How Parents Can Help Kids Navigate Their Job Search
Episode 486 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Beth Hendler-Grunt
How can you support the young adult in your life as they embark on the first steps of their career?
It’s no secret that Gen Z is coming of age in a very different world than the one their Gen X or Millennial parents experienced. How they connect with their friends, how they are taught in school, what’s involved in securing their first job —everything has changed a lot, and this makes it tricky to figure out how to help them.
We’ve talked on this podcast in the past about helping a partner through a career change; today, we’re tackling a similar conundrum for the young people in our lives. Beth Hendler-Grunt has a decade of experience helping college students and their parents navigate the often arduous process of securing a job upon graduation. A parent of two college-age kids herself, she’s no stranger to how difficult it is to align the very different perspectives of a parent with four or more decades of life experience and a 20-year-old child.
Beth founded Next Great Step, where she’s helped thousands of young adults gain clarity and confidence in their skills and land their first jobs out of school. Her programs use approaches grounded in psychology and her own background in sales—because what is job hunting but selling yourself to your next employer? She also recently published her book, The Next Great Step: The Parents' Guide to Launching Your New Grad into a Career.
The unique circumstances of today’s college-age generation
Teens and young adults today are the first generation to grow up with social media and smartphones, and many of them spent several formative years attending classes from home during the pandemic. These circumstances factor heavily into their unique college and post-college experiences.
While uncertainty around how to present oneself to a potential employer one to three decades older isn’t exclusive to this generation, this particular challenge is made more significant by the years spent in lockdown and small bubbles rather than in school and extracurricular groups, campus clubs, and other environments that encourage face-to-face communication. Add in the pressures and toxicity of social media, and it’s little wonder that Beth and a lot of research these days recognizes more self-doubt and mental health issues in young people now entering the workforce.
Add to this the ever-growing difficulty of getting hired in this age of layoffs and AI-assisted application processes, and college-age kids can use all the help they can get!
Help them sell themselves as a new grad
At Next Great Step, Beth works with college students to develop a vision of what they want for their future. Often, she will encourage them to put aside any and all constraints, like their degree and the expectations of their loved ones, and think big about what kind of work would bring them joy. They don’t need to know the job title, the company, or even the industry of this vocation, just the tasks they are doing in their imaginary scenario.
From there, the program teaches students how to isolate their core skills. Beth is quick to clarify that she doesn’t mean attributes like being honest and hardworking. Rather, examples include research, problem-solving, sales, coding, and writing. Core skills are the ones that the student is competent at, enjoys, and wants to utilize.
Students also need to be able to provide stories that illustrate of these skills in action because, as Beth explains, “people do not read, and they do not listen.” Busy hiring teams are unlikely to be moved by a list of capabilities, but if an applicant can share a skill and immediately back it up with a specific example corroborating their competency, they stand a much better chance of selling themselves to that prospective employer.
Set them up for success along the way
As parents, of course it’s our tendency to want to help our children avoid disappointment and heartbreak. Unfortunately, kids often want to forge their own paths, and sometimes, it is the very challenges and failures they face that gives them the tools for future success.
In addition to letting them make some mistakes on their own—while always being there to listen and assist after the fact—Beth encourages parents and mentors of high school and college students to facilitate connections for them wherever possible. The opportunity to chat with professionals in a range of industries does more than provide students with many perspectives and real-world work scenarios. It also gives them plenty of practice conversing with people from different demographics and generations, which makes future interviews less daunting.
I want to hear your own experience with this topic! How are you helping the young adult(s) in your world? And if you’re a parent of kids anywhere from my three-year-old’s age to college-bound, I’m curious what practices you are utilizing to raise them with agency. Join the conversation on the Courage Community on Facebook or our group on LinkedIn to make your voice heard.
Related links from today’s episode:
Connect with Beth on Instagram
The Next Great Step: The Parents' Guide to Launching Your New Grad into a Career
The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children by Shefali Tsabary
Episode 106, Supporting Your Partner’s Career Conundrums
HIRED: my Job Search Accelerator
Learn to navigate the modern job search like a boss:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 486. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up and today's episode is, to me, kind of a continuation of a conversation that we started years ago.
