Hey, Welcome to the, What Could Go Right? podcast. I am Erik Orton. I'm Emily Orton.
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And here we talk about personal growth, family connection, and raising adult kids. We do not
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and so if this is helpful to you and you want to help another parent, somebody else that you care
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about that's raising adult kids, we'd love for them to... we'd love to connect with them here and
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be a part of this conversation that we're having. So, okay. So, today we're going to talk about,
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yeah, the kids on the front side of launching. Like as they're preparing to cross that threshold.
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And there's so many different feelings around it. They're excited. They're anxious. How do we
0:55 Not Coddling
handle that? And I just want to start by telling that today I went and picked up our daughter Lily
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(who's 15) from her girl's camp. She was gone for a few days. And Lily has Down syndrome. I'll just
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say that right now. So she operates at a little bit younger but in very many ways he's just like
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any other 15-year-old girl. And she had a great time at camp. And I got this message from one of
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her leaders that said, 'I really love how you guys don't coddle her. And let her just run safely with
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us. It was such a benefit to all of us to have her here!!!!' Like four exclamation points. And it is
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no matter what the situation is with your child, it can be very tempting to coddle. And that is,
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you know, it makes you feel better but it can make them feel not trusted. And I
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have really appreciated every time someone gives me a reminder that
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she can do it. She can handle it. If she can't handle it there will be other support that will
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come in but don't decide in advance that it's not something she can handle. Let her
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give it a try. And so it was a great week for her. It was a great week for us. And it was a
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great week for everybody because we just let her go. Like, you know, what if there's an
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issue? They'll call us. I don't need to go with her. And I think the only call we got was
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she called to say, checking on us. To make sure that we were okay. Yeah. She's like, How you guys
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doing? How's everybody doing at home? All right. Well, I gotta go. We're making dinner, now.'
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I didn't even send her phone with her so she just had to connect with who was there. Hey, and in
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case you're listening to this on the podcast I just want you to know we're outside. So if you
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hear trees swishing in the breeze and wind chimes, we wish you were here. We wish you were here. It's
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a beautiful summer day. And we don't have some sound effects artist in the background and making
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it extra extra dreamy for us. So, okay. So, yeah. We got Lily back. It was a great week for her.
3:03 How did you feel when you first moved out?
It made us think of a conversation that I had with Eli a few months ago. He is on the cusp
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of getting his driver's license. He's 17 and a half. And because we raised him in New York City
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where most kids don't learn how to drive, or you can't legally get your license, until you're 18
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he's just now getting there. And he's doing great. But a few months ago we were driving and he and I
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were going out to the rock gym, rock climbing gym one night and I let him drive so he can get his
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hours in. And he says to me at one point he says, 'Dad how did you feel when you first moved out of
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the house?' And he's never asked me a question like that before. And I said, 'Well that's a
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great question.' I said, 'I remember because I went away to college and I had been on trips and
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stuff before then but I'd never lived away from home before my freshman year of college. And I
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went across the country. And this was in the 90s early 1990s so there wasn't email. There wasn't
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texting or even cell phones.' There were like SAT phones – satellite phones. Yeah for CEOs.
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If I were a CEO I would have had one but I was a college freshman. So I said, 'I was, honestly, I
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was a little bit scared. And I was a little lonely because the campus was very overwhelming there was
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you know like 20 times more people in this college campus than were in my high school. And I didn't
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really know anybody. My sister went to the same school but she lived on the other side of town
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and I didn't have a way to reach her for all the reasons that I just explained.' Neither of you had
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cars. 'And neither of us had cars. Anyway and so I would talk to my family once a week.' And I'm
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explaining all this to Eli and I can sort of see him in the in the dark of night driving down the
4:55 Questions we ask our teens/young adults to prep for adulting
road I can see his eyes welling up a little bit. And I said, "How are you feeling about moving
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on?' He said, 'Well, I'm feeling a little scared, too.' And I said, 'Well, you know, what are you
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scared about?' And he started to tell me all the things that he didn't know how to do. He didn't
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know how to pay bills. He didn't know how to file for taxes. He didn't know how to (this one killed
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me) he says he didn't know how to drain or snake a a sink drain. He didn't know how to snake a sink
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drain or a toilet, for that matter. And little things like that. Like just around the house
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chores. Like he knows how to cook. And he knows how to do his own laundry. But here these were
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some areas where he was like, Am I ready to be a grown-up? And I think he was saying like, 'Hey, I
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want to be ready for life and I don't feel ready.' And so I was like, Those are all good things to
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know how to do and I think wanting to learning how to do them is going to be a real benefit to you.
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And we talked some more as we were driving. And I said, 'What if we make a list of all the things
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that you want to learn how to do and then we'll just start chipping away at it?' And I said,
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'Chances are you'll move out of the house before you know all the things because, guess what? I'm
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still learning a lot every day, every week, every year. And there's still more that I don't know how
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to do.' And that conversation was really important I think because it was him taking ownership and
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control of his life in a way that I had never seen. And if you've ever seen Kung Fu Panda
6:29 The Noodle Dream i.e. seeking independence
you'll know why we call this moment (which has come for each of our kids so far) we call this
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The Noodle Dream. This is The Noodle Dream because in in Kung Fu Panda. Yeah, tell the story. The
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Kung Fu Panda is being raised by this bird and they run this noodle shop together. And then
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the bird, who's his adopted father who runs the noodle shop, had a dream that
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one day he would run a noodle shop. And the panda just works there for a while until...
