Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 18, Spring Break

Alex Doesn’t Get Into Harvard

The Framework
Tonight we see more evidence that the kids are growing up and that their parents are still learning how to adjust. Phil feels a bit threatened when Luke is able to literally fit into his shoes and best him at the “banjonic and trampolitan arts.” Mitch, who wrongly believes that Lily needs to be rescued from camp, ends up embarrassing her in front of the other eight-year-olds. But the storyline that held my attention was the one about Alex.

Alex’s day begins like this.
Claire: You’re still on that thing? What are you constantly looking at on your computer?
Alex: I’m just checking college acceptances. I mean, they should be posting them any day.
Claire: You cannot spend your entire spring break worrying about college admissions. You should go to that music festival thing with Haley. Do something fun. Learn to relax…
Haley: Uh, I can’t bring Alex to the festival because I am going for work to research new fashion trends. I need to blend in, you know? Everyone will think she’s a cop.
Alex: Well, I could sit here and worry and ruin my day, or I could go with Haley and ruin hers. I’ll grab my sunscreen.

While the girls are at the music festival, Claire calls to check on Alex.
Claire: Haley, are you with Alex? She’s not answering her phone.
Haley: Uh, yeah, yeah. We’re just a tiny bit separated right now, but, uh, she’s been acting a little strange.
Claire (opening Alex’s computer and her email): Oh, no… I was worried about this when you two left this morning. She didn’t get into Harvard.
Haley: Oh, thank God! That’s why she’s been acting so weird.

Then there’s this.
Haley: Alex! Alex, stop! I have been chasing you for, like, an hour! I know about Harvard.
Alex: How?
Haley: Mom saw on your computer.
Alex: And of course she told you, because privacy doesn’t mean anything. Why do things the right way? … I don’t care anymore! I’ve spent my entire life trying to be perfect, and where did it get me? I am in a field with 6,000 idiots!
Haley (as the crowd cheers): Okay, you are drawing more attention to yourself than the guy wearing a ferret as a scarf.

But then Haley continues. More thoughtfully. More helpfully.
Haley: Know what? I think that this is a good thing for you.
Alex: Can you just spare me today?
Haley: No. You’re obviously going to get into one of those snooty schools, and sometimes you’re gonna come in second or fourth, or maybe even tenth. But you’re gonna dust yourself off, maybe put on some lipstick for once, and keep going.
Alex: I’m allowed to feel bad about this, okay?
Haley: Look, you are a superstar! I’ve been saying since you were 10 you’re gonna be on the supreme court.
Alex: Thanks. But for the record, I’m gonna be a scientist.
Haley: Lab coat, robe – as long as something’s covering up your outfit, you’re gonna be just fine.

And when the girls return home, there’s this exchange.
Claire (holding a teddy bear wearing a “Harvard Sucks” t-shirt): There she is! Hi. I heard. I’m so sorry.
Alex: Uh, thanks, mom, but Haley already made me feel a little better about it. I just don’t really feel like talking right now. I kind of just want to change my password and get into bed.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
Now’s the time that high school seniors are hearing back from the colleges they applied to. And like Alex, many of them are anxious.

Some of our kids will be getting rejection letters from the school they had their heart set on attending. In fact, if that school is one of the dozen or more most selective colleges in the nation, the odds of getting in have never been worse.

A generation ago acceptance rates hardly ever fell below 20% – even at the most elite institutions. In 2003, Harvard and Princeton became the first top undergraduate schools to have admission rates lower than 10%. Since then nearly a dozen top schools have fallen below that level.

BottomLine
Alex: What’s the point? Get straight A’s for 10 years, spend your summers building houses, drag your cello to school every day, write the perfect essay, and for what?! “No, thank you, Alex!” “We don’t want you, Alex!”

Take heart, Alex. Admission offices are pursuing a more ideal class more than they are a perfect student. They claim they’re after creating a better educational experience through a better class. But the most competitive applicants couldn’t get more amazing. And these super-star applicants aren’t multiplying, they’re just applying to more places.

