How to Help Teens Find Direction with Dr. Susan Belangee & Yogi Patel

Parents, is your teen college ready? Are you feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, or excited about your teen applying to college? Do you know what colleges are looking for? And if your kid gets in, do you know what you'll pay for it? College admission has never been so competitive or expensive. Shellee Howard will take you on a journey to help you and your teen get college ready. Now here's your host, Shellee.

Well, hello again, parents. This is Shellee Howard, the founder and CEO of College Ready, and today You are witnessing a first on Parents, Is Your Teen College Ready? I have two guests. So you are in a village. This is the village that we've been talking about. The two women I have an honor to speak with today are going to give you some great insights from a parent's perspective, from a collegiate perspective. So enough of my voice. Ms. Susan, can you start us off please and tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and a little bit of your background? Yes.

Thank you so much for having me. I am Dr. Susan Belange, and I am a licensed professional counselor in the state of Georgia. I am a national certified counselor. I'm an approved clinical supervisor, and I hold the diplomate status within the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology. I currently work as an executive director for that same organization, for NASAP, the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology. And I also have my own business called Dynamic Growth Counseling and Consulting Services that I started back in 2023. And the main reason I started that was to launch a training program about a personality assessment that I use with pretty much all of my clients across the years. I've done therapy. I've used it in supervision of beginning-level, entry-level counselors. I've done consultation work with it. So it's a very adaptable instrument that is deep but simple. And so hopefully that might be something that could be of use to your, to your listeners today. I also do consultation work and speaking engagements and things of that in my personal business as well. Wow.

So I want to hear what you have to say. Let's just take it to Yogi for a minute. Ms. Yogi, can you share with our audience a little bit about yourself? Yes.

Well, I am a parent of two who I've just finished putting through college and graduate levels as well, and founder of two Montessori schools. And education and passion for having children thrive is something that I hold dear to my heart. I own now a practice called Yogi Patel Transformation Through Empowerment, where I do work after owning the schools and being a corporate trainer as a positive discipline trainer for leaders, parents, teachers. I do speaking engagements. I do Women's Summit once a year at no cost, and then I do Caregiver Summit. So just my goal has been to provide education and services for those around the world, whether you have the money or not. And I also work with Susan. I'm learning to do the assessments as well on helping people find out how capable they are, what their interests are, and how they can really do things of their interest, which brings them joy versus a very easy burnout, right? And that's That's why this conversation was really, really dear to me. So glad to be here.

So as we set the stage, our listeners are busy parents of teenagers. Like it doesn't get any more challenging than those years. And because all 4 of mine have got in and out of college, I can speak to, I survived and so will you. But let's go back to Susan and maybe you can share with us a little bit more about the assessment, how you use it, maybe what you're seeing. In this generation that might be useful, helpful for our listeners?

Sure. So I guess let me, let me also share that I am a mom of two. I have an almost 17-year-old junior in high school, and then I have an almost 20-year-old second— well, I guess she's a sophomore in years at college, but she's a junior by credits. So I'm very well aware of the whole college readiness game. And another facet of, of my experience includes having a specialty area in college student development, college counseling. And so that was really my focus during my doctoral studies. So I'm aware of what these parents are probably trying to figure out on how best to, to guide their kiddos to the right major or the right college or those kinds of things. So, so in terms of the assessment, basically it's measuring strengths. It comes out of Adlerian psychology and Alfred Adler was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud. But while Freud said it's all about sex and libido, Adler said it's all about belonging and contribution. And when we feel a place to belong in the world, we tend to want to contribute and to be of help to other people. And so this assessment tool measures a variety of traits and, again, particularly strengths, but then it's like two sides of the same coin. On one side, we have a strength. On the other side, we have a drawback. But to really look at what are those playing cards, if we think of each one of the traits that's measured, what are those playing cards that we hold in our hand that represent how we see ourselves and others in the world, and how do we play them? So when it comes to interests and trying to figure out what is it that I actually wanna study in college, knowing a little bit about what we bring to the table, I think is just smart because if we start to pick something that isn't really a good fit personality-wise, then maybe we need to rethink that. Or maybe we need to lean on other strengths in order to make that field be a better fit for us.

