The Parent Compass: How's Yours Working? // with Cindy Muchnick

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:00:01

appreciate the child you have in front of you, not the one you are trying to inauthentically create.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:00:10

Welcome to know them. Be them, raise them a show to help busy, mindful. Growth oriented moms that stay informed and inspired. As they navigate their daughters, crucial tween and teen years. I'm your host Carmelita two. So, have you ever made your kids stick with an activity? Even if they don't like. It. Do you wonder if you're talking too much on your kids' behalf or maybe not enough? Do you. You want your kids to get straight? A's and secretly. We get a little thrill. If they say, I think I want to go to Stanford or Harvard. Harvard or Yale. And then you kind of feel anxious about the pressure and tuition. Well, today's guest Cindy Mutchnick. Co-wrote a book. To help us navigate this balance. And wonkiness. And calibrate our parent Compass's if you will. Cindy graduated from Stanford university and is an expert. Spurt in the college admissions process. She got her start in admissions offices offices at IIT and the university of Chicago. Where she screened and reviewed over 3000 applications and interviewed perspective students. It's along the way. She also opened a private study skills practice. And college counseling business in southern california which she ran for over 15 years helping Hundreds of high school students Navigate their academic journeys, Including the dreaded Did college applications. Since closing her private educational practice in 2011, cindy is a professional speaker and panelist for a variety of education related topics Ana. And she's a prolific Brighter. Her most recent book, the parent compass navigating your teens wellness and academic journey in today's competitive world, Is her 10th. And i invited her on to talk about it So now that you know that she knows her stuff when It comes to teens high school stress academics College competitiveness Et cetera Here's our conversation Well, welcome Cindy. I'm so thrilled to have you.

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:02:09

Thank you, Kat. It's great to be here to finally chat with

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:02:11

Yes. Well, let's dive right into it. Uh, you've written a book, called The Parent Compass. I'd love to hear you tell us in your own words, what's the main message behind this title and how did you come up with the idea, what does it mean, et cetera.

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:02:26

Sure. So, so the parent Compass, the longer title is Navigating Your Teens Wellness and Academic Journey in Today's Competitive World. And so it's basically, written with kind of two goals in mind. One, to help preserve the mental health of teens and tweens as they go through these kind of tricky years. And also to help preserve the parent teen relationship, which is really what all you're left with once they've left the home and headed off on their own. And so the idea for the book actually came out, um, in early 2019 when the college admission scandal erupted, also known as Operation Varsity Blues. And our news headlines were splashed with parents who had broken the laws and, um, found a side door into. The college admissions process and really, um, cheated their own kids and cheated themselves, and just behaved incredibly badly by, um, you know, falsifying test scores, falsifying student resumes, falsifying application information, et cetera. And I called my colleague Jen Curtis, who is now co-author of the Parent Compass with me, and the two of us just couldn't believe what we were seeing. We felt just got punched basically. We had both been working in private college counseling, with students for many, many years. So we've always worked with teens and we felt like some of what we were seeing in our offices were the results of parents that weren't resorting to bribery and fraud, but were somehow, um, causing some other damage in their efforts to support their kids that, you know, were kind of coming from a place of love, but they were a little bit too involved and too overbearing in the process. And we said, you know what? If we tried to remedy. You know, not the college admission scandal, but just the parents behaving badly piece. And so we wrote originally what we wanted to be an etiquette book, which was a book to teach parents to kind of behave better. And then it evolved into this real, what we're calling kind of the parent compass movement. This idea that we as parents need to be better at checking ourselves and making sure that the messages and the ways that we're parenting our. Are setting them up for a really positive, you know, experience in their lives. And because we care so much about them and we love them so fiercely, we sometimes smother and tiger and helicopter and, become that parent that we really don't wanna be. And in doing so, we are creating kids that are cannot self-advocate, that are fragile, that can't make their own appointments, that can't speak for themselves, that are really feeling like they're being paraded around as their parents' trophy. And I think that's not really what we want, but somehow this behavior is, you know, petering down and, affecting our kids. So we wanna kind of help this generation of tweens and teens by teaching parents to do things a little bit better and a little differently.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:05:20

One of the things you mentioned, Advocacy and, and children's needing to be advocates for themselves. Can you talk a little more about that and, you know, how do we go about teaching that?