In truth, it’s the boom in the number of applications per student – more than the growth of the actual pool of students – that is driving down the admission rates. A generation ago, only 1 in 10 college-bound kids applied to seven or more schools. Now 1 in 4 do.

It’s a vicious cycle. Kids, seeing the admission rates at the most selective schools falling, respond by sending out more applications. This causes the more selective colleges to reject even more, causing their admit rates to fall further. Which in turn means that next year’s seniors send out even more apps.

What’s a Mom to Do

If your teen is just beginning their college search, encourage them to view the landscape from a bigger perspective. When my kids were high school juniors, I gave them the latest edition of “Best Colleges” by Princeton Review with the assurance that we’d happily help them pay for any college in the guide. The 2015 edition includes 379 colleges ranked on multiple lists, including the happiest students. (Click here to read more about this annual college guide.)

John Katzman, who founded the Princeton Review, encourages students to look at the top 100 superior schools instead of just focusing on the top 10 elite schools. Katzman notes that while the most elite schools have kept the size of their undergraduate student bodies pretty much the same, many selective schools (like the U of Michigan, U of CA at Berkeley, and Boston University) have significantly expanded the number they can accommodate. In addition, other schools (like New York University and Southern California) have upgraded to the ranks of those that are generally considered elite. Katzman says that these two trends taken together mean that if a student applies widely within the universe of the 100 or even the 50 most highly regarded colleges, their odds are better than they were decades ago that one will take them.

If you’ve got a college-bound senior, here are a few things to keep in mind as the college letters roll in.

– Don’t treat a rejection letter like a disaster. Your reaction will affect your teen’s reaction. So remind yourself (and your teen) that students with a determination to succeed can thrive at almost any school. Although your teen may think that their first choice college is the only path to success, in reality a great education is available at most schools.

– The most prestigious school on your teen’s list may not be the best one for them. It may be the most fun to name-drop, but it might not be the place where they’ll be the happiest. If students keep an open mind, there’s a good chance they’ll end up loving wherever they go. But if they don’t love it, they aren’t stuck there. They can always transfer.

– Many of the most successful people were rejected before succeeding. This very long list of successful folks includes Steven Spielberg who was turned down by both USC and UCLA film schools. He ended up attending the less prestigious Cal State, and then went on to become one of the world’s most popular and influential filmmakers. The thing all these folks have in common is that they refused to let others determine what their talents and interests were.

– Getting rejected by a dream school can give your teen a chance to step back and reevaluate what they really value in a school. It’s easy for a teen to get caught up in the prestige of a big-name school and overlook some qualities they wouldn’t have liked if they’d ended up there. Getting rejected can motivate a teen to step back and prioritize the things they want most from a college experience regardless of the school’s name.

– When it comes to getting a job, where your teen goes to college probably won’t make or break the deal. While seeing Harvard or Stanford at the top of a resume might impress an employer, there are things that impress them much more. A recent Newsweek survey found that when it comes to hiring, employers value experience, confidence, and even appearance above where the applicant attended school.

Like Claire, we too want to help when our kids get rejected. But we too long for proof that all that our kids have done – the late night studying, sports practices, theatre or band rehearsals, chess or robotics club – has paid off. Rejection can make us feel like our kids don’t quite measure up. And that somehow we don’t either.

So when a college rejection letter comes, it can help to take a few minutes to remember what you want most. After all, a mom’s dream come true is not just to have our kids get in and make it through college. What we really want is for them to be able to support themselves doing work that they love – work that engages and fulfills them. And progress towards this goal can be achieved at almost any college.

Your Parenting Experiences
What was your college application experience like? How much were your parents involved in the process? What did they do that helped? What didn’t help? What do you think your kids would say about your involvement?

Sources and Resources: The Best 379 Colleges, 2015 Edition by the Princeton Review; “The Elite Squeeze” by Frank Bruni in Time (March 30, 2015); “Why Being Rejected by Your Dream School Isn’t the End of the World” by Jessica Kane in the Huffington Post; “Application Inflation: When Is Enough Enough?” by Eric Hoover in the New York Times; “College Rejection: Hey It’s OK If You Didn’t Get Into Your Dream School” in Huff Post Teen

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Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 17, Closet? You’ll Love It!

