Dr. Alexandra Miller Clark (Psychology America with Dr. Alexandra)
With warmth, heart and a respect for science, Dr. Alexandra and her guests explore questions that come up at all life stages. Dr. Alexandra is a mother of four and an expert in family systems psychology and clinical psychopharmacology. Through interesting exchanges with her guests, Dr. Alexandra brings new learning, stories and good company to listeners.
Dr. Alexandra Miller Clark (Psychology America with Dr. Alexandra)
Home from College: Advice for Parents and Students
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In this show we discuss the push and pull between the budding independence of young adults in college and the task parents have of “letting go,” among other related topics, including:
- Self starting and procrastination tips for students
- Coming back home: sleep pattern differences and messy rooms
- Dr. Shane Owens answers direct questions from some students about their current worries
Guest Dr. Shane Owens, PhD had a wonderful "dad voice" that I believe will comfort anyone interested in this topic. Dr. Owens is a board-certified behavioral and cognitive psychologist dedicated to helping college students, young adults, and parents. He has been serving campus mental health services at Farmingdale State College for many years and holds a private practice in Commack, New York. Dr. Owens is frequently a contributor/speaker at professional conferences and is an editorial board member of Evidence-Based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
This show is dedicated to internationalforgiveness.com where you can learn all about research that supports the mental and physical health benefits of forgiveness, practical steps on how to forgive and more.
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To love learning. To laugh. To love. To be loved. To see beauty. To understand.
SPEAKER_01To bring grace to the things that matter most.
SPEAKER_00This is Psychology America with Dr. Alexandra. Welcome to my show. For every life stage, we have questions. Let's enhance our lives together as we explore the things that matter most. This show is dedicated to InternationalForgiveness.com, where you can learn all about research that supports the mental and physical health benefits of forgiveness, practical steps on how to forgive, and more. I create this show out of love and a desire to freely share access to psychology research and knowledge with others. If you would like to support the production costs of this show, please visit buymeacoffee.com forward slash Dr Alexandra D-R A-L-E-X-A-N-D-R-A. If you choose to buy me a coffee for just $3, you have the option to leave me a message with a comment, a show idea, or just to say something nice, which is actually what they put in there. Say something nice if you want. At a pre-COVID social event, a friend came up to me and said, Can you please do a show about what to do when your college kids come home? My son is driving me crazy. She was talking about the conflict that comes up when a young adult comes back from college after having a taste of independence, and they want to continue to have that kind of independence.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh this is a conversation that I have had many times. And I start by recalling my first experience of this with my own mother leaving Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, my freshman year of college for Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02As soon as we pulled out onto Madison Avenue in Madison, she had brought up something political. And I don't know why she started with something political, because you never do that with somebody who's who's been at half a semester of college because they're going to give it to you both barrels, and boy did I. And she pulled the car over and said, Listen, if you want to stay here for Thanksgiving and never come home, be my guest. Just remember, I'm paying the tuition and I'm going to stop paying the tuition and you'll be out on your ass.
SPEAKER_00That's how she said it, huh?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she really did. She my mom did not pull any punches. And luckily, um, that is what I advise parents to do is not pull any punches because they may have college students may have their first taste of what they think is independence, but they forget that college is an incredibly insulated place. You are there to be able to spread your wings with people who are going to be supportive of you doing that and love you doing that and nurture you doing that. But you're still living with others with whom you need to get along. And that's really the way that I ask parents to approach it is to talk about, okay, we know this is going to be conflictual because you have not had us looking over your shoulder. Nobody's telling you to come home at midnight every night. We're going to start doing that. But we can we can work together to figure out how to balance those things. And it really is about balance.
SPEAKER_00We are talking with psychologist Dr. Shane Owens, who has worked for many years at campus mental health at Farmingdale State College, which is a campus of the SUNY systems. He has had a private practice since 2004. He's an editorial board member of evidence-based practice of child and adolescent mental health, someone who presents at many, many conferences and speaking engagements about various topics related to mental health and also very active on Twitter. Can you tell listeners about your Twitter account?
SPEAKER_02Sure. It is Dr. Shane Owens at Dr. Shane Owens. I will admit that recently, for the past year, I've been a little more quiet than normal. I've been working on other things, including parenting my two children who are now five and eight.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02I became a stay-at-home dad, a stay-at-home psychologist. My wife is also a psychologist. So whenever one of us is not practicing, the other is parenting. And social media has just not been at the top of my list. But over the next few months, you will see much more from me because of things like this show.
