HOW TO HELP YOUR TEEN OR YOUNG ADULT MAKE FRIENDS & FIND THEIR PEOPLE
Extraordinary Purpose: Parenting Teens & Young Adults
Hosts: Erin and Chris | November 4, 2026
Website: https://myextraordinarypurpose.com
EPISODE TOPICS
Making friends in college and high school | Teen and young adult friendships | Loneliness and belonging | Self-discovery | Confidence | Personal brand | Social goals | Parent support
TRANSCRIPT
This is a lightly formatted transcript of the recorded conversation, edited for readability and navigation. The original automatic transcription contains occasional incomplete or unclear phrases; these have not been reconstructed or invented. Speaker labels are omitted where the source did not identify speakers reliably.
OPENING REFLECTION
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Are the people I'm surrounding myself with, are they moving me forward?
Are they supporting my dreams and goals? Are they aligned with my values and what's really important to me or not? And if not, what steps do I need to take in order to create some distance with certain people, allow new people into my life? So this whole process we've been talking about really teaches young people, and us for that matter, how to take inventory of the people we surround ourselves with, the environments we're putting ourselves in, the things we're doing with our time, and that is such an invaluable strategy and tool to have for the rest of your life
WELCOME TO EXTRAORDINARY PURPOSE
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Welcome to the extraordinary purpose podcast, where we explore some of the truly difficult questions and challenges that parents and their families face every day. Whether it's the sometimes painful process of parenting teens and young adults. Navigating relationships with your partner and children, or you discovering your purpose in relationship with yourself, we will bring heartfelt and vulnerable conversations to the table to support and empower you.
Our mission is to help you create a lifestyle full of love, passion, adventure, and influence. Here we go
Everybody, welcome to the Extraordinary Purpose Podcast. and as always, I am here with the absolutely fantastic Erin Vertes. What's up, sweetheart?
I'm feeling pretty fantastic today
You're looking energized today,
I'm faking it till I make it, if you know what I mean. It's a little dreary today. It's, it's rainy and it's finally cooling off here in Michigan. It's starting to feel like fall for real. So I just feel sleepy and, like, cozy today
morning, we do our morning routine, we drop the kids off at school, and we come back and we get ready to have this conversation with all of you., And so
tr- really kick off our day, this really is the
many, many times because this is how we communicate with you, and we just wanna remind you, but you have the ability at any point in time to communicate with us, too. Obviously not when you're listening to this podcast but we wanna have a conversation with you.
So as you get ideas and thoughts and questions and, "Hey, yeah, that's me, too," write those down, reach out to us, and we'll make sure that our contact information is listed at the very end of this podcast.
So, Erin, what is our topic today?
Dun, dun, dun. Now our topic today is a really good topic, and this is a great topic,
not just for our young adults and our teens, but for us.
WHY FINDING YOUR PEOPLE MATTERS
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this is all about how to find your people, so we're really talking about how to help our young adults find their people in, you know, whether they're entering high school, entering college, entering just a new career path in life, entering a new sport, a new club, whatever that is.
But it's really about all of us finding people at different stages in our lives, finding new friendships, you know, finding new professional,
with new professional people we need to find, and how challenging that can be. So we're gonna talk today about why it's important, you know, how we can go about finding our people, and this is just something, that's really been coming up a lot lately as well.
, This is often where Chris and I get our topics when we talk to all of you amazing parents. We've been hearing this a lot lately, just that, you know, it's now November. Kids have been off to college now for a few months, and we're getting a lot of like, "My son, my daughter came home from college," or they're still there, but they're really, really struggling socially to find new friends, to find their people.
And it's a real thing, and it's really challenging for us parents knowing our kids are away at school suffering and, you know,
struggling so much to find,
their people.
I to we're seeing and hearing and more often, especially over the last few years, and I'm sure there's really good reasons for that, technology and social media and all the distractions and,...
