New Podcast! Nellie Harden: Make Sure Your Teen Has a Solid Foundation Before Leaving Home

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.

Hello, this is Shellee Howard with Parents, Is Your Teen College Ready? We are going to talk today to a wonderful guest with so much information. So parents, please listen in. Parents, Is Your Teen College Ready? Would like to introduce Nellie Hardin. Welcome to the show.

Hello, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

It is my pleasure. Can you share with our listeners a little bit about your background and then what it is that you do?

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, for everyone listening here, I am right in this area of, of time and parenthood with you. So I have 4 daughters, um, who are 17. So she's a senior, she was just accepted. We just got the big bundle of everything in the mail yesterday So, um, right here with you with that. And then I have two 15-year-olds that are twins, and then I have a 13-year-old as well. So right in this middle school, high school jumble. So, um, I've been married for 21 years, uh, and we have our four daughters. We live on the coast of North Carolina. So my background though, career-wise, has always been in biology and psychology. And, uh, that has come about in many different flavors and fonts along the way of life. And I actually started off working in animal behavior in the first half of— first part of my career, I should say. And then just through a series of things that happened within our family, health crisis, hereditary disease that we then had to turn around and help our children try and prevent, all of these things. I started working and devoting all of my time and attention toward the human side of biology, psychology. And And then after that, I was really— after we had spent a good 2, 3 years in the trenches and turning our family around with different disciplines and mindsets and skill sets and everything, because there was a time we didn't know if my husband was going to make it or not. And I lost my dad when I was super young, and I put my foot down and said, no, that wasn't going to happen here. Um, about 2 or 3 years after being in the trenches with all of that, and he had heart surgery, and, uh, he's still, still alive today and doing well. Um, I was really just, uh, called to get out and share and help with as many people as I could how to impact family disciplines. And, you know, go from— find out where you are, go from where you are, get out of survival mode and go into thrive mode. And really, so that by the end of the 65-70, which is, um, That's how many days are in 18 years, 6,570. And so in this 65-70, it's a, it's a very unique parenthood-childhood dynamic that you will never have again. And that influence and impact that you have right now, you will never ever have again either. You will of course still be their parent. And of course you're not kicking them, kicking them out on, you know, 65, uh, 71, uh, day 65, 71, but your role changes. You, you are a person that they come to for consultation and for advice and all of that, but you aren't in there daily anymore the way that you are right now. And also with, you know, the biology side of things with brain development, you also aren't going to be in the place where you are impacting them in their brain development any more than you are right now either. And so using all of that, um, I really kind of work at the, at the cross-section of biology, psychology, culture, and faith also, and all of that in there in order to help families get to where they want to go in partnership with their, their daughters and sons by the end of the 65, 70. So that's what I do.

It is fascinating. So listening to your story, I love that it's a happy outcome, right? That's amazing. You shared before we went on air that you were in the thick of it with your high school senior with this very humbling for any parent. So if, if you have a firstborn out there, parents, and you haven't done the whole college application process, it is humbling. Um, it is so different than it's ever been before. So I, I thought, you know, having Nellie on might give you some skills or techniques or things that you could do as you launch, because many parents will, will contact me and say I'm sad. I can't believe they're leaving me. And they're just really struggling with that thing called empty nest. I told them I didn't experience empty nest, which may be just me personally, but when I dropped my son off at Harvard and parents were crying, I'm like high-fiving. I'm like, this is awesome. I would be really sad, right, if my child was sick or some of the other struggles that people face. So I, I didn't quite go through that, but I'm sure in your practice that this is something that you have had to talk to people about. Now that you're in that phase of life, right, where you're going to get to leave, um, and take your, your child to school, what is some of the techniques or ideas, or how might somebody understand how to best deal with the launch of their teenager?

