Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Melanie's a coach and a mom in our community and has trained in the Sanity School of Modality. We were talking a few weeks ago—months ago now—about the notion of transitions. If you're a regular listener, you know Diane and I discussed transitions earlier this year when we explored sleep: some of the challenges we have with going to sleep and waking up are actually transition issues. We did a two-part series on how to navigate sleep and micromanagement. Today, we want to talk about the transitions that happen when our kids move from one phase of life to the next.

Maybe it's from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, or from high school to college. Those are the macro-transition points. It even shows up when you go from school to break or from break back to school. Specifically, we're talking about milestones and life changes. Melanie's done a lot of work on this with her kids using this approach to navigate it. We thought it would be a great conversation. Melanie, thanks for your transparency and for sharing your adventure.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Thanks for inviting me—this has been an unexpected adventure. It will continue to be an adventure.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
It doesn't stop being an adventure. We're very lucky to have relationships with community members over many years. We've watched their kids grow up. I think your eldest was 11 when we started.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Both of my kids were in elementary school. Isn't it amazing? When I started, I had one in elementary school. Now, I have one in college and one in high school. Last summer's transition made me ask, What are we doing to bridge from one level to the next? From one building to the next, from one place to the next.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Right, cuz it's a full change of aspects of location. Where do we start with this conversation? What's important for parents to understand about approaching these macro-transition issues that we're talking about?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
The first thing is to be mindful that it's coming and to look for little things you can do now to make it easier in the long run.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
On an intellectual level, most parents know it's coming. They're afraid for it to come, or they think they're not ready for it to come, and there's a lot of emotion around it. Practically, when you say, "Be aware it's coming," what is it?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
It's whatever your next big transition is—or the next two, what you're lining up in a row. The trick is to notice what work you as a parent need to do to level up to be ready to support your kid through the transition.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
That's a great concept: What do I have to do as a parent to level up and be ready to support my kid through this transition? We keep thinking it's always about getting our kid ready, but there's this peace about getting us ready to be present for them. So, speak about that a little bit.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Like, what do I need to do as a parent to be ready to be the parent of a college student instead of the parent of a high school student? What do I need to do to be ready to be the parent of this kid at the high school level as opposed to that kid who's already comfortable in high school?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
So when you say "Level up to be ready," what might that look like? What does that really mean?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Well, for the first kid, I think it comes down to looking at your assumptions, because I kept having these moments where, like, "Oh, I was that age," or "My mom was such and such an age," but my kid is doing this in a different decade than I did, in a different school system, and in a different culture. And so, just because I have a personal lens on what it is to make these transitions, what it is to encounter these different levels, I need to set some of that aside. So, what is my kid experiencing, not how do I apply my ideas about high school to the current situation, which could be completely irrelevant? It's so easy to fall into that trap. Mm-hmm. And then you and Diane talk about triggers a lot. That's where some of that comes from: "Oh, it's supposed to be this way," and suddenly you're playing a script that might have come from three generations back. Movies that happened in high schools.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
No. Well, what I'm hearing is check your assumptions. So yes. The first thing that we can do to prepare, and as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking: I have three kids now, young adults. They've all left the house multiple times, because that happens. They leave and come back, then leave again. They come back in a different relationship with being at home, and then they leave and come back. So I'm thinking back to the years of my own emotionality around it, especially those years when I was crying a lot at the beginning because I wasn't used to it, or the somersaults of the last one when I was excited for it. So there's checking my assumptions, but also what I hear you saying is checking in on your own emotional issues around it.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yeah, and just making space, and that could be physical space, mental space, or calendar space to be able to have all the feels and do all the things as whatever comes up around that so that when your kids want to discuss the transition or the next step or whatever, you can be there for them instead of getting sucked into your own personal narrative about what might be next.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah, it's so interesting how much this ties into this conversation we have so often but particularly with parenting teens and young adults, is how incredibly important it is to get our stuff out of the way so that we can be present to them and their stuff, cuz we've all got stuff, right? But when we let our emotions enter the fray, we're no longer really meeting them where they are and what they need; we're trying to manage our own stuff.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Exactly. It's like helping them pack for a trip by packing my own suitcase and giving them my suitcase. That's not at all helpful.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
No, but helping them pack by saying, "I believe you can do it," keeping myself out of the way of what I think they should bring, maybe offering a packing list or working with them to create a packing list that would be helpful.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Or asking, "I understand you have a trip. Is there something you'd like me to do to help you get ready?" "Do you want some help with packing?" "When do you want me to check in again regarding whether you're making progress with packing, or the college application, or the high school orchestra audition, or whatever it might be?"