Lily’s Dads Don’t Want Her to Sing

The Framework
Figuring out what one’s passions and talents are (and what they’re not) is the thread that holds the multiple storylines together tonight. Jay brings passion but no talent to marketing his closets. Haley is falling in love with Andy even though she seems to have a knack for dating another kind of guy. And Phil makes one impassioned attempt after another to knock a drone out of the sky, even though he becomes an “idiot” on YouTube in the process.

But the story that caught and kept my attention begins like this.
Cam (hollering): Okay, Lily, ballet at 11:00, then a play date, then karate class at 3:00. So why don’t you go get your uniform? Chop! Chop!
Mitch: What? Why would you schedule all this extra stuff on the same day as her talent show?
Cam: Okay, are you accusing me of overscheduling our tone-deaf daughter so she’s so tired she misses the talent show and doesn’t humiliate herself?

Lily (entering the room): I got it! Hey, wait. Isn’t my talent show today?
Mitch: You’re right. It is today, and since you have a little bit of time before ballet, why don’t you two do a little bit of warming up?
Cam (sitting down at keyboard): Oh, okay, great. So, Lily, can you meet me here at C? (playing and singing key of C)
Lily(singing off-key): C
Cam (singing): Now daddy’s lonely.
Lily (off-key): I’m there with you.
Cam (singing again): No, you’re not … That’s not even a note. I feel like you’re doing it on purpose.
Mitch (singing too): That seems a little bit sharp.
Cam (still singing): I’m never sharp; I’m pitch-perfect.
Mitch (singing again): I’m talking about your tone toward our daughter.
Lily (also singing): I can understand you even when you’re singing.

Later there’s this.
Mitch: Oh! You’re still rehearsing.
Cam: We sure are, and we found a more appropriate song for Lily’s singing voice.
Mitch: Really? Well, I’d love to hear it.
Cam: Okay. (singing) Everybody was kung fu fighting.
Lilly (doing a karate kick): Hyah! Hyah!
Cam (singing): Those kicks were fast as lightning.
Lily: Hyah! Hyah!
Mitch: Okay, stop, stop, stop … This is ridiculous. She’s not even singing.
Cam: She wasn’t singing before either.

With that, Mitch sends Lily out of the room, and there’s this.
Mitch: Cam.
Cam: Mitchell, I just don’t want her to embarrass herself in front of her friends – not to mention the parents. I can already hear Andrew’s condescending, “Hmm.”
Mitch: Oh my gosh! You’re still competing with Andrew.
Cam: He staged a coup, Mitchell. He forced me out of the group I founded … The Greensleevers were Southern California’s premier holiday chorus …
Mitch: So you’re not worried about Lily embarrassing herself. You’re worried about Lily embarrassing you.
Cam: Not so much now that’s she’s not singing.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
Cam and Mitch act like the quintessential pushy parents tonight – it’s all about their interests. But there’s a twist. Like most pushy parents, the dads have Lily’s schedule fully booked, including a solo in tonight’s talent show. That is until they (yes, eventually Mitch too) determine that it’s better for them if Lily doesn’t sing.

Many parents insist that their kids participate in lots of activities hoping that at least one will click. Then they urge their kids to practice, practice, and practice some more on the ones that stick, in hopes they’ll standout and shine when it comes time to perform. This sounds like a win-win. After all who doesn’t want their offspring to excel and be brilliant? And if we can be proud while helping cultivate our child’s talent – a talent that will look good on a college application someday and maybe even lead to a career – what could possibly go wrong?

Grouchiness, headaches, stomachaches, and slipping grades all come to mind.

BottomLine
Cam (to camera): Lily has no talent.
Mitch: Because she’s 7. No one has talent at 7.

Cam and Mitch are both wrong. Every kid has in them at least one worthwhile and passionate interest. Our job as parents is to help them find that passion and nurture its development. But in the process, some parents push too hard while others don’t push hard enough. And truth be told, most of us worry about getting the balance right.

