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This week's blog post is by Interface college counselor Sonja Montiel and was originally published on the international blogging platform Media. Here, Sonja writes about the balancing act of parenting a child through college admissions, and most importantly of all, about keeping her family's emotional well-being in mind throughout the process. This is a fantastic article for any parent whose son or daughter will be applying for college soon.
本周的博客文章由顾瑞教育顾问索尼娅·梦迪尔撰写, 最初发表在国际博客平台媒体 Media。在这里, 索尼娅写到了在大学申请入学过程中养育孩子的平衡行为, 最重要的是, 在整个过程中时刻谨记维持好家庭的情感健康。 对于任何儿子或女儿即将申请大学的家长来说, 这是一篇精彩的文章。
There is nothing like it. Parenting a teenager. It’s the grey area between independence and dependence. It’s the reality of the upcoming “letting go” phase that all your friends, teachers, counselors, and family members talk about, and it gets annoying. It becomes loud noise, and then white noise in the background that makes me want to take a nap. And then, suddenly, it just happens.
没有任何事情可以与之相比。养育青少年。这是独立和依赖之间的灰色地带。这是即将到来的“放手”阶段的现实，你所有的朋友、老师、顾问和家人都在谈论这个阶段，让人很烦。它变成了巨大的噪音，然后成了背景中的白噪音，让我想打个盹。然后，突然之间，它就发生了。
My daughter never changed in her character, personality, talents, and growing pains. Since a toddler, she remained centered, confident, aware, courageous, balanced. She didn’t sway from her center through the eleven times moving home to home. She never lost her cool during her first days of new schools, which by the way included 8th grade. Winning trophies was never her priority. Reaching “the top” never drove her to fight or work harder. Life was under her terms. She’s calm, observes carefully and engages in a steady pace. Why on earth would I have wanted more, expected more, and hoped for more when this incredible human being became a teen?
我女儿的品质、个性、才能和成长的烦恼从未改变。从蹒跚学步时起，她就保持着集中、自信、警觉、勇敢和平衡。在11次搬家的过程中，她始终没有动摇自己的立场。在新学校的头几天里，她从未失去冷静，顺便说一下，新学校包括八年级。赢得奖杯从来不是她的首要任务。她从未为了达到“顶峰”去奋斗或更努力地工作。生活在她的掌控之下。她很冷静，观察仔细，步调稳定。当这个不可思议的人成为一个青少年的时候，我究竟为什么想要更多，期待更多，希望更多呢?
Most of us do it. I have engaged with parents raising teens through the most vulnerable and exciting time of a family’s life — college planning. It’s been 20 years on the other side of the desk where I have listened, facilitated, advocated, moderated, and educated. I have seen it all. Dominating parents, attachment parents, protective parents, insecure and fearful parents, disconnected parents. I have taken mental notes to never say or do certain things raising my teen. I have also collected notes that feed inspiration and motivation to teens. All these notes, tips, and hints, I should have been set raising my own. And still, I wasn’t set.
我们大多数人都这么做。我曾接触过一些父母，他们抚养青少年时度过了家庭生活中最脆弱、最激动人心的时期——大学规划。20年来，我一直在桌子的另一边倾听、帮助、倡导、协调和教育。我都看过了。支配型父母，依恋型父母，保护型父母，无安全感和恐惧型父母，脱节型父母。我已经记在心里，在抚养我的孩子时永远不会说或者做某些事情。我还收集了一些给青少年以灵感和动力的笔记。所有这些笔记、小贴士和暗示，都应该为我抚养自己的孩子做好了准备。然而，我还是没有做好准备。
College admissions is just a process. It’s paperwork and choices. It should never take over the emotional health of a family unit. That’s silly. Yet, the planning and baggage of this time frame barges in like a tidal wave, and it has nothing to do with the paperwork.
大学申请只是一个过程。是文件工作和选择。它永远不应该取代家庭成员的情感健康。那太傻了。然而，这个时间框架的规划和担子就像潮水一样汹涌而来，与文件工作毫无关系。
When it was time to support my daughter through her college planning, I changed. I wanted her to fight for her options, to work harder in her classes, to engage in her community more than ever before (even though community service was never her thing). Yet, she stayed still. She observed me. She listened. She stayed on her course. I tried every strategy that I learned from other parents to convince her that this was it; it’s time to make that last ditch effort to get the best opportunities in her future. I huffed and puffed until I face planted. This human being would not succumb to her panicked mother. She would teach me something about the human condition.
当我要支持我的女儿完成她的大学规划时，我改变了。我希望她为自己的选择而奋斗，在课堂上更加努力地学习，比以往任何时候都更多地参与社区活动(尽管社区服务从来不是她的兴趣所在)。然而，她不为所动。她观察着我。她在倾听。但她仍然坚持自己的路线。我尝试了我从其他父母那里学到的每一种策略来说服她就该如此，为了将来能获得最好的机会，是时候做最后的努力了。我气喘吁吁，直喘得脸都僵了。这个人不会屈服于她惊慌失措的母亲，她教会我一些关于人类状况的认知。
There’s nothing like learning to be so still with your child that everything is in slow motion. I sense every sound, motion, and movement. Through my daughter’s sense of being, that has not changed since she was a toddler, I joined her. I quieted myself. I meditated. I began to see and embrace everything that she is. She’s going places, and these places will not include me manipulating how she gets there. She will not accept my panic. She will continue to listen to her own voice.
没有什么比学会和孩子在一起时保持平静更重要的了，一切都要慢条斯理。我能感觉到每一个声音、动作和运动。通过我女儿的存在感，从她蹒跚学步起，这种感觉就没有改变过，我也加入了她的行列，让自己安静下来。我冥想。我开始看到并拥抱她的一切。她要去很多地方，这些地方并不包含我操纵她如何到达那里。她不会接受我的惊慌失措。她会继续倾听自己的声音。
Her college process became just that — me listening to her plans, sharing suggestions only with her permission, and supporting her through the paperwork. She submitted eight applications and was accepted to six (half with scholarships) by January of her senior year. Discussions about colleges were minimal and scheduled. She had childhood to take care of and I had limited time to experience my child living with me. I wanted to be consumed by her presence, celebrating every moment she invited me in. Turns out that she invites me in quite often these days. Turns out that both of us are in this phase of letting go.
她申大学的过程就变成了这样——我倾听她的计划，在她允许的情况下分享建议，并通过文件工作支持她。她提交了8份申请，并在毕业班的1月份收到了6份录取(其中一半有奖学金)。关于大学的讨论很少，而且是安排好的。她童年需要照顾，而我只有有限的时间来体验我的孩子和我生活在一起。我想被她的存在所消耗，庆祝她邀请我进入她的生活的每一刻。原来这段时间以来她经常邀请我。事实证明，我们都处于放手的阶段。
Through college admissions, I have come to understand how hard it is to raise a teen, to fight against your parental instincts to take over in the name of protecting and defending. Bella and I agreed to do a weekly podcast called Angst that captures this very moment in our lives, engaging in unrehearsed conversation between a mom and her teen. We are thinking, wondering, questioning, and celebrating.
通过大学申请入学，我逐渐明白养育一个青少年是多么困难，要与父母以保护和捍卫的名义接管一切的本能作斗争是多么困难。Bella和我同意每周做一个名为《焦虑》( Angst )的播客，捕捉我们生活中的这一时刻，在一位母亲和她的孩子之间进行未经排练的对话。我们在思考，在疑惑，在质疑，在庆祝。