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah, as they become more independent and what we're really talking about is next-level stages of independence. Absolutely. And we parents have a tendency to be afraid they're not going to be ready for it. So, part of it is managing our own stuff and getting our stuff out of the way.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yes. Self-managing that to really see clearly where they are and what the next challenge is, but not just in one realm. It's real easy to get fixated on, "Oh, like we need to help them micromanage the schoolwork so that they get it all done, get the grades, get into college." My college freshman needs to manage her bank account. She needs to manage her doctor's appointments and dentist appointments and whether she gets a flu shot. When they turn 18, we can no longer just make these things happen. If she lands in the hospital and I don't have the paperwork to say I'm actually allowed to step in and take this role.

Yeah, like there are external rules and regulations and things that happen when somebody turns 18. It's rare for people to really think about that. Like, what does my 18-year-old need in the way of legal? How do I teach my 18-year-old to start navigating the legal system in a way that's age-appropriate for them? What do I want my kid to know about managing their own medical care and to scaffold it to where they are? And this is the next step: "What help do you need, and do you want me to check in, and if so, how often?"

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
My guest is Melanie Sobocinski, and we are talking about macro transitions as our kids move from one life experience to another, and how to prepare for those transitions. Up until now, what I think we've really been talking about is managing our own assumptions, our own expectations, our own emotionality around it, and making space for ourselves as adults to manage these transitions as our kids go through them. We're feeling it too, right?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Well, we're transitioning from being full-time parents of whatever level the kid was at to, especially if we're working at parenting adults, part-time parents of fledglings, right, who are trying their wings.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Adults. Yeah. So this brings us—and what I said, I wanna make it a little more practical and tactical because it can be overwhelming—and you're speaking specifically about the last example you gave: making sure we have a medical proxy or capacity to support our kids from a legal perspective. That's really what happens when they leave high school for college, for the most part, or when they turn 18, whether they're going to college or doing something else. And the language you used was you wanna help get them in an opportunity where they can practice. Yes. And that starts much earlier, so… absolutely. Right. So let's, when they're 2 or 3—well, I'm gonna look at elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, high school to beyond. OK? Mm-hmm. So let's just take a minute and say, OK, when kids are transitioning from elementary school to middle school, what are the appropriate things for us parents—besides checking our assumptions and setting appropriate expectations—where might we be looking at that stage? If you've got younger kids moving into more independence in middle school, what do we wanna be aware of then?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
So you have to look at your individual kid, OK? Because some kids are just gonna sail through that, no questions asked. Other kids—you really do need to be talking with the school about what is the transition handoff from one school to the next, to get the 504, the IEP to transfer over, what are accommodations that are appropriate at each level? And that is so particular to each kid.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Right? Indeed. But what is appropriate for most of our kids, I would say, is that there is something. If you haven't started including kids in that process by elementary school, then one of the things you really wanna make sure you're doing by middle school is involving your kid in the process of understanding accommodations, even if they're not directing it, and understanding what is being done to set them up for success. Is that fair?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yeah. Knowing that you're having a meeting—I would often say, some issue would come up, I would talk to my kid and say, "I think the thing to do is to send an email to this school administrator, guidance counselor, or teacher." And when my kid needed more support, saying things like, "This is what I've written. Are you comfortable with me sharing it with this person? Is there anything you want me to take out or word differently?"