Well, it's very different, you know. In the work that I do, it's all about loving and leading them in a way that teaches them to love and lead themselves before they leave home. And so there is a parenting perspective and there is a child's perspective. And we really want them— you know, when you, when you have your child, there is this, you know, huge transition in the beginning when they come into your lives. There's obviously a really big transition in the end when they come. And there's this middle one also when, you know, there's all these changes that really start happening. And they start, instead of building life for them, like you do in the, in the first half of childhood, you're telling them, you know, this is your friend, this is your school, this is what we're having for dinner, this is, you know, you're really dictating life to them. And the second half, you are partnering with them, you are still the, you know, team leader. I look at a family as a team, and you're still the team leader, but you are building their life with them. And so Taking on that mentality as you are, you know, inching closer and closer to the end of the 65-70 is really important for both of you, right? And so it is, you know, to your point and what you're saying, I don't want to, you know, drop off, you know, your child at school and just be like, oh, I just hope they're okay. I hope, you know, I hope they're okay and, and they aren't going to crash and all of this stuff. Well, all of that prep work happens for that, right? And so when you can drop them off and give them high fives and just be so excited for the world to be able to experience this, this gift that you've been able to experience and work with through the hard times— because there's always hard times in parenting. You can't get through parenting without hard times. So if you're having one out there, let me just caveat this and say you're not alone. I promise you other people have experienced this too. But So when you can drop them off and just, you know, be so excited for the world to be able to experience that, that is really, really a success right there. Right. And it doesn't mean that you won't be sad as a parent. I know that, you know, especially with the first, because it's the breaking of the norm and it's, it's that first branch that's, you know, going off and being its own seedling, if you will. And, um, so it can, it's difficult and there's no getting around that. But when you prepare them through building this foundation of they know their worth, they know what their needs are, they know how to fill them intrinsically, they know how to find them out in the world, uh, they know their value, they know they can appreciate themselves and others around them, they believe in themselves, right? Then you know that they're equipped to go out there because there's so much more. And I know you talk about this in, in your show too. There's so much more than just, um, you know, when they reach a certain age, then they are an adult and ready, or if they get a certain grade on a calculus AP test, then that means they're equipped and ready, or, you know, just because they graduated high school. Those things don't necessarily mean that they're equipped and ready to go off to college, but it's that other work that you do, right? Because education in school is all the time. It's, you know, what they go to during the day if they go to it, or if you homeschool or whatever, that's a supplement to their education, but Education, especially in the 65-70s, all the time, and it includes all those other pieces too.

So do you work with both the parent and the student?

Yes, yes, I do. Um, so it is a collaboration. I typically work with, uh, families with young women. Um, I'm just uniquely suited for that, having 4 of my own. And I also, for myself, when I went off to college, I really was not ready. To go off to college. And I wouldn't have told you that back then. I wouldn't have had the language or the know-how back then. But what happened is that I was not equipped with those foundations of worth, esteem, and confidence. I had the grades. I, you know, I was fine. I went into honor stuff, and that was fine. But those, those really integral who-am-I identity, that kind of stuff was not really built in me. And when you send somebody off to college with that, especially young women, but it can also happen with young men too. They end up just chasing their worth in all the places they can. Any bright sparkly thing, like, oh, they want to give me, you know, uh, some award, or they want to go here. So they can end up chasing their worth with grades, they can end up chasing their worth with, uh, honors, with sports, with extracurriculars, uh, with, you know, dating, or whatever, or you know, boys, girls, whatever, they can end up going and chasing all their worth in those places because they don't have that intrinsic knowing of their worth that they have now, so, or that they could have. And so it's really important to have those steps in place. Um, and just an easy way to do that is, you know, every human has 5 basic needs, but in the teen years, those— that frontal lobe right under your forehead, if you put your hand on your forehead, is not fully developed yet. And it's, it's not until, frankly, after they're out of undergrad. But during the teen years, it's even more so. It starts to slow down in that, um, in that, uh, building of functionality, right? And but during tween and teen years, it's really ramped up, and it's kind of like a bunch of live wires in there. And so it's really important that we can understand what's going on in their brain development and we can help them through that. And these 5 needs then are really amplified in there, and those needs are to feel, uh, seen. They want to— they want to know people actually see them. They want to be heard, right? Does my voice matter? Do my opinions matter, right? They want to be loved, and they want to belong to something. Make sure your kids know that they can belong in your home. A lot of kids don't know that they can belong in their home, really belong, right? Not just live there and have an address, but really belong. And then the last one is to have a purpose. And that purpose can be grandiose. I want to be a doctor someday, or it could be I am, you know, going and starting, you know, next semester in a couple weeks, or, you know, I want to do this class at some point, it seems really cool, or I'm going to join this club, whatever that— just something ahead, right? That the carrot in front of the horse type mentality and just something to go to. Because if you look at those 5 needs and you look at the trouble that our teens are having today, Every— I, I have yet to hear one anyway, a trouble and a concern and a worry and an anxiety that does not fall under those 5 needs, right? To be seen, heard, loved, belong, and have a purpose.

