The October Slump is Coming...Are You Ready?

Welcome back to The Teenage Guide Podcast. I'm Ashley Chandler, the founder of The Teenage Guide. And at the time of this recording, it is early September, October. I don't like it when people rush time. It is a pet peeve for me when people are like, well, the holidays are basically here. But in this case, because I work with families every single day, I work with parents, I work with teens every single day. And October kind of is around the corner, and there is this concept called the October slump that every teacher knows about that most parents don't. So in today's episode, I'm highlighting what it is, why it needs to be on your radar right now, and how to get ahead of it. Let's get into it.

Hey, I'm Ashley Chandler, The Teenage Guide. And for nearly 2 decades, I've worked inside middle schools and high schools and with college-age students and family living rooms, helping hundreds of families go from daily conflict and closed doors to real connection with their teenager. I speak parent and I speak teen. And I create a bridge between you that a lot of other methods can't and won't. If you're navigating adolescence in your home, and a version of yourself you're still becoming, you're exactly where you need to be. Let's reimagine the teenage years with science and soul at the forefront. This is The Teenage Guide Podcast.

Right. October is notorious. I have worked inside middle schools, high schools with college-age kids. I have worked in living rooms with families, boots on the ground, and it is a notorious month of the year where we see the same kind of pattern emerging. Most parents don't see it until it's already there. And so that's what this episode is about. So it's on your radar before it happens. You start being able to notice the signs before it gets to crunch time and crisis or major challenge, major breakdown inside your own home. I wanna say this ahead of time, cuz I think it's worth it. If you want the full breakdown of this episode, the transcript, how to audit and what questions to ask inside your own home, all of that is gonna be linked in the show notes. So every October, without fail, teachers and any sort of extra service providers start to see a very similar pattern in October. It's called the October slump. We start off the school year with a bang. We're committed. This year I'm going to be locked in. My goal is that I'm going to get all A's and B's. You know, we start off really strong as students. And as parents, we want to kind of do the wait-and-see approach. It's tricky to know exactly how to prepare our high schoolers specifically for back to school. They have to get in there and really figure out what is this teacher like? What is this class going to be like? What are the expectations? What are my responsibilities going to be like? What's the schedule gonna feel like with managing school of my extracurriculars or clubs or my social life, et cetera? So there is a natural thing that happens in the beginning of the school year where we kind of take a wait-and-see approach, right? By mid-October, what starts to happen is that momentum, that intention that we set in the beginning of the year, like our students said in the beginning of the year, like, I'm gonna make A's and B's, for example. What starts to happen is that momentum is gone and students start to check out a little bit. They maybe get more distracted in class. They have things that slip through the cracks. They have a lot more missing assignments and a lot of tests that they're like, oh, I forgot about that. Oh, assignments start coming in late or not at all. Participation drops in class. Not always, but we start to notice the cracks in the foundation. By mid-October. And a big piece of this is what a lot of parents don't realize and isn't on their radar, not because it's intentional, but just because you're not walking the halls of the high school, is the palpable social stress or energy that is within the high school walls. It is tangible. It is thick in there, right? They have a lot of bravado and ego and competition and creativity, and, you know, the social piece is really, really big for our high schoolers, and so that can dominate the academic piece if we do not have the right skills and systems in place. So that is exactly how I invite you to start thinking about this. Behavior patterns, missed assignments, gaps underneath the slipping grades or the missed deadlines that we often see in mid-October, those are gaps in skill development. They've been there, they just weren't on our radar. We didn't notice them until they started showing up by mid-October. October is when we've collected some information, right? We've got enough participation, we've got relationships established in the school walls and with our teachers. Our teachers know who we are by that point. We've got enough data around assignments or tests or quizzes. And so the pattern starts to set and it starts to become undeniable. Teachers can start to see it clearly. And then we have parent-teacher conferences and this is what they're sharing. Your kid is strong in this, and here's where I'm noticing some challenges. Well, you can get ahead of it. The thing is, by the time they share what's in the parent-teacher conference, it has been building since the first week of school. Meanwhile, at home, Your teen may seem like they have it all together. They are very locked in, right? They are managing school. Everything's fine. I'm on top of it. Oh, it's the teacher's fault. Oh, I turned that in. They just haven't updated the gradebook yet, right? And to their credit, and I think that there's some benefits to having an online portal, but there's a lot of disadvantages too, because we don't need to know every little micro thing that's happening. It's actually not healthy to be like, What about this? Well, what about that? They need to learn how to manage this process on their own. And the truth is too, from the teacher perspective, teachers are human beings. As a former educator and raised by one, they are people who are managing their own life and grading papers and grading tests and having a stack of things to go through after you've been teaching all day is quite a large load to carry. And Students can be like, why didn't you grade that immediately? As if they're the only person in the universe. And so we wanna remind our teenagers, like, they have lives too. They're gonna get it. Trust the process. So we don't wanna be reactive in the process, but we also wanna be real and notice the patterns because some teachers really are on top of it. They have a rhythm and they grade things right away. Others may take a little bit of time. And so we don't wanna completely rely on the portal for our only data. We really want to come back to the relationship. So by the time that you might see the challenge, you're, you're kind of collecting data from a few different places. You've got the portal, you've got the experience at home, but you might start to notice that stress is creeping in. You're not really knowing how to handle it because it's, you know, consequences and threats and get it together. And why can't you just do the thing you need to do? And why won't you just listen to me? If you would have listened to me, this would have been done by now. More reminders. More threats, more texts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? This gets us stuck in a stress cycle with our teens that we really do not want to cement by middle of the year. All