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Back in 2019, I took a listener question for the podcast that led to an episode called Supporting Your Partner's Career Conundrums. It was all about how to help provide the kind of career advice and job search strategies that you've picked up on by just listening to this podcast over the years with your partner, which can put you in kind of a tricky position, right? As someone who loves this person and is very much not unbiased about this person, but wants to help provide some support when that can actually put a strain on the dynamic in your relationship.
Well, today we're carrying that theme forward, but in a different direction with an episode all about how to support your own children's careers. And it's funny to be recording this from the kind of front end of parenting myself, being in the thick of raising a toddler and a newborn right now. Joining me to break all this down is Beth Hendler-Grunt, the Founder and President of Next Great Step, where their sole focus is to guide college students and recent grads to help them to land the job they deserve.
She leverages techniques and insights from advising CEOs and brings those secrets to students to help them stand out and get the job. She's enabled hundreds of clients to achieve success, where 90% of clients land the job of their choice. She's also the author of the Amazon number one bestseller, The Next Great Step: The Parents Guide To Launching Your New Grad Into A Career. And she's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, Fortune, and many other media outlets. And now including Bossed Up.
Beth, welcome to the Bossed Up podcast.
BETH: Thank you for having me.
EMILIE: I'm so excited to talk with you. I do feel like this is personally for me one of those functions of my like over functioning personality, which is I have a two year. So I should probably start talking to authors like you about how to get my soon to be like, 3 year old into college someday, and then into career after that. So this is a little premature for me, but I know a lot of members of our Bossed Up community are navigating exactly the topic. You wrote this great fabulous book on The Next Great Step, your parents guide, or The Parents Guide To Launching Your New Grad Into A Career. What inspired this work from your perspective?
BETH: What inspired this work. So I have been doing this, we're actually going on 10 years, which is unbelievable. But prior to that I was in the consulting world. I worked with CEOs and executive teams. And then prior to that I had been in many sales leadership roles. But I became of the age where lots of my friends or parents would say, I don't get it. My kid went to a great school and they have great grades and they cannot get a job. And likewise, I have been working with a lot of executives and CEOs and they say, you know, I'd love to hire a recent grad, but I'm not going to. I'm going to pass them over because I don't have time to babysit and I need somebody who can come in and solve some problems.
So I saw that there was this opportunity, there's this disconnect. And what if we taught young adults how to think like their own CEO in terms of how do you compete? How do you add value? And how do you have a strategy for this process? And just started testing it out with my friends, kids in my basement who were in college and they're like, we're not getting this in college. This is so helpful. And that's how it kind of started.
EMILIE: I love that. So I wonder, over the past decade too, I'm just thinking about like the macroeconomics of our wild labor market in recent years. Have things changed recently in terms of like, is there any good news for the new grad?
BETH: Things have changed a lot. I think when I started this, there was always that problem of kind of this disconnect where a lot of young adults didn't understand what they either needed to say or how to present themselves, and just that, you know, understanding what it took to speak to someone who was maybe 10, 20 years older than you and really to share your value.
The difference now, I don't want to be negative, but the pandemic really did hurt our kids in terms of just not allowing them to have those same experiences on campus, or practice speaking with people, or just having connections with their own friends. And I do feel that the grads coming out now, they just have a lot more self-doubt. You know, I see a lot more mental health issues on the rise.
And of course I'm worried and concerned for all of our young adults. It's just, I think they just, they feel the weight of things a little bit more. So if they don't hear back, it's like they take it so much more heavy and personally. So you know, just trying to help boost their confidence because there are opportunities. And yes, it is a tight job market, but it always cycles. Right? We go through these cycles of it being difficult and then there's more opportunity about. I just want them to feel more confident because they have the right skills, they have what employers need. They just have to see it in themselves.
