Preparing to Send Your Kid to College

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And one thing we've seen is this dynamic of that first kid going off.

Or any kid going off.

It tends to affect the husband and wife differently.

Not just like in a gender way. Like, it's not always mom that's going to have it harder or whatever. It's just based on your unique personalities, the unique dynamic, all that.

But just know you and your spouse.

Are probably going to have different feelings at different times.

Yeah.

And just support each other through that. Just be prepared for that. You know, we're gonna. We're gonna. There are probably gonna be times when, like, one of us is just super excited that he's off and he's.

And the other one might be crying in that same moment. And we're gonna just. We're preparing now.

Yeah.

For those different dynamics to support each other through it. Because neither of those feelings are wrong.

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Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are in our summer Quickies series. I hope you're having a great summer. Or hey, if you're listening to this years from now, and it's the middle of December. We hope you're having a great Christmas season. Whenever you're listening, we hope that things are going well, but we're so glad you're here.

And we, in this quicker episode, are.

Going to dive right into a topic that is very close to us right.

Now, and that's preparing to send a kid to college.

And our oldest, Cooper, is about to.

Be a senior in high school, so.

He'S looking at schools.

He's making that college decision, and this.

Time next year, he'll be packing up.

And headed off, which is hard to believe.

And so we're just kind of trying to prepare him, prepare ourselves for that first step towards an empty nest. And that just that all the emotions that go with that first child or any child headed off to that big step of college. And so we're looking to those who.

Are ahead of us, mentors that can guide us through what that's like.

And we're just trying to figure stuff out as we go. So this episode, it's kind of like.

Just processing it ourselves.

Yes, we're in it, but also trying to share some of what we're learning. So maybe it can help you, too.

Absolutely. So I know for me, this. In this junior year that we just had with Cooper, I really started to hit me. And I think it was him getting his license. Like, I don't know why, but him getting that driver's license just really. I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, we. We're moving right along here, and. And it made me think about those things that I want to make sure. And I know we. Dave and I have talked about this extensively. What we really want him to know before he leaves the house. And something we've done kind of throughout the years that I want to really focus on this year, specifically his senior year is we've. We've thought about books. You know, obviously the Bible being the number one book, but books that we feel like can really shape a life. And we've had Cooper read those, and there's been some really good ones over the year. Do you remember specifically in middle school, we kind of started him reading some of your faves. Do you want to list. List some of those, sweetie?

Gosh. In middle school, I'm trying to remember.

He was like, upper middle school in middle school, like, how to Win Friends and influence people.

Yeah, the Dale Carnegie classic.

You know, a lot of, you know, Christian books, of course, you want to want them to be, you know, reading. Reading out of the Bible, especially the.

Book of Proverbs, which is all about.

You know, developing, you know, young hearts and minds to have a foundation of wisdom.

You had him read your book, which you're not going to give yourself, like Jesus, think like Jesus.

And I've got a young adults teenager.

Slash young adults version of that. You can get that at the Exo Marriage store or on Amazon. It's a. A Proverbs devotional.

So good.

With a lot of life lessons, which.

The Proverbs themselves have, and then, you.

Know, leadership books, biographies, you know, and they're not super excited to read this.

Stuff, but we try to equip them with those kind of resources.

We incentivize it. Let me just be honest.

Yeah. Sometimes you gotta bribe your kids to.

Do certain things, and that helps, too. So, yeah, we're trying to make those sorts of decisions. I had a friend challenge me about time. He said that when he was a senior in high school, his dad said, I'm going to take you to breakfast once a week.

All this year, your senior year, every Thursday, I think it was, we're going to go to breakfast before school.

And he said, and that time was such a treasure with his dad. And then his dad continued that tradition.

On with his siblings.

And, you know, I don't know that.

That exact rhythm is going to work for us, but it's.

It's challenged me to be more intentional about the time that we have while he's still at home.

Yes.

This.

This last school year of. What does that look like?

Of me making the most of the moments and not just letting it slip away, but saying, no, we're going to carve out time.

We're going to schedule time together. We're going to get those meals on the calendar.

We're going to get maybe some big trip on the calendar that we can celebrate, you know, as a family when.

You graduate, something really fun and memorable.

And just making those milestone moments last, creating those. Those memories that are going to be enduring.

Absolutely. You know, and just in. Just practically speaking for college, you know, we've been. We've been doing a lot of college visits, you know, in the junior year, and we'll probably continue on a little bit with that. He thinks he knows where he wants to go. And so, you know, in your junior year, usually prepare for the SAT or act, and Cooper's done that. And. And then we've talked financially. You know, there's a big financial component to this as well, and Cooper's done really well in school, and Georgia offers a lot of incentives if you go to Georgia schools, which is a wonderful thing as long as you have good grades and a good SAT and ACT score. And so. But even with that, we tried to really talk to Cooper about that, you know, because this is a big investment in him and we want to do that, you know, for the parts that, that he can't cover, you know, with merit based scholarships and such and working himself. And so we've had those kind of conversations as well.