of those things are reactive responses. None of them are actually getting to the root of the problem. Another thing that I wanna name, I see this a lot. Some teens are simply distracted, like I said, with their social life, by a noise in school, by that fun game they're playing at home, right? Whatever is happening in their world. I was the student looking back. So it may look like they've got it all together, they're handling it, or they're somewhat calm about school, but really they're zoning out. And potentially if you've got a kid who kind of looks like they're keeping it all together, another thing that might be underneath the surface that we want to get to the root of is they don't quite feel safe enough. to bring you whatever the challenge is at home. Now, they're not going to say, I don't feel safe bringing this to you. Potentially, they may not use those exact words, but there's an element of it where they're holding on to the reality or the truth of the situation, or they're not paying attention because it's a way for them to have control. And remember, when it comes to teenagers, their autonomy and need for control is queen or king 100% of the time. And so that might mean withholding information, purposely tuning out, not paying attention, putting it on the back burner. In a way, that is a way that they have control because ultimately it is about their schoolwork, not yours. So they manage your anxiety or your stress about school by hiding theirs. So that's a clue that that's what's needed inside your relationship, a sense of absolute honesty. Truth-telling and integrity when it comes to school. Like they can tell you what's really going on and you're not gonna freak out. You're gonna be there. You're gonna know how to show up as the guide inside the home versus the boss telling them what to do. Which is why inside everything that I do with my clients and all my programs, we start with the relationship. This is the number one way that you have influence in the approach and the outcome that they experience with The October slump. So the root of the October slump is almost always either a relationship challenge, they don't feel safe enough to bring it to you, right? We can start there. But then it's a skill gap. It's not a character flaw. It's not them being lazy. It's not them being a couch potato, 100%. It's a skill gap. It's a specific gap in executive function skills, emotional regulation, Low prioritization, time management, organization, and task initiation, being able to just start the dang thing and just get started with it. And in the ability to manage stress while taking on this bigger workload. Like, how do we actually put together this jigsaw— jigsaw— this jigsaw puzzle that is my life, right? That is a leadership quality of your own life. Right? Executive function skills are a set of skills that enable us to be a leader in our own life. That's what that is. And with any skill building, we are figuring it out. We are learning as we go. We just have to be in the game. They are absolutely buildable when you know what you're looking at and how to build them. Beginning of school brings up a lot of novelty and newness, new schedule, new teachers, new friends, new social world. People have grown. What's changed? And that novelty just starts to wear off. By October, the novelty is gone. The workload increases. It's all about maintenance at this point, which isn't necessarily the quote unquote fun part. You're in it. And so that's why that gap becomes really visible. So here's what I invite you to do right now before the October slump fully hits in your home. Audit you and your teen's habits and skills over the next few weeks. And when I say you, I mean the way that you're approaching them in your relationship. Okay. So you are going to audit their behavior and your relationship. And that means observe, collect information, notice, be curious over the next, let's start with week or 2 inside your own home. Their grades, their habits. Are they starting their homework at a consistent time every night, or is it a very resistant battle? Lots of excuses. And they forget about it? Are they sleeping enough? Are they able to sit down and focus for a period of time? Or do they stall and procrastinate and come up with all sorts of excuses why they can't do it? Do they know when things are due without you asking that question? Are they in communication with you about stuff? Do they completely close you out of their life? Or are they filling you in here and there and you're just listening? You're doing a lot of listening and validating and encouraging. You are not looking for perfection. You are looking for information and direction. Okay. That is a very important thing to remember. You're not looking for them to be good at the thing. You are looking for information. You are approaching from a curious, nonjudgmental point of view. This is where you're going to get the most intel that's actually real versus them sharing things that they think will make you happy and not stress you out. And you're going to notice, is the pattern getting worse? Over the week or two, or is it actually getting better the more that I show up in this way? This tells you so much. So you are going to take notes and you are going to audit what's happening inside your own home with your relationship and with their skills and habits. And if you notice a slump that doesn't improve, if the habits and the patterns are still there, I highly encourage you, don't wait until the mid of October or November to get ahead of it. That's when finals are, the end of the semester. That's when there's a lot more stress and the holidays. So you get ahead of it right now because the window to shift the pattern and create a whole new pattern and better skills happens right now. This is a huge opportunity. Remember, there are 3 ways that you can work with me, 3 ways to thrive with your teen. I've got my parent membership and community, which is so inclusive and incredible. If you're a DIY person, you have access to all of my programs. You get group coaching in the month. You get a guest speaker. Speaker, and a lot of my resources and tools are inside that parent membership and community in Thrive. There's also the Fall Sprint coaching package. So if you want a short-term commitment, big results, very high-touch, one-on-one experience with me in a matter of just a few sessions for you and your teen, check that out. And then I've got the private coaching containers, which give you incredible results. And this is where you have the most access to me, you and your teen, Monday through Friday. I want you to remember you are not alone and you are not behind. All the links and how to join and work with me are in the show notes. And as always, like, subscribe, and share if this resonates with you. Also, you can join me for my next Confident Connected, the Blueprint for Parents of Teens, 3-part class that happens every few weeks. It's an opportunity for you to dive even deeper into the blueprint that I use with all of my private clients and also to get to meet me and ask me questions. And you walk away with a 30-day blueprint that enables you to identify the exact skills you're going to build and the relationship focus that you're going to be focused on for the next 30 days. It will change your life. Check out the Confident Connected Blueprint, as well as the 3 Ways to Thrive with me in the show notes. And remember, never underestimate the power that you have as the parent. I'll see you next week.