EMILIE: Yeah. That is such an interesting point. I mean, I see that in our own job seekers in our community at Bossed Up. Right. Which is the volume involved in hiring these days, has left so many job seekers getting ghosted. It's hard not to take offense, especially if you are 10, 20 years into your career and you're like, what the h***? I thought, you know, I thought this would be easier at this age, but I think it's a pretty impersonal process nowadays that I'm sure can leave young people who are navigating it for the first time just feeling jilted.
BETH: Yeah. And not only that, I think we have this generation who's come up with using technology, so they're comfortable with technology, but I think there's a little bit too much faith put into it. Meaning they think that if I have all the right keywords or I just apply to a hundred or two hundred jobs like, that they can beat the algorithm. There's this whole concept of, look, if I just can beat the algorithm, then I can get hired. And what they don't realize, it’s the same thing that was, you know, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or now is that people hire people. Not AI and not a tracking system. Or, so it's, it's tough. They're really relying on the technology. That's what they know, that's what they've been told. Now the rules are different than what they thought.
EMILIE: That is such a key point. Some things change and some things stay the same. And that person to person communication piece is hard, especially for COVID kids who were on virtual school for years. You know, having to get those skills back, I'm sure, is such a steep climb.
So why would they listen to us, Beth? You know, this is, I'm the family career coach, right? Like, I've been in the career development space for over a decade. I have siblings who are a decade younger than me. And my little brother in particular came to mind as I was reading your book, because he won't listen to my advice. None of my family members, they'll ask for it, and then they'll disregard it. So how do you, as a parent, kind of position yourself? What's your philosophy? On how parents should or shouldn't be involved in this process.
BETH: Such a good question. And just so, I mean, I am also the parent of a rising college senior, and my older son is in grad school. So, look, I'm living this real time. I have my own struggles. I completely understand. And look, it all depends on your relationship with your kid. But sometimes kids, young adults, they also want to forge their own path, and they don't necessarily want to be listening to mom and dad or they want to try it on their own.
And I think one thing as parents that I've learned. I'm not a parenting expert, but after speaking with hundreds, probably thousands of parents and students at this point, sometimes we need to give them enough rope to try it on their own. And sometimes they need to go through the challenge and pain of failure, too, for them to come around and say, okay, I need help, because I'll speak for myself. A lot of parents like me were like, well, I can fix this for you. You know, I can save you from the heartache. They don't always want to be saved, or they just. They're trying to exert their independence as an adult.
And part of the beauties of growing up is sometimes you do need to make mistakes and you need to figure things out. Maybe it doesn't go the way you thought. And for parents, we sometimes just need to be a little bit more patient with the process, because I know for myself, I'm like, wow, I could have just saved you a lot of time if you just listened to me the first round. But, you know, look at the interesting transition in life that they're exerting their independence. They are becoming adults. And sometimes, you know, especially in a lot of parents I speak to, haven't looked, a lot of parents haven't looked for a job in over 20 years. So sometimes they are not familiar with the process. So it's a combination of everyone, you know, trying to respect each other's place as well as knowing what the latest process is to actually be successful in doing it.
EMILIE: Right. And I think that's so key, is, like, things have changed a bit. Like, it takes longer. It takes more applications than it used to. And so, you know, your perception of what success looks like has to be empathetic towards the realities of what success can look like in the modern job market, which is so wild and so much longer and harder. In some ways.
You know, you reminded me of recent research I stumbled upon. I couldn't find the source. This was like on an Instagram reel. I Probably saw sitting on the toilet at some point, honestly in recent history. [LAUGHTER] But there was an Instagram reel about agency and like what creates self confidence in children over the course of a lifetime. And they linked it back to having a job in their youth like in high school. And I wonder if you see a difference between the kinds of kids who are looking for their first job after college versus kids who've held down jobs, even just little part time things in the summer, if that makes a difference.
