What Really Matters Most in High School May Surprise You

"It's wild to me that we throw all these things at teenagers and expect them to handle it with the grace and poise that a 35-year-old would. And so, if I were speaking directly to teenagers of today, what I would say to them is that it makes so much sense that you feel this pressure. It makes so much sense that you feel stressed out. The environment that you are in is such a competitive and high pressure one that I would feel the same exact way."  Meg Ruocco - 2015 High School Graduate

Two 2015 grads from Glenbrook North High School reflect and share their experiences growing up on Chicago's North Shore in this episode of the pod.  Meg Ruocco and Kathleen Nolan talk with Amy O. and Dr. Lisa about the risks that are worth taking, what they want current high school students to know, and offer parents advice on how best to support their kids.  

Meg is currently finishing on her Masters of Fine Arts in screenwriting at Brooklyn College in New York City. Kathleen just started her final semester of a Master of Nursing program at the University of Illinois in Chicago.


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Music Credit: Tune 2 go / POND 5

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Transcript

[00:01:11] Dr. Lisa: Hi, ladies. Thank you so much for being on this podcast with us today. We are very excited Amy knows you, but I haven't met you before. So why don't you start by telling us just a little bit about yourselves and what life has looked like for you since graduating Glenbrook North High School in 2015.

Meg, why don't you go first?

Meg Ruocco, Class of 2015 GBN Alumni: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, guys, so much for having us on. This is very exciting and Kathleen and I, we've known each other for such a long time and it's always fun to kind of talk about high school and what things were like then versus what things are like now. I am 26 years old. I am currently a third-year graduate student at Brooklyn College, getting my MFA in screenwriting. I went to the University of Wisconsin, studied creative writing, and afterwards, kind of towards the end of my time there, I was really thinking about, like, "What do I want my life to look like?" "What do I want to try?" And I decided that screenwriting was something that I was passionate about. So, I ended up moving to New York about eight months after graduating from college and have been here ever since. And I really love it. I have done a lot of odd jobs before starting graduate school. I worked for a PR company for a while. I worked for a piano restoration company for a while. That was strange but a good time. And yeah, now I'm in, I'm in my program and really loving it, and feeling a little bit of that, like, excitement slash dread that comes from coming to the end of something and coming to, like, the end of a cycle. But feeling excited about it right now. We'll see what happens with the WGA strike but feeling excited about it for right now.

Dr. Lisa: Well, you have a level of creativity that I probably have always dreamt of having. That is amazing and I love that. Kathleen, tell us a little bit about you.

Kathleen Nolan, Class of 2015 GBN Alumni: Yes. Hello. So glad to be joining everyone here today. So, after GBN in 2015, I went to the University of Dayton for my undergraduate degree. I studied exercise science and then I graduated, and I didn't really know what I was doing with that. Eventually, I kind of narrowed it down to being interested in nursing, did the whole application thing.

 I just started my final semester of the Master of Nursing at University of Illinois in Chicago. I've been living in Chicago for three years. now. And I love it. It's a great time. Get to see some fellow GBNers, whether it's expected or unexpected on the... Lake Trail sometimes, but yeah, it's a small world, but it's fun.

Amy O.: You're going to be a fantastic nurse, Kathleen Nolan. You chose well. I know it took a while to get there, but

[00:04:00] Kathleen: We love a career change or pivot rather.

Dr. Lisa: That's the standard these days. I don't think people really have any idea what they're doing when they come out of high school or when they come out of college. And, you know, it's funny because they, they start asking us those questions very early with expectations that we will know the answer. 

Meg: I had an English degree. Like, I didn't know. I liked reading. You know, I liked reading and writing. I had no idea what I wanted to do with that.

Dr. Lisa: Why don't you try to take us back there then if you can, you know, this podcast episode is about reflecting on your time when you did live here in Northbrook, Illinois, the North suburbs of Chicago and what it was like growing up here. Could we start with some of the positives, some of the things that you reflect on that you really liked about growing up on the North Shore of Chicago.

