Lauren: Hi, high school counselor friends. I am Lauren,
I am your host of High School Counseling Conversations.
Welcome back to another episode. So glad you're here and tuning
in. Whether you're a new listener or you are a longtime
listener, I'm glad you're here.
I'd love to read a review as we get into this week's episode. So
this review is from Jenna Nock, I don't know if I'm saying that
right. I never know, and I always have to laugh because
Apple podcast names could be your real name, could be a fake
name, could be just something completely made up from your
middle school screen name. So who knows? Thank you, Jenna. I'm
guessing that's who this is. She says, subject line of her
review, finally found a high school resource. She said, I'm a
second year secondary counselor. I am so excited that I found
counselor clique. I've been looking for a podcast that would
give me quick tips in order to better my program and learn up
to date ways of doing things. So I know Jenna has not been in
this for super long to feel like she's doing out of date things,
but this is a relevant High School Counseling podcast that
you are listening to. I'm so glad you're here. Thanks Jenna
for leaving that review. I always appreciate a review so
that other high school counselors can find the podcast
and enjoy listening to it as well.
We're in the business of prepping our students for life
after high school, aren't we? It's funny, like we think we
have ears that are hyper attuned to our student needs, their
regrets, their level of skills and confidence as they launch
into life after high school, and we hear them when they say
things like, why didn't they teach us about taxes? Why do I
have to learn about geometry proofs instead of how to change
a car tire? Like, I don't know why we hear these complaints all
the time, but I guess as counselors were privy to hearing
them. I swear I heard these all the time. We've heard it before,
but I could also get really defensive and say things like,
listen, we tried to teach you useful things. You just didn't
listen, or you started skipping school because you had
senioritis and you didn't listen to us. If you would have
listened, you would have heard us saying these things over and
over again, and you would not be sitting here complaining with no
life skills.
I do think that counselors have a unique space to decide how we
want to address some of the big mindsets and behaviors and help
students with some real practical stuff before they
leave high school. This makes launching our high school
students so much different than elementary and middle school,
like they're just on that precipice of complete
independence, and we're kind of their last lifeline for teaching
them those last life skills before they are truly a bit more
independent than they've ever been in their whole lives.
So I want to start a three part series. It was gonna all be in
one episode, and then I thought, I've got too much to say. We're
gonna divide this up, where I wanna give you three different
life skills to consider teaching your students before they
graduate, and how they could practically flesh these out. So
we're gonna talk about one per episode.
But before we get into those things, let's take a look at the
ASCA mindsets and behaviors. I'll link those in the show
notes. But pro tip, I love having these printed out, hang
them by your desk, so that you can reference them really
quickly and really easily. Because as you're making
decisions for your program, even in a really informal way, it's
really helpful to have these somewhere that you can just
glance over at and think about them through the lens of, what
is this lesson or small group or guest speaker or class meeting
or school wide event? How is it helping me accomplish the
mindsets and behaviors that are put in front of us? What are we
trying to do? Is the event or the thing that we're trying to
put on going to help us reach our students with the things
that we're marking as really important?
So these ASCA mindsets and behaviors give us a few
different pathways to consider with our students, and help us
think through our big picture goals, especially if we don't
know where to start, or we don't know where to filter our energy.
What's that saying that people put on their desk? You only have
24 hours in a day, like same as Beyonce, same as everybody else,
we've all got the same amount of hours in a day. So how are we
going to use those effectively and efficiently? The ASCA
mindsets and behaviors are our counseling standards, if you
will, and those lay the groundwork for whatever goals
we're trying to achieve with our students. I think we can all
agree that we want to see our students find success every year
that we have them under our covering in K 12, but these
specifically help us help them with college and career
readiness, academic success and social emotional development,
all three of our big umbrellas that we are trying to cover with
our high school students.
Let's roll the intro, and then we'll get into the first of the
three life skills that I want you to consider helping your
students master before they graduate, and I'm going to share
with you some practical examples of how I would do it. And then
also think through the lens of the ASCA mindsets and behaviors
on how we should measure kind of what those goals are for our
students.
You got into this profession to make a difference in your
students' lives, but you're spread thin by all the things
that keep getting added to your to do list. I can't create more
hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor
clique, where you'll finally catch your breath. Come with me
as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that'll
help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your
students. I'm Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype
girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program
and remind you of how much you love your job.
So first up this week, budgeting basics. Can't we all look back
and wish we had learned a little bit more about how basic
budgeting, credit cards, loans, interest, all worked? I know, I
guess I'm speaking from my own experience. I wish it was just
more of a conversation in my household. I didn't have anybody
else talking to me about that outside of my household, and I
remember it being a pretty private conversation in our
house that like that doesn't need to involve you. That's too
much information for you. You know, some of that was probably
a little bit of protection over me, so it wasn't something I
needed to worry about as a high school student. But it also
would have been helpful to have some of that knowledge and just
see either the successes or the mistakes that my parents made.
And that's definitely something that I'm shifting in my
parenting. We all live and learn, right?
I wouldn't expect high schoolers to have some deep knowledge and
understanding of stocks and investing money, like that feels
really far reaching if they don't have money to invest yet,
you know? But I think things like cash, credit, loans, those
should all be at the forefront of their mind as they're
transitioning into young adulthood, or whatever their
next season is like, wherever they find themselves. They're
moving into a season where that's going to be important for
them.
Maybe they've had a part time job and so they realize the
value of hard work and $1 and how many hours it takes to reach
a savings goal that they set out for. And maybe they've had those
savings goals with the security of living rent free in a home
with parents who provide for them in a lot of other senses.