BETH: Yeah, you know, it's so interesting because I really, we speak to such a wide range of students from, you know, a local community college to the Top Ivies. And the ones who did hold job, the ones who really had to hustle, or ones who are putting themselves through college or really have to pay for it, I'm not saying that they're better, but they definitely have more resilience and they have a little bit more street smarts. They're not solely holding off on their GPA or the reputation of the school to put them into a role. Like, they are a little bit more savvy and willing to really kind of work a little bit harder or more determined.
And sometimes our students, and look, I understand my kids are a similar age. They're of the generation where everybody wins and everybody got a trophy. So, we as parents created this challenge. We're not innocent. We're not innocent in the process. So even though they, okay, so they got the grades and they went to the right school, but I think sometimes there's so much energy and effort put on. Like, well, when you get to college everything will be fixed and so much of it is not, or a lot of things don't happen or universities don't have the either resources or capacity or students just don't take advantage of what's there.
So I think, definitely kids who've held jobs is very helpful. But I think also those who have just kind of had to figure out some of those things on their own along the way are definitely, I do think, work internships, part time jobs, excellent ways to round out your knowledge of how to enter into the workplace.
EMILIE: Yeah, I think you're right though. That element of grit is required of anyone navigating the job market. And who better to help you with that than a sales professional? [LAUGHTER] Right? Because sales professionals get a lot of no's before they get a yes. They're used to getting the door slammed in their face. Right? How has your sales background informed your approach to this work, do you think?
BETH: Yeah, I appreciate you asking me that so funny? Most people don't ask me that, but I actually feel that my sales background is what I'm teaching. What students don’t understand is I'm actually teaching you how to sell yourself. You are the product and I'm going to teach you the techniques about how you say things in a certain way, how you be persistent, how you reach out because, you're it. You are what you're selling and how you present it and seek out. You know, you're a problem solver.
That's the number one thing. That's sales, right? Sales is solving a problem for someone. And companies have so many problems and they need that. What the challenge is. A lot of students come in and they think, oh, I just really want that job because that's going to be great for me. And I'm like, no, no, no. It's actually, you want to make it great for the employer, it can be great for you too. But the employer doesn't want to hear about that. Like, this is just the harsh world that we live in, is you need to make it great for the employer and the company and the division because that's how they're going to meet their metrics and as a result, you will be successful as well. So I do think my sales background has helped tremendously. It's actually the part of my own business that I love implementing. Like I love selling what we have to offer also because I just feel so passionate about it and I love the process. Like that's the most fun for me.
EMILIE: Well, I think that is so transformative for folks because when people hear sales, a lot of people go ick, right? And when they think of selling themselves, it's like double ick. But yet the irony here, and I talk a lot about this in our assertive communication program, Speak Up, where we, we talk about centering the audience in your mind when you're trying to give a persuasive speech, let's say, which is just as relevant as giving a great interview, right? Like the more you center your audience's needs, the employer's problem that they want to solve by hiring this position, the less self consciousness plays a role, right? Like the less fixated we all become on, am I good enough? Am I worthy? And there's like this ironic inverse correlation there, which is the more you focus on them, the less you feel self conscious about yourself. And I wish, I mean, do you see that confidence transform in your students through your program?
BETH: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if there's one thing that I feel really proud of and you know, look, we have helped hundreds, thousands of kids get jobs. I do not guarantee employment because I think that's, I can't guarantee what they're going to say. But with that being said, we've had incredible success rates. But what I feel most really proud of is that we help this transformation. Where they go from a very unsure, they don't think they're good enough to the confidence that we see. Like when they come out, they are confidence.
And not only do they know how to get the first job, they know how to get the second and the third. And they know the value that they have to offer and they know how the process works and where they can really add value. And that's what we're selling. Like we're selling confidence because they have it, they all have it. They just haven't had the opportunity to present it in a certain way or it wasn't talked to them for all, you know, different reasons. Yeah, I mean, I want them to be able to really sell themselves.
