High School Bound: Three conversations parents should have with their rising freshmen

This fall, thousands of students will begin their freshman year at more than 100 different Triangle-area high schools.

For the parents of those soon-to-be freshmen, it feels like the “countdown clock” to college, independence and adulthood begins ticking faster and faster. The high school years are a momentous and consequential time. The choices — both big and small — that children and their parents make in these years can have a lifelong impact. And the freshman year sets it all in motion — which is why lots of open, honest conversations before and during that first high of school year are so essential.

Below are three conversations I recommend having with your child as he or she begins high school.

To me, they help set the “ground rules” and give a context for most of the other experiences and conversations in the four years that will follow.

And knowing that many teens are uncomfortable with anything that feels too much like a forced “sit-down chat,” I recommend parents of freshmen use informal “car talks” while driving together to or from school, the store, or a friend’s house — with a driver’s license on the horizon, the opportunities for such conversations will be soon coming to a close. So, without necessarily making it feel like a big deal to your child, find a moment to turn down the radio, have him or her put down their phone and have genuine, unforced, and meaningful conversations on these topics.

There are more than 2,100 fully accredited, non-profit, four-year colleges and universities in the United States—over 1,500 private and over 650 public, including 16 public universities in North Carolina alone. Any one of these colleges sends their graduates on to great law schools, medical schools, and graduate schools, or out into successful lives and careers afterwards.

Yet for many high school students (and their parents), fear and stress over college admissions at only one or just a handful of these institutions clouds nearly all of their actions and choices in four years of high school.

They select extra-curricular activities or electives with the sole purpose of “padding the college resume” instead of actually discovering new interests. They look for the easiest (and often least meaningful) community service opportunities, not with a priority of helping others, but instead with the goal of racking up the greatest number of service hours.

They avoid taking intellectual risks and often approach their classes by asking only “Will this be graded?” or “Will this be on the test?”

Ultimately, the stress of college admissions forces them to miss out on many important experiences and powerful learning opportunities that could positively shape their future in college and well beyond.

Parents should take the time now to ask their child questions like these:

Hopefully, these conversations help put college in perspective. The purpose of the high school years is not to gain admission to one particular college, but rather to learn and strengthen skills and habits of hard work, to build and deepen relationships, and to begin to discern a purpose and meaning for their independent adult lives to follow. And whatever that purpose and meaning might be, it ought to involve helping and positively impacting others.

A student who spends their high school years working very hard, building good habits, taking good intellectual risks, being a good friend, and contributing positively to the lives of others will surely find many of those 2,100 colleges and universities eager to welcome him or her— perhaps even with some scholarship money, too.

Even more beneficial for the student, though, is that those high school experiences set him or her on a trajectory for a meaningful and successful life far beyond college, too.

The teenage brain is physically and chemically different from the adult brain — just do a quick internet search for “frontal lobe development.”

Without exception, every teen will repeatedly behave impulsively, emotionally, thoughtlessly, and irrationally— something parents and teens ought to discuss together candidly in the quieter, less emotional moments.

Your freshman is going to spend eight hours each day, five days each week, for the next four years at school, making hundreds or thousands of independent choices without you around.

Some of those choices will be impulsive, emotional, thoughtless, and irrational. They will get in trouble with their teachers. They will embarrass themselves. They will make mistakes, big and small, that they someday will wish they could take back. And they will be surrounded every day by hundreds of other teens whose own impulsive, emotional, thoughtless, and irrational choices are bound to negatively impact your child on more than one occasion.

Particularly if it’s a bad or hurtful choice, they might see that they really had no rational reason for the decision they made — they just behaved impulsively and thoughtlessly (i.e., perfectly naturally, for a teenager).

Perhaps this might help give them just a brief moment of pause before the next emotional, impulsive, thoughtless, or irrational choice they make … though brain development tells us the odds may be against this. More likely, though, it can help them be less defensive and take responsibility for the consequences after the choices are made.

Behaving disrespectfully, hurting someone else, cheating, lying — when these things happen, a student should take responsibility, apologize, try to be sure it doesn’t happen again, and try to the best of their ability to make amends and set things right. Similarly, parents ought to help their child remember that they’re surrounded by hundreds of other teenagers whose brains are similarly wired to make poor decisions from time to time, and they ought to extend empathy and forgiveness often. Having this “meta” perspective at the outset of the high school years can be very beneficial in helping a student navigate the emotional roller coaster that is to follow.

There are lots of other meaningful conversations to have and skills to build for a high school freshman — on academics, learning, friendships, peer pressure, sex, drugs, alcohol, and so much more.

However, I believe having these big perspective-setting conversations at the outset gives a valuable context to everything that follows. Ensuring that your teen has the right priorities and the right perspective — and knows that he or she will be loved, no matter what — will help put them on path for a successful high school experience… and the many years that will follow.