Episode 124: College or Not Series: Four Conversation to Help Your Child Find their Passion with Stephanie Haynes

For the next couple of weeks, we are going to be having a conversation around college and careers for our kids. I will be bringing in colleagues and experts to discuss how we can support our children as they grow and find their passion and career that is fulfilling for them. When I meet with a family for the first time, or they sit down to do one of my courses, one of the first things we do is start crafting a vision of the future: hopes, goals, and dreams for their kids. At some point, most families mention that they want their kids to be "successful" and that opens a whole new conversation!

What does "success" mean to you?

What does that look like in action and at various life stages?

How does your child define success? What if their definition and yours differ?

The world is waking up to the idea that there are many pathways to and definitions of a successful future, and I'm hoping that this series will get you thinking about these big questions for your own family. No matter your child's age, there is a space for you in this conversation, but I hope it's particularly helpful for you if you have teens and tweens!

For the first episode, I brought in Stephanie Haynes. She is an Education Coach and Consultant. Specializing in post-high school pathway development, goal setting and time management, and classroom and school culture development, Stephanie’s vision is to motivate her clients to take the time to create a compelling vision for their future, their classroom, or their school and develop actionable steps to build it into a reality. ​

Here's a summary of our conversation:

  • Changing the cultural stigma around non-college post-secondary education

  • Top 4 conversation starters for parents to use with their high school teens

  • The importance of developing passion and clear visions of the future

  • Why college isn’t for everyone and why parents don’t need to panic about it


If you want to have a guide in navigating all the options available to our kids after high school, check out Stephanie's book, College is Not Mandatory.
Follow Stephanie on Instagram and Facebook, and visit her website www.stephaniehaynes.net.


TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.

Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go! 

Laura: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week, we're going to talk about how we can support our children as they grow and think about what they want to do with their future. To help me with this conversation this week, we're going to have Stephanie Haynes who is an education coach and consultant and helps parents navigate the kind of the murky waters of figuring out what their kids are going to do after high school. So Stephanie, welcome to the show, why don't you tell us more a little bit about what you do and who you are?

Stephanie: Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it. Yeah, so as an education coach and consultant, my role is basically to help parents and teenagers navigate how to make it through high school and then out beyond successfully. But that wasn't always what I did. I went to college, I don't know, a long time ago and for it to be a high school English teacher. And so I have been involved in education since probably the early nineties when I graduated college and I've been a home school educator for my own children and other people's children.

I've been a high school teacher, charter school teacher, I've been around high schoolers my entire career and it got to the point where I thought, you know what, there's some things that need to change and I don't know if I can do that from the classroom. So I retired about two years ago and launched into this whole coaching program to really help teens definitely figure out what they want to do after high school in order to help save family dynamics, right? I saw a lot of parents frustrated, a lot of teens frustrated, like there's gotta be a better way to do this. And so that's kind of where I am and that's kind of how I did it. 

Laura: Absolutely Stephanie and I really appreciate this. So, you know, I don't talk a lot about my own educational story and journey, but when I was making the decision for where to go to college, I was very much pressured on where to go and I was being pressured to go to university that didn't even have the major for the field I wanted to go into, I wanted to be a marine biologist, I wanted to study whale populations and conservation, that's what I wanted to do. And the college that I ended up going to that I did go to actually the only one I applied to through other bad advice and that was driven more by my parents’ ego than anything else.

I didn't even have that major and so I ended up going into psychology which was kind of a second best for me and now I have this career where I help parents and family, but there's this piece of me that always wonders like what would have happened if I'd had someone like you in my life who was helping me see, you know that I have these passions and these interests it just who knows, you know, maybe we would be on a marine biology like nerd podcast right now instead of a child development and family relationships, nerd podcast.