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:05:31

Absolutely. So it's such a good question, Kat. You know, self-advocacy, I know you have girls in middle school. Self-advocacy can start even younger. Self-advocacy can begin when we let our kids struggle as they tie their shoes. And, um, when we go to a restaurant, um, having them order for themselves, or ask for their own refill of a glass of water. Or when you take them to the doctor, letting them say their age and their birthday and what's wrong. But, um, when you go into tweens and teens, the self-advocacy piece really becomes more how kids can communicate with other adults that are not you other adults in their lives. The teachers, the coaches, um, Whoever it is in their life that's involved in some way, it has to start to become the child's voice in communicating. So when your kid comes home from practice and says, oh, it was awful and this and that, and this wasn't fair, instead of picking up the phone and calling the coach, you can say, wow, you know, it sounds like you're really frustrated. You know, how do you think that could look different or what, what might we be able to do or what might you be able to do to, to change that? And sometimes they just wanna vent and get things out and not have a solution or a solution presented because the last thing we wanna do is fix everything for them. Which is another hard thing cuz that goes with the self-advocacy piece. When we are looking to fix, we're doing that from a place of love, but we're taking away their opportunity to figure it out. So the self-advocacy piece I think comes in the most clearly when, for example, in middle school, they start to have certain issues with teachers perhaps, and maybe they felt like something wasn't fair. Or maybe their seat is in the back of the room and they wanna move up closer cause they're having trouble seeing the board. It's not up to you to send the email as the parent, it's up to you maybe to role play with your kid or say, how can you communicate that with your teacher? Um, do you wanna send them an email or be better to ask in person and then you can practice that together or you can help them in a light way, draft an email, but it should come from them. And when you start to plant those seeds of self-advocacy where they feel empowered to be the one to talk to their teachers and to talk to the adults in their lives, then by the time they get to high school, you should really be really out of the picture. In that communication. In middle school, you're still going to parent-teacher conferences and you're still a little more involved. And obviously if there's impropriety or something very extreme, you have to be involved. But we're talking about day-to-day situations. Your kid gets a bad grade, your kid, you know, gets in an argument with a friend at school, whatever the things are that they can go to the school counselor, they can go to the teacher. Um, that should be the first line of defense and you can help equip them to do that by allowing them to do that. And so I think parents need to kind of learn to zip their lips a little more and restrain themselves so that their kids can be the ones who speak. And that's self-advocacy. It's one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids because it equips them to know what they wanna go after and to feel like if they go after it and they communicate it and they don't get it, at least they asked. Right. They didn't wonder.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:08:39

Yeah. You know, thank you for those examples of maybe you help them draft the email, but the email should come from them, or you have this role play discussion, but they're the ones having the discussion. Because I think that sometimes feels like a murky gray area for me, where I know I want my kid to do something, but I might have to hold their hand in this process, and it's okay to do that.

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:09:04

What I would also add is, I'm a big fan of old school index cards. I think that you can sit down with your kids and when they go talk to their teachers, sometimes they get nervous or they feel like this is a, you know, this is a powerful person that I'm going to ask something of. Well, you can put down a couple bullet points on the index cards that they write themselves and they can bring that into their meeting and say, I didn't wanna forget, so I wrote some things down. And make sure before you leave, you've said the things on your index card so you can feel heard, and such a simple tool.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:09:35

Yeah. And I do the same thing when I need to remember something. I always write it down and I'm staring at my notebook before I'm talking in a meeting on Zoom. So why not give them that same tool as a way to help make sure they feel heard, because ultimately that's what we want and what they will feel most proud of.

