, share it with friends and family.  Remember, too, the length of this game is a lifetime and, if you’re going to play, it’s never too late to score.

Look at what works for you.  Find your groove – it may take 25 years.  There needs to be a match between what you do well (talent) and what you love to do (desire).  Once you own that connection, good things will happen.

Finally, take the above and mix it with your own experience.  Use what works and discard the rest.

Well, that is what I would put in the note for my daughter’s first day of college lunch bag; but what would you tell her?  If you drop me a note, tell me your age so I can see if wisdom alters over time.

Blog / Parenting - 10/10/2011

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