89. Guiding Teens Toward a Bright Future with Orlana Darkins

Marketing and media expert Orlana Darkins brings her wealth of experience and passion for youth development to our latest episode. 

We explore her journey from organizing celebrity events to founding the Shyne Awards, a platform celebrating young achievers. 

Orlana shares her insights on empowering teenagers through confidence-building, diverse experiences, and cultivating responsibility. With practical advice for parents on financial discussions, time management, and goal setting, she provides a roadmap for preparing teens for the future. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone invested in supporting young people amid today's rapidly evolving world.

You can find more about Orlana and the Shyne Awards:

website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

The Shyne Awards: https://theshyneawards.org/

📺 Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpw5ui4uxJHx0tLFVtpnfSkpObfc4d-K

You can find Katie at:
website: burntpancakes.com
YouTube: @burnt.pancakes
Instagram: @burntpancakeswithkatie
Email: katie@burntpancakes.com

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Transcript

00:09 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Hello, hello and welcome back to the Burn Pancakes podcast. I'm your host, Katie Fenske, a mom of three reminding other moms that everyone burns their first pancake. Today I have on a guest and I am sitting down with Orlana Darkins. She is a marketing and media expert who specializes in working with young adults. We had such a great conversation all of her experience working with teens and young adults. We talk about how to communicate, how to help young people find their passion, what are some real world skills that will help prepare them for the future, and how to navigate this new social media world. This was a really fun conversation. I really enjoyed it. I also want to make note that she is working with the Shine Awards awards for young people 13 to 24, and they are now accepting applications. So we're going to talk about that a little bit in the podcast, but if you're interested, make sure to check out the shineawardsorg and the link will be in the show notes. So please enjoy a glimpse into the teen and young adult world. Orlana, welcome to the podcast. 

01:23 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Thank you so much for the invitation. 

01:25 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yes, Anyone who wants to talk about teen topics I'm like, please come on. Like I can use all the help I can get. So you're going to be my like teen expert. Why don't you just give a little background on how you came to work with teens and how you became an expert? 

01:42 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Yes, so first of all, again, thank you so much for this opportunity. My background is public relations. I'm also in the media for years. I've always had a radio show in my city, which is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So public relations, radio, event planning, is my background. So for the majority of my career I've always worked with adults, whether it was celebrity parties or award shows, conferences. 

02:12
Yeah, it was always fun busy, stressful, but that you know that was my life. My husband worked. He's an advocate for victims so if you saw my husband at your child's school, that was not a good thing because something happened. But he was mostly exposed to young people and so he saw the good and the bad. For about two years in the early 2000s he kept saying you need to do something that celebrates kids. There's kids out here doing great things and I was just kind of like I don't know, not that I didn't think kids were doing well, but I was so comfortable with being hired to do other people's events or working for a company and I was promoting or doing all the things that I do. 

03:03
But I had an opportunity. My company was hired by a university to do events for their college prep program. So that was nothing but high school students. So that was our first like exposure to working with teenagers pretty much every day, but after a while. So while I was there I did see it Like. I saw kids come in the program with like a 1.5, like about like struggling in high school and then after they go through the program they would graduate with like a 3.5 or 4.0. And for me I'm like oh my gosh, like oh my gosh, where's the fanfare for that? So for me that was. I finally saw what my husband saw, that there's kids out here changing their lives around making a difference and there's no really like a celebration for them. So the shine Awards that's how the Shine Awards and my working with teenagers kind of came about was for me seeing firsthand young people kind of make these transformations and seeing the need to provide a public platform to celebrate the good things young people are doing. 

04:18 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh, that's awesome. So the Shine Awards so you said they started, I think, when we were talking earlier in 2007 and they 2007,. 

04:26 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
We were only supposed to do it one time. We just wanted to prove a point. You know that young people are doing great things. And, yeah, this is our 16th year. 