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:09:52

Definitely. And you know it when you mentioned I do that too. That's the other piece is the modeling. So I think we all know, you know, modeling good technology habits, modeling good listening skills, my co-author, has a background in social work and so she has taught me a lot about good question asking and good listening, and we have a whole chapter dedicated to that and the parent compass that will really help parents ask open-ended questions. If they're kids when they get home from school, it's usually how is your day? And you get this almost nothing for an answer. You get an eye roll or a one sentence if you're lucky, or a grunt, a grunt, a good. So we, um, we consulted, um, question experts And we distilled them down to about 40 or 50 good, you know, different kinds of questions to ask our kids so that we can learn more about them and, to have them kind of take the lead. So anyway,

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:10:42

that now. So we've touched on kind of ways and at what age we can lean into giving up control of the wheel and letting our kids step into place. And I, I find myself sometimes second guessing, am I doing too much? Am I doing too little? Should I be more involved? how do you know if you're being a helicopter parent or being a tiger mom? do you have any thoughts on that?

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:11:08

You know, so we explore this, you know, in the first chapter of our book. And something that you mentioned was, questioning yourself and wondering, is it too much, is it too little? And we all bring to our parenting lenses, our own personal histories. So when we look back at the way we were raised, and what your parents' involvement or not involvement was, or their style or the way that they viewed education or what your own education background was and what you wish for for your kids, et cetera. we finished writing the parent Compass and we realized in really important chapter was missing, which we call basically, I think you, you have to look backward in order to look forward, or something like that, where we asked the readers to do this questionnaire, uh, Whoever is parenting the kids should try to do this questionnaire. And it really goes through you doing a self-examination of your lens of what you're bringing and the baggage you bring as the parent. And then trying to apply those perspectives to the best ways that you can parent your teen. And as we know, they're each different. So there is one page of our book dedicated to teens, and this page is a questionnaire for them. And I encourage parents, and I've had great success in the feedback we've heard to tell their teen, uh, find the right moment usually involves food. And, uh, no technology distracting you. But to find the right moment and tell your kid, I wanna be a better mom or dad to you, I know I'm not perfect. And in order to do that, I need a favor from you. I just need five minutes of your time to go through this questionnaire. You can, you can answer it out loud to me. You can jot down the notes on your phone, but if you answer these questions and I've answered my own questions, it's going to give us a springboard to move forward and for me to be a better parent to you. And when your kids hear you admitting, you're not perfect. You're trying to do better. You want to improve so that you can have a a better relationship and a more positive interaction with them. It really kind of equalizes things a bit more and puts you more shoulder to shoulder with your kids. And so, I know I've gone a little bit off the rambling, but how do you know when you're that parent? I mean, I. You, you feel it from the other parents around you almost, you know, the way that you're kind of perceived or looked at. You also feel it from your teens saying like, mom, like enough, settle down, or, this is embarrassing, or that whole thing. And I think the way you have to know is just kind of by the self-restraint. That you may need to show, but just be a positive for your kid in their school community or neutral. Just don't be the negative. So, you know, it's also okay to apologize because we all make mistakes. So if we've gone too far, we can apologize to our kids. We can apologize to a teacher, God forbid, if we have to, or an administrator. Um, and we never wanna like jump over the teacher, right? So there's this typical thing like, I'm so mad, I'm gonna go talk to the administrator or tell the principal or whatever. You know, we have to sort of let our kids first navigate things through their teacher and through their department and whatever the issue might be, and. You know, through the school counselor and then find out if there is a way that you need to be involved as a parent. And in that case then you talk to the teacher and then maybe it's going to the administrator next. But we live and learn as we go through this, and none of us are perfect at this. And it is constantly a, you know, a toilet flush of trying to start over. Right.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:14:22

Right. And with every kid it can feel different, you know, with some kids that have a harder time advocating for themselves, maybe it's maybe that, of shift of control into their space feels a little later or a little more tenuous, whereas there might be, I, I, you know, and then one of my kids is is very much like, she's already, written emails to her teachers concerned about this or, of sharing her thoughts on, when things don't feel right or areas for improvement. Then I have another daughter that is very sensitive and empathetic, so is probably more inclined to give someone the benefit of the doubt uh, you know, might need a little nudge to say, no, you can feel comfortable asking for this. It's okay to You know, want more or want a change