The big one, Erin, that kinda comes to mind as we're getting this conversation started is, is a lot of young adults,, they, they go from high school where they're in this environment, this incredible environment where a lot of times your friendships are kind of built into the experience. You're spending all this time in the same building, going to the same classes,, for four years,, and so it's a little bit easier to find friends when you're in high school. Now that, by the way, does not necessarily mean, Erin, that they're the right friends or they're gonna
friends for the rest of your life because sometimes you're making those friends more
sometimes rather than having interests and things in common and things like that. then, Erin, something happens, that's really challenging for a lot of people, is that you... all of a sudden you walk into your first day of college and you're like, "Oh my God, it's this big, huge, overwhelming experience, and I know how to do academics, I know how to go to my classes, and I know how to study, but don't know how to go out and intentionally meet new people and make friends."
Yeah. And so, you know, let's talk for a minute about why is it so important to find our people?, Why some people are very introverted, and some people would argue, "I'm perfectly fine, you know, being on my own, not having friends, not finding my people." But why is it so important?, It's so important for so many reasons, but the truth is
in order for us to continue growing and expanding who we are, and learning about ourselves, and learning about other people, we need to collaborate. We need to create these connections with other people in our lives. It's what keeps us moving forward. And the truth is, this is something from Tony Robbins, and as always with Tony, it's extreme, like, if we're not growing, we're dying.
If we're not moving forward, we're moving backwards. And we always wanna be moving forward. We always wanna be growing. In order to do that, we need other people. People need people. We need that connection in our lives
or three times each week, but when you are moving towards your future, you're trying to figure yourself out, you have all these goals, you have all these challenges that you're, you're trying to address and work on for yourself, you can't do it alone. know, we can't emphasize that enough, and that's part of the big reason why Erin and
we do, is because you can't do it alone. You need people, different types of people playing different roles in your life to help you accomplish any goal. Doesn't matter if it's getting good grades, whether it's graduating, whether it's getting an internship, whether it's figuring out your career and your future, whether it's meeting new people and making new friends. You're gonna need support and people in your life to accomplish any one of those goals. Otherwise, what happens? get stuck. We get overwhelmed. You know, we kinda feel defeated, and we just stay where we are. We stay in our dorm room or our
We isolate.
And a lot of people start
that's where they're coming from. They're lonely. They're isolated. They're spending way too much time alone. And
happens if you spend too much time alone. It just gets worse. You feel
And so that's
topic of getting out and meeting people, your people, not just any
way, but your people. And that's what's so important, Erin 'cause if you do find your people, as Erin just said, that makes everything possible. Any goal, any opportunity, any future that you want for yourself, all of a sudden, that opens up to you, and all of a sudden, you feel good, and all those doors and opportunities start to show up for you
Yeah, so it is really important to, to meet your people. So something that has come up a lot over the last couple months for me talking to moms, actually, I spoke to a mom yesterday. I can use this as an example. When we don't know who we are, when we don't have a concept of, you know, what's important to us, what some of our passions or curiosities or interests are, we don't know how to go to some specific environments to meet the right people.
FINDING THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENTS AND FRIENDSHIPS
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When you go off to college,, what you end up doing is defaulting to what you think you should do. Or in a lot of cases, I've had parents admit, you know, "I, I encouraged my son, for instance, to join a fraternity 'cause that's what my husband did, and I was in a sorority, and we just assumed that would be the best way for him to meet people."
Meanwhile, you know, I ended up working with one of these kids, and a fraternity was the furthest thing from who he actually was,? That just was not this kid's jam at all, and he was forcing himself into that. So I spoke to this mom yesterday in very similar situation. Her son joined a fraternity just 'cause he thought that's just how people make friends in college.
He didn't know any different. And it just was not the right environment for him, and this kid came home from college, went back. He's resilient. He kept trying over and over again, but he kept trying to put, what is the saying? A, a square peg in a round hole. He kept trying to force himself into environments that were not in alignment with who he is, with his values, with what's really meaningful and important to him.
This is a very sensitive, empathetic type of kid, and he was in these really rough, very masculine environments, and he felt left out all the time, and it was destroying his self-esteem. And so that's what can happen when you go off into college or a work environment or anywhere, and you're trying to fit into a crowd of people or an environment that is not lined up with who you are.