I think I was always going to be a nerd, but so I guess what are some of the things that you want, parents who have, you know, kids of any age really thinking about in terms of, you know, because we come into parenthood, I feel like this is the longest question ever, Stephanie, I'm so sorry. But we come into parenthood with these ideas about what our kids’ lives are going to be like and lots of things change after the kid is actually here and we find out who they are. And most of us in this community who are listening to this podcast are holding this place where they have these good visions and goals and intentions for their kids that they're attempting to hold loosely and not kind of put their agenda onto their child. And at the same time we bump up against kind of the cultural norm that our parents decide who we are and what we do and so help us figure this out a little bit.

Stephanie: I can. I actually can't. And it's not too long of a question. I love your passion. I love your enthusiasm behind the topic because you know, I think you hit on something really important one is that there is this cultural stigma that says, if you don't go to college, you're not going to be successful and it's one that most of the generation after me kind of grew up with, right? My parents, when I was in high school were like, you're gonna go to college, my mom wanted me to go because she never got to go. My dad never went and there's that kind of understanding, but I, luckily I chose a career that needed a college degree. Fast forward to my daughter is 23. 

My son is 19 and we were having a conversation about my daughter specifically because school is not her thing, it just has been a struggle for her and we helped her wrestle with this. She ultimately chose college and then didn't know how to leave it. She didn't want to stay, but she didn't know how to leave without feeling like a failure. So she forced her way to stay in it, graduate with a degree she hates and is now happily in cosmetology school. And so we realized that, you know, there is this stigma and it's beyond just us, It is a cultural stigma and it's very hard to face your friends or to face your teachers who say you're so smart, why aren't you going to college as if that's the best thing you can do. And so I think his parents.

Laura: Or the only way to be smart.

Stephanie: Right. You're not going to college, you must not be smart enough, right? That's so not true. It's just not, there's different kinds of intelligence and neither are better or worse than each other. And so as parents, when we hold loosely to that idea of just watching our child grow and watching our child become who they are and nurturing that along the way. The conversation we can start having are not about what you want to do with your life, but what's interesting to you, what do you notice about the world around you?

And you know those are generic general questions but engaging our children in the culture that they're in and asking their thoughts and opinions about it can help them to start becoming aware of what it is they're involved in and then seeking them say, okay, how do you feel about that? What do you want to do about that? And that can help unleash a passion or an interest. Who knows what that can do? You know, in the case of you wanting to be with whales and marine biologists and conservationists and all kinds of things. 

That passion can be in our kids and whether or not they would have stayed with you, who knows? But that idea is okay. So if you were gonna follow that passion, what would that look like and don't tell them oh you should be a marine biologist. Well if you were gonna follow, what would it look like if you really did want to save the world, what would you want to do? You know, just leave it open to them and ask them those big bold questions and if they don't have the answer, it's ok. So you know what I think about it, we'll talk about it again in a little while. it's okay for kids not to know right off the bat the whole answer. 

Laura: Yes, I so agree. And I think that you're highlighting something to that this spirit of curiosity is so important to bring to these conversations. 

Stephanie: Yeah, I think you're asking on the parents’ point to what can be, what can we really be curious about for our kids? 

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the things that I'm thinking about is that I think that sometimes when we haven't had these conversations ourselves, when we haven't been on the receiving end of like what does it feel like to be in a parent-child relationship where no one is imposing their agenda over you and they are allowing you to emerge your interests to emerge. They're approaching you with curiosity, it can be really hard to know how does that look? How does it feel? I was wondering do you have any like kind of just general like conversation starters for families who are trying to figure this out and don't really know where to start? 

Stephanie: Yeah, for sure. You know, the very first one, depending on where you, where you are in this process, right? Is either to admit to yourself and or admit to your child that you might have been trying to push an agenda if you've got young kids, this is not necessary. You just need to identify it to yourself, right? Be open and honest and say, oh yeah, I really want my child to be this because it's important to me rather than waiting to let them decide what they want to do. So just kind of work in that part first and that's the first conversation to have. 

Laura: So it's almost like with yourself having a conversation with yourself, what is, what are you go ahead? I interrupted you. But.

Stephanie: No, no, no, you're fine. It's very true. Have that conversation with you. If there's a significant other in the life of that child, that's part of that decision-making process then the two of you or three of you or however many are involved have this discussion together. How are we going to approach this? What agendas are we already wrestling with and what do we need to do about that? So that's the very first conversation is just that once you kind of agreed and decided you're going to try and let your child figure things out for themselves.