SPEAKER_00Well, this has certainly been a year we will never forget with COVID. And if you are a working parent with young children that are doing school from home, it's a whole new thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It absolutely is. And it has been a wonderful time in many ways, a horrible time in many ways. But I think the the thing that I want people to do is that I want them to learn from everything that they did. And um it's interesting that we're talking about college students. I have a fair number of college students who are in my practice who are also parents.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that is that's quite a stressful thing too.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes. And I have some too. But come to think of it, they are adult college students that are parents. Why don't we get back to the first thing that we were talking about, which is when a college student comes home and they've had that taste of independence, right? The way I see it is they are at a developmental stage where they're seeking independence. So from a family systems perspective, their job developmentally is to become independent. The parent's job is to let go. And there is going to be a negotiation there.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. It's a relationship, so it's going to require a negotiation. It's not going to work well if either one of the parties gets everything that they want.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02So there has to be this dance between the two of them. Speaking developmentally, when I work with college students prior to leaving high school to go to college and their families, what I encourage is talking about this very thing before they even leave.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They have to develop a certain amount of independence just getting out the door and onto campus. So this is something that a developmental process that should have started long before the first time that the child comes home. And it should have been negotiated in some way. There's no way to take all of the pain out of it. The unfortunate truth is that the pain is part of the process. It's a vital part of the process because the pain does two things. Number one, it encourages one to break from what they're already doing. It encourages kids to say, I really don't like the way you think about these things. I don't like the things that you're doing. I don't like the things that you're telling me that I have to do. I'm going to figure it out for myself. And it also solidifies their relationship to the family. So if they're feeling pain, they know that this family is something important. So parents actually want this to be painful to some extent. And kids need for it to be painful to some extent, or else it's not working correctly.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting. Well, when I think about negotiating and flexibility in general, right? There is an element of pain because when you're being flexible, one of you has to feel the pain because you're changing your mind about something. I'm thinking about a couple that I work with, this wonderful couple. She has just given birth to another child, and they were talking about being flexible to make room for the new baby. There will be less time for everyone. And there are going to be times where he gives and there are times where she gives. But in the moment of giving, it can physically hurt. We were talking about how you can actually feel it in your throat when you're the one that changes your mind and says, okay, we'll do it your way.
SPEAKER_02I feel the clenching of the teeth.
SPEAKER_00The clenching.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the clenching of the teeth. It's it's that time where you know that you may have a point that is just as valid as the other person's.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And maybe even more right. But this is a time when it's more there are things that are more important than being right. It's time to relate to somebody, to give to them, and to allow them to have what they need in the moment because it's more important than what you need in the moment. It doesn't mean that you don't take care of yourself and you don't advocate for yourself and stand up, but you have to just say this is not one of those times.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Can you think of a time recently when you as a dad changed your mind?
SPEAKER_02Almost every morning, I like to seriously, I like to be on time for things. I have been on time for things my entire life. And my children in the morning are not interested necessarily in being on time. My wife takes my son to school. I take my daughter to school. And sometimes, because of the arrangement in the cars, I have to wait for my wife and son to get outside. And he doesn't want to be on time. He wants to run away. He loves to run away when it's time to put his shoes on. Great. So I have to change my mind and say it does not matter whether we're on time or not. And even if they get out on time, my daughter sometimes has some difficulty being on time. And I've learned to give that up. I've learned to give up on that. But honestly, it still physically hurts because I have been trained to be on time for everything. And it's difficult for me to move past that. But I do.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02It's hard to take my own advice, honestly, sometimes. But I think about all of the times that I'm dealing with college students. And the college students I deal with are typically first generation college students who are not living on campus. They're living in their homes. They have two parents who don't understand what college is about. And often the conversation that they're having with their parents is can you just turn down the TV so I can get my homework done? And the first generation college student and the parents who didn't go to college have a real fight there because parents don't really understand the rigors of this. So it's an interesting place to be to have them try to negotiate with their families exactly what's going on in terms of the home and what the home environment needs to be like for them to go to college. So even if you don't leave to go to college and then come home, there's some independence to work on.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's right. And the other thing is sleeping patterns can differ between kids that age and adults.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Kids do not get enough sleep almost universally, but they like to stay up late and get up later in the day. And we do know that even in regular adolescents, even in tweens and teens, sleeping later is better for them. We've tried to get schools to change their schedules for a long time to accommodate for that. Kids do better if they sleep later. And parents see them sleeping in, they say to themselves, well, why is my child doing this? They're loafing around. Why are they so lazy? And then on the other end, they know that they're gaming or something until three o'clock in the morning. So they really do find a problem with that. And it comes back to ideas of work ethic and all of those things. And it doesn't have anything to do with work ethic. It's what makes them biologically comfortable. Could students sleep more? Probably. But getting on their case for not getting out of bed in the morning, unless it's a chronic condition that is associated with some sort of mental illness, should really give up the ghost on that.
