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Nina Korelitz Matza and Dr. Anne Marie Albano
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LISTEN MORE ....to your teens on their way to adulthood.An amateur philosopher/mom and a world-renowned adolescent psychologist talk together about how and why our teens are so stressed, what thousands of years of wisdom have taught us about the essential building blocks for creating a good life and what parents might do to encourage a genuine and optimistic path towards adulthood.

Episodes

  1. 12/21/2021

    Epsiode 7-MATURITY-A conversation with a group of 20-somethings about how today’s college students self-discover during their time on campus and what they wish they had known in Middle School.

    Meet Jesse, Lexa, Amani and Cherie. One about to graduate college, one with two years left to go-due to two separate gap years-one who left college after her first year and one who has been out of college for a few years. We had a fascinating conversation. Here are some the key takeaways: Success seems to be defined only by how much esteem, recognition and money you will have in your chosen profession.The only definition of success that has ever really been presented to us in the academic world is based on grade point average and how many extra curricular activities you have participated in.Having time outside of/after school helped me to find myself. Now success=being happy, having close friendships and feeling that I am evolving and growing as a human being.  It's about how I feel rather than what I can present to people.The more well-off my friends are, the more stress they feel about achieving great things as defined by society.The anxiety about achievement starts in Middle School-you feel you have to start getting serious about grades and assessments. No time to do things that are just for fun or to just be a kid.They feel much less pressure now in their 20s than they felt at 16-they don't feel they need to have everything figured out.Parents should put trust in their kids that they’ll figure it out.

    40 min
  2. 11/18/2021

    Episode 4B CHALLENGES-A continued conversation with Bryan Doerries about how letting our kids struggle with difficult choices and hard situations is the best gift we can give them on the road to a fulfilling adulthood.

    The Greeks understood that there is a lot to be gained from sharing stories of your own struggles and pain with other people. Young people need to be taught that this is part of the human experience, that this is normal-and even healthy. Parents and academic institutions need to create environments where negative and contrary thoughts are permitted. Without these, how will our kids learn to examine their attitudes and beliefs and ultimately develop their own individual value systems-which will guide their choices and decisions throughout their lives?  Research shows-and the positive psychology movement confirms- that long-term well-being  comes from self knowledge, because when you know yourself, you can choose a path that will be fulfilling for you. When you know what floats your boat, when you know what kind of people are good for you to be around, or maybe not so good for you to be around, when you have the experience of genuinely doing something of service for somebody else, and the intense sense of satisfaction that you get from knowing that you have that capacity, these are the things that inform a path to adulthood that is likely to bring happiness. In this episode Bryan Doerries, Founder and Artistic Director of Theater of War, reminds us that making lots of mistakes-every day-is the only healthy path towards genuine  self-awareness and self-confidence. That's how you learn to make better choices. The Greeks embraced this openness to error and exploration as the only way towards more long-term gratification. And that's not how our society-or our parenting- is oriented right now.  We would serve our kids. well if we could find ways to give them doses of that every now and then.

    36 min
  3. Episode 2-VALUES-How letting our kids find their own path to defining what matters may ultimately be the surest way for them to lead fulfilling lives.

    11/01/2021

    Episode 2-VALUES-How letting our kids find their own path to defining what matters may ultimately be the surest way for them to lead fulfilling lives.

    VALUES are what inspire our actions and choices -the moral compass that guides our lives and makes us feel purposeful. How do our kids transition from a full-on acceptance of what their parents espouse to a place where they can also gain exposure to and have a chance to process and assess other perspectives? What are the Issues and circumstances that may help-or hinder-our kids’ ability to define their values, so that they can move forward into adulthood with strong guiding principles?How do we measure the impact on our kids of an individual-achievement-oriented society-and the values that society elevates and celebrates? Has the exclusivity and high cost of a college education and today’s college-level focus on job preparation, credentialing and networking replaced the longer-lasting benefits of learning how to think, collaborate, listen and self-define? What links the increasing number of kids who experience mental health issues in High School and College to this diminished opportunity to seek and explore in an effort to define a path forward driven by passion, engagement and connection to the world? How has the over-protection we have visited on our kids impacted their ability to engage, debate and listen confidently to others  In our efforts to protect our kids from suffering more than they already do, we may actually be making them more fragile and ill-equipped to face the challenges inherent in learning and growing on the way to adulthood.

    41 min
  4. Episode 1-SUCCESS-How defining success more broadly might help our kids to be less stressed and more excited about the future.

    10/31/2021

    Episode 1-SUCCESS-How defining success more broadly might help our kids to be less stressed and more excited about the future.

    Is admission to a brand name college truly the start of the road to a happy life?  Has the pressure to get in taken time and focus away from teens’ ability to explore and stumble and dream?  How has the definition of adolescence and emerging adulthood changed over time and what might those changes mean for the ways in which we have  adapted or changed our parenting of today’s teens.  What might be the consequences of letting our own anxieties about our kid’s accomplishments, which can lead us to protect them from faltering and failing, when we know that those mistakes and missteps will undoubtedly inform their road to true fulfillment?  Are WE defining success FOR them - or is it so pervasive in the culture that they’ve espoused it without our influence? What would some of the greatest thinkers and experts on the art of happiness-from the Ancient Greek philosophers to Martin Seligman-the father of Positive Psychology- say about how we define success today?  What role do the things that Aristotle held up as most critical to attaining a sense of satisfaction in life-things like virtue, values, self-acceptance-play in this current definition of success.  At the end of the day, what we really want is for our kids to have fulfilling lives. But in the here and now, it's really hard for parents to take the long view and accept that stumbles now may truly be investments in our kids' long term happiness.

    54 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

LISTEN MORE ....to your teens on their way to adulthood.An amateur philosopher/mom and a world-renowned adolescent psychologist talk together about how and why our teens are so stressed, what thousands of years of wisdom have taught us about the essential building blocks for creating a good life and what parents might do to encourage a genuine and optimistic path towards adulthood.

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