04:35 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, it's like, as a parent, I look at my kids and like the world is ahead of them, but then when you have teenagers, it's like you're that's a different animal that you're dealing with. How do you like, how do parents help their teens get ready for the future? Like there's so much they could do, but it's also kind of overwhelming. So what are some tips that parents can do to help them? 

05:00 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Yeah. So our main tip that we've heard young people say to us is that the Shine Awards Foundation instills confidence in them, and I think that's something that parents can do, whether it's you know, we're so quick to see maybe some of the shortcomings like you didn't take out the trash versus thanks for putting away the dishes, like maybe there was something that good that did happen. But I think giving compliments instills confidence. Also just exposing maybe your kids to different things or different experiences that encourage responsibility, experiences that encourage responsibility. I know, just as someone that works with teens and working with parents, we're so quick to fix their situation. We don't want them to be uncomfortable or experiencing pain, so we swoop in. So maybe not swoop in as fast, maybe see if they can figure it out or provide the solution. And then also sharing things like having open discussions about finances. I know for me, growing up, my mom kept finances kind of a mystery. It was like you have plenty of time to worry about that when you're an adult, when really that would have helped me as a teen, especially when I went to college, like I had no kind of spending discipline at all. But you know, open discussions about finances, the importance of time management, goal setting. Those are great ways to prepare our young people for college if that's the direction they want to go, for entrepreneurship, if that's the direction they want to go. 

07:00
And I think one other thing is the importance of in-person conversations. I had a conversation with he's the executive director of an arts organization and he said that there's a position they're trying to fill and he said that young people are afraid to pick up the phone and have a conversation, like they're great with email and texting, but when he would say hey, can you call this person? It's a deer in headlights, like they don't know what to do. And I also remember I worked for a university in their business school and we had interns. So in the office the interns weren't very chatty. You're like okay, but then when I would reach out to them in their DMs it was the whole personality. So I had to adjust how I communicated to them, but the only downside was I couldn't use them to share any information about the school, like it was like it's. So I think that's another thing too. You know, like I have one-on-one conversations, whether it's with your aunt, a cousin, a neighbor, so it's not yeah comfortable. 

08:29 - Katie Fenske (Host)
It does seem like today's generation like they have the phones they have and I even do that a lot of times. So my friend will call me like should have just text me. It's so much faster, so much easier, but I do. So I took my old, my kids, to baseball practice the other day and the older son didn't have practice. So we were meeting the coach and he went up to him. He's like oh, and this is your other son, Hi, nice to meet you. And then he's like look me in the eye and say hi Like. I always try and tell him that, but it's like little things like that, that they're so used to like digital communication that they're not learning. Like look at someone, and I have heard that a lot of college students now are having a really hard time because they're so used to like virtual and so like virtual and you know I send in my paper to my teacher electronically that they're not used to being in person. 

09:16 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Yes, I have nieces and nephews who I'll share with them. Like hey, I got this job opportunity. 

09:28 - Katie Fenske (Host)
And they'll say do I have to talk to people? We're human. Yes, yes, yes, it's so different. But I guess that shows, like, how important it is to like keep getting your kids out and exposing them to people. 

09:40 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
It's so different and that's the other thing too. Um, so we have the shine awards, but the shine awards foundation, that's one of the other things we do too. So if a young person says I'm interested in engineering, we kind of go through our network to see what engineers we might know so they can shadowing or have a virtual conversation. But they're still talking, or maybe it is person, but yeah, but getting them still used to, yes, everything is highly tech, but getting them still used to, yes, everything is highly tech, but you don't want to lose the art of human to human conversation. It is still needed. 

10:23 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yes, okay. So that makes me think of I look at my boys when they're, like you know, 17, 18, at the end of high school. There's so many options there's. You can go to a four-year school, you can go to a JC, a trade school of this. At that age I didn't even know what I wanted to do. Like how do we as parents help them see their talents and like here you said he's interested in engineering, how do you even know that? And then show them, like, the different options that they could take in those different paths? Like for me it was like I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to go to four-year college and I'm going to get some degree. I'm going to decide later how, like how do I do that as a parent? 