The reality checks seem to come all at once when they're
suddenly responsible for a lot more than they're used to. Now,
this could turn into a complete parenting podcast episode,
because I'm sure we all have thoughts and opinions on how to
build that independence around money management if we were
their parents, but we're not. So let's shift back into school
mode and think about how we can make an impact within the school
walls while we have them.
I know it feels like we have to say something 100, at least 100
times before students actually hear us, and that it actually
sticks. So what tiny things can we do now with great intention
that can actually make a big dent for our students?
Use your classroom face time for a basic budgeting lesson. Or
something I loved to do was work with the senior economics
teacher or a social studies teacher who's doing a lesson
like this anyway, where they were doing a project based on
the reality of a future budget. You can pop in with that
teacher, and you can add to what they're already doing, bring in
a different spin from the counseling side, and compliment
their project or their lesson that they're doing.
Maybe it's showing your students how to balance what's coming in
and what's going out, and being able to measure and
appropriately look at their income versus their expenses.
That's a very simple, very practical skill that we all need
to have, and I think it's a lost art, because we're often not
balancing checkbooks anymore. We're just trying not to
overdraft our checking account. I felt like that was what I was
always doing. That was my measure of income versus
expenses when I was just launching out of high school.
Another thought is, if they're college bound, or they're still
making some of their final college decisions, or you get
them earlier than senior year, you can show them how to use
that net price calculator that's on every college's website and
what the breakdown actually means. I know it's easy to say,
in theory, every college has to have this on their website, but
how do you use it? What does it mean, and what does that mean
for me and my financial situation? So showing them how
to access those resources and then how to use it and interpret
it would be huge.
If your students need some pen and paper reflection time, you
can give them my budgeting workbook and that will help them
reflect on some of their money mentalities that they've grown
up with. That truly does shape how you view money as you move
into young adulthood and beyond. Did your family operate from a
scarcity mindset because there was never enough? Did you have
to take on the position of independence really early
because you came from a single parent household and you were
told that you needed to start contributing? Or did you focus
completely on school and not have a job until you graduated
college and therefore never truly had to make decisions
about money until later in life? All of these different pathways
would frame how you view money.
For us and for our students, it's important to reflect on
some of these money mindset questions. So not only are we
teaching them practical skills as a counselor, but you're using
that counselor expertise, those counseling skills to dig a bit
deeper and help them understand the why behind their money
management and why this is all even important.
While we're here, can I give you a few more questions to reflect
on personally yourself, and you could just take them right on
into an individual group or classroom counseling session
with students? I think that these can make for some really
good conversation starters or some deep questions to journal
or reflect on as you consider money and its impact on you.
Can you think of anyone who handles their money well? Who is
that? What do you respect about that person? How do you know
they handle their money well? What does that mean to you, like
how do you define what is well, and what is handling money well?
Do you have any goals as it relates to money? And let's
think deeper than the goal being, yeah, just have a lot of
it. Think about your values, or the values that you'd like to
have in your life.
I found when we would be sitting researching future careers,
students were so focused on the job, the career that just made
the most money. And then you get to the existential debate, would
you rather be unhappy making the most money or just happy making
enough money? And what is enough? That begs a real
question to look introspectively and decide what is enough. What
are your goals with money and with where you're focused? How
does money fall in line with those goals? Are there any
habits that you need to change or mistakes that you need to
correct right now in order to have your money habits align
with what you say your values are.
For this life skill, let's pop on over to those mindsets and
behaviors and see kind of what this skill would fall under.
BSMS4, is a behavior, a self management skill, and that one
is delayed gratification of long term rewards. If we were talking
about setting goals and saving money in a lesson, this is one
that stands out to me. I think this is a behavior and a self
management skill that takes training, even as an adult, when
I look at that and I relate it to money, I think this is
something I'm still working on.
BSMS1 is a behavior and another self management skill, number
one, it's responsibility for self and actions. This feels
really all encompassing, but taking on financial
responsibility for self and others requires thought and
action. Being independent with finances is a huge step of
responsibility, and with the right skills, our students can
be sent out successfully into taking on this responsibility.
Like, there's no avoiding it, they're gonna have to do it.
It's something that's gonna follow with them for life. And
so accepting that responsibility now and knowing, hey, we need to
nurture these skills in order to be prepared and responsible for
what comes next, I think is really important.
I'm going to link the student budgeting workbook in the show
notes, and I have these types of reflection questions, along with
a financial aid literacy PowerPoint and a printable
workbook for students to reflect on money mindset and to be able
to start practicing some of those budgeting skills with a
budgeting spreadsheet. We'll be back next week for the second of
the three life skills that your students should master before
they graduate.
Hey, before we go, would you mind sharing this episode with a
counselor friend who needs to hear it? You may have seen my
Instagram stories recently. I just have to share this funny
story. Someone in a large Facebook group of high school
counselors, shared something cool that they did in their
school, and I publicly because I thought it would be more normal
than sending them a message when they didn't know me, I asked
them if they wanted to be on the podcast to share it. And he
immediately responded that it sounded like a scam, to which I
just giggled all day, and I had to respond, nope. I'm just a
person with a podcast. So I say that to say that not everyone
knows I have a podcast for high school counselors. So you taking
a second to send this episode to a high school counselor friend
is the powerful word of mouth exposure I need to get these
counseling tips into the air pods of more high school
counselors. So I appreciate you stopping and doing whatever
you're doing right now to hit share with a friend and just
send it in a text message to a friend right now. I'll see you
next week.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of High School
Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today
can be found in the show notes and also at
counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you
listen to your podcasts so that you never miss a new episode.
Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me
a DM @counselorclique, that's C, L, I, Q, U, E. I'll see you next
week.