It's to have that conversation with your child and just on a regular but not incessant basis. Once in a while, especially the younger they are, the less frequently should be. But just gonna say, hey, you know, what do you think about when you think about something you might want to do, what interests you and let them speak? The biggest thing that I noticed is that parents here, oh, I wanna be an astronaut. They go, well you're not good at math, why would you want to be astronaut? 

Laura: I can't imagine any of my parents saying those things to the kids.

Stephanie: Right, and that's because, you know, you're at that younger stage, right? But when they get to be older and the aptitude don't seem to be, their parents can sometimes say, oh you're not doing really well in math, are you sure that's what you want to do and that I think starts killing for our kids, that idea that they can dream. And so if your child says they want to be an astronaut then say, okay, how can I help you figure out what an astronaut does or don't tell them.

Laura: Or how can I figure out how, like how you can have a place in that process? Because I think lots of people think that, you know, the astronaut is the big job that we all see, but there's thousands of jobs. 

Stephanie: Yes, exactly. One of the things that I, when I work with my older students is we help them kind of get a general career cluster area and then we look at all the different careers in that particular area and we look to see how they all fit in with each other. Doesn't mean you have to choose one, you might get to do five of them because they all kind of go along with each other right? Starting versus ending. So that would be the second kind of conversation to have.

Laura: Can I just add something on? Stephanie sorry. 

Stephanie: Yeah sure.

Laura: So I love that you were mentioning that when they're little, we don't have to do this so much, you know, as much as when they're older, but that we should still be thinking about this and checking in and you know, one of the ways that I do this and build this into kind of our yearly rhythm is that the beginning and end of each school year, we take a first day of school picture in the last day of school picture and we have this little thing that I update at the beginning and end of the school and one of the questions is when I grow up, I want to and then it fills in the blank and you can be filled in with like things like I want to climb a mountain or I want to be a veterinarian, like whatever it is. But we ask that question, I mean, so that's something that is just built in that twice a year we ask our kids to just consider what are some things that they want to do when they grow up. 

Stephanie: That's fantastic because you can find to your child continually says things like that are involved in nature involved in outdoors involved, you know, being in that kind of environment, then you can say, well, what would that look like if you've got to do that every day and ask their thoughts on that. And that's the thing is to have those open-ended questions that don't guide a student or your child in a particular pathway, but really ask them to think and be curious now as they get older doing this becomes more difficult because there's more that they recognize they're risking. And that's the third conversation is to let your child know that no matter what they choose, you are here to support them and your job is not to tell them what to do or not to do is to help them explore and discover the answers for themselves.

And that generally happens with older kids, right? It's not just with the younger population, but if you're asking your Tween who generally may or may not talk to you depending on the day. Right? And you're trying to get the information, it can be very frustrating as a parent. So instead of sitting down and looking them in the eye and say, hey, I want to know what you want to do with your life, which we all kind of do or we let the grandparents do it or somebody else instead say, hey, listen, I know you're getting involved in a lot of different activities and I'd like to help support those into potential things you might do after high school, why don't you think about a few things and then about a week, you and I will go fishing or you and I will go do something without that child life and we'll just kind of talk about it, just tell me what your thoughts are and make it low key, make it not a decision-making conversation, make it about them developing curiosity and if neither one of you know answers, that's okay.

That's why we have google and other search engines. We can go back and say, well what does it mean to be an astronaut or what does it mean to, you know, become a cosmetologist? What does that look like? you can learn together and then that really helps them decide. That's really something they want to do and you're offering your support. 

Laura: Yeah, I love that. And I can imagine too that that would be helpful for those of us who are kind of anxious parents and who have lots of concerns about those things to be able to be curious together about like what's the earning potential, you know, what is the like career trajectory for different options? I think that lots of us, you know, adults are thinking about those things that in a way that kids aren't. 