And I'll just say one more thing about your sales thing too. When I first thought about sales years ago, everyone always thinks kind of like that fast car salesman, right? or just something that's not as. And I was in sales for the high tech sector where we were selling very, very high dollar ticket data networks and telecom systems and things like that. And you're selling it for lots of money. And it's really interesting. Like it's so much fun like when you figure it out and you know, I love it and you can, well financially you can make a lot of money in sales. So I think it's great for anybody to at least have some experience doing it. I think that's really good for anyone's career.
EMILIE: Yeah, I think you're absolutely onto something. And I think people who don't share that love of sales, don't recognize that sales is about psychology, sales is about people. Sales is about listening, it's about empathy. Women kick a** at sales because we for the most part are pretty good with empathy and listening. And so I just think if you flip the script on like what we've been taught to imagine in our mind's eye about salespeople, they would probably be a well compensated, bada** woman in that, in that picture.
BETH: And you know what, I was in a sector where it was like predominantly men, although there's times it could have been very intimidating, but it definitely was to my advantage that I knew how to sell and you know, it all worked out.
EMILIE: Good for you. Well, let's get into some of your process, because I found it interesting, you followed a format that I kind of follow as well in our work here at Bossed Up, which is starting with helping someone with their vision and then developing a strategy.
And I wanted to start with the vision piece because my little brother comes to mind. I'm going to make him listen to this episode someday. Although the moral of the story is I can't seem to make him do anything. But when he was graduating from high school, I want to say, yeah, from high school, I had just gone through my own personal renaissance, had just started Bossed Up a few years prior, and had been leading workshops full of women through visioning exercises for a few years at that point.
And I bought my little brother a book and said, if you do one thing, please just fill out this book. You don't need to do this publicly. You don't need to do this with me if you don't want. But, like, think about where you see yourself in five years. And he didn't. Long story short, he stonewalls a little bit or he kind of shuts down a little bit for whatever reason. And I'm wondering, what does that look like from your process standpoint? Like, how can we effectively as parents, as big sisters, as loved ones, as partners even, help someone who might be feeling fear, or shame, or nervousness, or anxiety, or self-doubt, even begin to articulate what they would love in their careers?
BETH: I think there's a lot of opportunity, probably two ways for parents, you know, mentors, older siblings. You know, the first thing we do when we talk to our students about a vision is we kind of take away all the barriers and we say, forget what you studied, forget what you think you're supposed to do. Like, think really big. What does it feel like? You don't even have to know the name of the job, like, what would it feel like every day if it felt really good doing what you wanted? What environment would it be? And would it be with a big organization? Would it be small? What kind of things would you be doing?
So I don't even care about the name or the title or the company. I don't need it to be so specific. It's like giving them a chance to be unhooked from their major, even. And I know for a lot of students, they feel understandably, a lot of pressure because of the amount of money invested in college loans. So if they come out and say well, I really hated my major, you know, that's, that's a blow to themselves and to their parents to hear that. But kind of since we're not the parents, but like, parents aren't listening. No one's listening inside your head. And I think giving them that initial chance to be like, you know, if I really had my choice, this is what I'd really like to be doing.
Or this kind of, you know, I love working with children. I really enjoy writing. I really get excited when I can, you know, code something, solving a problem. So I kind of try to get them to just start thinking really big. Because when you take away all of the barriers, it then allows like a whole other level of ideas and opportunity to come to the forefront that could be options for you that they were never maybe given the chance to say.
EMILIE: Totally. I love that. And how should parents respond in that moment? Because I feel like one misstep in like, light of someone saying, I know I just got a chemical engineering degree, but I really love spending time with children. And if a parent goes, what the f***. Like, what should we, and what should we not do? In response to hearing someone who's willing to be vulnerable enough to actually articulate that vision or answers to those powerful questions, like, how do we respond?