11:03 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Exactly, and I think we you kind of said it like expose them to as many things as possible. So even if it is a conversation with a neighbor, and maybe that neighbor is a blue collar professional, but that's still a conversation, or maybe the neighbor is an engineer or clergy just exposure to things. I think also observation is key. What do you see your children kind of gravitating towards? Are they gravitating towards music? Are they gravitating towards visual art? Are they good with their hands so they're going to be a laborer, a carpenter? So I think observation is key in seeing kind of like what direction One of our Shine the War honorees we do like little touch bases with them. 

11:56
He said that his advice that he gives to college students because he's about to graduate from college, but he said that he tells them even when they're in college try everything, like get in everything. So he said when he was a freshman he just joined like every semester like a new club or went to different meetings. He was like some things wasn't of interest to me, but like I know that now, like I know, I'm not interested in whatever, Right, oh, I love that you're having like the seniors give advice. 

12:30 - Katie Fenske (Host)
That's interesting. It just reminds me because my sons, um, they're required to take it's called VAPA, visual arts, visual and performing arts. So they had a choice like an option like you can do, um drama, you can do band, you can do orchestra. He ended up getting banned, which wasn't like his first choice. He really wanted like art, drawing, um, but I was like this is such a good thing for you to be exposed to. We're probably not going to ever go out and make you do music lessons. So the fact that you're like trying it and you either love it or you're like I did it and it was fine, but I don't want to pursue it. But I'd rather him know, cause I'm like I haven't really done any music with my kids, like we're so involved in sports that I'm like what if one of them does really like music and wants it? So now it's like I can tell he's like okay with it, but it's not like, oh, mom, I love this, right. 

13:21 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
But now you know that right, exactly, um, I think, even as adults, I think we get stuck in I'm a professional or whatever, and don't expand our box. Like you can be many things you don't have to be. I know we keep saying engineering, but you don't have to go to school as an engineer, have a career as an engineer and die as an engineer. Like you, can go be an author or decide to be a chef or whatever. 

13:51 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Or pivot later, Cause that's what I did. I was a teacher for 17 years and I was like not for me anymore. I'm going to. 

14:00 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
It's okay to experiment and change and I think, as young people, whatever we decide or whatever they decide, like okay, like I mean we want you to stick with it. Like the one thing we don't want you to do is just be, yeah, and you're just all over the place, but you know, find something, stick with it. Um, but if there's something else that you might want to do on the side or you might, you know, it's okay to um, explore. But I think observation is key, just to see you know what they might be gravitating to and then also exposing them to as many people opportunities, and even that it doesn't even have to be job related. I don't think Like cultural events. 

14:46
I have a friend now who is having his kids watch movies that he liked as a kid. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I think it doesn't have to be like deep and serious. I think it could be like like this was my favorite movie as a kid. Yeah, I watched Saint Elmo's Fire as a kid. I liked as a kid. Yeah, yes, yeah, I did as a kid, I liked it as a kid. Yeah, yeah, I did as a kid too, or whatever it is Um, but I think it could be a mix of you know business school and you know like some fun things. Yeah Well, make it a chance to know you too. 

15:22 - Katie Fenske (Host)
You know, reminds me, though, cause I was like I'm so bad, I don't do this for my kids, but I actually do do this. My oldest son is very into anime and he likes just like doodling with a pencil, so not like he just likes drawing little things. There was my mom actually brought this up there's a museum by us that had a whole anime exhibit, and so we took him and I was like, oh, that is something that he is interested in. It's not something like you know he's obsessed with, but yeah. But then my other son, my middle they're all so different he has just like an engineering brain. I do not. He woke up the other morning and was like the first thing he popped out of bed and was like, mom, you know, it would be cool if you took the tires off of the bicycle and you put surfboards on them and then you could surf on a bike. 

