The Long View: Guiding Your High School Student Without Losing Your Mind (or Theirs)

A Year-by-Year Guide to Supporting Independence and Sanity Through High School and College Applications (As Seen in Scoop Charlotte)

If you're reading this, you probably care deeply about your child's future. You want them to have opportunities, to thrive, to be happy and successful. And somewhere along the way, the path to all of that started to feel like it runs through a very specific set of high school achievements and college admissions outcomes.

Here's something that might help you breathe a little easier: your child's entire future truly doesn't hinge on any single decision made during high school. Not which science class they take sophomore year, not one test score, not even which college ultimately says yes. This isn't minimizing the importance of these years—it's recognizing that there are many paths to a fulfilling life, and the pressure we all feel to find the "perfect" path can actually get in the way of the real work of these years: helping our kids grow into capable, confident young adults.

The challenge many of us face is that in genuinely wanting to help our children succeed, we can inadvertently create environments where every assignment feels momentous and every setback feels catastrophic. When we're constantly worried about the future, our kids pick up on that anxiety, and it can crowd out the curiosity, resilience, and genuine engagement with learning that will actually serve them best in college and beyond.

“I am not a parenting expert, and I certainly had, and continue to have, many parenting fails along the way. I feel confident my adult children could attest to that! They experienced numerous setbacks on their paths to becoming adults that in the moment felt life-altering to them and me, but ultimately those setbacks led them to where they are today,” says Katie Garrett, Founder of Garrett Educational Consulting. To that end, we thought we would offer some thoughts on navigating each year of high school—not as a prescription for the "right" way to parent through this time, but as a framework for thinking about how to stay connected and supportive while gradually helping our kids build the skills to manage their own lives, make their own decisions, and recover from their own mistakes.

Freshman Year: Finding Their Footing

Ninth grade often marks a shift—suddenly "this counts," and both we and our kids can feel that weight. Yes, freshman grades matter, but this year is really about something more fundamental: our children learning to navigate a more complex world with more independence. “Kids get to the realization that ‘this counts’ on their own timeline and this can be maddening to watch as a parent. I always remind myself (and parents) that this can’t be more important to me than it is to them,” says Katie.

This is the year they need space to figure out their own systems. How will they keep track of assignments? What study habits work for them? How do they approach a teacher when they're confused? These are the skills that will serve them far beyond any individual grade.

Many of us instinctively want to help by staying on top of things—checking the parent portal, reminding them about deadlines, making sure nothing falls through the cracks. It comes from a good place, but consider this: what if we thought of ourselves less as managers and more as consultants? Instead of monitoring every assignment, we might ask, "How are you keeping track of everything?" or "What's your plan for managing this week's workload?"

And here's the hard part, the part we all struggle with: they're going to forget things. They'll occasionally get a lower grade because they didn't plan well. It's genuinely difficult to watch our kids experience these small failures, but these moments teach them things we simply can't teach by preventing the mistakes from happening.

When your freshman comes to you overwhelmed, it's natural to want to jump in and solve the problem. But often what they need most is someone to listen and help them think through their options. "What feels most overwhelming?" "What do you think might help?" "What would feel most manageable as a first step?" Sometimes they just need to talk it through. Sometimes they need help breaking a problem into smaller pieces. But usually, they don't need us to take over—even though taking over would feel so much better to us (and maybe them) in the moment.

Sophomore Year: Discovering Who They're Becoming

Tenth grade is often when students start to hit their stride, and it's also when the whispers about college start to get louder—from peers, from school, maybe from your own anxiety. This is a crucial year to focus on what your student is actually interested in, not what looks good on a transcript or resume.

Many students (and parents) start thinking about activities through a college lens: "What should I be doing for my application?" It's understandable—we all want to feel like we're on the right track. But the students who ultimately thrive are usually the ones who pursued what genuinely engaged them, not the ones who strategically collected experiences. Katie says, “There is no one magic formula regarding extracurriculars and college admissions. I encourage students to explore various interests and seize new opportunities that align with their authentic selves.”

If your child wants to try three different activities to see what resonates, that's great exploration. If they've realized they don't actually enjoy something they've done for years and want to stop, that's not quitting—that's developing self-awareness, which is incredibly valuable. It can be hard when we've invested time, money, and emotion into an activity, but learning to let go of something that isn't working is an important life skill.

Course selection can feel fraught. We all want our kids to challenge themselves, and we know colleges value rigor, but colleges also want to admit students who arrive healthy, intact, and still excited about learning. But there's a real difference between appropriately challenging and overwhelmed to the point of misery. A schedule that allows your child to engage meaningfully with material they find interesting, while also having time for sleep, activities they care about, and just being a teenager, serves them much better than a schedule that looks impressive but leaves them depleted.

One question that can help: "If we weren't thinking about college applications at all, what would you be most excited to take or do?" Their answer often reveals whether they're making choices from genuine interest or external pressure—and both are valuable data points.

Junior Year: Navigating the Intensity Together

Let's be honest: junior year is intense. For many students, it's the most academically challenging year, standardized tests loom large, and college is no longer some abstract future thing—it's very much present. This is the year when many of us feel the most pressure and anxiety, and our kids feel it too.