Yeah. The last episode we did was about.

Trying to get out of debt. And I think part of what gets. We didn't even really talk about the school loan aspect of debt specifically, but.

That'S the very form of debt that.

Can be most stressful.

Oh yeah.

When you went to school years and years ago and you're still paying on that. And so we're really trying to prevent that dynamic with the kids and we're helping them, trying to make thrifty choices. I want them to go where they.

Feel led to go, but also letting.

Them look at the dollars and cents of it and saying we're going to.

Do all we can.

We've been trying to save and help.

Too, but funds and things like that.

You don't want to leave college just.

With this massive debt that you're going.

To be digging out of.

And I know so many people are.

In that boat and I certainly am not trying to make you feel guilty if that's your situation. But I think we could all agree.

That anything we can do to prevent.

That dynamic is going to help give their life and future marriage a head start of not having that stress hanging over their head. And so we're trying, we don't have the money to just write a check to some big private school. But we believe, you know, we're going to do our part and he's going to. Coop's going to do his part and, and, and God's going to do the rest. But, but we're doing our best to stay out of debt through it.

Absolutely. And I think too, making sure that your kids are involved, you know, in this, especially even the financial side of encouraging them to go out for scholarships. And there's a lot of really interesting scholarships out there that people don't even know about. And I know there's websites like if you Google scholarships, there's whole websites that kind of help, you know, what's out there based on. It could be merit based. It could actually be based on your own cultural background. It could be based on an activity that you're involved in the knowledge, special knowledge, you know about something. A lot of churches offer scholarships. If you've been involved in the youth group, there's all kinds of things that. That, you know, are out there. And I think just getting the kids involved, making sure you're not the only one filling out the FAFSA that you're not, you know, it's not all on the parents. I think the kids need to have skin in the game because there's so much to it. And so we've really tried to do that with Coop and we'll continue this whole year. But I think too, I think, you know, there's. There's so little kind of culturally, of with. With kids, you know, both boys and girls, of officially launching them. And I think we live in a culture too, where it's almost like adulting is this word people use where they feel like it's negative. And I just remember growing up in the 90s, I graduated in 99. I couldn't wait to be an adult. Like, I could not wait to go to college. I couldn't wait to be kind of out on my own in the world. Like, it was exciting to me. And for some reason, I feel like with this generation, and I'm not really sure what's caused it, but there's been a little bit, a little bit of this. People are scared, people are unsure. They. They don't necessarily see it as a great rite of passage. And so one thing we're really trying to do is fight against that. That narrative and really just make it exciting. It's like, this is exciting. And you're, you know, not only is it, but you can do this. Like, you can go and be out there on your own. And like, one thing in our house that we've really challenged our kids to do is I really, you know, Cooper, obviously school is important. He needs to do his best to get. To get awesome grades, and he does a great job at that. But we also want to make sure that, you know, character wise, like, they're growing in their faith, they're growing in their character. And so we make sure youth groups are priority. And he also goes to youth camp and getting involved. And we're hoping to do more of this this year, but some different volunteer opportunities. Like, we have a great. It's called a dream center in our community where it offers hot meals to people who need food, and it has a clothing closet and it has different programs to help clean up neighborhoods or to play with kids in the summer and things like that. And we're like, we've had our kids involved in that some, but I'd like to get them involved more. But we also, you know, we really just are trying to have different things that kind of increase the responsibility. And so we told our kids, we're like, when you turn 16, you have to get a job. You get to pick where that job is, you know, and you have to go and apply. You have to go and call them, see how much they make, whatever it is, do the interviews. And. And that's. That's been really cool to see Cooper do that. He's had two different jobs. And actually, at a recent college visit, they talked about how colleges are seeing that as even more important, too. You know, not. I mean, maybe not more important, but just as important as being involved in a club at school. I mean, it's part of your life, and you're showing that you can balance all your responsibilities.

Yes. And finding that balance where he's. He still has time to be a kid because he's in bands and all these other things too.

Yes.

But he's at his best. I think a lot of us are.

At our best when. When we have a productive flow to our day.

Like, if he's got a bunch of.

Idle time like any of us, I think it's. You know, we're just not at our best, usually with too much idle time.

Right.

But when he's.

When he has got that rhythm of.

Okay, I've got a plan, because I've got to work on this night, so I'm going to have to get this project done on this other night. And.

And there's still some time, too, to.

Just chill and play video games and all that. And there's that kind of flow.

It just tends to be at his best.

So I think the job has been.

It's been so good for him.

Been really, really good for him.

Yeah.

And it was good for me when I was 16.

I mean, and I worked. I mean, I'm gonna age myself. I worked back when minimum wage was $4.25 an hour.

It was 4.75 when I started working. So they must have really upped it during that time because we're not that far apart in age.

We're only 23 years apart.

So.

No, we're not.

Two and a half. Two and a half.

And so, yeah, so that was a while back. But those early jobs, I'm so thankful I had them.

Of course, I was joking with Ashley at the store the other night when I'm bagging groceries at the U Scan at Walmart is like when I was.