SPEAKER_00So as long as they're getting their schoolwork done or their responsibilities done, let it go, you're saying.
SPEAKER_02It might be one of the times where you do let things go. Parents should make no mistake about it. There are things that you're going to have to let go. There are fights that you it just does not pay to have.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel that way about messy rooms?
SPEAKER_02Messy rooms, yes and no. Again, a good way to test this is to be out in the common area and say to your kid, okay, listen, I need you to go find this for me. And if they can come back with it in two minutes, their messy room doesn't matter. If they have to unbury it or dig and they say, I don't know where it is, then the messy room is a problem. It has to do with whether or not it really impedes their functioning. The one time that I would say that a messy room does matter, if you're having guests and you live on a split level or someplace where the guests are going to mill about and be able to see the room, then maybe you ask the child to clean their room, but otherwise let the kid do what they need to as long as they can function.
SPEAKER_00I agree with you on that. Hopefully, they'll learn that life is easier when it's organized. But I agree that that's not a battle that's worth having every single day. I do think that kids should learn to take care of the common areas, and they should also contribute to being of service to the community, meaning the small community of the family, by participating in the cleaning. So not just their rooms, but the common areas.
SPEAKER_02100%.
SPEAKER_00Because that trains them for living with other people.
SPEAKER_02I fully agree. Common areas are common areas, and everyone is responsible for their cleanliness and their upkeep and the behaviors that happen there as well. It's not just whether or not there's mess, but if you're sitting around in your underwear in the den playing video games, that's not acceptable because it's a common area. You should be clothed, you should be appropriately behaved in those common areas as well. So it's not only about the physical environment and cleaning, it's also about your behavior otherwise.
SPEAKER_00Right. Now, a lot of the college students I work with, they bring up procrastination probably as their number one problem. So self-starting with getting their work done when they want to do other things, especially when a lot of them have had to come home because of COVID. That's changing now. But um, self-starting not being in the environment at school. And I noticed that you did some research on this years ago on mental contrasting with implementation intentions. I love that work.
SPEAKER_02You're going all the way back to my dissertation now. This is this is good. And my one professional publication in in a journal is in this area of procrastination and implementation intentions. Yeah, it's very simple. And I use it all the time. I don't ever call it implementation intentions because it sounds weird.
SPEAKER_00Complicated sounding, yes.
SPEAKER_02It's a complicated sounding thing, and college students sort of shy away at it. But the basic idea is you are making a plan. You're doing what you do with a planner, and you'll notice if you search for certain things online, your social media will start popping up ads for journals that will keep your time or will organize your thoughts and all of these things. Most of it is based on implementation intentions. The basic idea is that you set a time and a place and an action and you tie them together. You write it down, you commit yourself to doing it, and it will happen automatically when that time and place occur.
SPEAKER_00I think that what I'm thinking of includes another component, which is the mental contrasting. First, you think about what it is that you wish to do, right? My wish is to complete that paper one week early, right?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00The mental contrasting is that you think about what is your biggest internal obstacle to getting it done. And think of it in the form of a sentence that you say to yourself, like, oh, I'll start tomorrow. That could be your sentence. Or um, I'm too tired today. And then you come up with a plan to overcome that thing. So it would be a sentence that would contrast the obstacle. Like when you hear yourself saying, I'm too tired, I'll start it tomorrow. You say, if I do it now, I'll feel relieved and I can relax. Paired with the stuff that you just said.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Noticing what obstacles you might face, and in fact, even adding that overcoming that obstacle will bring about a having the plan to overcome it, yes. Having a plan, yeah. I love that idea. I think implementation intentions have a lot of research on them. They use them all the time. And I'm lucky enough to have that paper cited over and over again because they're still very interesting to people. It's interesting in terms of management, it's interesting in terms of healthcare activities like taking medication, it's interesting in terms of combating psychosis and things that might cause people to not follow through with plans. So we're not really sure what the operative thing is going on with implementation intentions. But planning and considering outcomes are important. I am a behavioral and cognitive therapist and I put a heavy emphasis on the behavioral part, but I can't deny that we think about things before we do them. And if we're careful planners and problem solvers, we can overcome just about anything if we do that correctly.
