It’s the Journey, Not the Destination

Supporting Your Teenager without Losing Your Mind

The Parent Compass co-author and independent college counselor Jenn Curtis. Photo/Julie deViso

Two years ago, the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal shocked the world. Well, most of the world. Some, like independent college admissions counselor and author Jenn Curtis, saw the scandal as an inevitable extension of college admissions fervor.

“I would say I was certainly horrified,” says Curtis. “I was angry that things like this were going on, but I can't say that I was surprised. It’s why Cindy [Muchnick, Curtis’s co-author] and I wrote the book. I was sensing this desperation for a long time.”

The book that resulted from Curtis and Muchnick’s reaction to the scandal is The Parent Compass. This  guide to parenting is inspired by the atrocious behavior exhibited by the Varsity Blues perpetrators and it serves up practical tips along with a healthy dose of perspective.

“That desperation to get kids into college really was very clear to me in questions that I was receiving from parents,” recalls Curtis, “but more so in the behavior of a lot of the kids that I was seeing. The kids were just so burned out and stressed out.”

The majority of Curtis’s students are from Irvine. These students, like those throughout Orange County, are the victim of an environment that endorses a relentless drive for perfection.

“The stress and anxiety is probably relatively evenly distributed throughout Orange County in terms of the students I see,” says Curtis. “No doubt that it is certainly felt in Irvine. But I think that you can find the mania anywhere that you go in Orange County.”

Despite the pervasiveness of the problem, Curtis stresses that there are also examples of parents who are defusing the stress around college admissions.

“It's important to note that while there certainly is stress and anxiety everywhere, there are also students who are thriving everywhere,” Curtis says. “That’s why in The Parent Compass we wanted to highlight parenting strategies that were supportive of kids who were experiencing this kind of cutthroat and competitive environment.”

One of the many strategies Curtis advocates is to let kids live their lives, not their parents’ lives.

“See your child for who he or she is,” says Curtis. “Know that you had your turn. You need to understand and embrace your unique child rather than trying to mold them into some artificial version of who you want them to be. Or who you think that they should be.”

For those who worry that letting up on the parental pressure will cause their kids to fail, Curtis urges parents to rethink the long-term impact of that pressure.

“Pushing is going to have the opposite effect that parents think it will have,” warns Curtis. “Kids are already burned out in high school, and then imagine what they're going to feel like when they get to college. They're going to be out of gas.”

Curtis cites two academic studies to support this point. One is a Pew Research Center study of thirteen to seventeen-year-olds that found seventy percent of respondents cited anxiety and depression as their chief concern. They ranked their concerns about mental health more highly than drug abuse, teen pregnancy, or bullying. The other study, from the University of Michigan, found that over the last decade, anxiety and depression has more than doubled on college campuses.

Curtis explains that the issues that lead to those levels of anxiety and depression start well before kids get onto their college campuses. She explains that the pressure parents put on kids to achieve their dreams actually makes it harder to succeed in the long run.

“It's important to bear in mind that maybe they won’t be able to reach those dreams because they will be so anxious or depressed,” says Curtis. “They may be unable to fend for themselves in the real world because they were so over parented. Kids are arriving at college, many of them, unable to think or speak for themselves. It's important for parents to take the long view and understand that pushing is going to impact the relationship with their kids.”

Curtis advises parents to take a step back and think about the bigger picture.

“Parents need to be thinking, ‘Okay, what is the relationship that I want five years from now or ten years from now or even further in the future? Is what I'm doing now as a parent paving the way for that kind of a relationship or not?,’” asks Curtis. “With all this pushing, that's telling kids that mistakes are not okay and that learning for learning’s sake is not okay. It's important to be practicing all of that now, when kids are under our roof, so we can help them problem solve and troubleshoot, before they're out of the house. It's better to learn these important lessons now.”

One way to pull back on parental pressure, Curtis suggests, is trust.

The Parent Compass provides practical advice to help parents understand their appropriate role in navigating the tween and teen years amidst a competitive academic environment.

“We hear a lot from those parents who are obsessively checking grades on the apps,” Curtis says. “That's not healthy for anybody. One of the most important things that came out of Varsity Blues was the kids’ response to the parents and them saying, ‘Why didn't you trust me? Why didn't you see me?’ Parents really need to put a little bit more trust in their kids rather than feeling like they need to have control over all of it. The control is what is going to push their kids away and really prevent them from thriving.”

With the craziness around college admissions, Curtis advises students and parents to block out the noises around them, figuratively and literally.

“I give my students earplugs,” says Curtis. “You know those little foam orange earplugs? It’s a tangible reminder for them to keep in their backpack or their locker. I want remind them to drown out the noise, to stay away from the comparison game, and to really focus on who it is that they know they are. And I've had students who years later have written me an email to check in, and they told me that they kept those even through college, just to remind themselves to stay the course.

“And so, likewise, I have that same piece of advice for parents to put in those earplugs, to drown out the noise of the competition and all that commotion going on around them, and to really use them as a tangible reminder to focus on who their kid is. See them for who they are and help that kid thrive.”

Ultimately, Curtis hopes The Parent Compass teaches parents to drop out of the academic arms race. If parents put their trust in their kids and honor who their children truly are, she thinks everyone benefits.

“One of my favorite chapters in the book to write was the chapter on focusing on the journey and not on the destination,” Curtis says. “It comes so naturally to us to praise our kids for accolades and awards and achievements. But their effort, their journey, gets lost in translation. And when we do that, we are reinforcing that those achievements matter more than what they put into getting there. That is a shift that I would love to see more of because I think that's how we help our kids become more resilient in the face of these very unique challenges that we've seen over the past year. And that we're going to keep seeing. Sure, awards and recognition, that's part of our lives. But as parents, we can really choose to focus differently. And in doing so, our kids will be all the better for it.”

The Parent Compass is available in boookstores and online. Curtis advises families with comprehensive college counseling services through her company, FutureWise Consulting. Curtis also travels to speak to middle and high school audiences to discuss how parents can support their kids in our current hypercompetitive and uncertain landscape.

To read more about Curtis, including her thoughts on COVID’s impact on college admissions and her advice to parents who opt for distance learning, be sure to sign up for our newsletter.