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Beautiful. Great examples. So, I wanna model this: this is a great example of how to collaborate with your kid. You're bringing them into the agenda, still showing them how you have these communications, but you're checking in so they're not out of the loop—they're in the loop and able to have input in the communication.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Exactly. And that's what I was doing with one of my kids in middle school and now in high school. I'm writing the email saying, "Here's what's going on," and CCing my kid on every email so that in the long run she'll have access to a library of emails written about the things she tends to run into.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah, to drop from. You still have the history; she'll have her own history. The other thing I would say is at that stage—once you're moving from middle school to high school—you're still involving them, and you may still be writing the emails; you may not, as they move. It depends on the kid, I mean. But there's now this kind of paper trail as part of their documentation because accommodations—and we're just talking about accommodations for the minute—is about documentation.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Right. Absolutely. And I think also clear and open communication so that the teachers know that I'm not hiding anything. My kid has the email they can show the school administration if there's a question over who said what or what has been requested. In that way, it can support nonverbal communication. Later, the kid writes the email. I'm helping the kid compose it. It might be like, "Mom, I need to say something like this, but if I say it that way, it won't sound right. Can you give some alternate language?"

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. And here's what I want to say again: this issue of it depends on your kid is so important because I have dyslexia, and supporting that writing of the email went all the way into their mid-twenties, and actually still sometimes I'll get a text saying, "Mom, can you check this language for me? Is this OK for me to send?" So I'm in a support role, not leading it, but because there's a language processing issue, they want to make sure they're communicating in a way that really works. So there's this dance. Going into middle school, there's more collaboration. Starting off in high school, there's still that collaboration. What I'm hearing is that throughout high school, ideally we want to start moving more into support where they're in the lead, and now we're being more supportive—still collaborative, but now it's their agenda. They're the one communicating with the teacher or the school, and we're supporting them in that communication. Is that fair?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Again, it depends on your kid, of course. Right. But when the kid is ready, hopefully we can get all the kids to that point—able to write it themselves with just a little support by the time they're in college. But again, that's going to depend on the kid. You were just telling a story about a kid who needed that extra level of support. It's about collaborating with them, and it's OK to ask for that support when they need it. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, my college kid will occasionally say, "I'm writing an email, this one feels iffy." "Can you read it for me?, or can we talk about it so that I can, like, feel more comfortable sending this email, making sure I said all the things reasonably."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. Well, this is a weird segue, but go with me for a second. OK. I have a women's circle I'm involved with, and we were meeting last night. One of the women is turning 60—a major life transition for her—and she was really struggling with asking this group of women who adore her, and she's the leader of the group, to do something for her on her 60th as part of an observance she's doing. She was fumbling around the language. I finally looked at her and said, "Friend, it sounds like there's something you want to ask for. Will you make the ask? Will you ask for what you want?" She took a breath, then she did, and later she said, "Thank you so much. It is so hard to ask." We ended up in this whole conversation about how hard it is to ask for what we need.