So good. So good. Can you imagine if every teenager got to go through your assessment in high school?

That's a dream. That is such a dream of mine. That would be tremendous. Yes. Sign me up. How do we get that done?

I have the honor of helping teenagers navigate this every single day. And my team and I, we talk about this often. It seems like we've gotten so far away from the simple things like financial literacy, really leaning in about who are you, what matters to you, how are you going to advocate, to really everything coming from their cell phone and the very best day of everybody's best life. And so I think going back to a simple assessment, I take my students through the, the first thing we do is a core value assessment, which you would think, well, doesn't everybody know their core values? And I will happily tell you, not at all. So having your own two, Yogi, how did you navigate this process with those, with your own children to help prepare them for their future choices?

So I think my husband and I thankfully had positive discipline as a tool. So one of the things that we've originally had learned as they were raised, we were raising them where we just had financial literacy and we were really, this was your allowance and it's not based on contribution. Contribution we all do. Everybody helps out in the house and you're not gonna get paid for it. And guidelines, like what are respectful things in our family that's acceptable, like phones at dinnertime, whatever the guidelines were, we created those together. And study habits. So we literally looked at those and I drew a lot of this information based on my own childhood where my father had said I was going to be a doctor and being raised to always say, "Yogi's going to be a doctor. Yogi's going to be a doctor," until that time came and I took that organic chemistry and I did not enjoy it. And my father has a PhD in organic chemistry, mind you.

Ooh.

So I knew from these experiences. And then of course I changed my major and I was so scared to tell my parents about it because they would be so disappointed and discouraged. So this is so aligned with this conversation that led me to make sure that I raised my children to find something that was going to bring them money. And it's going to create a good livelihood for them. In addition to that, doing something that they really would enjoy. So my 5-year-old, my oldest at the time, I have 2 daughters. So the oldest went on a boat with me on a field trip and we pulled this seaweed and things from the ocean. And there was a lot of glass and my daughter had looked at that and really deeply resigned, felt something with it. And she was really curious about the ocean. And I knew that I needed to fuel this information. So when she was older and she kept saying, I'm going to be a scientist, I want to be a marine biologist. And I was a little nervous because she's going to eat canned foods and she's really not going to make a ton of money. And I had to have faith in her interest and to fuel, to just sort of aid to that information. And my second wanted to be a photographer. And of course, again, you can imagine, what, a photographer? And I'm going to send you to a 4-year college? And she went to a private school, and both of the girls did. But having that faith and understanding their interests was the higher priority. And I have known that— I also knew that I would help them with the step-by-step process, and which was very hard. A lot of parents will probably relate. I had no idea where to look. The girls had information in school about, hey, this is, these are the colleges you can go to. When I went to school, I had the SATs, right? And they were different than what it was. So just basically lots of communication, lots of support, and a lot of anxiety at the same time, which is very normal.

Wow. I think any parent can relate to all of that. So thank you for sharing. I wrote my first, my bestselling book, my first one, How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money. As a bet I lost to my firstborn. And many people ask me, how did you decide to become an author? And I'm like, well, I lost a bet. And they're like, I don't understand. But really it came down to when my son had a choice, he got a full ride to USC and we're from Southern California. So I said, I can learn the fight song. I was not invested at all. So I'm like, free USC, let's do this. And then a week later, Harvard sent this epic package inviting him and he thought it was somebody playing a joke on him. He was so not prepared for that. But I bring all this up because the— I think I didn't apply enough pressure. I think I was that parent that stood back a lot and said, oh, I don't want to be that parent. Right? Oh yeah. I don't want to freak them out. But what I learned is they need us. There is this happy balance that we as parents need to really think about, right? That's why I love having parents on my show. So let's talk back to Susan. How do you balance raising children and knowing all that you know about the brain and how we think and your assessments? And I, I just wanna know from a clinical perspective, how do you be a parent?

So there is a lot of truth to the fact that in, in some instances, the worst kids are the ones that belong to the psychologists. Now I get to claim I'm not a psychologist. I'm a licensed professional counselor. But again, because we know so much, we can overdo. And so the from a, from a clinical standpoint, the best advice I can offer to parents is don't do for your kid what they can do for themselves. And that comes out of also a very Adlerian-based understanding of raising parents or raising parents, both raising kids and how we raise each other as we grow up. Right?