And I would imagine doing some of that research together or even doing it separately, but with the idea that we're going to do some of this research separately and then we're gonna meet up and share what we found can let us work through some of those anxieties so that we don't project them and hand them to the child. You know what I mean?

Stephanie: Oh, 100%. When we're young parents, there's a bazillion resources and books and all kinds of things to tell you how to parent through the toddler years. The strong-willed child you know that it's great when we get to teenagers and we get to how do we help them figure out to do in this world afterwards? There's nothing, that was what shocked me when I sat down to write this book was wait there are no guides. There is nothing out here to help me figure it out. There's many things to help me help my child get an ACT score or go to college or figure out what college but not something that looks at all the different options and helps me as a parent figure out how to help my child determine which is best. 

And so I think that's what all parents are struggling with is we don't know what we don't know, we don't know how necessarily feel like we can be competent enough to help our child because there's no one out there to teach us how to do this. And that's where I think we kind of get stuck cause we feel like we have to stick with the current cultural mandate because that has shown granted to be successful. So therefore it must be right. But it's not always successful for every child and that's for us as parents. We have the obligation to say what's really right for my child and how can I help them determine what that is for themselves and help them be successful in their own unique way that they've been designed to be successful?

Laura: Oh, I love that, Yes, and can we talk for a second about like working with our children to craft and understanding or a definition, a unique definition of success. How can we as parents do that help our kids just, you know, define success for themselves because that's something geez, Stephanie, I am still learning to do for myself right now, I'm still learning how to do that for me. 

Stephanie: We all are, and that's the key is that we ask kids to determine what they need to do to be successful as an adult and yet none of us even have it figured out and our definition of success keeps changing. So no wonder they're kind of confused. We always change and its season of life changes definitions of success, doesn't it? Right, So they're in this crazy season of life as a teenager or a middle school or high school and oh my goodness, if you ever spent just a week in high school, you'd wonder how your kid makes it through the day, I promise you, I promise you it's not because high school is bad, it's because it's busy, there's a lot going on. A lot of different things are coming at our kids. So we asked them to define success for themselves.

They often don't have a clue where to start and that's okay? You can ask and say, okay, so who do you know in the world that you would say is successful, what did they do? Or who are they that you think makes them successful? Have them clarify their values that way by looking outside rather than inside because it's often really hard to identify the inside, but they can look at maybe your best friend or their dad or you or whomever and go, I think you're amazingly successful and then ask them, so what do you see about me that makes you think I'm successful?

What does that look like, chances are they're gonna give you something you never ever thought of, that, you didn't think you were successful in at all, but they're seeing in a whole different way because they're seeing it through their values and you can ask them to elaborate on that as you get closer. So, let me give you an example, I think in our conversation at some point we talked about, my daughter is now in cosmetology school, well there was a time when she and I had this conversation about success and she had a really hard time because she thought success had to be what I was doing and at that time I was running a ministry, I was super volunteer, I was doing home school stuff, I was all over the place and she thought that's what the definition of success was and we had to really hash through that and say, wait a minute. It's not about what I'm doing that's successful. 

If you don't want that, that's your definition of success and you will be just as successful when you follow your heart rather than what you see me doing. And so we definitely had some clarification of values for her at that point. And she was struggling to identify herself as like me in order to be successful rather than identifying herself for herself. And so that's a big thing that we can do for our kids is help them identify success for themselves. And often asking about other people, helps us see where they're comparing themselves to.

Laura: Stephanie, I feel curious right now, do you think that if this would be easier for teenagers and parents of teenagers? Because a lot of the folks who are listening right now have younger kids have kids who are still in the toddler years or the early elementary years, do you think that this whole thing would be easier if we were doing this now on the small stuff with our kids?

Stephanie: I do. I think it would come a little bit more naturally and I think it wouldn't be such this pressure-building circumstance by the time they hit, you know, eighth grade, the question everybody asks every teenager's what you gonna do after high school, I mean, seriously, let them get through high school first. I think that's a big he indicates if we can start talking about it ahead of time and no pressure, there's no reason to make a decision and then keep that pressure low as they enter into middle school as they enter into high school because guess what?