Child development experts say that we nurture when we follow our kids’ lead. But we push when we want our kids to follow us – to do what we want them to do. The distinction sounds pretty straightforward. So why do so many parents struggle with getting it right?

Let’s take Lily as a case in point. Singing doesn’t really seem to be her thing. But let’s imagine, instead, that Lily is passionate about it. And let’s say her dads, wanting to nurture her interest, arrange for her to join a community choir. Each week Lily looks forward to choir practice. She shines when she sings. She even gets a solo in the spring concert. In fact, she performs so well that Cam and Mitch decide she should have private voice lessons.

Is arranging for a seven-year-old to join a choir or take voice lessons pushing? Private lessons seem a bit over-the-top, but Lily is interested and having fun, and as long as a child is having fun, it’s not pushing. Her dads are just trying to provide opportunities to nurture her interest.

Let’s take things another step further. Let’s say that once Lily starts voice lessons, she doesn’t always want to practice the scales that her teacher assigns as part of the lesson. Her dads, however, insist that she practice her singing for 30 minutes a day – including the scales that will help her continue to develop her skills. And they take away some of her privileges when she doesn’t.

Are her dads being pushy when they insist that Lily practice scales for 30 minutes a day? This is a little trickier. Some might say that requiring Lily to practice for any amount of time means that her dads are no longer following her lead. But, in truth, almost all kids resist practicing what they consider boring parts or when things get hard – even in areas of their interest. And unless Lily practices the scales, she won’t develop the skills she needs to sing the way she seems to want to. So requiring that Lily practice singing scales that she’s not interested in for 30 minutes a day is nurturing – not pushing.

Let’s go one more step. Imagine now that that after she’s been practicing 30 minutes a day almost every day, Cam and Mitch notice that Lily’s singing skills have increased remarkably. Her vocal teacher even says that she has never seen a young child with so much talent. So Lily’s dads begin requiring that she practice an hour every day. Soon this becomes two hours a day. Even though Lily has other interests and misses playing with her friends, her dads insist that she focus on her singing. They envision Lily as a child prodigy or at least a famous adult.

With this last step, Lily’s dads clearly move from nurturing to pushing her. By insisting on so much practice, they are preventing Lily from being with her friends and engaging in other interests. They got caught up in their vision of Lily’s potential future and began letting that, rather than Lily’s interests, guide their decisions.

What’s a Mom to Do
Below are some tips for helping you find and keep your balance as you help your kids find and develop their interests and talents.

Talk regularly about natural interests and talents. Talk with your kids about theirs and share what yours are and how they enrich your life.

Take care not to push. Our job is to support – not direct – by providing lots of opportunities for our kids to explore, find, and develop their talents. This begins with our kids’ interests. When our interests (rather than our kids’ interests) determine what is done or what is learned, then it becomes pushing.

Emphasize the importance of practice and sticking with commitments. There will almost certainly be times when your kids won’t want to do what they’re supposed to do or learn what they’re supposed to learn, so sometimes you’ll have to nudge. You might set an expectation that they practice 30 minutes – even if things get boring or hard – before they get screen time or time with friends. And if your kids wants to drop an activity, let them do so at a natural stopping point (for example, at the end of the season) but only if they find another activity to replace it.

Support and recognize your kids’ progress. Attend their games, concerts, and other events. Make sure they know you’re proud of the progress they’re making. And be sure to celebrate the important milestones.

Thank the adults who help develop your kids’ talents. Write a thank you note or an email to let them know you appreciate what they do.

Source for tips: ParentFurther, a Search Institute Resource (Click here for more.)

If we help our kids find an activity they love, they’ll get a chance to see what they can do if they work really hard at something. And as they develop their interests into well-honed talents they’re working to become the best they can be and do their part in making the world better for us all.

Your Parenting Experiences
If you were to name the one or two things that really get you excited, what would they be? Do you think your kids know what your biggest interests and talents are?

Sources and Resources: Helping Kids Discover What They Love to Do in Search Institute’s ParentFurther; When Does Nurturing a Gifted Child Become Pushing? by Carol Bainbridge in About Parenting

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