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:15:04

And you know, I found, um, in having more than one kid that they learn from each other too. You know, and, and ironically like the peer support from siblings or from, you know, the way they model after their peers is way more powerful in some ways than the parenting support. I mean, there's nothing that makes me feel more full as a parent than hearing my daughter call her college brother for help in math. And there is that sense of, not just the help, but the way that they can support each other, that doesn't involve the parent, you know, poking in

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:15:33

Right, right, right. Um, I wanna go back to something that I just love that you mentioned, which is this idea of, assessing ourselves as parents giving our kids that ability to, stand up for their thoughts and their opinions and knowing that they'll be heard in this really valid way. Not only are modeling your openness to this, which they then can take further on in their lives. If they're parenting, they're gonna see that as permission to do that themselves when they have their own kids. But also, um, you're also modeling that willingness to change. I, I love that.

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:16:05

Like getting like a parent feedback form, huh? A little bit like at the end of, at the end of the course you write your assessment you know, But yeah, it's complicated, right? I mean, parenting is so emotional. It's 24 7. It never, you know, ends even when they're out of your home. And, you know, what happened to our kind of world over the last. I don't know, 10 or 20 years has become this like competition between parents, which there's actually a term competitive parenting, um, if you can believe it. And this sense that like our kids are these sort of trophies and these direct reflections on who we are. And honestly, I tell parents a lot. Um, we had our turn to be teenagers and we did with it what we did with it, and now it's their turn. So the best thing I think we really can do is just support them in what it is that excites them, what it is that interests them. And um, At some point your kids are gonna express to you like, I don't really wanna do this anymore, or, can I try something else? And some kids just wanna sample everything. They just wanna try and try and try and may never settle on their one thing. And, um, we've become a world of, like perfectionism and starting one activity early in putting in your 10,000 hours and, you know, never, you know, leaving that activity. And we, tell a story in our book. A boy that, um, I met while on a family tour bus, a couple of years ago with my kids. And he was an only child traveling alone with his parents and about the age of my teenage boys, um, high school age. And we started talking and I said, you know, what, kinds of activities do you like to do after school? And he said, well, I, I've, I'm always done diving, but I really want to quit. And the parents kind of turned red and they're like, well, he doesn't really mean that He only has one more year before college. And, and, um, he kind of turned red and he is like, well, no, mom and dad, I've always wanted to quit. You just won't let me quit. And it became this like, sort of argument that we were observing as this other family. So I said to him, oh, what kinds of other things. Would you do instead or would you wanna do? And he said, well, I mean, I'd like to go to the prom for one thing. I'd like to write an article for my school newspaper. I'd like to do some photography. And suddenly it became this really awkward conversation, you know, the parents were like, well, you know, you've gotta do this for college. And he's like, yeah, I don't even wanna dive in college anymore. and so anyway, it became this. Crazy sort of catalyst for a very deep conversation between me and my kids. Cuz when we left that bus ride, I said to them, I said, are any of you guys doing things that you really don't wanna be doing anymore, because life is too short and you do not have to do anything for us or to please us? You know? And it was just so interesting the way they observed it, that there were these parents kind of quote, forcing their kid to see through this activity. And I just think it's so hard for us to let go because we invest in the sidelines and in the driving and in the equipment and in the coaching and all those things that we'd make it more about us and less about them. And that's kind of the shift where. You know, by the time they get to college um, we have to sort of have given them these tools that they can take forward and, and let them do the things that they enjoy. And our job is really, I think, to support that as best we can or are able to do.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:19:15

yeah. And. I love it. No, no Well, something that came up for you, me as you were talking too, is if parents have a tendency to want to get really involved, they may be inadvertently squelching their intuition You know, so their, their kid might lose sight of what's important to them. What really are their values? Whether they like something because other people like, like them more when they do it, or do they really intrinsically like it? I, I feel like I had to work through that on a couple activities where I thought, I've been doing this for how long, or I'm pursuing this, do I really want this anymore? Or did I really even want it in the first place? And you kind of wonder, why did I want it? Where did those messages come from?