[00:04:55] Meg: Yeah, absolutely. I think, for me, what has been something that I really liked when I was younger and something that I have continued to like as I've gotten older is that I managed to find lifelong friends at a very early age, which I think is incredibly rare. I never doubted that I would be able to find people around me. I knew that sometimes it would take a long time. But I think that, and sometimes it did, but I think what was nice about growing up in Northbrook was being able to kind of like, sift my way through people and find a community of people that really supported me, of friends that really supported me, and I think that can be rare for people even living in Northbrook. But I think in my own personal experience, what was great was that I kind of stumbled into a lot of lovely friendships. I think also just kind of as a whole Northbrook for me was a place where I felt in a lot of ways that I was safe to do a lot of things. I think there were other ways in which I didn't necessarily feel safe to do a lot of things, which we can talk about later. But I think for me, just kind of the safety of you know, growing up in such a privileged community and growing up in a place where you do have access to a lot of resources. I mean, just like our library alone is like an incredible resource that I would go to a lot. Feeling like I was able to kind of try things out and, and put myself out there in a way that felt kind of like safe and accessible to me, was something that I always really appreciated about it and I think didn't even necessarily know how much I appreciated it until I moved away and until I realized like how big the world is and how hard it is to kind of carve a path for yourself outside of the North Shore, outside of, you know, kind of a suburban environment.

[00:07:18] Amy O.: Do you share that feeling Kathleen of having launched into the world with a set of friends that you feel you're going to have for a lifetime as Meg said?

Kathleen: I do. Meg happens to be in my circle. I feel very fortunate to have had that start from really when we were 14, 15 years old. I met Meg on the first day of school, in the choir. I turned next to her and said, "Hey, how's it going?" We were just lucky to be sat next to each other. And from there, we just kind of grew and grew and grew. And now we still have our, our little crew. 

[00:07:59] Amy O.: So, was it like, interests that allowed you to have those friendships kind of grow and form? What was it about your specific experience either at school or in Northbrook that fostered that for you guys?

Kathleen: It's interesting because our group is, like, built with many, many different people, and very different interests. But somehow, I think at least one overlap, some way or another. It wasn't, if you don't like this, we aren't going to be friends. It was, oh, we both like this, so we can both be friends. And then, even if the connection between Meg and I was choir, the connection between her and Brooke was... messing around in world history class. I don't know. I might be right in that reference, Meg. But just looking for what is similar, more than, looking at what's different, I guess, is how I would say.

[00:08:53] Meg: Yeah, and I think speaking to that, one thing that I'm so grateful for, and one thing that I really loved about Kathleen, truly from like the moment that I became friends with her was how kind she was and how like willing to put herself out there she was in talking to me. I was coming from a place my freshman year of like, deep loneliness, deep sadness, was not feeling good about myself. Felt very low. And I think what really stood out to me was that Kathleen wanted to be my friend anyway. And I think, someone who reaches out a hand when you're at your lowest point and is like, I'm here for you and I want to hang out with you, even if that means sitting in our bedroom and being on our phones and not talking to each other for two hours. It was one of the first times where I could point to like feeling very seen. And I think that that, for me, was kind of the core of our group of friends. To Kathleen's point, we all had very different things that we like to do. Some of us were in the theater. You know, Kathleen was on color guard. There were athletes. A very hodgepodge community. But I think that what was great about our group was that, you know, we did all kind of come together and met each other where we were at. And we're able to laugh with one another and we're able to form these connections outside of boundaries that may have kept us from doing so in the past. And I think that really did all start with Kathleen insisting that we hang out with one another and me feeling very low being like, okay.

Amy O.: So often in the work that we do at CATCH and that I know Lisa does in her private practice, we see kids who describe themselves the way Meg did as a freshman, lonely, low, isolated, sad, unsure, all that. And on top of that, not really finding time in their lives to cultivate friendships like you guys just described. So, what do you think it was about your values or priorities that either allowed you or told you to make that room and set aside whatever other pressures or expectations you might have had on you to prioritize those relationships.