16:09 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
And I was like, okay, that would be cool, but I don't know how to like, um, nurture that right, create an engineer brain, because I'm like I, I'm not that, I don't know like what are some things that I could introduce him to, if that's his passion yeah, I think it's the same method you did with the first son, where just keep an eye out for things, you know if there is an engineering fair or a trade fair or there's a seminar at a local college. I think it's just again, just exposure to things. Maybe you in your travels you run into someone who is an engineer. Hey, I have a son that you know has an interest in engineering. Would you mind a 15 minute conversation with him to make sure he's on the right path? Again, that's kind of what we do in our organization, cause I I cannot tell you the first thing, but I might know someone who knows someone. 

17:10 - Katie Fenske (Host)
So you help teens like kind of find their, their interests. What if you get a kid who's like I don't know, I don't like anything, yeah, and you know what, and that's maybe half I was gonna say that sounds like a very teen response. 

17:26 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
But you know what? But that's okay because, again, we're just exposing you to things. So, again, if it's a workshop, if it's a one-on-one talk with a professional, and it could be a field that you're not interested in, but again you're still in front of that person. So, again, just exposure, exposure, exposure. Yeah, but I wouldn't beat myself up because that would be hard. Like, okay, to arts, like if I had, if I had a kid that was interested in arts which I can help with, like I'm very artsy, Okay, and another one who was in engineering, I'd be like, oh my God. 

18:03 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Let's go ask someone for some advice and also not to pigeonhole them Cause like my one, who is very like his brain, thinks that way. Way I'm like maybe he also has interest like in music and does like art also. Like I don't want to just be like you're gonna be an engineer when you grow up right exactly right. It is fun to look at them and go gosh. I want to just like fast forward 15 years where are you gonna? Be like what are you gonna? 

18:28 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
do, it's exciting. I mean, for them it doesn't seem exciting because they're probably like I don't know. It's just my life whatever. 

18:35 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right. 

18:36 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
But for us. And then when you see little things, like little nuances, like oh, I wonder what that means. 

18:41 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yes, yes, like I played school every single day when I was a kid so it kind of like made sense that I went into teaching School and office office like business. 

18:50 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Those are my two like for me, since she said that we used to hold, uh, super bowl parties at my house and I was always the reporter. Oh my god, getting into media and public relations oh interesting oh my god, and that's where your mom was like I knew it. 

19:10 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I knew it all along. 

19:11 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
You know what I'm not even sure if she ever my mom was very, um, kind of like, let's see what kind of happened. She didn't push an industry or anything on it. It literally was like, let's just see where this goes. Yeah, so she was just that kind of a person, but yeah, but you made me think about that. Like I was always the reporter reporting the news, the story, and that's what I do now. 

19:44 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh, that's so cute, okay. So let's talk a little bit about communicating with teens, cause that's something I hear a lot of my friends say it's just so hard to not just physically have a conversation but just like get through to them. And you know, as parents, like I think, we tend to lecture a lot. So what's the best way of just speaking and like bridging that communication gap with teens? 

20:08 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
So right now on social media, the phrase we listen and we don't judge. 

20:14
Yes, the trend right now and I think we should just embody that. Um, listening without judgment. Um, that makes space for open dialogue. Um, and, like you said, instead of always giving advice, maybe ask open-ended questions and just allow the teens to express themselves. Um, I know, um one of our friends, they do they'll combine it with an activity. So it could be I mean, this isn't fun, a fun example, but it could be something fun or something like you know the raking the leaves together and just so, what did you think about? And it's like they don't even realize they're spilling their guts to you because they're also doing something else. Or you know getting ice cream. You know on the how's your ice cream? Oh, it's great. So what do you think about? Whatever that is, again, they don't even realize that they're engaging in this conversation. You're really trying to find out where they, where they are mentally on something, but so they'll kind of layer activity with the conversation. But I think the whole list we listen and don't judge um is a good way to. 