So the reason I'm going there is because I want to remind all of us it's really hard for us humans to ask for what we want and what we need, and what you are speaking to, Melanie, is training our kids throughout the process of transitions from one to the next—helping them see the value of the support and the help they're getting and need, and learning how to ask for it without shame. That's really what I'm hearing underneath all of this. Is that fair?
I think that's fair. It's pretty powerful. The key to all of these major transitions—yes, there's prep and conversations, but at the end of the day it's about making it OK to get the help we need without feeling ashamed.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
How to ask for the help we need, even if the answer might be no. I have a story about a hard ask like that. One of my kids needs a lighter schedule because of being a complex kiddo with some energy limitations. We were asking the school for a reduced schedule. I asked in a lot of different ways. It took me a long time to get a clear answer on why they said no, because you can do part-time college or part-time work, but apparently, there's no part-time high school. The reason I finally found is the school is concerned if they're not handing out a full-size dose of school, they are violating the kid's right to a free and appropriate public education. I actually asked both of my kids what they wanted, and my kid, who would prefer a part-time high school schedule, wants more people to advocate for a reduced load as a reasonable accommodation when a full load could drive someone to burnout because we don't want the kids to take a year or two off after high school to recover from their education.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Which they really wouldn't have to do if they could pace themselves in high school in a way that worked for them.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yeah. But there's also some real, true, hard history of schools trying to say, "Oh, you need too much support. We don't want you here all day." And that's why the rule is biased. Wow. But when those rules were written, we didn't have the understanding of burnout and energy-limiting conditions that we do now.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. So what a powerful ask, and what I really want to point people to—and we need to start watching our time—but by being in a conscious conversation with your kids over the years around their own self-management and transitions—and I'm going to celebrate that you've done a ton of work to have these conversations with your kids in a collaborative way so they can have this conversation with you—I really appreciate that part of the transition is understanding what you're really saying is meet them where they are, right? Absolutely. What they need. And then we need to recognize that sometimes what our kids need may not fit into the box the system is trying to put them in. Right?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing we discovered with my kid, who's now in college, is the system and culture push us as parents to send our kids to the highest-prestige, most status institution we can borrow our way into, right? And something that's really key to the transition is recognizing the education system is huge. Let's visit different kinds of colleges and see public versus private, in-state, out-of-state, small, medium, large, urban, rural, research-oriented, teaching-oriented, and then make a choice based on what kind of learning, education, and campus culture you want.

Do I want—and actually, what feels really manageable and affordable—is that if we're making space for failure… There's such a common story in this community of the kid who drops out halfway through the first semester or three-quarters of the first year, doesn't finish their education, and comes out with a crippling amount of debt and no credentials. What do we need to do to support our kids moving into college that makes it safe for them to fail?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. So, that they can fail forward to achieve what they have the capacity to.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
So that they can—yeah. Yeah. So they can try their wings. They're taking on the right amount of risk—not a plunge off a skyscraper amount of risk, but enough risk that they can feel the thrill of flight—and grow from it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Isn't that beautiful.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
And so my college kid—I was gonna ask—don't micromanage your kids' homework. She really appreciated that I was hands-off on homework and schoolwork the entire way. It wasn't my problem if she did her homework or not. Homework and schoolwork were between my kid and the school. My job was to support my kid.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
OK, and she now in college appreciates that she had that experience.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Because she learned how to motivate herself to do her work. She learned how to figure out how to pace her work, how to know when it wasn't going well, how to ask for help when she needed more help, and OK. And so she can be independent with that, while other people are, for the first time facing, "If I don't actually manage myself, I might not do well in my classes," right? She only has to learn how to manage her schoolwork at school. She doesn't have to learn how to manage schoolwork at home, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
So here's what I'm hearing—and I think this is—that we were talking about the transition from elementary to middle, middle to high school, high school to college or work—there's so much in that transition that's about managing life independently; you want to make sure they've practiced doing the work of their job, which in high school is schoolwork, and that they've learned how to do that fairly independently so that by the time they move on to the next stage, they're able to start tackling those life skills because they've learned how to do their work of being a student or whatever that is. Is that what I kinda hear?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Exactly, it's "Fail early," and then as you have those failing-forward experiences, what supports do we need to put in place so that you can succeed? You know, for one kid it might be a lower workload—let's give you a workload you can succeed at—and for another kid it might be a higher level of support. So what support do you need to break this task down into manageable steps, or what support do you need to figure that out? You do better work when you're well-rested.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. All right, so we are way over time and I know we need to stop, and I want to wrap this. I want to come back and wrap this. OK. So let me tell you guys: Melanie is here with multiple hats on. She is a mom, she's a trainer in our community, and she is also a coach who works with adults with ADHD—predominantly professors, right?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yeah. College faculty.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
College faculty with ADHD or other forms of neurodivergence. You can find out more about her at https://dixonlifecoaching.com. We'll have that in the show notes. They do group and private coaching—big fans of Dixon. We have a great working relationship with them, and it has been wonderful that Melanie has had our training and their training and then integrated it in this beautiful way. So it's been really fun to see.