[00:11:39] Meg: I think a lot of it boiled down to luck. And I don't want to use that as like a scapegoat, but it is also the reality. I also can't necessarily speak about a freshman's workload now compared to when I was a freshman. I remember feeling very busy and feeling a lot of academic pressure and feeling a lot of extracurricular pressure that I'm sure many kids will resonate with these days as well. You know, we were speaking even before the podcast started recording about how kindergarten is a full day now and they're starting at the first-grade curriculum and there's a certain sort of academic rigor that I feel has probably only increased since we have graduated from high school. I just want that to be kind of the blanket statement that a lot of it was lucky and that it was lucky that I sat next to Kathleen in choir. It was lucky that my extracurriculars allowed me to find people who I connected with. You know, Amy, I met Luke, your son, through choir and through, you know, other friends who were in choir and being able to build a friendship with him in great part was because we just were kind of forced to spend time with one another after school for two hours every single day. I think on a personal level, what really stuck out to me and why I felt the need to build these friendships was because I genuinely didn't think I could make it through high school without it. I am someone who is a very community-based person. I am someone who is very committed to building a group of people around her who I love and support and who love and support me unconditionally in those same ways. I think this also kind of started, you know, when I was 14 and met Kathleen, even if I didn't have the vocabulary for it then, I felt at that time that I was deserving of that type of love and support. I may not have been able to vocalize that at that time, but that's what I was feeling. I am a person who is worthy of being supported by others, being held by others, and this is something that feeds me. It's something that I need, maybe even more than, you know, getting good grades or something like that in school. I need a group of people around me who make me feel very held. So, a lot of that came from probably a place of... a bit of desperation, honestly, feeling like I was looking around myself and being like, "Oh my God, if I go through high school with no friends, I don't know what I'm going to do." But that also meant putting myself in a lot of situations that were awkward and uncomfortable. You know, I spent a lot of lunches sitting with Luke and his group of guy friends who did not talk to me and had no interest in getting to know me. Luke would talk to me, but that was an uncomfortable 45 minutes, but I kind of just made the decision to be like, this is it. This is what I must do. And so, I think there was this feeling inside of me that was like friendship and community, really realizing that that was a necessity for me for the first time in my life. And realizing that friendship and community are not a given, and that it is something that you have to put just as much effort into as other people have to put into you. So, it was a twofold experience of me putting in that effort and being lucky that other people put that effort back.

[00:15:19] Dr. Lisa: You are speaking with a level of introspection and insight about life that I rarely hear in adults or in children, and you know, you're talking about basic human needs, right? I mean, this need to feel connected, this need for friendship, this need for love. And yet I work day in and day out with kids and teens who need it as badly as you're describing that you did, but maybe can't get there because they're so worried about meeting expectations or focusing on those grades or making sure that they, you know, stay in the top tier of their soccer team that they continue to put themselves in emotional danger, essentially to keep up, if you will, to stay on that treadmill. 

Amy O.: It's almost like what you're saying is that it, it takes a lot of risk taking. You must be comfortable with risk, whether it's the risk of letting go of some of the things you're describing, Lisa. The risk of sitting with people at lunch who aren't necessarily nice to you. The risk of, you know, falling in love with a girl, finally to be hurt, whatever that risk is. It sounds like that's what you're describing. Would you kind of agree with that Kath too?

[00:16:39] Kathleen: Yeah, definitely. My personality is more like, ah, it is what it is type of thing. So, I was a part of like so many things in high school. I was a fine student. I was very fortunate my parents never put pressure on me like, you must get perfect grades. You must do this. You must do this. It was like more try your hardest. And as long as you're getting through, that's fine. And I still cared a lot because a lot of my peers cared a lot, but the more I let go of that part of it, the better I was doing in school. But like I was saying, doing a lot of groups which is a lot of groups of people, which includes risk, like you were saying. And put yourself out there though because you can build a lot of interesting friendships. Even if it's not your main friendships, they're still valuable. And, you know, it's okay to not be the perfect swimmer. It's okay not to be the starter of this team. You're allowed to, to not be the 100th percentile, you know. 