Wow. You know, I, I talk to teenagers all day long for a living, and I love them all dearly. People are like, seriously, I'm— every one of them I love, um, because they tell you Or they tell me, maybe not the parent, but they tell me what it is they want.

Yeah.

For some reason, they have a harder time telling their parents what it is that they want. It doesn't mean that I'm special. I'm maybe because I make it safe. Like, I have no— doesn't matter what they do, right? I have no skin in the game. But thinking about raising my 4 kids and my oldest having the desire to go to an Ivy League school, helping him. My worry was he was going to get there and be overwhelmed and, and just, you know, being in the big pool, sinking. And right, so as parents, we're always like thinking, is this a good fit? How, how do I support my child? I'm taking my youngest, um, she wants to study international business in, uh, Prague, so I leave on Thursday to take her international And if it was number 1, I think I'd hold my breath, but by number 4, I'm feeling very confident that she, she'll be fine. And in order to get there, she had to complete 20 things that I felt would help make her ready to do that. Do you have, like, can you give families like a, a path, a map? Like, there's no parenting book that says for this kind of child, press But nay, like, yeah, how does your program, or, or how do you work with families so they can get an idea of what that feels like?

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, funny you say that because that's something that is said so many times— there is no book, right? But my, my job and my work is to help parents write the book for their child and also know that every one of your children will be different. So I have 4 kids, you have 4 kids. I call mine, you know, 4 corners of square. They're all very, very different. So, you know, I even have twins in the middle, but I cannot parent any one of them the exact same as I parent another one. And that is, you know, step one for parents. Like, you need to know that that is okay, that is good even, because if you parent, you know, number one different than you parent number two, there's a reason for that. You've gotten to know them, you've gotten to know their insecurities, their, their, um, uh, what makes them tick, their interests, uh, all of these things. And when you get to know them through connection and communication, then the clarity is what follows after that. And so that is how I work with, uh, families and parents. So, um, the— my program is called Take the Lead, and again, it's about taking the lead in their lives so that they learn how to take the lead of their own life before they leave home. So many times— I mean, think about it, as adults, we do leadership training a lot of times in our 30s, 40s, 50s, you know, or maybe never. And I've done so much of that leadership training, so much of that self-development training. I worked with, you know, Bernie, Bernie Brown for 18 months and things like that. And my kids were a part of that just because whenever we went to conferences and everything, we conferenced together, all 6 of us, like, here we go, we're going to another conference. And my kids were able to hear so many really powerful, you know, stories of change and transformation and the skill sets and mindsets for those early on. And I'm sitting there looking at them going, Why? There's no reason why we have to wait. If we can get this kind of information in a language that their brains can understand while their brains are still developing and have it be a part cemented into the foundation of who they are, wow, we can make such a difference in them in, you know, in that growing up stage and when they're going to college and grad school and afterwards and what have you. So Working with parents, so Take the Lead, the program I have, I work with parents, but then there's a daughter piece as well. So there is an entire piece that is teachings for the daughters, and then they come together, and that's the beautiful thing. So they come together and they communicate so that there is that safe place. They understand one another, they understand one another's personalities. If one, you know, a lot of parents don't understand if they're an, you know, a visual learner, if you will, and their kid is a kinesthetic, right, that likes to move around when they're learning, and the parents just like, sit still, I can— I— you're driving me crazy, I just, I just want to talk to you, why are you bouncing, why are you doing this, right? But that's how they learn. And so when they can sit down and be like, okay, I get that that's how you learn, this is how I learn, and so it can make me a little agitated sometimes, but I'm going to work on this, and can you work on this? And then it's a team effort to move forward as a family together. And when you can create that safe and sound place for everybody that is working together for the common goal of whatever your family uniquely wants at the end of the 65, 70, then you can have that path that's laid out before you.