SPEAKER_00So your work with implementation intentions is about getting very specific about where it is that you will study, how long you will study for. I'm just trying to understand.
SPEAKER_02It's specific about where and when the activity will start.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02My work with it will include talking to people. If someone gives me an implementation intention that doesn't make sense, I will put that back on them, almost not necessarily like the mental contrasting in terms of the obstacles and overcoming them, but considering those obstacles. So I'll have students say, I'm gonna go to the library at 11 o'clock tomorrow night after I'm done all my classes and I'm gonna sit and study for an hour. And I'll say, Well, that's a great plan, except for the fact that the library closes at 10 on Tuesdays. So does that really work? And sometimes it's that simple. And other times it's just, so you're telling me that you're gonna go after class, you've just had six hours of class. Do you really think at that point you're gonna feel ready to study, or is there a better time and a place for us to do this? Is the library actually a good time? So it's implementation intentions plus for me. It really is about good planning and consideration of what will happen if you do this thing in this place and at this time.
SPEAKER_00So it's a bit of visualization projecting ahead very specifically and mindfully about what it will look like. And then you do see the obstacles as you go along the way.
SPEAKER_02Sure, because I add a bit of mastery into it where you have to visualize yourself mastering this thing. If I have students who are having difficulty with classes or are worried even out of proportion to what their test is going to be, I will say to them, listen, you have a test in chemistry. That day, you're gonna be chemistry guy. Let's be chemistry guy. That's all we're gonna be that day. You're gonna know everything about chemistry, you're gonna sit down, you're gonna take the test, you're gonna answer every question as well as you can, and you're gonna walk out and you'll still be chemistry guy. So envisioning mastery and visualizing mastery is very important in the process as well.
SPEAKER_00Shane, I have a couple of questions that came from my daughter's friends at college. Okay, can I share those with you?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Great. Okay. Um, I'm not gonna say the name because I forgot to ask permission. But here's one, okay? She's a first-year student. She's at University of Tampa. And she says there's a lot of pressure with figuring out what you want your career to be. If you start out with one idea and then you change your mind and your career path, you get set back from everyone else because you have to restart a new major. So then people just stay in the major they started with and they're unhappy because you have to figure out what you want in the major early. This is very stressful. What's your advice to her?
SPEAKER_02Number one, try to not judge yourself against other people. It sounds like what's happening is she's considering if she changes her major, she's gonna be behind other people who are the same age as she is, or the same year as she is, or perhaps that she's friends with. Number one, it would be good for you to divorce yourself from that idea. Just don't worry about it. Don't worry about what other people are doing and how people are going to do it, because ultimately you are going to be the one who has to live the life that you choose. So that's step one.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02Number two, a lot of adults over their lifetime have careers that change three or four times. You end up in a management when you had intended to just be an engineer, or you end up being an administrator of a hospital as opposed to just being a nurse. So change is part of our lives these days. It's not like our grandparents who went to work for IBM and stayed at IBM for the entirety of their lives and then retired from IBM. So true. Our careers tend to change. So it's important to keep that in mind as well. It also ultimately you have to decide where the pressure comes from. Are you putting the pressure on yourself or is the Pressure coming from outside. If the pressure is coming from outside, then we have to think about who's providing the pressure and the intention behind that. And that's a complex process, but ultimately, again, you're the one who has to live your life. So you have to make decisions based on your pressure. You have to consider where your pressure is coming from. Is this because, again, you want to keep up with everyone else? Is this because you want a certain financial lifestyle? You have to consider all of these things and deciding where you want to go with things. And know that to a certain extent, you will have no idea what is going to happen in five or 10 years. So it's difficult to make this decision and acknowledge and accept that it's difficult to make the decision.