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:19:59

To what end? To what end. Right. You know? Yeah.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:20:03

it sounds like you're really encouraging parents to steer clear of behavior that might derail your kids from being able to identify for themselves what's important, what's true, what's authentic. Um, because at the end of the day, that's, that's going to be the thing that makes them the happiest.

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:20:19

Yeah, you just, you just put all the words together, which is a quote right from our book, which says, appreciate the child you have in front of you, not the one you are trying to inauthentically create.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:20:31

Ugh,

Cynthia Muchnick: 00:20:31

So appreciate that kid in whatever their things are as as different as they may be from everything you've ever envisioned for them or that you know anything about. Right. And then, Support them through that and let them know that, you know, you support that. And if they change their mind, you'll support that too and that you're there for them because, um, a Wise podcast interviewer, a psychologist named Dr. Dan Peters once told us that once your kids leave your home, the only thing you have left behind is the relationship. that you have with them. And if you don't kind of work at that foundation in the years that they're with you, and the way that you do that is you, you know, get shoulder to shoulder and you sup show them that you care and you're willing to change and you're trying your best and you know, you support their interests and you are there for the setbacks and failures to, you know, Let them cry through it or hug 'em through it or whatever it might be, but not to fix it and manipulate it and manage it. because again, once your kids leave your home, the only thing you have left behind is the relationship. that you have with them.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:21:49

Whew. That last quote really struck me. I'm so grateful for the reminder that the goal, when we're raising kids. Isn't to check off all of. These boxes of. What society or cultural expectations or what have you kind of are telling us we should prioritize and want it. Really is to show up for our kids authentically and with vulnerability, to raise a reasonably healthy and happy human and love them as hard as we can just as they are. So here are today's key takeaways from my conversation with Cindy. Number one, we as parents need to be better at checking ourselves and making sure that the messages and the ways that we're parenting our kids. Are setting them up for a positive life experience. Number two. If we tiger and helicopter and get over involved in our kids' lives. We're doing a disservice to our kids. It may come from a place of love. But we're taking away opportunities for them to grow. And we're making it harder for them to trust their intuition. And know what they truly want. Because we override their desires and opinions with ours. Number three. Self-advocacy is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. Because it gives them a tool to go after what they want. You can help by say looking over their email or role-playing a conversation or suggesting that they use index cards. So they can make sure they say everything they want, but around middle school, they should be the ones having the talk or hitting send. And by high school, we want them to be able to advocate for themselves in day to day situations. At school. Number four, ask your kids for feedback on your parenting. You can say. I want to be a better mom to you. I know I'm not perfect. And I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can use a questionnaire in the parent compass. If you'd like some structure and guidance, it can be a dynamic and powerful experience because you're showing your kids. That you're open to growth and that their opinions matter. Number five, you have to look backward to look forward. Do a self. Examination of what insights and baggage you're bringing to the parenting table. And. Be ready to shift and change So you aren't passing along Anything that you don't want to Number six. Appreciate the child you have in front of you, not the one you are trying to inauthentically create. Our job is to support our kids and their interests as best we can, no matter how much that might differ from what we'd envisioned. to learn more about Cindy and her work and to learn more about the book, the parent compass. Visit parent compass book.com. Facebook@facebook.com slash. The parent compass, or you can follow her on Instagram at. Parent compass. I am so grateful for you listening today. Um, I know you. You have a choice on what you listen to so I'm eternally grateful if you haven't done so already with. The love of Spotify or apple review. A follow on Instagram at Novi. He raised them and do feel free to check out my website. At Nobi raised them.com if you'd like to reach out with topics. Suggestions comments, et cetera. That's an easy avenue To do so. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week And here's to strong women may we know them may we be them and may we raise them