An ounce of prevention...

I hear from parents all the time asking about the right formula of classes and activities for getting into Harvard. Parents who worry that their 8th grader has already fallen behind in the rat race to the Ivy Leagues. Parents who have micromanaged every minute of their kid's time to be as impressive, accomplished, and multi-talented as possible, all in the service of college admissions.

If this is you, or someone you know, I want to encourage a pause, a deep breath, and a broader view.

Parents, of course, want the best for their children. One of the reasons we want our kids to go to a brand name college is because we think it will pave their way into a high paying, high status job. Where they won't have to work as hard as we did, and they'll get to live a life of luxury and ease. Where they won't have to worry about finances or job security. Where they won't face the pressures and challenges that we face ourselves:

• the burnout
• the lack of work-life balance
• the need to feign enthusiasm for a job, boss, or industry we loathe
• to put up with products, people, processes that don't align with our values just to get by.

Well, guess what? With our focus on brand and rigid, externally-imposed definition of success, we're putting our kids on that endless hamster wheel early.

It's a self-defeating prophecy. We're teaching them to ignore their values, alienate themselves from their emotions and bodies, and toil away their childhood, all in service of a goal that is not truly theirs. We are burning them out before they even get into college.

I've been reading Pooja Lakshmin, MD 's book Real Self Care (it's a MUST read!), and I've been struck by the parallels between what she calls "real" self care, which focuses on underlying principles of wellness like boundaries, self-compassion, self-alignment, and self-respect, and the work we do at Signet, helping teens understand their values & priorities in service of defining a meaningful path for their education and career. We know that when students know themselves and can describe their growth and aspirations authentically to colleges, there is a lot to celebrate in terms of admission, readiness, confidence, and personal development.

Lakshmin also describes the "faux" self-care that actually works against our wellness goals, like spending inordinate amounts of money for a temporary retreat that has little or no lasting impact on the structure of our lives. To apply the analogy to college admissions, the "faux" work might look like:

• doing extracurriculars solely because they might "look good" on a college application
• changing academic focus because it is stereotypical of students who share your background
• forcing a specific career path on a student, even if it doesn't align with ehri interests or strengths, because it is a "proven" path to success
• treating students with learning differences as though they are intrinsically lazy, unmotivated, or unintelligent

You may think these are exaggerations, but I've talked to hundreds of families who were told these things (and more) by some college advisor or another.

When this advice is given to a student - an adolescent, no less - they are getting the message that who they truly are is not only not "good enough," but that their true inner self is a problem.

And while this approach may sometimes work for the short term goal of getting in to college, it does not prepare students for life in college or after.

If we take that pause, deep breath, and broader view, it all becomes more clear. Instead of reproducing the pressure, anxiety, and burnout we feel, we have the opportunity to break the cycle with our kids by teaching them valuable frameworks and tools to navigate their own complicated lives better.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.