SPEAKER_00I like that. And I totally agree that adults are changing their careers more frequently. I also think that we keep on learning in uh wherever we land, we will learn from that spot and it makes us better for the next one.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Every experience gives us an opportunity to learn. We used to think much more linearly about our lives, that we would get to a certain point and then our life was going to do this from that point, and then we would get to this next point, and then our life was going to do a different thing. And while biologically that may be true, we we may gain function, gain function, and lose function. It doesn't really work out that way. Our lives are so different from one another's. And every chance we have to learn something, we should take.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02I heard a story recently about a man, I believe, I want to say it was for UPS.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02An African-American man who just who just gave a gigantic amount of money and has for several years to a historically black college from which he graduated. He started as a UPS driver. And in UPS, you were given the opportunity to take development classes for management, for budgeting, for all kinds of things. He took every class that was offered him and is now a retired millionaire who gives millions of dollars to his historically black college to put people through education. And it was all from taking every opportunity to learn something. We don't all think that way. We tend to think, okay, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to take the required number of credits, I'm going to get this degree, I might take this additional internship, I might do that. But we tend to think of education as something that is confined to four years or in our cases, Alexander, seven or eight years or nine or however long. Yeah. And then we're done. But that's not the way that a rich life works.
SPEAKER_00No, life is much better if you continue to learn.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00As I know that you do. And yes, it's a pleasure for me to continue to learn as well. Yes. I I worked in the corporate world right after I finished my doctorate for a while, doing organizational psychology. And I learned so much about the corporate hierarchy and what that's like. I learned how to dress, I would say. I learned about taking either the path or the ferry into New York City. And I've brought all of that with me into the private practice that I have now. Makes it easier to work with folks that are in that situation.
SPEAKER_02I love hearing that. One of the things that I think happens to practitioners especially is that we get sort of insular and we don't bring those things into our lives. We're talking about college mental health, and I do a fair amount of parenting work with anxious fathers because I'm a dad and I understand what it's like to be a dad.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I've developed a niche pre practice in that area. So it they might not all be anxious. There may be other things going on. But if we can take our lives, and not necessarily the personal things, but if we can take all of the experiences that we have and make our practice richer for that, it's it's a vital thing.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So you have a niche of working with anxious fathers.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It's not just college students. When I started working with college students, I uh I was barely not a college student myself. I had I was at Hofstra, I was a graduate student, I was teaching undergrads. I went directly into working in college mental health at Farmingdale State College and have been there ever since. And you would think that the two populations are rather different, but the same, the same issues exist.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_02In terms of well, sure, you're you're thinking about your future, you're thinking about your family's future, you're thinking about every developmental stage brings up new barriers and new things for you to consider. But often when you are uh when you're a new father or a father of children who are in college, you need to understand what they are going through and what you can bring to the table as far as that's concerned. And it really is, it's it's lifelong learning and lifelong development and understanding what you can do to make yourself and the next generation better. To your point, earlier point about service, that's what we are supposed to do. We're supposed to make the world better for our passing through it. So the two have more commonalities than one might think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I want to think about what you just said about um the anxious father wanting to be of service to everyone around him, right? His family, the newborn, the college student he may have at work, and then the college student who is preparing, they're there to prepare to make the world a better place, hopefully, like you're saying, right? And um, they're there to learn about themselves. I believe that college is a time for those that go away to learn a lot of social skills because they're thrown into a lot of socializing. And I think that's good.
SPEAKER_02It's great. And I think that it's a it's an interesting time. I did not go to the col to college in the 60s. Neither of my parents went to college in traditional ways. My mom went to school after my youngest brother turned five and went to school full-time. Then she returned to school. My father took some classes and dropped out in order to raise his family. But the 60s and now are very interesting in terms of the political upheaval and all of the things that are going on and the real challenging and the status quo. So it's not only social skills, but it's social activism, and that's how how college students have a real opportunity to change the world. So it's an interesting time. Social skills are an incredibly important part of college and what set a lot of students back. Academically, students can do very well, and it might not work out for them necessarily socially. And we're concerned about that especially now because they don't have the opportunity to develop social skills in the same way when they're sitting behind a screen, even if they're in their dorm room at different places around the United States.
SPEAKER_00You're talking about um the COVID situation where they they cannot be on campus.