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he's hoping that one day this Panda will also have a dream of running a noodle shop and he'll
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want to to carry on the tradition. And that isn't really what his dream is but when the kids come
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up with this thing where they like realize, 'Oh I want to drive the bus in my own life.
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And I want to make these decisions. And I want to learn these skills so that I can take care
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of myself and then help others' and that would fall under the category of The Noodle Dream.
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Alright. Okay. So, Eli had The Noodle Dream, as we say, and he wanted to take control of
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his life. And so I think we can really facilitate these kinds of conversations by first of all being
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open to them and not being scared by them. Because as parents a lot of times we'll say things like,
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'You'll be fine.' We can gloss it over like, you'll be fine. Or Hey. Or we can foist it on
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them – 'You don't know how to do this. You don't have. You don't know how to change a tire. You
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don't know how to, you know, make your bed. You don't know how to...' And we can really,
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you know, we can throw a lot at them. And we can instill fear in them. Or we can shame them into
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feeling like, 'You're not ready for life.' And unfortunately that most of the time doesn't
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have the effect of helping them feel a desire or motivated to get ready for life. They're like,
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'Well life's going to be too scary.' We have done with our kids. We have
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actually... Let me back up. I have been wanting –in my position, in my relationship as the mother–
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to help prepare our kids for life. And so I have downloaded or purchased various other people's
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lists of what a humans should know to be ready for adulthood. And I found that those actually weren't
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useful at all. And what was the most useful was saying to my kids, 'What are you excited about
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being an adult? What are you scared about being an adult?' And I have initiated those conversations
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you know with the first three kids. And then they'll say, I don't. You know, I'm excited
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about this .And that. Oh, yeah. That's going to be so great. It'll be awesome. So many awesome
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things about being an adult.' And then, 'But I don't know how to do this. I'm worried here.
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I feel like this is a weak area.' And great. You know what? Most of the time I can be like,
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'Oh, well, you have a smartphone so you won't need to worry about that. Or like let's figure it out.
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Or there's YouTube.' Or whatever the answers might be. It will be specific to their questions. And it
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opens that conversation. And they can continue it or we can continue it over time. In this case,
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it was really beautiful that in that quiet just like driving-down-the-road-together moment,
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Eli brought it up. And you were able to go through some of his questions. And he made a list of
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these-are-the-things-I-want-to-learn-how-to-do. And he's super motivated to figure them out
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because those are the areas that he's most concerned about. We can always chime in with a,
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'You may want to consider' or, 'You may not, you may not want to consider that.' You know,
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well, I'll throw out there one more conversation. I did. Did you get a chance to say what you're going
10:11 What are you WONDERING about?
to say? Yeah, thanks. Okay. So today we're here with our daughter Alison, who is
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getting married in a month, and we're sitting (Emily was off going to get Lily). We'd come
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home from camp and I'm talking to our daughter Alison. And I just said to her, in the course of
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shooting the breeze, I said, 'Hey, so what are you wondering about right now?'
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And I didn't have anything in particular in mind and she was actually just getting ready to go on
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a hike with some friends. And she said, "You, like I have like 10 minutes and you're asking
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me what am I wondering about?' So I said we can pick this up later but here's... And her answers
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are not material. What I think is important is I used to ask, What are you worrying about? And
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I think that that's still a reasonable question but I realized that by saying because, you know,
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or What are you excited about? If you hang out with Emily and me long enough you're going to
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hear the phrase "turning worry into wonder." And so the last thing I want to do is to put more
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worry or fear into my kid's lives but I'm happy to ask them, What are you wondering about? And
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so former me probably would have said, What are you worried about? Because I'm like, oh,
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she's probably got some stress. She's got some things that she's scared of because she's about
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to go into this new chapter of her life. Turns out she's really excited and happy and she's actually
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not really worried about anything. But asking her, What are you wondering about? You know,
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she raised a couple of topics that are going to be fun to keep discussing. And so I think if we
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can be attentive to how we say things to our kids and how we say things to ourselves,
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for that matter. And I've started to say to myself, What am I wondering about? rather than,
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What am I worrying about? I end up covering the same topics usually but in a much more positive
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way and that goes for me talking to myself and also with our kids. So those are just a few, you
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know, there's a few conversations that we've had recently with our kids that have helped as they
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bridge –and you know they're each in different stages– but bridging this gap from being teenagers
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at home with us to out living in the world on their own. So I would say my takeaways are:
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Be careful not to coddle. Don't coddle. Trusting our kids and then opening these
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conversations with them. And saying like, What are you looking forward to? And maybe. instead
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of my question, What are you scared about? What are you wondering about? That actually puts them
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in a position of strength and dignity. Where you aren't like, 'I'm sure you're scared,' and they
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have to admit they're scared. You can just like, 'What do you have questions about? What do you
12:38 Relaxed, Spacious, Gracious
want to know more about?' So that's better. Then just staying open keeping it relaxed,
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keeping it positive, and maybe treating yourself to that same gracious spacious way of,
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you know, considering what's on your mind and what's next for you. So thanks for joining us.
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Yeah, hopefully as you ask these questions you will get lots of positive answers to, What could
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