21:29 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Um, you know, allow teens to express themselves and they feel like you're a safe right in person for them to know that, because it is kind of intimidating for for them to want to open up to their parents and you don't know what the parents reaction is going to be like. 

21:44 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Oh, am I going to get grounded, or she's gonna call the school Right, right, right, just tell me. Yeah. So I would think let's, let's embrace the social media trend. We listen, we don't judge. Love that. 

22:01 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, yeah, okay. So then, speaking to social media, so you've been working for teen, with teens, for quite some time, so you've probably seen a change from when social media wasn't a part of their lives to today it's I mean, you can't avoid it. Almost like I signed my son up for football and one of the things is what's his Instagram handle? I'm like he's 11, like or not, even 11, he's 10. He doesn't have an Instagram handle, so what have you seen with teens and social media and how that's all going? 

22:35 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Yeah, I think, and I was telling my husband this. I was like I think what is such a unicorn thing is so crazy when we meet a team that's not on social media like I'm like social media right, which you would think that should be the norm, but it's like I almost feel like. 

22:51 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I'm like my kids don't have cell phones yet they're already asking for them and I'm like I'm starting to feel like with a fifth grader that he's like the one that doesn't have a phone and I'm like how, how is how? Is that the norm now that everyone has old school? 

23:08 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
I'm old school with you, Like, like. If you have a social media account, first of all, it should be your choice if you want to, and you need to be of some kind of age, maybe high school If you do, I just that's just me. But your question in terms of how things changed, I definitely think it adds an extra layer of pressure because you have to be real life you, and then you have to have this social media you. But if you could be a teen that knows it's fake, like you know it's fake and you don't allow it to control your narrative, who you think you should be are the most healthy and successful teens I know, just in the young people that we work with. 

24:02
They normally use, I mean, and their platforms are fun, like. They have fun elements in it, but they channel any interest they have. So if it's music, there's videos of them singing or tickets you took a picture of tickets to a concert or like. It's more of their interest and not a superficial kind of Like they're not using it superficially, right, it's like new sneakers or whatever, and not that that's bad, but there's a cause attached to it or some kind of like there could be some good benefits of social media right exactly there are, and there are benefits like, especially, like you said, your son is in football and just even showing like exposure, right, his great plays, and maybe he's talking about you know why he likes football. 

24:59
Or you know, I'm a number 11, I'm a quarterback, and this weekend we uh collected perishable items for blah, blah, blah. Like it could be. Like showing like community service plays, uh, what he's doing on the weekend. Oh, you know, I'm gonna kick back this weekend and watch a movie, like it could be fun things, but it doesn't have to be, you know, used for just superficial things. 

25:25 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I woke up like this, or whatever, or not something that like because you talked about confidence like it's so important to have confidence as a teen not something that's going to take away from that. 

25:38 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Exactly, you can use it for good, and so there are a lot of teams that we are exposed to that they use it for their platforms. Again, singing a lot of them have, but also, like them, meant showing that they spend time mentoring somebody, or they went to the movies with a friend, or you know whatever, but it's just kind of used. You see the whole person and it's not. You know they're being an influencer. 

26:21
Yeah, I'm going to become this famous youtuber mom right right, but they're like they're their own influencer. Oh, this is good. That I'm doing this is you can do this too, or join me in doing whatever right. Um, so there is good. I'm pretty much on every social media platform well you. 

26:40 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I have to now like promote business. You have to get out there. 

26:44 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Yeah, but I think it's good. And I know too, employers look for you to have social media and not that you have to be on every platform. But they won't ask like what platform are you on? That is a way that they are looking to see what kind of person you are like, the real you. I mean there's a real use in that brand. 

27:07
You're in the real you Right, but what you are portraying, and if it is not the real you, that may be. I mean still good for them, because you still are projecting a positive image for their company. But yeah, now companies are looking, they're asking you like what platform are you on? And then they're trying to see what you. There's your resume, right there. 