That could be, like, lifelong trauma, that can be, or at the very minimum, destroy your whole entire experience. And so it's so important to start to get to know who you are, and we're gonna talk about that in a minute, before you go into these environments so that you can put yourself into the right situations and around the right people for you.
case, they've had all these experience, they've tried all these things, and maybe they didn't work out. And whether it's joining a fraternity- trying that out for a little while, or having a couple of jobs that you maybe didn't like or didn't really resonate with you, or hanging out with certain types of people, all of those are good experiences if you kinda shift your perspective a little bit.
Because all of a sudden you're
didn't resonate with me." "That
vibe. That wasn't my my
people." Right? And so even
learning more about ourselves, you can start to tune into that feeling inside of you, every environment you walk into, every conversation you have, every class that you take, every thought or idea that you have, there is probably gonna be a feeling of some sort attached to it if you
it. feeling can be a little bit of a guide. So once again, that
down and kind of" Instead of saying, "Shoot, I did that and
and it was traumatic and I, you know, I can't believe I would've done that, a waste of time," you say, "What did I learn from that?"
, Well, it's interesting you say that, babe, because that's kind of what this mom and I ended up having the conversation about yesterday is that, you know, she's like, "I, I really want him to recognize that none of this was a waste of time, that none of it has to be anything he needs to look back on and think, 'Oh, it was horrible or traumatic, or I wasted my time.'"
And that's kind of why she was reaching out to us, is she goes, "I want, you know, him to have a life coach that can help him reframe. Like, now we can take steps in the right direction, but what did you learn, and what meaning came from what you've already been through?" And so absolutely, you know, in, in slowing down and tuning in, it's an inner guidance system where we all have one built into us, but we have to put our phone down for a few minutes and connect with who we are.
Get out in nature, go for a walk, just journal, sit with yourself for a little bit. And that's why the very first thing we teach the young adults we work with is we talk about this a lot, but that pause, you know, learning how to check in and notice how you're feeling
and that inner guidance system is something that I think is so important for a young adult to tune into. We have a lot of problems with phones and technology and distractions, but the biggest problem is, is that when you're distracted, you're not tuned into yourself.
cause that doesn't ultimately feel very good. And the things that you're not
are things that are in alignment with your authentic self. so when we
your authentic self, like Erin and I are so passionate about believing that,
of people believe, like Erin, when you were talking about like, "Well, because I joined a fraternity, you should do that," it's like just thinking that,, I should do something this specific way because this group of people does it and they're successful and they're making a
gonna follow that lead though that's not something that I
not something that resonates with me, it's definitely not something I'm passionate about., Ultimately, it's not something that's in alignment with my values. even before you know your future and you know your purpose, Erin, you and I believe above all else that you make choices and you do things based on your values, your signature ingredients. And so as we start thinking about, okay, well, how do I
SELF-DISCOVERY AND IDENTITY
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those ingredients are some of the first things that we help young adults and, and parents really get clear on is, who am I?
What are the things that make me one of a kind? What are the things that make me unlike everybody else? And so, Erin, the way that I like to think about it, 'cause we help a lot of young adults with internships and finding jobs and figuring out what industry they wanna get into and things like that, and they're like, "Oh man, that's gonna be tough 'cause there's gonna be so much competition and so many other people, and I'm not as good as they are," I'm like, "Don't worry about them." The way forward is to focus on yourself and figure out what makes you
and different than everybody else so that you're one of a kind. You're special, special in the best way possible, and then
around what makes you special and different and what value you bring because that ultimately is how you build up the identity, and what we call your personal brand.
Once those two pieces come together, that ignites
young adults that helps them begin to go out and make some of this happen
. And I just want to say too, I was just having a thought that, you know, if you're listening to this and you have younger teens as well, kids in high school, because I know we're really referencing a lot of young adults going off to college,
this is just as important, when kids are starting high school, for instance.