Just because you don't know the next step, the minute you graduate high school does not mean you won't be successful and you have time, but we don't let kids even enjoy their senior year because they're so busy trying to figure what they want to do that they're stuck. So what's the problem with them not launching at 18? What about 18.5? What about you know, 19? What's the problem with that? And that again is a cultural stigma rather than a real big mandate? 

Laura: I agree so much. I think it's a skill I think learning to tune into yourself and listen to yourself to trust yourself to get curious with yourself. I think that that's a skill set that you can cultivate in other areas so that they have that skill when it comes to this area as an example. Whenever my kids asked to do an activity like gymnastics or music lessons or something, we have a conversation of tuning in, what are your, you know, what are you hoping to get out of this? What you know, what are the things that you know what why is this activity calling to you right now? What is it that you are needing from this activity, How will you know if this activity is right for you?

And then we check in after they've been doing it for a while and with like for example, my oldest daughter did violin a couple years ago and she did Maybe four or five weeks of it and her goals for it, her intention for it. We're not lining up with the reality of what it was turning out to be, there was a lot of pressure to practice and to be good at it, whereas she really wanted to just learn to play and you know, explore music and have fun with an instrument and we decided to drop that activity for her because it was really not meeting her goals and that was her decision. But I think guiding kids through that process early. The small stuff, you know, like the low stakes things in a variety of different areas can be really helpful. 

I mean you're the expert, but I'm guessing that having that experience that skill set and that relationship built with a parent, but the parent is there to assist you in tuning in and checking in with yourself that the parent is there to support you and figuring out what's right for you. I can imagine that would be really helpful when it comes to things like deciding college or not or college versus trade school versus gap year, you know? 

Stephanie: Yeah, you had the very big key there is developing relationship, you know, I don't think his parents were as overly intentional about developing a relationship with our children as we are about developing relationship with other adults and the problem is with that is that our children eventually gonna be adults and don't, we want to still have a relationship with them then. And so we didn't focus on really helping them identify who they are. 

Like, you've been staying with your children there and helping them get in touch with themselves and what's important to them and valuable to them, then I think we can keep that relationship going all throughout the teen years. My children, I never had a perfect relationship because it doesn't exist, but I liked my kids, you know, and I still like my kids and a lot of it comes down to the relationship that we built together even when they were wrestling with things and I'm like, I do not think you should do that in my head, but they wanted to try it. 

Okay, let's see where it goes. They have to learn that. And I think that's one of the biggest struggles that parents face is we don't want our kids to experience pain. We don't want them to experience failure or defeat and that I think is one of the biggest services we can do to our kids, not because we should let them just experience pain whenever, but because we take away from them the right to make the decision about what to do And that's not teaching them the critical thinking skills they're going to need in order to survive as an adult. 

So when we stand in for them and say, oh you didn't do well on that test, I'm gonna call the teacher and tell you need to take it again. That's not okay. What did that child due to not prepare or to prepare for that test? What can they do differently for that next one? So they can do better. Let them learn from it. Because one simple, small grade is not that big a deal.

Laura: It just isn't. 
Stephanie: We make everything a big deal every grade, everything, all of it. Then they don't even know where to place that importance. So let's help them redefine that. And you know, when it comes to grades. The only reason grades really matter is if you're planning on going to college grades don't count for anything else. As long as you graduate high school doesn't matter. Not that I'm saying your kids shouldn't go to their full potential. But the idea is, do we really want to put pressure on that versus pressure on helping them develop themselves as human being? 

Laura: Absolutely 100%. And I will tell you from experience having had education at both. Like top competitive universities and at state schools, the education that you get is entirely dependent on your effort. Like as a student and there are times when I think back on all the effort I put in pressure that I put into my high school time to get the grades and the courses on my transcript so that I could get into that elite undergrad. I mean now in my own life I'm like dang it. I wish I had taken one freaking art class instead of four science classes.

