Helping Your Older Teen Get Ready For College
As you trip over your teen’s shoes, again, you might find yourself overcome with a wave of frustration.
On an afternoon where they haven’t yet done the dishes (for days), nor is their homework complete (even though they’ve been anxious about school lately), their application for a volunteer position for the summer is sitting incomplete where they left it on the kitchen table a week ago. Their music is blasting from their room, and you can’t remember the last time you had a real conversation with them. You might find yourself wondering when will your teen start to take more responsibility for their own life.
Your teen has started applying for colleges, or they’re already college-bound, but are they ready? You’ve tried to instill responsibility in them, and you know they’re invested in their own success, sometimes to the point of feeling intense anxiety over it. What does your teen need to know to get ready for college, and how can you help them learn crucial life skills for young adults?
How can you help your teen get ready for college?
College is a time of incredible opportunities and incredible responsibilities for your teen. It’s a time when they’ll be challenged more than ever, and they’ll likely be living on their own for the first time.
As a parent, you have spent your life trying to help them grow, and while your teen is much more independent than they were as a child, they still need your support. Here are some crucial ways you can help your teen prepare for college.
Instill a growth mindset in your teen to help them maintain motivation and passion.
One of the most effective ways to help your teen develop confidence and a willingness to try new and difficult things is by developing a growth mindset. Your teen is about to experience a major life change and face many challenging situations. They’ll likely make mistakes, and they’ll need resilience to make it through them.
We are often taught to have a fixed mindset; you’re good at something, or you’re not, you’re talented, or you’re not, you’re capable, or you’re not, and if you’re not, if it doesn’t come easy, why keep trying? A fixed mindset creates mental roadblocks to trying and learning that can hold a teen back from thriving in college.
A growth mindset instills resilience in your teen, showing them that they are always capable of growing and learning, as long as they’re willing to keep trying, and to keep adapting when they find that what they’re doing isn’t working. Socially, academically, and professionally, your teen (and you!) can grow into a person who can do most, if not all, things.
How can you help your teen develop a growth mindset? Encourage them to put effort in, and praise them for the work they put in, not the results. Push them to learn new things, and when challenges crop up, work with them to find ways to solve those challenges. Ask them to think through what kind of resources and support would help them work through challenging experiences, and help them find those resources. As they learn that they’re capable even if they don’t immediately succeed, they’ll be better equipped to face all the challenges college will bring into their life.
Autonomy and responsibility are crucial life skills for young adults
One of the most important things you can do to help your teen get ready for college is to help them develop autonomy. Your teen will have to figure out a lot in college, and they need to know how to figure things out on their own.
College student life is much more complex than high school. Your teen will be responsible for making sure they eat enough, that they get enough sleep, keeping up with chores like laundry, and they’ll have to handle the administrative tasks of life like school registration and payment, taxes, car payments, rent, etc. They don’t need to get it right the first time around, but they do need to know how to ask questions, speak up for themselves, and handle a complex schedule. So how can you support them in this?
You can help your teen learn by giving them responsibilities around the home that will help them both understand what it takes to run their own lives and what will happen if they don’t fulfill these responsibilities.
Teach your teen how to do their own laundry, and make them responsible for making a family meal or two a week. Have them maintain their own schedule, including when they sleep, and encourage them to fill out their own paperwork, like applications and taxes. Hand over responsibility for making sure they remind you to pay their phone bill, making their own doctors' appointments, and involve them as much as you can in managing their own money. Encourage them to ask questions and connect them with learning resources, but let them try and fail and try again, instead of stepping in to do things for them.
If they fail, don’t berate or belittle them. Let the natural consequences of not fulfilling their responsibilities teach them. No clean clothes, exhaustion, missing deadlines and thus missing opportunities, or facing a hungry family with nothing to offer them will often be enough to encourage your teen to do things differently next time.
Help your teen build up their self-confidence
Many young adults struggle with the self-confidence needed to make new friends, advocate for themselves, and pursue opportunities. College is also a space where peer pressure can start to have dangerous or permanent consequences. Some college-aged young adults struggle so much with self-confidence that they have their parents email professors or do their homework for them!
Building a teen’s self-confidence starts with self-compassion and developing self-respect. A teen who likes themselves, even when they’re at their most human, is a teen who can advocate for themselves even in tough situations.
Practice self-compassion and positive self-talk with your teen. Start talking about yourself positively, and encourage your teen to recognize their strengths too. Stop criticizing how people look, including yourself, and try to recognize, out loud, what you like about how you look, to set an example for your teen. When you make a mistake, speak kindly to yourself, and when your teen is hard on themselves, ask them how they’d talk to a friend instead to encourage them to be more compassionate to themselves.
As your teen develops life skills and expands their self-compassion, encourage them to pursue opportunities that will make them feel more competent. Extracurriculars that teach them something new, academic opportunities that help them feel accomplished, and life skills that empower them to care for themselves can help your teen develop their sense of self beyond other people's opinions.
Encourage your teen to find purpose
Being resilient and responsible are both important components of growing into an adult, but your teen will also need motivation, and finding a purpose in life can help sustain your teen’s motivation even when life gets really challenging.
Ask your teen what means the most to them, what interests them, what they feel they’re best at, and what they want to do with their life? Even if they come up with some answers you think are totally crazy, try listening to hear what really motivates your teen and feels purposeful to them. If they want to be a writer or a filmmaker, creativity and expression are important to them. If they want to be rich and famous, they’re likely to be extroverted and interested in experiencing the world. If they want to rescue animals or become a doctor, they’re likely motivated by care and compassion.
Encourage them to pursue a major that speaks to what motivates them. Help them recognize that feeling purpose is one of the best ways to make it through the hard days that are anything but motivational.
Connect your teen to volunteering and work opportunities that align with their purpose. A part time job that fits in with their schedule can be a great way to see the world of adults. They can find a sense of purpose, learn transferable skills, and realized that they can accomplish things on their own.
Make sure your teen knows how to pay attention to their health
Your teen is about to be the primary person managing their eating, sleeping, exercise, and access to physical and mental health care, etc. They’ll be the ones who have to take themselves to the doctor, to seek out therapy if their mental health is struggling, and to make sure they get enough rest and nourishment to support their health.
Having honest conversations with your teen about the importance of healthy choices and how to find doctors and teen therapists to help them when they need, can go a long way toward helping your teen take good care of themselves. Many teens are willing to ignore health problems and put off healthy choices, but if you encourage them to pay attention before they head to college, their health will already be a priority for them.
Teen therapy in Coral Springs can help your older teen develop the life skills they need to thrive in college
Your teen is facing a massive life change, and you want to make sure they’re prepared. As a parent, you’re a crucial component to teen college prep, but you don’t have to do all the work on your own. Trusted adults in your teen’s life, like teachers, family members, community leaders, and therapists, can all help your teen learn the life skills for young adults that they need to know for college.
Working with a teen therapist can help your teen learn crucial emotional and mental health life skills, like emotional regulation, anxiety and stress management, building self-confidence, self-exploration and introspection, and increasing motivation to meet or exceed their life goals. As a therapist with extensive experience helping teens navigate major life changes like starting college, I’m here to help. Connect with me today to get started!
Alexa provides therapy for teens and adults looking to develop their emotional intelligence in Coral Springs and Fort Lauderdale, offering sessions in both English and Portuguese. Call Alexa today at 786-565-2465 or schedule a free 15-minute consultation to get started.