Sure.

So you wanna, you wanna help foster and guide interests, right? As, as Yogi was talking about, it's funny, our kiddos have very similar, similar interests, but You wanna foster and guide, but you don't wanna handhold and spoon-feed. And so it's trying to figure out, as you try to figure out like, okay, my kid's got free ride to USC and now, oh goodness, here's Harvard too. Where, which one do I want? We've gotta, we've gotta reason through as parents, you know, what's gonna be in the kid's best interest. Where are they going to feel the most confident and capable and they can do this and knowing your kid well enough to say, well, how far away can you really be from home and still feel successful and stand on your own? And certainly some kids can and other kids might with that question be like, you know what, maybe staying closer to home is better when it's still gonna be a great education that I'm gonna get. So, so from a, a clinical standpoint, it's recognizing what's, what's really your kid able to do? Can they do their own laundry? Can they feed themselves? Can they time manage? These are really important facets of being ready for college. So college can be the experience we want for it to be for them. And I think one of the struggles parents face today is the letting go. We are very much a culture that here in the United States that value, you know, to a degree. And, you know, then we save kids from mistakes they might make or failures they might feel, but that's exactly what they need to experience in order to learn how to pick themselves up and, you know, themselves forward to the, whatever that next thing is. So I'm not sure I answered your question. I kind of, it kind of changed.

It was brilliant. Everything you said, I totally resonated with. We talk about failing forward all the time as part of planning for college. There's actually a college application question that says, tell me about a time that you failed and what you did. So even colleges want to know, hey, we don't want you to get here and have your first failure. Right. That's kind of a scary thing. And so I think that was brilliant. I also think knowing your child, right? My firstborn, he was that he could have raised himself kind of kid where I would look at parents and I'd be like, you make it look so hard. And then I had number 2 and I'm like, I really probably shouldn't have thought that. So Yogic, maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, got to know your, your children, how, how were you able to guide them and nurture them without being too much without allowing them not to fail forward.

Yes, I think my husband and I first had to be united, you know, to fly united. We had to have conversations about what was important to both of us. And it was a given that both the girls were going to go to a university of their choice. Holding them accountable as well. So, you know, to write that first draft of that college essay letter, and they had to find an ACT support program that was, you know, they would like to attend. And once they decided, they did have to follow through. So we were there to make sure that we guided them, we held them accountable because it's really exciting at this age, you know, happening in high school and life is happening and they want to live in both. So we wanted to give them both options within nurturing but guiding circumstances to set them up for success. And when one of my daughters decided, um, She wanted to be a photographer. My husband and I did make a very difficult decision, and we're both highly motivated by education to say to my daughter, you're going to take a gap year. If you don't know what you want to do in school, like no idea, then it's okay. Because she did receive some acceptance letters and she was going to just take one because it was XY nearby or whatever it was. And we wanted her to think things through really carefully. And she took a gap year for one year, and that's not what I'm suggesting every parent do, but we did. And she ended up learning and she grew up so much in this year. She was in Italy by herself and teaching English at a high school and university professor. She was working alongside with them and then ended up going to Franklin University in Switzerland for 6 months after that. So we guided her, we supported her, and she came back as this confident human being, whereas my first one just knew what she wanted to do. And, you know, I said, it since she was 5. So we had to sort of, our children differently based on who they were as people. And it wasn't always easy. And making the decision of what this will mean later in life is the path that we had to take. And it was emotionally very, very difficult to let a 17-year-old go to a different country and not see them for 6 months.

