A healthy mindset for a successful private high school search
If you’re looking forward to a high school search, you may have heard from friends about the drama and stress it entails. Here are some recommendations to alleviate stress for you and your child and get yourself in the right headspace for a healthy approach to a school search. I’ve seen many families through the process and been through it as a parent (and have made plenty of missteps myself).
If you’re looking for a guide for logistics ahead, here’s the article for you.
Reframe the stress and logistics as an opportunity. It’s easy to get lost in the details, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a lot, but focus on the opportunity. You get to do what few families have the chance to do: choose a school for your child that will fit their learning style and interests, and have the opportunity to find a school that they will love. That in itself is an enormous privilege.
Relish in time spent with your child and think deeply about who they are. As I probably don’t need to tell you, the middle school years, especially the 8th grade, can be when your child pulls away from you as they develop an identity separate from you. The process of looking for a school forces you together and requires that you have meaningful conversations about their preferences and what they want for their high school years. That can be a beautiful thing. Teenagers are not always the easiest “partners,” and some are harder than others, but you will get time together.
You will learn a lot about your child. You will learn about how they tackle a project, their organizational skills, and how they process a new experience. You won’t love everything you learn, but I promise you will see something new in your child.
Writing application essays can be a celebration of your child. Yes, you will have to write parent essays as part of your child’s application, and no, they’re not that bad. Writing parent essays–about your child’s strengths and weaknesses, reflecting on time spent together in the past, and articulating your hopes for their future–is an activity you probably wouldn’t undertake if an application didn’t require it. Writing parent essays allows you to reflect upon your child’s strengths and honestly about their growth areas, which is a gift in itself. (I’ll write more about approaching parent essays this fall.)
You need to be the adult. Your child is a teenager going through a profound new experience, which is exciting but entails more pressure and expectations than he or she has ever experienced. Don’t add to that the extra weight of your hopes and dreams. Instead, be the voice of reason and perspective. Help them see the bigger picture.
Find healthy outlets for your emotions. Rather than unloading your fears onto your child, manage your emotions and stress and find healthy outlets for them in exercise, meditation, a partner, or friends outside the process. Child psychologist Lisa Damour wisely says that you should never be more excited or disappointed by something happening in your child’s life than they are. They are good words to live by.
Focus on your child’s needs as a learner in an academic space. It’s easy to get caught up in the school names you hear friends talking about. Try to forget about the schools everyone is buzzing about and focus on schools where your child’s needs will best be met and where he or she will thrive. The hot schools tend to be the most academically demanding, which is not where every student will thrive. Your child will likely hear a lot about a few schools that may not necessarily offer the best fit for them. A good rule of thumb is to find a school where your child could potentially self-select into the top third of his or her class.
Avoid focusing on a single school as the “only” school for your child; there are multiple schools where your child can be challenged, stretched, love their high school, and become the best version of themselves. Help your child see the possibilities in multiple schools. It’s easy to fall in love with the romance of a specific vision for your child’s high school experience. Resist that and embrace multiple possibilities.
Do not allow yourself to start equating an acceptance at a particular school with an affirmation of your parenting success. No one means to do this, but it’s easy to see an acceptance at a specific school as a “reward for” or “homage to” your hard work as a parent. The best parenting choices I have seen in school searches are made by parents who see their child for who they are and what they need in a school and keep their own egos out of it.
When you start talking about where “we’re” applying, you’re over-identifying with your child’s search. We all do this, but stop and take note of yourself when you find yourself uttering those words. This is your child’s search. You already went to high school; let this be their search and their school. When we over-identify, we overinvest and put unintended stress on our children.
Don’t let the high school search dominate your relationship. Don’t let it be the first thing you greet them with when you see your child at the end of the day. Don’t let it dominate dinner conversations. You may even want to reserve a time of the day or week for high school conversations.
High school is not the destination. When we obsess about our child just getting into a “particular” school, we can forget that your child’s high school experience is just another step in their long journey that may include college, grad school, career (potentially multiple, in fields that don’t yet exist), a family, and more... Finding the right high school is about finding a school where your child can be seen and appreciated for who they are, excel, and feel good about themselves. There will be many more steps ahead on this journey in the future.
A high school search is a significant rite of passage for the families undertaking it. Yes, it will place demands on you and your family, but it can also be an exciting opportunity to get to know your child better and find a high school that will push them, help them grow, and shape them into the adult they will become. Approach it with a balanced perspective, try to appreciate the opportunities, and let go of a particular destination, and everyone will be happier.