So it's so great. So what popped into my mind, right? I have 4 kids. I never thought Four Corners, but yep, that's him. I'm going to borrow that if you don't mind, because that's That sums it up. But when I was thinking as mom, and I've had fortune that all of them enjoy talking to me. I don't know why. Maybe I speak teenager, but I help a lot of families where that's not the case, where the parents like, they won't even talk to me, that they're disconnected, they're overwhelmed, they're anxious, whatever that is. What would be the first step for a family like that other than picking up the phone and calling you? Is there something that they, they can lean into? Or, you know, parents, they chose to have these kids. We don't get to, right, pick their personality, which is a bit challenging sometimes. But, um, they want to be good parents. I totally in my heart believe that. How do they make that first step or hand the olive branch? Like, yeah, I wanna be there for you, but I don't know how.

Exactly. And my, the very first thing I would recommend is to let them know that. Okay. That exactly. I want to be here for you. I want to help you in every way I can, but I don't know how. Can you help me help you? Right. And just having that vulnerability, and that's one of the keystones in the work that we do. It's the third one is vulnerability. As a parent, it is vital that you have vulnerability and honestly, you have to step into that vulnerability first. I'm sorry, but you as a parent, you have to step into the vulnerability first. And that can also, you know, look like you sharing some stories of your own. It could be like you coming home from work for the day or them coming home from school and you being like, hey, whoo, you know, I had a challenging day today and you know, this and this happened, but it's okay. I'm, you know, I'm getting through it. What about you? How was your day? Right. It doesn't have to be this parent, you know, sitting on a throne, and you are, you know, the, the parents, and they're just the wee little children. In the second half of parenthood, it's really important that you're raising them up so that they can be that self-disciplined leader before they leave home. You don't want them to go and figure that out on their own. A, it's going to take a really long time. Their, their core values, core beliefs, um, all of that is already in cement. So anything that they are hoping to develop develop in themselves after they leave home is going to be like taking a jackhammer to a foundation and having to do some repairs in there. And you, you and I know anyone, you know, sees a repaired, um, sidewalk out there, right? You can see where it was repaired and there's the silicone lines in it and everything. It's much better to do these things and build these things when the cement is still curing, right? When you can still be in there. And, um, but yeah, so be vulnerable and let them know And I've dealt with a family that comes to mind in particular where the child was like, this is my room, no one's allowed in my room. And, you know, throwing around the privacy and all this stuff. And the mom just wanted to talk. And so she was— but this child was just like, nope, nope, nope. I just want to be in isolation. Well, then that, that's on the child's part and the parent just wants to talk. Just wait it out. Be calm. Wait it out. And if that means that you're going to be, you know, sitting at their door for a little bit, that's okay. That's okay. Just let them know that they'll be there. I had one instance with one of my own daughters. This was a couple of years ago. We were on a trip and I could just tell there was something going on, something stirring inside of her. And we were in the— in our car and we got to our destination and she was just being rude and feisty and So I was like, what's wrong? Nothing. Well, can you— there's obviously something wrong. No. Right. You get the sass back, right? And so everyone else went into the house and I kind of got in her path and I was like, so I understand that you don't want to talk to me right now and that's okay. But also your behavior is not okay right now. It's okay to have feelings. It's okay to be upset or frustrated or whatever you are, but your behavior right now is not okay. So until we get to the end, uh, bottom of what's going on, we're just gonna sit right here on the driveway and we're just gonna look at the stars. Okay? And we sat out there for a good 10, 15 minutes before that girl spoke a word. And then she was like, so this is happening. And she just, you know, starts. And I was like, okay. And then we worked through it and we hugged it out and we went inside and it just happened to be— it had nothing to do with any of the 6 of us. It was something totally outside of it. But the fact was sometimes you just need to wait them out so that they know you're going to be there. You're going to be there till the other side of whatever's happening. Now, if it's the parent that is, you know, having some of this, uh, anxiety and fear and frustration and things like that, a lot of times it is the parent needing to take a look on the inside of themselves. A lot of times it's the parent that has some residual core beliefs, some leftover needs that weren't fulfilled, and things from their own childhood that they've brought into parenting. And now they're trying to reflect that onto their kid and not realizing that their kid is their kid. It's a different person than who they were when they were growing up. And so that's another, you know, a totally different dichotomy. But yeah, it depends on who it is.

