Why I Love Working With Teenagers

By the end of our Zoom meeting, only the top of her eyebrows and hair remained visible on my screen.

She had started perfectly composed, sitting upright against a pink headboard, framed by a wall of gray flowers behind her, looking every bit the polished, prepared rising senior. As we talked, however, she began the slow, seemingly unconscious slide familiar to anyone who has spent time around teenagers.

Meanwhile, she was telling me about a fundraiser she had organized for local libraries and her growing fascination with psychology. Somewhere between cheer practice, AP classes, community service, and the everyday work of being a teenager, she had discovered a genuine curiosity about understanding people and helping them thrive. I couldn't help but smile at the contrast. The future psychologist who hopes to spend her life understanding people had, over the course of an hour, almost completely disappeared from view.

It was one of several moments over the last few days that reminded me of the wonderfully human reality of working with teenagers, especially as rising seniors launch into summer and begin reflecting on their lives for college applications.

The next morning I met another student at our local coffee shop. He arrived wearing pajama bottoms with what may have been the most spectacular bedhead I have ever witnessed. As we talked through drafts of his personal statement, he listed activities, accomplishments, leadership roles, and everything he thought colleges wanted to hear. Then he stopped.

"Wait," he said. "So this isn't really supposed to be about all the things I've done?"

For a moment, I could almost see the shift happening. Colleges weren't asking for a list of achievements. They were asking to understand him, his values, his growth, and his perspective. The best essays aren't inventories of accomplishments; they're windows into a person's character. Watching students realize that is one of my favorite parts of this process.

Later that week, I met with another student who kept getting distracted by the red-and-silver sparkly bracelet on my wrist. Every time my hand moved, her eyes followed it. She'd catch herself, laugh, refocus, and then a few minutes later the bracelet would win again.

An aspiring pediatric occupational therapist, when she started talking about the world around her, her focus became crystal clear. She talks about communities and organizations not in terms of what was wrong but what they could become. She doesn't spend much time finding problems. She sees possibilities. Nearly every environment she encounters becomes a place where she imagines she can help, contribute, or make things better.

Because of auditory processing challenges he's faced since childhood, one of my young men has spent years developing strategies that help him thrive. He comes prepared, asks thoughtful clarifying questions, and advocates for himself with a confidence that comes only through practice. What impresses me most is that he intentionally puts himself in situations that challenge him to develop these skills like public speaking, student government, and leadership opportunities. Rather than avoiding difficult situations, he seeks them out. Engineering may become his profession, but resilience, empathy, determination, and self-awareness are integral to who he is.

As I listened to these students over the past week, I found myself thinking about the graduates I've recently had the privilege of witnessing celebrating their final days of high school.

This year's class is heading to campuses across the country as future finance professionals, lawyers, doctors, engineers, filmmakers, urban planners, architects, athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, researchers, and educators.

Some are dreamers. Some are changemakers. Some are quiet leaders whose impact may not be fully realized for years to come. What they all share is a willingness to keep growing, often without even realizing it's happening.

As I send them off, I feel proud, excited, and a little sentimental. I've watched them discover strengths they didn't know they possessed, recover from disappointments they thought would define them, and find confidence in voices they once hesitated to share.

At the same time, a new group of names is beginning to fill my calendar. Not just rising juniors, but sophomores and freshmen as well.

Unlike the seniors who are reflecting on experiences they've already had, these students are still in the middle of creating them. One is a football player whose love of sports, biology, and chemistry is beginning to intersect with ideas about future study of kinesiology or sports medicine. Another is fascinated by global relations, business, and hospitality. And one girl dreams of designing race cars while attempting to write a novel in the background of her everyday life.

A freshman is still figuring out where they fit, trying a new club, choosing an interesting elective, meeting friends, or simply finding the confidence to raise their hand in class.

Right now, most of them aren't thinking about college essays or even college. They're thinking about classes, teammates, friends, summer plans, and what comes next. What they don't yet realize is that they're already living the stories they'll someday tell.

As parents, we spend so much time focused on grades, test scores, course selections, practice schedules, deadlines, and applications. And understandably so. Those things matter. But because we're so close to the day-to-day realities of raising teenagers, it's easy to miss the larger transformation happening right in front of us.

One of the greatest privileges of my work is that I get to see both.

I see the transcript, but I also see the teenager behind it. I see empathy growing through community service, resilience forged through challenge, confidence built through failure, curiosity turning into purpose, and leadership developing long before anyone hands a student a title.

There is always more beneath the surface. There is always a bigger story.

Year after year, whether I'm celebrating graduates, helping seniors discover their voice, or meeting younger students who are still living the experiences they'll one day write about, I'm reminded what a privilege it is to have a front-row seat, not to getting students into college but to watching young people become themselves.