BETH: That's a tough one. I mean, we also as parents have to really, like, think before we speak or what I've learned over the years, as you have, you know, you have children, you have more children, you know, sometimes silence is the best answer and not immediately jumping down their throat with like, how could you? Or that's stupid. Or that's not, you know, how are you going to make money? Like, I mean, even my older one always said to me, look, I really want to study Psychology. Now just keep in mind, both my husband and I, we went to, both went to business school undergrad. I have my MBA, we're very entrepreneurial. And my initial, of course I regret but as I'm like, well, what are you going to do with that? Yeah, right. Like, of course that's. In hindsight, I should not have said it like that.
But he had a good answer is, look, I love how people think. I really want to understand the brain. I really understand emotions. And I said, okay, and if that's what you want to do, let's make sure that you're gaining as much experience, experiences to enhance that. So he, you know, internships, shadowing, working, he worked with children who had Select Mutism. He then worked with athletes at West Point Military Academy. He worked with. He really got into Sports Psychology.
So, you know, so if they're going to go down the path and say instead of saying that's ridiculous, which, you know, it may or may not, but at least let's be like, okay, let's figure out what are ways that you can gain experience to test it out to see if you like it, or who are the people that you can speak with that can maybe give you more clarity of what a career looks like in that direction. And I think the more we can just kind of bite our tongue a little bit and then just push them to say, I'm okay with that. But you can't just do it in a bubble and it's not everything in a textbook. You have to put yourself out there talking to people to understand more about what is involved. And that's, you know, what I've seen. You know, when you're ready as a parent and a student to do it, it's hard. It's hard. It's a transition for everybody.
EMILIE: I will point out the irony that I said sales is really just psychology. And now you've got a kiddo, as sales professional, who's doing psychology, because, hey, maybe they'll be the next great salesperson, just like mom. [LAUGHTER]
Well, that's fascinating. I feel like the vision is such an important first step, but it's not something that needs to be perfectly solidified to move forward. Right? So when someone graduates, whether they loved their degree or not, and they have a fuzzy vision, semblance of something that they think they might want to do, how do you get them moving forward from there?
BETH: Yeah. So the foundation for us as to how we take someone who says, I don't know what to do with my life, or even though I studied this in school, I really don't know what to do, or I don't know what I have to offer. Foundation is this process that we teach of understanding what their core skills are. So core skills are those top three skills that you are the most competent, you enjoy doing, and you would like to utilize them going forward. And it's not things like, I'm hardworking, or responsible, or trustworthy. You know, those. Although people say those are skills, those are attributes, those are how you do your skills. We encourage them. Like, what is it? I'm a great writer. I enjoy research. I'm really good at sales. I'm really good at, you know, writing copy or creative problem solving or coding.
So kind of what are those things that you've done? And if you say that you've done it, you can't just pull it out of the air and say that you're good at it. I need at least one or two examples that prove to anybody that you've done it and you know how to do it. Because our, you know, what we share with our young adults is people do not read and they do not listen. So you have to assume they're barely reading your resume and they're going to tune out very quickly. So if you don't get to the point really concisely about what you have to offer and how it could help them, you're going to lose them.
That's where knowing your top three, top three skills and what's the story for each skill and how you say it can be so compelling to, and also this is where your confidence shows. Because when you know someone, like, I'm a leader and I know how to demonstrate leadership, for example, in my club, fraternity, classroom, and you give this really clear story, they're like, wow, you just, you know, you just showed me, I didn't need to read anything. I didn't need to check any references. Like, you're able to articulate that. And I think when they have clarity on the skills, everything else in the job search gets easier. You know, what jobs to look for. You know, what kinds of companies need those skills. You know what to say about yourself when you're introducing yourself, your resume, your LinkedIn profile, everything you know, reflects that.
EMILIE: I love the idea of kind of having this narrative to come back to of like, what are you offering to the world? And it also makes me think of how do we position our children? And this is clearly a toddler mom talking, okay? But like, how do we position our children to have enough life experience, enough interaction with different parts of the world to have those stories at the ready? Because you're right.