[00:17:49] Dr. Lisa: What do you think makes it so hard for kids to understand that? Because you're right you don't need to be at the hundredth percentile of literally anything to be just fine. And yet more and more students seem to feel like they do need to be that to be something, to make it, to come out the other side. Can you share some insights about where you guys feel like some of that messaging is coming from, where you heard that messaging when you were growing up, or if you heard it.

Meg: Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think just from what I've seen, culturally in the last 10 years since we have been in high school. It seems like there has been kind of a global increase in this pressure that is put on young people and especially like Gen Z. These younger and younger generations, there is this global and societal pressure that yes, I felt to some extent when I was younger, but also was able to kind of ignore in a way that I think a lot of young people today don't and won't. I don't think I was necessarily right for ignoring it, but I was privileged in being able to ignore it not to make this all about oh, social media, blah, blah, blah. I think that it's here, it's going to stay and great. But I do think that kids having access to social media in so many ways make them so much more socially aware. And I think from a global perspective, if I was a 15-year-old and I was seeing you know, what's happening in the United States. What's happening in other countries and around the world. Climate change being the way that it is. That alone would fill me with a dread that I didn't necessarily have nearly as much as I think a lot of teens today probably feel. So, there's that kind of global pressure that I think is working at that level with a lot of young people today who are tuned in to what's going on around the world. I think at kind of a town level, you know, in my personal experience, I don't know if I necessarily had parents that were like, you must get A's, you must, you know, be perfect in every single class, but there was kind of an unspoken expectation that I would be in honors classes. I would be in AP classes. And I would do well in those classes. And what was a result of that was me finding myself in classes where I did not excel like Honors Physics or Pre Calc Trig and walking out of a class with a 4 out of the 36 on a test and being so confused and perplexed because I had spent every free period going and talking to my teacher and I was fortunate enough to be able to hire a tutor in my free time and I still wasn't understanding the material. And so, I think what can feel probably, or at least what, I'll speak in I statements, what felt most, like, insidious to me, looking back on it, insidious and, like, malicious, was that these expectations were so unspoken, and yet they were so present. I think, very few parents, very few teachers are, you know, verbally yelling at their kid if they don't get an A. Some parents and teachers are. For the majority, I think there's, like, varied levels of nuance to that. And, for me, this kind of unspoken expectation that I had to succeed at everything was pressure that was so insistent because I also didn't know that it could be any other way. When you are 15 and 16, and this is the world that you have known for your entire life, that's all there is. And no matter what an adult says of like, oh, it's not all this, or oh, high school will feel like a drop in a bucket, it doesn't feel like a drop in a bucket. We were talking about this over the weekend, and Kathleen said something that I thought was very eloquent. I said, you know, it doesn't feel like a drop in the bucket, and Kathleen said, yeah, it's the whole bucket. At the time, academic excellence and, you know, success, quote unquote, is the entire bucket, and so to dismantle that at a teenage level, when this is all that children have been exposed to, is a very difficult task and one I commend you for, Lisa, and you, Amy. I think this is something that I felt probably until I went to college and was presented with material that I did excel at, and for the first time didn't feel like I was constantly struggling to, you know, get B's or C's in these classes that weren't English.

[00:22:54] Amy O.: It sounds like you're describing high school as a place to get to another place. Rather than being in high school, marinating in your teens, being there just to be there. Is that sort of what it felt like for you guys, that it was just a means by which to get to college? Is that what you mean when you say it was the whole bucket?