I, uh, my, my youngest, she, said, well, he went to Harvard and she went to Alabama and he went to San Francisco State. I'm going to go to Europe. And I was like, what? And I remember her dad going, nah, never going to happen. A 17-year-old girl going to Europe. No way. And I remember I came up with a list of 20 things that she had to accomplish before I could convince her father to let her go, such as booking her own travel, booking her own hotel in case she got there and needed to get back, right? Like always thinking that one step ahead. So I'm with you, Yogi. Like, she was there, she got a dual US-European degree from AAU in Prague in 3 years for $27,000 in total. And it was beautiful. It was the perfect, perfect thing for her, but her dad, woo, was a hard one to sell. So Susan, maybe you can talk a little bit about, you deal with a lot of different types of students and. How can parents really support the different, I don't, I don't know the correct word, the, the different types of student, right? There's the overachiever, there's the, how can they lean in and support for that child? Because we just said that that's what we need to do. So how, how can we help them do that?

So yeah, we get really, really basic and practical. Invite that kid to go out for coffee or whatever their interest is. If they're, if they like to go for walks or exercise or move or something like that. Join them in that, engage them in a conversation about what are your thoughts already about college? How are you feeling about being on your own and, and, you know, to make these decisions for yourself? And, and then you may find that it's, it's gonna be different with each of the kids. And that's, that's totally a, a birth order thing, which Adler talked about. We can talk about some other time. So yeah, it is going to be different in terms of how they're feeling within themselves and what they're capable of. And then what you as a parent are witnessing as they're continuing to grow up. So, so yeah, about what lends itself to, to being successful and standing on your own. What are those things that, and you can start with yourself, what made, what are the things that made sense to you? What did you need to learn in order to stand on your own two feet? And can each of the kids in their time do those things? And if not, you know, those conversations then that need to be had. You know, to what you did with the, with the daughter before dad would say, yes, you can go.

Right.

So it's a similar idea, but joining them in their own activity, because then that's a source of connection. And certainly our kids desire connection. All human beings do. So meeting them where they are saying, hey, let's go, go to your favorite coffee spot, or let's go to, you know, that, that favorite park you like to go and walk at, or, you know, they can do this and have that conversation, set aside the time. And then ask those really important questions. If there's anything your kid says, I really just don't know, mom or mom or dad or both, then we can say, well, I have some information about that. Let me share this with you and then we can come back and talk about it more. So even just on a very practical level, meeting your kids, taking them to where activities involving them in that, and then having what could potentially be a very fruitful but challenging conversation.

Yeah. Some of the best times, right, are when you have that one-to-one time, that undivided, no phone time. Those are precious moments. I can, I can definitely think back to. So for my final question, um, I'll start with Yogi on this one. For a student who doesn't know what they want to do, like the shrug shoulders, like truly, I love math and science and history and English. I just love it all. How can a parent with that situation navigate successfully to support their child?

It's an amazing question. And it's something as a school leader, I, um, got quite closely. So we had school parents with variety of professions. So how can we get our children out there and, you know, just sort of spending a little bit of time with a company or just figuring out what is out there, what does it look like? And my husband and I do that. So we see someone who might be interested, just come spend a day, spend a few days, spend the weekends and talk to other people about their profession. And I think exposure leads to a little bit more of an awareness. And we did that with my younger child and that was really helpful because then she's like, you know, just the photography, I'd be really bored, obviously, but we knew that she had that keen eye for it and she had a great hearing sense. So looking at the strengths, finding resources within our communities, online, and sometimes making big challenge, uh, changes to being vulnerable ourselves to put ourselves out. Because often as parents, we're afraid to connect our children with friends who might have a different profession or someone else who has a company. But teaching our children that it's, if you don't ask, you're not gonna get. So be bold, go out there, figure it out, and get a job when you're in high school because it teaches us how to learn, how to interact with people, and how to find answers. So that vulnerability is where we can really help our children and ourselves. So just get out there.

Wonderful. Ms. Susan, anything else you'd like to share with the families on that topic?