If you've just, you know, summered at the Cape every summer and gone to school and got your liberal arts degree like I did, not the summering at the Cape part. To be clear, I worked a million jobs in high school, but I definitely got myself a political science degree. Right? But if you've lived a sheltered life because your parents wanted to protect you from hardship, wanted to prevent you from having to hustle the way that they did, then they are not going to have a lot of stories in their arsenal, are they?
BETH: Well, look, I think there's two things. One, it doesn't even have to be that complicated. Like, I think just making sure that your kids are talking to their family members and asking what your aunt or uncle does for a living or actually asking what is your. Like, even at a family event, it doesn't have to be. They don't need these worldly experiences. And I know everyone wants, like, a big proponent of internships. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't always have to be a fancy, you know, rotational, it could be your, you could be scooping ice cream and delivering pizza, and that's fine.
But I think as parents, just let's get them out of their rooms and off the social media for a little bit and just having conversations with people and listening or asking good questions. And the more we can put our kids in front of our friends or I have a friend who has this job. You might want to ask them about it or talk to them about it or, you know, kind of just pushing them a little bit more to be curious and be able to have a conversation. I feel like it sounds so basic, but yet so challenging and so many. And the other thing I see, too, is that there's a lot of people who say, well, you know, the job market's kind of hard and I didn't do a lot, so I'm going to go from my undergraduate and just get a graduate degree. But more schooling doesn't solve this problem. I mean, obviously for those certain careers, yes, medical school and psychologists and social, you need those masters. But I've had a lot of kids and a lot of COVID kids who didn't have the right experience, weren't ready to graduate and now went to more school. But the job search is just as hard now as it is in 2020 or 2021, because they didn't do a lot more. So I would just kind of always really push, like, doing more over sometimes more education is not always the answer.
EMILIE: I have always said that going to grad school is kind of like kicking the career can just down the road a little bit, and it leaves you saddled with more debt. I can speak on behalf of my millennial generation as the most indebted ever, historically, that is not a solution that we've been sold, you know.
So, I think you're right. Getting into movement, getting into exposure therapy, for lack of a better word, right? Of just getting yourself out there and off the screens. I mean, do you see this as related to mental health? Like, if a kid feels, even if it's scooping ice cream? I mean, I folded T-shirts at the mall. I sold hair accessories at a kiosk. I was a daycare counselor. I feel like no matter what the job is, as a young person, when you get paid for your labor in any capacity, even if it's not a great rate like, that is very agency inspiring and purpose fueling. It can be purpose fueling, I think, for people. Do you feel like that's related to the mental health crisis that our teenagers are navigating right now, or can it help?
BETH: So, you know, I'm not a doctor, but I do follow a lot of therapists and psychologists and we refer because it's been such a we've actually had to even change our programs as a result. I have like a psychologist who consults with us because it's such a dominant challenge. What I've been reading and hearing is that this is actually the first generation who underwent kind of the social experiment of having a device in their hand from a very early age.
So really been no proof otherwise about what it looks like and what the latest data, there's a gentleman, his name is Jonathan Haidt, and he just wrote a book called The Anxious Generation. And his data talks about how we have the most mental health issues, especially with young women or as a whole because of their exposure to social media at such an early age. And his whole focus is to not give cell phones, only give a basic, you know, old flip phone if you need a communication, not have access to social media until 16. School shall lock phones during the day. No phones at school. So, you know, we're almost like he's trying to gather parents to come together to undo this.
My own kids were kind of at the end of, you know, I'm not saying I'm, I'm sure I'm guilty as well. He said, I just find it so interesting is that we as a society, as parents are so afraid to let our kids go outside and play. He's actually saying it's safer than it's ever been. But the device in their hand is more dangerous than anything that you could let them do. And we're leaving them alone in their room to do it by themselves.
EMILIE: I'm a big believer in that. Although I sit here at the privilege of toddler mom perspective. I should play this back to me in 10 years and see how well it's going, you know?
BETH: It's hard. It's not easy. It is not easy because of the outside pressure or they feel left out because then they can't communicate over that platform. But I do feel like kids are probably better off, but it's a hard one.