You know, Chris and I both have William and Skylar. Our kids are both freshmen, and they're both trying to find their people. This is another great example of like, you know, my daughter met,, she started a school in a new city or a new town in middle school and met a bunch of people, and now as a freshman, she became friends with all these different friend groups, and she's trying to figure out like who her people are in there, and William's doing the same thing.
And so, you know, this is really important time to help them navigate this as well. So if you have younger teens, this is for you too. And yeah, so we were talking about personal brand, and this is really important when you think about helping, you know, your teen or young adult understand more about their identity and personal brand.
Chris, why don't we break down a little bit like in, in our context how we teach personal brand. What, what is personal brand?
PERSONAL BRAND AND AUTHENTIC CONNECTION
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take a young adult that is a little shy,, lonely, stuck in their dorm room or their apartment or their house, they're not getting out much,, and what that looks like. But now we're gonna fast-forward a few months after they've learned some more about themselves, and they've built up their, what we call, empowered identity.
That's a term that we're gonna use pretty consistently, in these conversations, but then also created their personal brand, is a reflection of their empowered identity. And your personal brand, my friends, is your voice. It's your message. It's how you show up in the world. It's one thing to know this is my goal, and my goal is to do this or to get this grade or to get this job or to meet new friends, but it's a whole nother thing to know not just how to do something, but to do it in a way where you're gonna create influence, you're gonna walk into a room and people are gonna notice you.
And this has nothing to do with being an extrovert or an introvert. In fact, most of the people that we speak to are introverts, with a rare exception. I'm like,
This has nothing to do with that." This has
with you walking into a room with confidence because you know yourself, you believe in yourself. You are prepared to show the world who you really are, flaws and all, quirks and all. And in fact, the quirks are part of what make you unique and different. And because you
not holding yourself back, the other
that you need is you need to know who your audience is. And so once you know some of your special ingredients, your passions, your values, your interests, Erin was talking about exploring your curiosities, then you can start to say, "Well, how do I line myself up with some of those like-minded people? Where are they at? Where are they spending their time? What are some groups, for example?"
Like our kids, William and Skylar, they're in the process of identifying groups of people or groups at school that they're
that they necessarily know for sure, like, "Oh, this is gonna be an incredible
a ton of friends," but they know that there's something there that they're interested enough to learn more about, and they're leaning into it And then when they walk into that room, you know, this is what we do in coaching, this is what we do when we're really supporting people, is you're not just there and you're not just gonna
fade into the background and stand in the corner. You're there
You're there to be intentional. You're there to share your voice and your message, your story. You're there to have deep conversations. Because this is the other part of a personal brand, Erin, is it's not going surface.
How we meet new people. It's not how we make new friends. We do that is we go deep. We go below the surface. that is a fun process, because when you go below the surface, you're gonna really get to know me, and I'm really gonna get to know you, and there is a
be a really good fit for each other.
But then there's also the chance, and it's
that we're not gonna be a great fit for each other. that's okay, too. And that's part of this experience, is you have to go out there and have as many of these conversations as possible so that you can kind of start weeding people out and finding your groups of people, and then the people that aren't a good fit for you as well
Some would argue that our, our younger generations have started to lose this art of, like, meeting people and talking with people and going deep because of social media. It's so easy to hide behind Snapchat or, you know, Reels or whatever it is and have these really quick conversations.
And, so it's important to, you know, as parents who encourage our kids, to join clubs, to get out there and try new things, to talk to teachers, to talk to other adults, to have coaches where they're learning how to articulate their feelings and thoughts and be more insightful about who they are.
So really, really encouraging them to, to get out there. And yeah, this is about, you know, being brave enough and confident enough to expose your authenticity, to, to be willing to say, "This is just who I am. Like me or not, this is me." And in order to do that, that first step comes into play that Chris was just talking about, is getting to know who you are and really learning.
You know, something I work on with the young women I work with is it- self-acceptance and self-love and learning to,, learn how to talk to yourself in a much healthier way, learn how to not get wrapped up in the rabbit hole of negative thoughts about yourself, really changing that internal environment, that relationship with yourself.