27:30
It really is even as an adult. I was asked by a reporter. I thought, like, I had my press release ready, I had my bio. And she said, um, are you on Instagram? Oh, I had all this stuff ready. Yeah, I just wanted to see. She just wanted to see my Instagram account. Wow. 

27:51 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Wow. Well, I think this is like stirring some ideas in me. When my kids get social media, cause it's inevitable they're going to maybe just looking before they do it, setting up, like what is the goal? Like why? Why do you want to be on it? Do you just want to be on it so you can chit chat with your friends? Do you want to be on it Because you want to share your art or share this? But like really thinking about what is your goal for having a social media account? And then are you, are you strained from that? 

28:18 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Like you know what that is. That is a good way to think of it because, as you know, as we talked earlier, I'm in public relations and I had a meeting today with an adult but he was like I don't know what to post on social media and I'm like, well, you're about to write a book, so what do you want people to know about you in preparation for this book launch again, and that's that's very good, like going into it with a plan right now, right you just want to be on instagram because your friends are on instagram and then you're posting just random things versus your. 

28:54
Each post is telling a story that you want us to know about yourself yeah, and then if a scout or a future employer looks on your social media, it literally is telling us a story about you like sports, you like food, you enjoy action movies, you're in the anime and you enjoy community service once a month. You enjoy community service once a month. 

29:19 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Get it all on there. Love that Love that. Well, this is so interesting. Like it. It makes me excited to have teens Cause I feel like that is a like you have the newborn stage, you got the terrible twos, you got this, and then you think of, like, the dreaded teenage years, but doesn't have to be yeah, it doesn't? There can be some amazing parts of raising teenagers and especially showing them. 

29:45 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
I know, even just with my mom, when she would share stories about her as a teen, because it's weird to visualize as young yes, yeah, you did that right, you weren't as close, but just her sharing her stories of being young and what she was concerned about. And again, as I mentioned, a friend of mine who's having his kids watch movies from his time as a kid, which wasn't that long ago, which is crazy, but like they're watching his favorite movies and so so far they're enjoying them but just like little peeks into your life. And but having teens there there's, there's that component of they can be like you know your friend to a point, but not yes, but they are starting to become like almost adults, so you can like have a different relationship with them. 

30:41 - Katie Fenske (Host)
That's fun. That's fun, okay. Well, let us know where all the places we can find you, all the platforms where we can find you if we want to look more into you, or the shine awards. 

30:50 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
So if you want information about the shine awards, uh, first of all, the name is the shine awards and we spell shine with a Y for youth, um, or young adult I was wondering why yeah, so we are on instagram we are on facebook. 

31:07
We are x and tiktok, and then, if you would like to find me, I normally use my whole name, which is orlana darkens drury, and I'm on Facebook. Instagram is my favorite platform, though, so if you can DM me on Instagram, you'll probably get a faster reply than Facebook, but Facebook, instagram, linkedin, threads X. I think I signed up for blue sky, I think that's what it's called. I don't even know, but yeah, so I'm everywhere, but LinkedIn and Instagram are my favorites. 

31:43 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for giving us a little insight into the teen world and all those wonderful tips. 

31:50 - Orlana Darkins (Guest)
Thank you, Katie, so much for this platform, and I enjoy your podcast. 

31:53 - Katie Fenske (Host)
It is awesome oh thank you, thank you, okay, wasn't that such a wonderful momversation? I really enjoyed talking about um, a phase of motherhood that I haven't entered yet but I really want to feel prepared about, and I feel like she had so many great tips. So thank you to Orlana for coming on, make sure to check the show notes so you can find out where to find, follow her and um, learn more about what she does. And for all of you out there, I'll see you next Friday for another momversation, but until then, I want to remind you that everyone burns the first pancake, so just keep flipping you.