SPEAKER_02Well, they can some people are on campus, but they're not allowed to go to class. They're in their dorm room. Yes. Or in a in a dorm that is a bubble and they're allowed to move around their bubble, but they're not allowed to go to class. Yes. And we're hurting in terms of teaching social skills. And the interesting offshoot of this is that they're also not learning social skills from their professors because many of their professors do not understand the technology that is used to teach. And what we're hearing from a lot of college students is that it's not only hard for them to do what they are supposed to do because they are behind a screen, but it's hard for them to learn because the professors are on the other side of a screen as well. And the learning curve is not as good for a person who's not used to technology as a student who is coming in used to technology.
SPEAKER_00So no, I think it's tough right now from both ends.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And I feel a sense of hope that we're coming out of this. I hope I'm right as far as the pandemic now that we have the vaccines out.
SPEAKER_02I have felt hopeful for a long time. I felt hopeful from the beginning. I I thought we have the opportunity. This is gonna get bad, but it's going to get better. And back to your point earlier about learning from experience, this is an experience from which we need to take a lot away. And unlike the 19, the 1919, 1920 flu, we did not have the documentary evidence that we have now. Everybody's posting on social media. We're gonna learn so much from this. Our real trouble is gonna be having to edit out the things that we don't need in order to learn from this. I just hope that we do learn the lessons that are important to carry it forward.
SPEAKER_00And what do you think they are?
SPEAKER_02To slow down, okay, to keep your distance, to pay attention. That's probably the most important thing is paying attention.
SPEAKER_00To pay attention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Those are probably the two most powerful words for me in the English language. Pay attention. Because our lives prior to the pandemic were not built for paying attention. Our lives were built for looking at multiple screens at a time, trying to juggle multiple roles at a time, trying to do too much, and not really learning what we can from each and every experience that we have.
SPEAKER_00Because we were forced to slow down with this. Those are the beautiful parts of this that I think you meant. And that that was my experience. Being home and with my children and with Neil a lot more. The intimacy of it was very special in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_02Sure. And it's not always comfortable. Sometimes you are forced to confront some things that you you were able to distract yourself from in the past. It's not always comfortable, and I understand that, but everything is an opportunity for you to learn, to confront sometimes, to embrace other times. It is just an incredible opportunity we've been given. And it's been devastating, and we've lost lives and we've lost property and we've lost wealth, and there's been some horrible things that have come from it. But life puts these things in our way so that we can learn from them. And I'm hopeful that most of us have the ability to take that away from us, that we can learn from it and move on, having learned from it as opposed to just it being a black spot in our history.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Why don't I give you the third question from a college student from Rebecca's friend? So this is a Rutgers student. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and she lives in South Jersey, and she struggles with being sad when she's away at college because she misses home. But when she's home, she's sad because she misses being at school. What is your advice for her?
SPEAKER_02Well, before I even begin, do you know where in South Jersey she happens to be from?
SPEAKER_00Uh actually, no. I don't. Sorry, why?
SPEAKER_02No, because this is exactly my story. I grew up in Gloucester County, New Jersey. Okay. Just southeast of Philadelphia, and I went to Drew in Madison, New Jersey, which is North Jersey. It's not as far as she went for Rutgers. I assume she's in New Brunswick.
SPEAKER_00She's in New Brunswick.
SPEAKER_02Uh I was a little bit further than that, but I felt the same way. I I was so excited the first day I got to Drew. I was excited. I wanted my parents out of there so fast. And as soon as they left, I thought, oh my God, what am I going to do now? Because I have a very, very close-knit family. I feel very close to my parents even to this day. Nice. And then on that same trip that I mentioned during the after the prompt, I was home and I was there for about five hours before I started trying. At that time, I had to plug my computer into the telephone line to dial up to the Drew server to be able to communicate with my friends. I and my parents had had had enough of it, but I felt that loss. Number one, I would say this, getting back to the question. Yes. It's good that you feel that because that means that you have a connection to both places. And both of those places are important to you. And that's good that you are experiencing that.