EMILIE: So first of all, I could talk with you forever about this topic, clearly. And I know our time is limited, but what is one piece of advice for the parent themselves in this process when it comes to helping a child, or let's say a sister, a brother, a loved one, a little brother, in my case, how should we manage our own expectations and ourselves when helping someone else navigate envisioning their career and developing and executing a strategy to make it a reality?
BETH: What I've seen is that the more that as parents, that we can be a little bit more patient and take our own level of expectation, whatever that was, and kind of look at that compared to like, who is the child that's actually in front of you? Because, that is not always fair. And again, I'll just say, I know I've done it right? You go through those moments, like, will my child go to the college that I went to? Well, getting into college now is very different than it was 30 years ago. Right. It's just not. It's just insane how crazy it is. And, you know, I think we need to really, like, take a look at our own expectations and is that fair to put that on our kids? But I think the other thing is to really listen more than speak. And one more thing is to point out the strengths in our kids. Like, sometimes our kids don't even see it. Of, um. Like, you know, I notice that you're amazing problem solver, even if it's with your friends. Or I've noticed that you have a real knack for, like, math or, you know, solving a complex problem. And I think when we point out the positives that they sometimes don't even see, it also helps them to feel more confident and maybe they'll be a little bit more receptive to hearing us when they're ready. It's a tough one. You know, it's. There's no. I don't have it all figured out.
EMILIE: I love that. I mean, I see that in our own job search clients too. Like, sometimes I ask them the question, you know, how do you, as a project manager or an accountant, let's say, how is your work different than the worst accountant out there in the world? Because only in that context can some of my women clients say, oh, well, I'm punctual, I'm honest, I'm accurate, you know, and then all of a sudden they can rattle off, you know, the differentiators that they need in order to sell themselves. So I love that point. Have you read The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary, I want to say.
BETH: I have not, but I'm open. I'll write it down.
EMILIE: You just echoed her main thesis, which is letting go of your perceptions of who this child should be and seeing the kid before you for who they really are and loving that kid for who they really are. And that's just such a beautiful philosophy to bring to this. I love it.
BETH: Yeah, it's hard because, you know, there's a lot of pressure as parents. We feel like you have to raise the perfect child while managing the house, while having a job, while, you know, or just there's so much of this one upmanship or my kid is better at whatever. You know, we're not being picked last in gym, whatever that is. And it's just like, it's terrible for them and it's terrible for us.
EMILIE: Right. I mean, if we perceive our children as a reflection of our own achievements, then we're in trouble, right?
BETH: And there's a lot of that.
EMILIE: It's so prevalent. Yeah. This is fascinating. Beth, thank you so much for sharing all your gems today. Where can my listeners learn more about what you have to offer in terms of the Next Great Step and all the offerings that you have there?
BETH: Yeah, absolutely. If you know a parent that's struggling to offer guidance to their young adult or you know a young adult who's struggling to launch, go to our website nextgreatstep.com we do a complimentary consultation for a parent student. We can do it together or separately. And there's a little button. Click on it. Let's talk.
And I have lots of free resources on how to have a great resume, LinkedIn profile, all of that. You can grab that on my resume as well. And I'm everywhere on social and you can get my book on Amazon and everywhere that books are sold, The Next Great Step: The Parents Guide To Launching Your New Grad Into A Person.
EMILIE: Amazing. We'll drop those links into today's show notes. Thank you so much again for being here. This has been a delight.
BETH: My pleasure.
EMILIE: Thank you for all those links that Beth just mentioned, head to bossedup.org/episode486. That's bossedup.org/episode486.
And now I want to hear from you. What do you make of our discussion today? Can you relate to this situation of wanting to help but knowing that you're probably going to say the wrong thing a time or two or maybe even more often than not? How can we be intentional in raising children with agency, with confidence, especially in this really challenging digital era when it comes to work and career in particular.
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As always, I'd love to keep the conversation going in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook or in the Bossed Up Group on LinkedIn. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose, and together let's lift as we climb.
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