Wow, that's a lot to unpack. I'm, I'm just thinking, I'm putting on my parent hat and I'm like, that, that's amazing what you're doing. We have a program inside College Ready called See Our Future Now, and we literally are spending time helping a student to look 5 years after college and 10 years after college and help them to understand, will this career you want to do, will a robot be doing it? Like, let's get real about our future here. And I want to support them. You'll get a kick out of this one. I had a student who I met with yesterday, and we were working through their future, and we got to the end, and they're like, $30,000 a year. I'm wealthy. And I'm like, oh, right. And so that whole financial literacy is a real part of the adulthood. And yes, you know, we, we do such a good job of parenting and providing, and then, and then when you ask them, do you know how much it costs to move out? They look at you like you're an alien. Like, yeah, I mean, my parents pay for me. Like, so in summary, can you help parents, uh, launch that part of it as well? So they have a student who doesn't know what they want to do, where they want to go, not really understand adulthood. Can you speak to that?

Yeah, absolutely. And I totally agree with the financial literacy, and that's a part of Take the Lead as well, because so much of financial literacy is then tied into worth, it's tied into childhood, uh, and then into your parenthood later on. Um, but just let them in, let them in. Take out this dichotomy of I am parent, you are child, right? Work together as a team. One of the things that our family did, and I'm not saying you have to do this, but think of other ideas that you could do in your family. As we started a business together, so our family, all 6 of us, I mean, and we've had it since 2018. So our youngest was really young at the time. We started a business. We custom etched glass straws in order to cut down on plastic usage. So, but in that, all of those financial decisions we do as a family, we just had to make one a couple of days ago, right? Do we invest in this? Do we do this? So have those money discussions. So if you're buying a new house, like, don't make the price of the house and what you have to go through in mortgage and all of that— don't make it a mystery, because that is going to be so much for them to then take on later on, right? Uh, we have some friends that we mentor, and the whole family is involved, and they're looking for a place to rent. And so, like, my kids— my 13-year-old is trying to find places for this other family to rent. So she's on websites, and she's like, well, this one is, you know, $972, this one's $1,200, and everything. So, you know, but oh, they can't afford that one, right? And so just these real-world examples, and the more you can let them in, the better. But not making the challenges the centerpiece, right? Having them on the table, but making the joy and the teamwork and everything that's, you know, good, have that be the centerpiece. But it doesn't mean that the, the challenge isn't on the table too.

Nellie, I could talk to you all day long. I absolutely have a heart Heart of a giver. Unfortunately, our time is coming to a close. If any of our families listening would like to reach out to you, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Absolutely. Um, my website would be the best thing. So nellieharden.com. So that's N-E-L-L-I-E-H-A-R-D-E-N.com. And on there you'll find, uh, like a complimentary, um, masterclass called Daughter Decoder. And you'll find all of our socials and our community and everything is on there for Outstanding.

Thank you so much for being a guest, and we look forward to supporting you and your business.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, and, and good luck to all the listeners out there in the college process coming up.

Yeah, absolutely.