16 and I was bagging groceries, I.

Lived in a time when you went to the grocery. You won't believe this, but they would.

They would ring up your purchase and.

Then another separate person would put those.

Purchases in a sack for you and.

Put all of that in your cart.

And they would even offer to take.

It out to your car. I'm not making this up.

I'm not making it up.

Hey, Publix in the south still does.

Publix still does this and we have.

One near our house and God bless Publix.

But now you go to the store.

And it's like you go to Walmart.

We go to Walmart.

It's like, you know, the, you know, and, and I've got, they're working hard.

They'Re doing their thing.

We still go to Walmart, but there's not one Walmart.

We left mine open where you don't do it all. There's not one line.

It's, you've got to ring.

Even Costco's going this way.

Yeah, I know, I know. It's the way things are going. And so I just remember the, the.

Irony is when I was a kid and I, I would say at 16, you know, one day I'm not going to be bagging groceries as a job anymore.

And now I wish like I could.

Go back and tell my younger self.

This isn't so bad because you know, now I'm in my 40s and I'm.

Bagging groceries and having to pay to do it.

At least you're getting paid 16 year.

Old Dave to bag those groceries.

But anyway, I digress. Coming back to the. Sending the kids to college. Before we wrap up, want to talk about just briefly kind of preparing your marriage for this since I mean we always bring it back to the marriage aspect. This is a big step and what we found just from looking ahead to mentor couples who are a little ahead of us.

And in all parts of your life.

It'S good to have some mentor couples who are a little further ahead than you are, just to learn from their experience. And one thing we've seen is this dynamic of that first kid going off or any kid going off. It tends to affect the husband and wife differently.

Not just like in a gender way, like it's not always mom that's going to have it harder or whatever. It's just based on your unique personalities, the unique dynamic, all that.

But just know you and your spouse.

Are probably going to have different feelings at different times.

Yeah.

And just support each other through that. Just be prepared for that. You know, we're gonna. We're gonna. They're probably gonna be times when, like, one of us is. Is just super excited that.

That he's off and he's off, and the other one might be crying in that same moment.

And.

And we're gonna just. We're preparing now.

Yeah.

For those different dynamics to support each other through it. Because neither of those feelings are wrong. It's not wrong to. To cry and kind of grieve the loss of one leaving the nest. It's also not wrong to celebrate.

Right.

We did it. He did it. He is out. He's the. He's soaring, and we're so proud of him. All that's right. All of it's good. But you're going to have all those emotions and more and just be ready for it.

And don't try to, like, rush your.

Spouse through their celebration or through their grieving, but let them have their moments.

And support each other. You know, that's the key. One of my Dear Friends is 10 years older than me, and so her kids are a little bit older than our kids, and we go on walks frequently. And so she's launched two of her kids. They've gone, you know, they're in college right now, and she's getting ready to launch her last one. And so her and her husband, and they've got a great marriage, and they've really worked on that. I mean, they've really been intentional about working on their marriage and trying to keep it strong. But they have planned this epic cruise just for the two of them for when their son officially graduates and goes to college. And she's like, we got the balcony. Like, they never do this kind of stuff, but she's like. And we just are so, like, they're. Because she said, I know I'm going to have such a mixture of feelings and her husband, too. And she said, we just wanted to make sure that not only did we celebrate our child and what he's done, his accomplishment and him going off and doing this, but she said, we want to celebrate. Us, too. Like, look at it, you know, look at this. Like, let's celebrate this milestone moment. We're officially empty nesters. Let's not dread this. Let's celebrate this. And I just thought, you know, I want to be like that. Like, I think that that's such a great idea to. To just, you know, literally, they're going to sail off into the sunset to celebrate.

And so Good for them.

She's so excited about it and I'm so excited for her and think, you know, we all could learn a lot from that. And it may not have to be some big epic trip like that, but just taking, taking a beat to say this is a good thing and celebrating.

We did it. We, we have.

And parenting is a lifelong journey, but you've crossed that biggest finish line. You did what you set out to do. You've, you've launched your, your kids out into the world, out into that, that, that phase of, of adulthood and college and whatever that looks like for them. The military, whatever that looks like for them.

And to celebrate that, yeah, there's still.

Gonna be, you know, a little bit of teary eyed moments, of course, but.

Like, let's celebrate like we've, we've done it. And then to be able to start moving toward that empty nest with this.

With great anticipation and excitement, not something.

You dread, but something that I believe.

And I'm fully believing is gonna be the best season of our marriage. When we get to that, I can't wait. I'm gonna just walk around naked all day.

Be ready. It is gonna be a lot of nakedness, guys. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks for being part of this, this community. You know, we're. If you've got a kid getting ready to go off to school, we're praying for you and cheering you on. It's an exciting time and we're excited for you and pray for us too.

Pray for our kids as they're making.

These decisions because it's.

We appreciate that.

We do, we appreciate it.

Well, we'll look forward to seeing you next time here on the Naked Marriage podcast. God bless.

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