By Stephen C. Schultz
Five years ago, I listened to a podcast conversation between two people I know and respect.
Today, I found myself thinking about it again.
I was talking with a potential Oxbow Academy student and his family, and as we discussed some of the challenges they are facing, I found myself using several of the principles that came up in that conversation. When the call was over, I thought, Where did I hear that before?
It didn't take long to remember.
I went back and found the podcast.
It was a conversation between Dr. Gwen Palafox and Dr. Jared Schultz called The Developmental Process of Transitioning to Adulthood.
And there was another reason the conversation was familiar.
Jared is my younger brother.
I had introduced Jared and Gwen to each other several years ago. I have had the opportunity to visit with Gwen a couple of times and have exchanged quite a few emails with her over the years. I have always appreciated the way she approaches her work and the way she talks about the people she serves.
Jared, meanwhile, has spent his career working in rehabilitation counseling, disability services, counselor education, and helping people navigate the transition into adulthood. He is currently a professor and Chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Counseling at Virginia Commonwealth University.
So I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that their conversation was so good.
But there is something else I remembered about it.
They were having fun.
Serious subjects don't always require serious faces
The topic of their conversation was anything but light.
They were talking about human development, disability, autonomy, informed choice, independence, and the transition from adolescence into adulthood.
Those are serious subjects.
But Gwen and Jared have something I really enjoy about both of them. They can talk about very serious human issues without taking themselves so seriously that the conversation becomes heavy.
There is humor.
There is personality.
There is some good-natured back-and-forth.
And somehow that makes the serious parts easier to hear.
I think there is something important about that.
Sometimes professionals can become so focused on the seriousness of a problem that the person sitting across from them disappears behind the diagnosis, the behavior, the disability, the treatment plan, or the problem that brought them into the room.
Humor doesn't minimize the difficulty.
Sometimes it reminds us that there is still a person in the middle of it.
Whose life are we planning?
One of the things Gwen and Jared discussed was the importance of informed choice and person-centered planning.
That sounds straightforward.
Of course we want young people to make informed choices.
But there is a subtle trap in the way adults try to help.
We can become so focused on making the right choice that we start making the choice ourselves.
We know what school would be best.
We know what career would be practical.
We know what treatment would work.
We know what behavior needs to change.
We know what the next step should be.
And because we love the young person, we sometimes begin confusing supporting their decision-making with making decisions for them.
Parents do it.
Teachers do it.
Therapists do it.
Professionals do it.
I have certainly done it with my own kids over the years.
The intentions are usually good.
But good intentions don't automatically make something helpful.
The question I have been thinking about today is a simple one:
Whose life are we planning?
Experience teaches things advice can't
Another idea from their conversation that resonated with me is the importance of experience.
Adults are really good at explaining things.
We explain consequences.
We explain risks.
We tell young people what happened to someone else.
We tell them what happened to us.
We tell them what we think will happen if they make a particular choice.
Sometimes that is exactly what they need.
But sometimes they need something else.
They need to experience it.
They need to discover that they are better at something than they thought.
They need to discover that something they thought they wanted isn't actually what they want.
They need to make a mistake.
They need to figure out what to do after the mistake.
They need to experience the satisfaction of solving a problem that nobody solved for them.
That doesn't mean throwing a young person into the deep end and saying, "Good luck."
It means creating enough support that they can experience life while still having someone nearby who can help them make sense of what happened.
There is a big difference between protecting someone from every difficult experience and helping someone learn from difficult experiences.
The temptation to fix everything
I think this is particularly important when working with young people who have struggled.
When a teenager has experienced behavioral problems, academic struggles, damaged relationships, mental health challenges, or other difficulties, everyone around them understandably wants things to get better.
Quickly.
Parents want their child back.
Schools want the behavior to stop.
Professionals want treatment to work.
And the young person often wants everyone to stop talking about them.
That creates a natural temptation to focus on fixing the problem.
But sometimes the more important question is:
What does this young person need to learn about themselves?
What are they capable of?
What choices can they make?