Like really did I really need physics. No, I don't know that I really needed physics, but I really wish I had taken advanced drawing to like, you know, like great for me right now because I want to do nature journaling with my kids and I don't know how to draw, you know I mean, and I'm learning how to do that now, but I was not allowed to not take the science class and to take the art class, I wasn't allowed to do it. I guess if I had pushed back harder maybe, but Right. Yeah. I don't know, I don't have the strength as a child, you know?
Stephanie: Well, and then you create a relationship dynamic with your parents that isn't healthy either, you know? So you have to make those choices and that's where I think teams are getting stuck. They really want to do what they're interested in, but one they're afraid of disappointing their parents too. They're afraid of being ostracized by people at school because you are still under the umbrella that you have to have college to be successful and three if they take that risk, will there be somebody there to support them in it as they try and figure it out. And that's a really scary place for teens to be. So why wouldn't they just choose the easiest path and go where they think everybody else is going? 

Laura: Of course it is. And you know, it's funny that we think all the time about how we want our teens to be resistant to peer pressure, you know? But what about our pressure? Don't we want them to be like resistant against like outside influence, even if it's us, you know, I just I don't know, it's an interesting conversation to be having because I do think that I talked about this a lot with younger kids that kids want to please their parents. For the most part, kids know that the parent-child relationship is important to them. 

They want to keep their parent close and that doesn't change just because your kid is a teenager and they are quite likely to do things that aren't really what's true and right for them in order to please you, we don't want that. That's not what any of us, I think who are listening to this podcast want for our kids, We want our kids to know who they are and follow their inner voice, you know, I mean, Yeah, but it's it's hard. 

Stephanie: It is. It's very, very hard, you know, I think that's why that's one of the reasons I hope that this book actually makes an impact because I feel like if we at this stage can help this current generation, even the ones just after them really start to lean into who they are and what they want and start developing that clear pathway. And it's not like willy nilly, I'm just gonna go do this for a year and just decide, no, no, no, there's research that goes into this, there's planning that goes into this, this is not like I'm gonna wake up one day and be an artist and off I go, no, no, no, no, we're gonna as a family, we're gonna help you plan out that pathway?

And we're gonna give you some opportunity to check it out ahead of time, make sure it's really what you want. So that by the time you're ready to launch, you have a clear plan that you're absolutely excited about doing. And off you go, that's the key, right, is to help them get that clarity, not just let them go. And I think that's where we can start doing this with our children when they're younger is helping them like you do with your daughter. What is it you want to do? Why is that important to you?

How is that going to impact you, what are your goals with this, what you want to get out of it and helping them continue to explore is that really working or not. And keep asking those questions so they can decide for themselves what to do next. And that's the, I think the big part because it may be that they really do want to go to college and like you said when they're driven college makes a huge amount of sense.

It's worth the investment. It's worth the time, It's amazing. But when you have kids are like, I don't even know what I wanna do and I'm gonna show up and maybe I'll go to class some days, maybe I won't go to class. Maybe there's something else I want to do. I don't even know. And the next thing, you know, they're struggling or they're failing out that investment just went down the tank. Right? So it's important to help them decide they really want to make that investment first before they commit to it.

Laura: Absolutely. And I mean, especially to with the, I was listening to this NPR report the other day, the price of college is up like 500% since when I was in college, like it's it's astronomical the debt that people are incurring for a degree that they won't even use. 

Stephanie: Yes. And that's the thing, right? Again I think college offers a valuable service for sure for those who need a college degree to do what they want to do, you've got to deal with it, you've got to go through and hopefully save for your scholarships and so on because there's a lot of ways to help pay for college but you do have to think about in that one vein is the career you're going to end up with going to pay off the amount of money invested in the in the creation of that education and if it's not choose a different school because it's not worth the more expensive school just for a name on a diploma that nobody really ever sees.

Laura: It just isn't. It's not Yeah, no it's Yeah I so agree Stephanie, I feel like I totally derailed you because you had four conversation starters and I think did you only say three of them?