So we're gonna wrap this conversation and I want to set up a spike a little bit because we've talked about these different transition points. And I want to ask you—as you wrap—what do we need to say to parents that we haven't said or that you want to highlight? I want to start with the question: What's the message you want to share with parents of middle or predominantly high school kids who are still really attending to the work and trying to drag the kids through the individual assignments because they're afraid they're not gonna be able to do it, or they'll fail, or they'll set back, or they're not gonna graduate, or whatever? What's the message you want to share with those parents?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Well, I'm just gonna quote you. And if you're not in a place where you can focus on the relationship, then work on yourself so that you can focus on the relationship

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
All right, nice. I can't argue with those words, but I love how you interpret it, right? So focus on the relationship. If you aren't there, then you've got your work to do to get there, because there's nothing more foundational.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Yeah. Don't sacrifice the relationship on the altar of school. And when is it ever going to be safer to fail forward than this school year, this week?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. And for those of you listening, I know that for some of you this feels like a really hard thing to hear, right? It really is because we don't ever want our kids to fail, and we want them to practice living and taking on responsibility while they're still under our care, support, and under our wings.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
And practicing how to respond emotionally when things don't turn out the way you want, which is what failure is, after all. Yeah. Practice it when they can do it at home and not when they're 50, a hundred, a thousand, 2,000 miles away.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Anything else you want to wrap with today? Anything else you want to share?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
One of my kids insisted that I have to call out how amazing our family dog is as a constant source of outside regulation, support, and transitions, snuggles at bedtime, and just a general source of cuteness and positive conversations.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Beautiful. Total respect. All about the family dog. Well, I recommend everybody get a dog. I'm not sure everybody should get a dog, but I'm right there with you.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
It's a big care commitment, so you have to be ready. But it has been worth the work for the love the dog rescue.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Beautiful. All right, my friend. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for your engagement. Do you have a final quote or motto you want to share?

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Well, if I'm not quoting you, Elaine, I guess I would have to quote Ross Greene's Kids Do Well If They Can. Yeah. And what we can do as parents is find ways to help them show up doing well however they can. Yeah. And that's gonna be wherever they are. Back to quoting you, Elaine, we have to meet them where they are, and we have to be ready to see them where they are.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. And sometimes they're gonna resist that.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Right? Oh, absolutely. And sometimes we're gonna resist that. We're gonna say Oh, of course. Do we have to be willing to listen to the kid who shows us they're not ready for whatever reason?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah. That's a beautiful insight, and a great place to end this conversation. I think a lot of this has been about helping them show us when they are ready or what they're ready for. And the converse of it is that we also have to be willing.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
To let them tell us. We have to not be scared of what the truth is. Beautiful. And that might mean they might be bouncing back—that's true, we have to be OK with it—and they might be bouncing forward, and we have to be willing and happy and ready.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
And again, I want to say it's not easy; it bounces all over the place. There are times where it's like, ''I thought we were through this; parenting is here, we're…''

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
Again, parenting is the biggest personal growth journey we can go on. It's fair—done right, parenting is the biggest personal growth journey you can go on.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Fair enough. Well, I love being on the journey with you. Thank you for sharing your story with our community.

Dr. Melanie Sobocinski
No, thanks for inviting me. It's always a delight to spend time with you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Yeah, and to those of you listening, thank you for tuning in and engaging for yourselves and your kids. It makes such an enormous difference. Take a moment and ask yourself: what's the insight you're taking away from this conversation that Melanie and I have been having? We've talked a lot about transitions in different forms, cultivating autonomy, agency, and involving them in their own decision making. What's your insight or awareness from this conversation that you want to carry into the week? And again, as always, thanks for being here, thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you in the next conversation. Take care, everybody.