What happens when they are given a little more responsibility?
What happens when someone actually listens to what they want?
What happens when they are allowed to experience success rather than constantly being reminded of failure?
Those questions can take us in a very different direction.
We can accidentally lower the ceiling
When young people struggle, adults sometimes begin lowering expectations.
Not because we don't care.
Because we care so much that we don't want them to fail again.
So we make things easier.
Then safer.
Then more predictable.
And eventually we can create a life in which failure is minimized, but so is growth.
There is a difference between reasonable support and unnecessary limitation.
That distinction isn't always easy to see.
Especially when you're a parent.
Especially when you have watched your child get hurt.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is allow someone you love to have an experience you know might not go perfectly.
But that may be where some of the most important learning happens.
What if we changed the question?
Perhaps instead of asking:
"What is the best path for this young person?"
we could ask:
"What does this young person want their life to look like, and how can we help them get there?"
Those are very different questions.
The first puts the adults in charge of the destination.
The second puts the young person at the center of the journey.
That doesn't mean the young person gets to make every decision.
It doesn't mean adults stop setting boundaries.
It doesn't mean safety stops mattering.
It doesn't mean every preference can become a reality.
It means the young person has a place at the table.
And maybe more importantly, they begin learning how to sit at that table for themselves.
Why I went back to the podcast
That's what brought me back to Gwen and Jared's conversation today.
I wasn't looking for an old podcast.
I was looking for a reminder.
I was talking with a family about a young person who is trying to find his way through some difficult circumstances. Some circumstances that may include Oxbow Academy. As I talked with the family, hidden between the words was the feeling that somehow he needed "fixing". In a subtle and gentle way, I encouraged the family to recognize he wasn't "Broken". He wasn't stranded on the Island of Misfit Toys, from that old Christmas television show.
It was about helping him understand himself.
Helping him make choices.
Helping him see possibilities.
Helping him take some ownership of where his life goes next.
And I suddenly remembered hearing two people talk about many of those same ideas five years ago.
So I went looking.
And there it was.
And then there is the humor
Listening to the podcast again, I was reminded of another reason I enjoyed it the first time.
Gwen and Jared are funny.
Not "let's make light of a serious subject" funny.
More like the natural humor that happens when two intelligent people are comfortable enough with one another to be human.
They laugh.
They tease a little.
They don't sound like they are reading from a professional conference presentation.
And I like that.
Because human development is complicated enough without making every conversation about it sound clinical.
Sometimes a little humor opens the door.
Sometimes it allows us to hear something difficult without becoming defensive.
And sometimes it simply reminds us that the people doing this work are human beings too.
I think that's worth remembering.
Eventually, it is their life
Our children eventually become adults.
They will make decisions we wouldn't make.
They will choose things we wouldn't choose.
They will make mistakes.
They will surprise us.
They will occasionally make us crazy.
And hopefully, they will experience the incredible satisfaction of discovering that they are capable of things we never knew they could do.
Our job isn't necessarily to eliminate every obstacle standing between them and adulthood.
Maybe our job is to help them develop the confidence, skills, experience, and self-awareness to navigate those obstacles themselves.
That can be difficult.
We spend so many years protecting our children that stepping back can feel a lot like letting go.
But maybe there is a difference between letting go and making room.
Making room for them to speak.
Making room for them to choose.
Making room for them to experience.
Making room for them to fail.
Making room for them to discover who they are.
And ultimately, making room for them to build a life that belongs to them.
I'm glad I introduced Gwen and Jared.
I'm glad they had this conversation.
And I'm especially glad that five years later, I found myself using some of what they talked about without even remembering where I had learned it.
Maybe that's one of the better measures of a good conversation.
You don't necessarily remember the conversation.
You remember what it taught you.
If you would like to hear the conversation that started all of this thinking, take some time to listen to Gwen and Jared's original podcast, The Developmental Process of Transitioning to Adulthood.
You can learn more about Gwen Palafox and Meaningful Growth or Dr. Jared Schultz through Virginia Commonwealth University.
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