Meg: I think so. I mean, I, I think that's kind of how it was presented to us. In kind of another weird aspect of this, you know, when junior year came around and all the juniors were sat in the lunchroom and we were handed that big binder that was like, here's how to get into college. I remember looking around and being like, wait, what? Like, I'm going to college? I didn't know that that was like a thing that was real, you know, but that was on a lot of students' minds at the time. It was not really on mine, but I think that spoke to kind of my personal dissociation as a young teenager. It's this weird pressure, but then also, like, feeling like it's the whole world. So then when that comes to an end, it's like, well, what do I do now? I'm supposed to leave this place and go somewhere else? I've invested so much time, you know?

Kathleen: Yeah, I feel like because in junior high you take placement tests to figure out what classes you're going to be in in high school and then sophomore year you take the standardized test that's like you should be an architect or a nurse. And then junior year is the ACT or SAT. It always feels like we're prepping for what's next. And that can be very stressful because you're, if you're a student that's struggling academically, you're like, well, how am I supposed to even think about the next thing when I can't even finish this paper. But there is always talk of, well, when you go to college, things aren't going to be so easy. When you apply to college, you're going to have to really do this or that to succeed or get into where you want to get into. Or if you want a scholarship, you must do A, B or C and I feel like that talk starts from when you're young, because I remember being so stressed out in junior high. Junior high? What? So that's kind of my take on it is there's a lot of talk whether it's intentional to be adding the pressure some of times yes probably, but kids pick up on stuff whether you mean it to be picked up on. They're smarter than we all think. We all were them once. 

[00:25:37] Dr. Lisa: And then we wonder why everyone's so stressed out and why our mental health is suffering. I mean, what you're describing this future oriented living of what's next and how do I prep for what's next is the literal opposite of being present and mindful in the moment, which is what you need for your mental health. And it doesn't allow that. It really doesn't allow the pause and the breathing and the, let's just be in the here and now. And it's a dangerous way to live and to raise our children. And you're so right that it starts young. I mean, you're talking about junior high. I have clients that come into my office in the third grade that are really stressed out about what math level they're in because it projects what math class they could take in junior high and in high school. And they're already exhibiting that future oriented, catastrophic thinking at the ripe age of seven or eight. And it breaks my heart.

Kathleen: Yeah, for like the reading levels.

Amy O.: This is something I've wanted to bring to this community ever since I started CATCH five years ago, and that is a chance for women like you, who are what, eight years post high school, having graduated from and now both of you in graduate school. What would you say to the freshmen, sophomore, junior kid at GBN about what's necessary to be successful or happy or, you know, moving forward in your life in college looking back on it now. Is it those AP classes? It sounds like it is not. What would you say to them? What's the most important thing to have internally when you graduate from high school?

[00:27:18] Meg: I think for me... I wish that there had been an adult or an authority figure who had just looked at me and validated my feelings continually. I think so much of this pressure that kids feel and that is placed upon children by the adults in their lives strips them of their right to know their own feelings. When there is so much stress, and there is so much anxiety, and there is so much projection into the future, what that is doing is removing a child from Lisa to your point, being here and now, knowing how they feel. I remember turning 22, 23, and kind of stepping into my body for the first time. This is still something I struggle with, really letting myself feel how I feel. And not calling myself crazy because of it. Not shaming myself because of it. Just letting it happen. Letting it flow through me. And I wish that there had been someone, when I was 15, who instead of looking at me and saying, "Oh, you're fat? You should try losing weight." Or "Oh, you got a C in this class when you wanted to get an A? You should study harder." I wish that an adult had said, " Being your age is hard. You're doing great." " It makes sense that you feel this way." "It makes sense that you feel all this pressure." "It makes sense that you feel like things are kind of caving in on you." And it makes sense that all these feelings feel big because these are also probably some of the first big feelings that you're having in your life. And that's not to patronize or condescend these kids, but rather to validate the fact that, when I experience something new now as an adult, I need to take, like, two to three business days to freak out about it before I can process what happened. So, it's wild to me that we throw all these things at teenagers and children and expect them to handle it with the grace and poise that a 35-year-old would. It's just not feasible. And so, if I were speaking directly to teenagers and children of today, what I would say to them is that it makes so much sense that you feel this pressure. It makes so much sense that you feel stressed out. The environment that you are in is such a competitive and high pressure one that I would feel the same exact way. There's a reason that I moved to New York because I got to the end of my undergrad career, and I didn't want to return to that environment. For as much as it gave me and as much as I love and appreciate and respect the place that I came from, which I really do, I can also recognize that in so many ways, I felt so powerless for so much of my life and so much of my adolescence because of the environment that I grew up in. And I want to remind kids and teenagers of their power and of their autonomy because they do have it. And it is okay to question things when they don't feel right to you. I would encourage parents to meet that questioning with respect and compassion, rather than hostility, that your child is maybe not doing exactly what you want them to do. That's my advice. Compassion goes a long way, and that empathy and understanding is ultimately what led me to feel much happier than getting an A on an AP Euro exam, you know. I don't even know if I did or not. 