And so when we can teach our kids to have a healthier relationship with themselves, that's what's going to cultivate bravery and confidence for them to show up with new people, being willing to be who they truly are.
PRACTICING CONVERSATIONS AND TAKING ACTION
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the word that kept coming up is, is takes practice, So nobody's ever perfect at meeting new people and making new friends and connections and going deep and having these types of conversations. But with practice, gonna get a lot better, and that getting better is gonna build up your confidence, and you're gonna start to get results,, and you're gonna start to get this figured out. And I will tell you that one little tip that I was giving the person yesterday is, is that if you're a student, for example, whether it's high school or college, one of the best things that you can do to begin to practice is either getting to school early, to class five or 10 minutes early, staying after class five or 10 minutes after, because that's your opportunity to walk in, sit down, smile, make eye contact,
the person beside you, talk to the teacher. Just practice having these types of conversations, being curious and sharing a little bit about
about what's going on with them. And single time that you do this, it is gonna be such a great experience, especially if you're focused on the piece of it where you I just did this.
I feel really proud of myself for doing this. gonna learn from that, and then tomorrow, I'm gonna try it again and see how that
the last little thing, Erin, that kinda comes to mind is that,
lot of reasons why young adults don't engage, why they don't talk to
why they don't get out and go to that party or that group or that club or try that new thing or
that conversation, and it's one thing and one thing alone that holds us back, and that's ourselves,
is gonna be a voice in your head that is gonna try to
single time that you wanna raise your hand in class or you want to talk to that person next to you or go join that club and walk in on day one, introduce yourself, and start to interact with people. There is gonna be a lot of resistance, and so there's a lot of things Erin and I do to help people navigate that and follow through. But the simplest is you just go. You just do
thinking about it, once you've set the goal, you've set
it comes time to doing it, you don't sit there and think of, ah, should I do this? Should I ask that question? Should I talk to that person? The answer
yes, and so you just go. And once you go, you're
everything is gonna be okay, I just wanted to share that, Erin, because that's such an important part of the process
I love that, honey. It reminds me of the, of Mel Robbins, you know, five, four, three, two, one. And not that she invented that, but, she kind of really brought it to, to light, and it's so true, is just really counting backwards from three or five and going and taking the action step. I had this incredible client, God, Gia was almost two years ago now, but she was amazing.
A REAL COLLEGE FRIENDSHIP STORY
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And she was going to college here in Ann Arbor, and sh- like I, I had the privilege of meeting her in person. But she came to me because she was a freshman in college, and she was just so... She felt socially awkward. She was terrified about making new friends. And so we went through this process, and something that she found as, a passion or actually more of an interest or curiosity of hers was ice-skating.
It's just really random. She goes, "I love ice-skating, and I never go, and I really wanna do that more. I just feel free when I'm on the ice. I have fun. I love the cold air." And so eventually she became brave enough to, she started making friends, and so she went through what Chris just talked about. We, I helped her learn how to take her headphones out or her earbuds out and actually talk to people, smile, compliment somebody on their shoes or something to strike up a conversation.
She ended up making some new friends, and eventually she became brave enough to, like, ask this new friend group if they wanted to go ice-skating, and they all said yes, they would love to go. By the time we were done, and I met up with her about six months after we got done coaching, she had three or four groups of friends.
But it all started with her being curious enough to learn more about herself and what she really wanted, not just following in, falling into anybody else's plans or what everybody else was doing, but she started to learn what, what she really wanted to do.
not listen to all the noise. And if something's important to us, trust me, social goals, social engagements, getting out and meeting new people and having new experiences, that is just as important as getting good grades in school, accomplishing other goals, getting to the gym in the morning.
Like, I'm telling you, this is just as important. You can even make the argument that it's more important. when you
professionally, and we've talked about a little bit of both, but when you think
, You could get straight A's in school. And we talk to kids every day, they're getting great grades, and yet they struggle to find an internship, or they're struggling to figure out what they wanna do for themselves after college or get a job after college.
They have no idea, even though they're excelling academically. And maybe you have a child like that, or you know somebody like that. and so that's why this work is so important, creating your empowered identity and building your personal brand and getting out and meeting new people all the time.