Stephanie: We got we only got 23. Okay. We talked about the fourth one. You actually asked the right questions is that fourth one is how do we help them decide you know that? And then the last question is how can I help you as your parents decide what it is you want to do, how can I help you do that? And if they say we'll just figure it out for me. No, you say no, no no this is your life, I can't live it for you. You have to decide but I can set up boundaries around that for you and I can say okay, you know by the time you're a sophomore you should have, this may be narrowed down to like three or four top things careers, not options careers that you're interested in and then we'll spend some time learning about those careers, learning about that.

Industry gets you, maybe an internship or a job shadow gets you involved with family members, maybe that are in those career industries, whatever that takes to give them exposure to really decide which one. Or maybe they still want all three. Okay, next, we gotta figure out how do we get into those careers? What does that look like and help them identify those steps? And the options available to them are as varied as the kids. There are five main options, but the combinations of them are infinite. So you, you know, the five, so there's, you know, four-year colleges, right? That's what everybody knows there. 

And that also includes collegiate athletics, but there's also community colleges, which now offer a ton of certification programs as well as an associate’s degree. And there are some programs that are actually certification and associates. So in two years, you graduate your a degree or AS Degree and have all the skills you need to step into the workplace, which you don't need to go to four years of college for. You can also go straight to community college just for a certification program in multiple different areas and come out completely trained in anywhere between 18 months and 36 months, depending on the certifications. 

And if you want to play collegiate athletics, but you maybe weren't quite good enough for the four-year colleges or you're not quite sure your grades are ready, JUCO has a hugely competitive format for their sports and you get recruited from there and your coaches, all they really want you to do is get recruited to the four year, that's where you want to go. So you've got an option there. The other, the next option is to do an apprenticeship or a trade program. Apprenticeships are paid education experiences and by paid, I mean you get a full salary, generally get benefits plus you get scalable wage, they can start as early as 16. They're also adult ones that start as early as 18 and you work with an industry professional who has decided they want to mentor somebody. This is not something that was just thrown together. 
They chose this company, chose to invest in the next generation. So they want you there, you get college courses and you get paid. So that's an apprentice. It's insane how many apprenticeship programs there are out there that kids just aren't paying attention to. So there's a lot of that and then there's trade schools, things like you can learn cyber technology, you can learn cosmetology, you can learn basic medical care, you know, C N A M. T. All of those things are all part of trade school networks. So if you get involved in a trade school right after high school or even little after you've got 18 months and you are in a career and you are working now, that's the end, great if you get into say, CNA was a certified nursing assistant and you want to continue on maybe eventually and get your RN well now you're saving up money to pay for that.

And now that degree means that much more to you because you have an actual job that you know, you want, right? So it's much clearer then you've got college, community college trade schools, okay then you've got the military right? And a lot of people overlook the military because immediately they think they think, you know, Afghanistan, they think fighting, they think front lines, but did you know that every career that's in the civilian world is actually in the military as well. So they need cosmetologists, they need dog trainers, they need chefs, they need all kinds of things that people don't think about and they pay you. So you can enroll and you can go into the military in three different ways. 

You can enlist, you can do an ROTC program through college, and then join in. Or you can get a college degree and then join in as an officer and you can go to a service academy like Annapolis right? So you can do all of these different opportunities and college education gets paid for if you need the full degree, not only that they're paying you while you're in the military and you get benefits, the whole thing and I can't even tell you the amount of money that soldiers are making, but it's not necessarily just soldiers, right? 

So when you're talking about anybody in the private sector, any career in the military, they're getting paid all that plus they get to travel a ton. So there's a lot of that going on. And then the fifth one is the gap season, which every parent dreads those terms. They think gap here means sitting on the couch playing Xbox forever and ever. 

There are several accredited programs that put together accredited gap season programs that are structured that have adults in charge that have a time to them that have classes, certifications, all kinds of things all over the world and you can even use staff some money towards those if they are accredited ones, which I wouldn't recommend to anything that's not accredited, but you can do those between college and high school between, you know, it's halfway through college. Even without college and certifications and then choose something else, there's no reason not to step into something different once you graduate high school because there's a ton of different options available. 