[00:31:23] Dr. Lisa: Meg, do you plan to use this content in your screenwriting? Do you take your experiences from when you were younger and does that help drive some of the content of what you write about as this, this young adult that you've become?

Meg: Yes. Pretty much everything that I write about is me attempting to speak to my inner child with compassion.

Amy O.: So, I'm just going to call you Greta Gerwig from here on out.

Meg: And I take that with, like, the utmost respect.

Amy O.: As you should.

Meg: and honor. No, I, I think pretty much everything that I write is like a coming-of-age story about young girls or young women. The thesis that I'm working on right now is a pilot about teenagers working at a public pool over the summer. That was something that me and Kathleen did. Kathleen did for many more years than I did. But yeah, this is, this is something that I use quite a bit because there is so much, there's so much richness to the inner life and inner workings of kids and of teenagers that I think often gets dismissed. And I'm really interested in that as a writer, and I'm really interested in that as... someone who ideally would like to make stories that resonate with a lot of people, not just kids, because I think we all have children, inside of us, and our kid self inside of us. But yes, that is pretty much every single thing that I write is teenage based, girlhood-based characters who don't know what they're doing and are sad and are trying to figure out how to not be so sad anymore. 

[00:33:10] Amy O.: I want to give Kathleen a chance to respond to our question earlier about what advice she might give in reflecting on high school. And as you mentioned earlier, junior high school, what, what would you say in addition to what Meg shared to kids who are navigating that now, Kath?

[00:33:30] Kathleen: I think mine kind of mirrors what Meg said. Give, whether it's your child, whether it's yourself, if you're a teenager listening to this, give yourself some grace. And if you're the parent, give your child some grace and some space. Because odds are, if you're upset about a grade, they're probably also upset about the grade. I was my worst critic of myself and still sometimes am. We're never fully perfect with ourselves, you know, like we're never like, Oh yeah, I'm perfect. I'm still a work in progress. We always are. But I, I think supporting them in that way where even if you aren't happy with the outcome, just supporting them because you don't know what's going on in their heads. I think it's important to just allow them, and yourself, grace. Because I know I still struggle with it.

[00:34:25] Amy O.: Very authentic. Love it. That's a good place for us to end. Don't you think, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa: I mean, I don't really want it.

Amy O.: I know. I don't really want to either.

Dr. Lisa: But yes, I do. You and I will have to talk offline, Amy, but I feel like some sort of live panel as you've been dreaming of having lovely ladies like this who can speak to some of these pieces to more of our community would be fantastic.

I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned here. 

Amy O.: Thank you so much for being vulnerable and honest and open with us. This is exactly what we were hoping for. And we're grateful that you came.

Meg: Thank you so much for inviting us. 

Dr. Lisa: And thank you to our listeners for joining us for another episode of Parenting the Mental Health Generation.

Amy O.: Stay current on all CATCH programming by liking us on Facebook @catchiscommunity or by visiting our website catchiscommunity.org

[00:35:17] Dr. Lisa: We're glad that you joined us to continue the conversation. It's important to talk about our mental health and reach out for help if needed.