SPEAKER_00She has healthy attachments.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. 100% healthy attachments. And the healthy part of that, I can't stress enough, because healthy attachments are what are going to get us through everything. And I'm somewhat hopeful that she forms these attachments throughout her life because that's going to tell her what's important to her, who is important to her, and maintain those connections. Because when you go too far away from them, it's going to hurt too much. So you're going to run back to it. In terms of advice for handling it, being in the moment is the most important thing. And paying attention to what you have then that you don't have other times. If you were sad when you were at school, that's fine. What is it about home that you really want to do? Maybe make a list of things that you that are the first three things that you're going to do in your home. Maybe it's hug your mom. Maybe if it's if it's food related, you go to your favorite food place. I'm living on Long Island right now, and I can't get a decent cheesesteak to save my soul. But in my area of South Jersey, cheesesteaks, you can find them anywhere you go. So it but seriously, making a list of those things that you're missing when you're feeling sad, then acknowledging that you're going to get a chance to do that, and then turning back to whatever it is in the moment that made you want to be in the place where you are now. So you're going to have two lists. You're going to have the list that you keep when you're at school, and you're going to have the list that you keep when you're at home. And you're going to make sure that you hit all of those hot button issues when you are there.
SPEAKER_00I think journaling, in a way that's like journaling about it, that should help give relief too. And then she can tell herself, I have a plan, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. And the added bonus of this is that that kind of thing, going back to our first question about the conflict that comes home, she can share that with her parents when she comes home because I have a feeling that she's sad because she's missing her family and her home. And as much as she wants to be independent and really break from them, when she's working on that independence, it does hurt because she misses them.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02That can work against some of the conflict that you might experience when you're returning home. Your parents want to hear that. They do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that'll make them feel good. This one college student I work with, she said the sweetest thing. And she said she misses home. And what she missed was the adults. And I said, Well, what is it about the adults? Because home also meant her high school friends, right? So she said she missed the adults. And it wasn't just her parents, but it was like the person from the sport facility where she used to do her sport. She missed the adults. And I said, What is it? And she said, It's their comfort and it's that they believe in me, and it's that they tell me everything's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_02The reassurance that they provide.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So, Dr. Shane Owens, what's your last piece of advice to college students and to parents of college students before we bring this to a close?
SPEAKER_02Okay. I'll do the parents of the college students first.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02I'll try and put this delicately since we're on the radio. Um the advice that I give to parents when they call me is that you are paying a lot of money to turn your child into an adult who's going to be a pain in your neck. Okay. That is desperately what you want for them. Because without that, they will just be you and not the good parts of you. They'll be the parts of you that you paid for them to change. You are paying for them to be able to escape your gravity and be something better or greater than you. So that's for the parents. For college students, the advice I give is make sure that what you're doing, you are doing for you and nobody else. Don't do it for your parents, don't do it for your boyfriend, don't do it for your girlfriend, don't do it for your grandparents. Make sure that what you're putting yourself through is for you and you alone. Because you will have to live the life that you choose. And it is not easy, and it is not cheap. You must make sure that what you are doing, you are doing for yourself. It is the right time to be selfish.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Because so many students are doing things for their parents, which speaks to your first point.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Not recognizing that they're about to bloom into adulthood. And if they're healthy, they will be their own person.
SPEAKER_02Yes. No matter what you choose as a major or a career, most adults end up healthy and happy. It's not a guarantee. But we do know that what we choose in college does not necessarily guarantee anything except for the fact that we have the ability to make money, have a family, all of those things. So it's important that whatever you're choosing, it's something that's going to continue to make you grow and be happy and be healthy and bring more to the world than it brings you.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And again, it's that idea of being of service through whatever it is that we're doing.
SPEAKER_02Sure. And your job may be service to others. You may have to look outside your job for service to others. You may have to volunteer or mentor or things like that. Becoming a parent is becoming a mentor. All of these things we have the ability to give back. This is why college right now is a particularly exciting time because this is highlighted. It's not enough to just do well academically. It's not enough to do well in sports. It's not enough to do well in your career. You also really have to engage with other people and bring more to the table than was given to you. And you have the opportunity to involve yourself in all kinds of social movements and do things that will really change the world. Everyone has the opportunity to. You don't have to do it all by yourself, but let's be involved in doing it.
SPEAKER_00Dr. Shane Owens, I'm so grateful that you came on this show to share your advice to college-age students and to their parents. How can people find you?
SPEAKER_02I am always available at drshaneowens.com and on Twitter at Dr. Shane Owens.
SPEAKER_00I'm so grateful that you came on the show. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your listeners.
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