Laura: I had no idea that there were like accredited gap year programs. And I think it's important to note too that many four-year colleges will allow you to defer your enrollment for a year too. So even if you get in and you, your kiddo realizes then like, no, I'm not sure this is right. You can then do that gap year or do something else for a year to figure it out before you start incurring, that's massive crushing student debt, that can be a part of it. 

Stephanie: Exactly, exactly. I think that should be part of the conversation before you choose to go to is what financial obligation does your team have for, for any choice, what is that really going to look like and help them process the amount of debt they're stepping into for any of that, determine if that's worth it. 

Laura: That's so important. When I was 18 and going to college, I had no idea what I like financially, or what was happening with all that money going to school. I had no idea, I really needed someone to sit down and talk to me about those things and I think my dad tried, but it wasn't very successful, I was 18, you know, we're still, our brains are still really young at that point.

Stephanie: They are, and that's why I think that you're saying, what can we do ahead of time, what we do now is start helping your children identify the cost of things, helping them identify, you know, what is it cost to live in the house of living and compare that to something they can relate to. So a mortgage might be like 1500 trips to Disneyland depending on, you know, your, what you want to do when you're in Disneyland, you know, that kind of stuff, we help them identify.

Laura: We do our mortgage and stuff is right now when they ask how much it costs to like live in our house, we do it in stuffed animals from Amazon.

Stephanie: I love that. I love that. That helps them see it, right?

Laura: It does, it really helps them visualize like how much that is absolutely okay. So Stephanie, I really appreciated this conversation that we had today. I think I'm really glad that we got to talk about this because I think that it's important for this stuff to be on the radar of parents with younger kids so that they're thinking about it more. And I also, I think it's so important to be having these conversations for the parents who have older kids too.

I just, you know, I think too, like I know that there are some people who are listening who have kids who are already launched and you're listening and things didn't go the way that Stephanie and I have been talking about today. It's never too late to circle back, you know, It would mean a lot to me if my dad came to me and apologized for pressuring me so much to go in one certain direction, you know, and I'm almost 38, you know, it would still mean so much to me if he did that. So I think it's there's always room for us as parents to circle back to clarify to express remorse and regret. Like those are always options for us, no matter how old are kids are.

Stephanie: Agreed for sure. And it's all about the relationship you want to have something big like that in the way, it's not going to give you the kind of relationship you really want.

Laura: I think that that's so important. I think that that's something to just keep coming back to over and over again as parents are what is really important to me when it comes to my kid. And most of us, the honest answer is my relationship with my child. 

It's always going to be more important to us than where they go to college or what they do for a career. I hope so. And if it's not, then we have to take a look at that and realign priorities. Thank you so much, Stephanie, this is so great. Why don't you make sure everybody hears the name and title of your book? And of course, it's in the show notes that I'd love for people to be able to find you and seek you out for support. 

Stephanie: Sure, the name of the book is College is Not Mandatory, A Parent's Guide to Navigating the Options Available to Our Kids After High School. You can find that on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's pretty easy to search in there for College is Not Mandatory and it pops up. You can also find me online, I am at StephanieHaynes.net and you can find all about me, you can learn about the book, you can learn about just the different things that I'm involved in and you can find out what coaching looks like for an educator, a parent or student, you know, you can find out what that whole process is about. 

You can also find me on Facebook, @EdCoachStephHaynes and I actually have a Facebook group called College is Not Mandatory and if you're listening and you don't have 1/8 grader or older because that's one of the questions, just go ahead and put up and put in there that you, you know, hurt me on this podcast. No problem, because if you're here to learn and find figure out how to do this really well, I want you in that group, so coming over and you can find me on Instagram and, @EdCoachStephHaynes. 

Laura: Thank you so much, Stephanie, that's wonderful, I really appreciate that you are helping us broaden our ideas of success for our children and helping parents kind of get out of the way so that we can support their kids in being who they are meant to be, as opposed to who we want them to be. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much again for being here with us. It was great to get to know you and I  just think what you're doing is awesome.

Stephanie: Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from. 

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too. 

All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!