So when you're out there, you're like, "Okay, this week, know, I've gotta get to the gym. I've gotta take good care of myself. I've gotta get good grades and go to all my classes and do all my homework." But then young adults, and us parents too, let's make no
thinking about, "What am I doing this week to
"What am I doing to get myself out there to meet the right types of people, to, to make new friends, to re- reconnect with old friends?" 'Cause look, young adults get busy. Us parents, we get busy. And if we get busy, we can get busy for a long time and forget about some of our other goals, including the people in our life, the friends in our life. And Erin and
talking about this recently because, we have friends in our
are important to us, but we don't see very often, and we would like to change that, I know personally, been waiting on the friend to be the one to say something,
if this is something important to me, if this is of something that I value, then I should be the one to say, "I'm gonna do something about it." Like, I'm not just gonna wait around for that person to reach out to me. I'm gonna reach out to them. And I think a lot of people struggle with that too, Erin
Yeah, I think that's part of it, and, I know this is, like, a kind of a whole nother topic we could probably do an episode on, but, you know, we could spend our whole lives thinking we know what other people are thinking or taking things personally and thinking it's, it... that, that they're spending all their time trying to avoid us, you know?
When really we're all just busy. Life is hectic, we need to remember this as parents. We can help our young adults remember this and our teens when they're struggling with friendships is that it's usually has very little to do with the other person. You know, we, we really can blow things up in our minds.
But, you know, something I try to do when I'm thinking about, on Sundays, I'm kind of mapping out,, my week, and that comes to mind. I'm like, "Okay, what am I gonna do this week, like, socially?" And I will. I'll text two or three women that, you know, I, I really enjoy spending time with, and I'll say, "Hey, do you wanna get out for a hike this week?"
, And if they, you know... So that's part of making that social goal is thinking, like, "Yes, I wanna spend time with Chris and the kids. I have work. I have, you know, my, the gym, my spiritual practices and rituals." All that stuff's important, but I know that when I go too long without having my girl time, and getting out for a hike, and just chatting and talking about life, it gets to me after a while.
And so that's part of what you can do yourself as parents if you're struggling is think about those people you can reach out to to make a plan with, and that's how we can start helping our kids, too, is you reach out., You make the plan., And it's hard as parents. It's hard to watch your kids try to find their way and struggle.
You know, my daughter's very social, and she loves having plans, and she's definitely been going through something these last few weeks with friends. I think she's just, she's taken a step back, she's trying to figure out who her real friends are as opposed to just having all of these friends. And, you know, part of me wants to encourage her to get out there, and make plans, and go do stuff, but I think she needs this time as a very social, extroverted person.
She's just been spending a lot of time with us, which is amazing. I'm not complaining. And she's been spending time in her room just with herself. I think she's trying to kind of learn a lot of the things we've just been talking about. Who am I? What's important to me? What kind of friends do I want? What kind of girlfriends do I wanna spend time with?
Um, and so that's a big part of it is, you know, taking that time every week to create those social goals and creating time to spend with yourself, and encouraging your kids to spend time with themselves, slowing down a little bit, and getting curious about who am I? Who are my people? What kind of environments are important to me?
You know, what are my values so I can find things, people, places, and things that are in alignment with me?
on those different
and ideas and interests and those different opportunities that are out there. And
You know, even for those that, "Oh, I don't know how to meet people," it's because we haven't looked. We haven't
eyes, we haven't looked at ourselves, we haven't looked at all the different possibilities that are
There's a lot of possibilities out there, and trust me when I say Erin and myself, we're going through this right now, too. Like, we evolve. Our friendships evolve. They come and they go. And so it's really important as you evolve and you grow that you're finding those people that match your wavelength, that are on the same trajectory, that lift you up and make you better and make you feel good.