Yes. So as, as Yogi was talking, what I, what I kind of done on the piece of paper in front of me, cause I didn't want to forget it, was shadowing. What you're talking about is shadowing opportunities and how useful that time is in high school. So if you've got a student who's into everything, you know, come up with, you know, parents in the, in the community that are in those positions and ask, you know, or, or encourage your student to go and ask, hey, can I shadow you and see what this really is all about? So then they can start to narrow things down and, and kind of things off the list that they're like, mm, not so sure now that I see that in action. You know, the other thing that, that came to mind was when we look at strengths, and as Yogi was referring to earlier in the, in our talk today, the more we can match strengths to the fields of interest, the more productive we're gonna feel, the better we're gonna feel about it, more confidence and less burnout. And so, you know, if we break that down into practical language also, you know, if you're someone who's really an introverted, shy kind of a person, it may be that something in a field that involves going out and having to meet lots of new people and to be in big groups and things probably isn't going to be the best fit. It might sound interesting. It might make money, but it may not be the best fit from a personality standpoint. If you're someone who really likes structure and likes to follow the rules and, you know, starts at A and ends at Z and doesn't skip anything. Than a job where, you know, spontaneity is really what's needed, that also may not be the best fit for you. And again, not that you can't be creative, but in comparison to somebody who has, who has those strengths, it might feel like a lot more work and therefore more burnout. It's a mismatch like that. So that's the benefit of, of really knowing yourself. And, you know, the Base-Assayed that I use helps identify these kinds of strengths. And then we can talk about, is called for in that field. Um, what does somebody do in that line of work? And then do your traits match that? Do your strengths kind of match what's being asked? Again, the more self-awareness I think you have or can have, the better you're gonna have, better experience you're gonna have in finding a major that really fits.

So good. Again, I wish every high schooler had this opportunity. Um, I have many adults who ask me all of the same questions. I wish somebody would've taken me through. The steps you're talking about. It wasn't that long ago that people were just told you must go to college and that's about all they got. So they would pick some random major that somebody told them to do, and then they would graduate and then they would be like, well, I'm glad I, I really don't wanna do that. And you're like, whoa, just wasted all that time and that money. Why don't we do it ahead of time? And so with my students, we often talk about The advantage of planning. Without planning, without time, discussion, strategy— parents, if I could just tell you again, they need you. They may not ask for it. They may not like it. Some do. One of mine did. But other than that, they are at the same time trying to adult, but they really do need you. Their high school counselors are way overburdened. They're dealing with mental illness, truancy, just the pure numbers. It's not that they're not amazing. I think they're quite amazing, but they're just overburdened. So the best thing you can do to help your child all the way across what I'm hearing you ladies say is really lean in and be a good listener. When it all comes down, they don't want judgment. They don't want you to fix it. They want you to listen to them. And after working at College Ready or Starting at 18 years ago, I have listened to so many students tell me amazing things that their parents are like, why didn't they tell me that? And the only thing I can tell you is I have no judgment. It really doesn't matter to me what they say. I'm still going to help them get to their dream. So ladies, um, let's go ahead and start with Yogi. If a family wanted to reach out and learn more about you and what it is that you offer, how can you support them?

I can work with one-on-one as a family or whole community with their children, cuz sometimes children are going to just, I don't know, and I don't want your help. So we can just figure out and understand what they really need and provide the right antidote. So they can reach out to me at yogipateltte.com and I offer coaching and everything is on the website. So reach out and we can have a conversation. Wonderful.

And Susan, these assessments, how can these, or your services, how can these families get to learn more? Yep.

So my, um, easiest way to, to kind of see this process would be to go to my website and see some of the services that I offer. It's on my website is dynamicgrowthccs.com. And if you go to the work with me tab, then you'll see that there's personal consultations as a, as one component. And that is, I offer two different types and that was is a place to start. If you wanna have your kiddo do the assessment, we can set up a time. Um, they can take it and then we can come on board and I can walk it through with them so that way they leave again, kind of all the playing cards they hold in their hand as well as how do they play them, right? So it's not so much that they have these traits, it's how do they use them.

Mm-hmm.

So my website again, dynamicgrowthccs.com, or you can email me just Susan@dynamicgrowthccs.com.

Outstanding. So many great resources. I tell you, families, we have a village. We're here to support you. And remember, if you have any college admission questions, how to get them in, how to pay for it, how to get the big scholarships. Last year, our students got $10.3 million in scholarships. Over 18 years, we've gotten $80 million. These are not need-based, these are earned. And so we want your students to reap the rewards of their hard work. So until next time, parents, is your teen college ready? Only a question will need to be asked. So thank you so much, and we, uh, hopefully we'll hear from you soon.