Because trust me, we have all had friends in our lives, and our kids have friends in their lives that either do one of the two things. One is they hold them back, they drain their energy, they keep them stuck, they kinda keep them where they are. And by the way, in limited doses, there's nothing wrong with that,
that's the definition of a high school relationship or a friendship.
but then as you start to evolve and grow and mature, you need to find your people, the people that are gonna play these really important roles in your life that we introduced when we first started talking today. They're gonna lift you up, they're gonna love you, support you, believe in you, be a resource for you, there when you're having a hard day, when you're having a good day, when you need a question answered. are the types of people that you wanna have in your life, or other awesome people that are just up to awesome things, and you wanna surround yourself with the best possible people. Like, there's just so many different ways to do this,
TAKING INVENTORY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
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Yeah, and I think one last piece here before we go is that something you just described, Chris, is really about what this is ultimately teaching young people is what I like to call, like, how to take inventory. You know, how to step back and zoom out the camera lens a little and take inventory. Are the people I'm surrounding myself with, are they moving me forward?
Are they supporting my dreams and goals? Are they aligned with my values and what's really important to me or not? And if not, what steps do I need to take in order to create some distance with certain people, allow new people into my life? So this whole process we've been talking about really teaches young people, and us for that matter, how to take inventory of the people we surround ourselves with, the environments we're putting ourselves in, the things we're doing with our time, and that is such an invaluable strategy and tool to have for the rest of your life
, We've talked about, how to help young adults kind of find themselves and build their identity and build their personal brand and start the process of going out and finding some of their people and not holding themselves back.
Man, we talked about some good stuff today, babe.
Really, really good conversation again.
, So what's the take from the conversation today?
WHAT PARENTS CAN DO THIS WEEK
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Yeah, I would say one is to, first of all, for you parents, you know, we always say model what you'd like to see for your young adults, but talk to them about how you're starting to create social goals each week for yourself. You're getting, becoming more mindful,, and intentional about creating plans with friends, and then encourage them.
You know, what, what is a social goal that you're gonna create this week? Let's talk about something new that you can do this week. How are you gonna connect with a new person? What's a new environment you can get yourself in? And then in terms of helping them learn, you know, what those environments are and those people is,, a great thing you can do is compliment them.
You know, compliment your child on something along the lines of, you know, "You are really funny. I love your sense of humor. You crack me up all the time. I love spending time with you 'cause you, you're really, really funny." And that's a way for them, "Oh, interesting. I didn't know Mom or Dad saw me like this."
You know, when we have our young adults,, learn about their strengths, a challenge we give them is to ask three people in their lives, we can, we tell them it can be a parent, it can be a friend, and then someone on the outside who doesn't know them that well, to tell them what they see in them, what they see their strengths being.
And sometimes these girls come back to me, and they, they, th- they say to me, "I did not know my mom saw me like that. I didn't realize that this is what she saw in me." So compliment your child. Tell them what you see in them, what their strengths are, and, you know, what you think their, some of their curiosities are from the time they were little.
Like, help them start to open up their mind to who they are,
and that will help them start to take some of those steps forward
it. is, is to help our young adults go out and start to learn a little bit more about themselves, have some practice conversations so that they're starting to learn how to go deep and connect with people. Having these new experiences can completely change their lives, and in the process, you're gonna see them start to figure things out and come to life, and that is such a great thing as a parent to see our young adults who have been isolated all of a sudden start to get out and connect with people and find their people and start to open up some of those different paths to their future.
And so we're excited for you and for all of us to make that happen
Awesome. All right, everyone, have a beautiful week. We will be back next week
CLOSING AND DISCOVERY CALL
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we are so thankful for you and your beautiful family and hope you found something inside today's episode that brought you hope inspiration, and most importantly, a path forward. If you're interested in evolving your relationship, giving your kids the most important gift of personal growth and development, or are a mom looking to reconnect with your confidence and become empowered in all areas of your life.
Then schedule a discovery call with us today. Our mission is to help as many families as possible, find their purpose. And that starts with you. See you in the next episode, my friends.
ABOUT EXTRAORDINARY PURPOSE
Erin and Chris support teens, young adults, and parents through personalized, identity-first coaching focused on self-discovery, direction, and action and ownership.
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