So what does meaningful support look like during this demanding time? It's less about monitoring every detail and more about helping your child maintain perspective and balance when things feel overwhelming.

One of the most important things we can do is protect sleep and downtime. “I worry about the implications for overall health that chronic stress is having on adolescents. The physical toll of being in a constant state of fight or flight is well known, yet we have so many adolescents operating this way because it seems normal,” says Michele Mannering, PhD, of Myers Park Pediatric Psychology. If your child is regularly up past midnight doing homework, something needs to adjust. We know this intellectually, but it's hard when it feels like everyone else is pushing just as hard. The reality is that chronic sleep deprivation doesn't make our kids more successful; it makes them less healthy and less effective. Sometimes addressing this means working on time management; sometimes it means acknowledging that the current load isn't sustainable and something needs to change. Neither of these is failure—both are important skills in setting boundaries and priorities.

The college search usually begins in earnest this year, and this is where our own hopes, anxieties, and even unresolved feelings about our own educational experiences can really come into play. You might have strong feelings about what kind of school would be best, which majors make sense, or where they should focus their search. These feelings are natural and worth examining—just try to hold them a bit loosely. Our job is to help them identify what they value in a college experience, not to project our own path onto theirs.

Senior Year: The Art of Stepping Back

Senior year is where all the groundwork you've been laying either supports your child's independence, or we find ourselves unable to let them take the lead. And the stakes feel so high that stepping back might feel nearly impossible.

The college application process is inherently stressful—there's no way around that. Everything feels important, time-sensitive, and consequential. After years of supporting your child, you have so much wisdom and perspective to offer. The temptation to guide every decision, review every essay draft, and manage every deadline is completely understandable. But here's something to consider: this process isn't just about getting into college. It's one of the first major opportunities your child has to present themselves to the world, advocate for their own interests, and make a significant decision about their future. The process itself is valuable, even when it's messy.

This means your child gets to lead on where they apply. You can absolutely be part of the conversation—asking questions, sharing observations, discussing what's realistic financially—but they need to own this choice. “The college admissions landscape has changed drastically over the last thirty years, so it is important that parents and students are using current data and more importantly, realistic expectations to create a balanced school list. I encourage my students to apply to at least one rolling admission school early in the process as an early win can help diffuse some of the pressure these kids are feeling,” Katie says.

Essays are often where things get tense. We want to help, they often want our input, and somehow it can devolve into frustration on all sides. One way to think about it: you can read essays and respond to whether they're clear, whether they capture who your child really is, whether they flow logically. But the voice needs to be theirs, even if it's not as polished as you could make it. Admissions officers read thousands of essays—they know what 17-year-olds sound like, and they know what adults sound like. If we take over the essay, our child misses an opportunity for genuine self-reflection and growth, and more importantly, sends a message that is hard to unhear: that they’re not good enough as they are.

When decisions start arriving, including the inevitable rejections, our response carries enormous weight. Our kids are watching to see whether our love and pride in them shifts based on these outcomes. This is a chance to model perspective: "I know you're disappointed, and I am too. But this doesn't change anything about who you are or what you're capable of." It's simple, but it's everything.

What Support Really Looks Like

Across all four years, perhaps the most important thing we can offer is an environment where our children feel safe trying, struggling, failing, and growing. Some ways this might show up:

Asking before solving. “As a parent it’s really hard not to immediately jump in and try to offer solutions. It’s a test of our own executive functioning to stop before offering a solution and realize that if we keep problem solving for our kids, their own critical thinking skills will not evolve,” says Dr. Mannering. When they're stuck, asking "What do you think you could do?" Most of the time, they know more than they think they do; they just need help thinking it through.

Noticing effort and growth, not just outcomes. When they study harder than they ever have, even if the result isn't what they hoped for, that effort matters. When they have a difficult conversation with a teacher, even if it feels awkward, that took courage. When they try something new, even if it doesn't work out, that's exactly what we want them to keep doing.

Showing them how to handle disappointment. Our kids watch how we respond when things don't go as planned—for us, for them, for anyone in our lives. Do we treat setbacks as catastrophes, or do we acknowledge disappointment and then figure out next steps? They're learning how to handle their own disappointments by watching us handle ours.

Distinguishing between struggle and crisis. Our children will struggle during high school. They'll have classes that are genuinely hard, weeks that are overwhelming, friendship drama, disappointments. This is normal. Crisis looks different: signs of serious mental health concerns, dangerous behaviors, complete inability to function. Most of what feels like crisis to us is actually productive struggle—and if we eliminate all struggles, we eliminate the opportunity for them to develop competence and confidence. This is perhaps the hardest balance to strike.

Permission to Define Success Differently

Here's something that can be freeing: you get to decide how much you engage with the cultural intensity around college admissions. Every time you choose not to compare your child to others, decline to discuss class ranks at a party, or refuse to treat college admissions as the ultimate measure of your child's worth, you're making a choice about what you value. “More importantly, you are sending your child a powerful message: their worth is not determined by external validation,” says Katie.

The cultural messages are loud and persuasive: that there's one path, that certain schools are the only path to success, that anything less than maximum effort and achievement represents failure. But you don't have to accept that narrative. You can decide that your child's mental health matters more than another AP class. You can support their choice of a less prestigious school because they felt genuinely excited about it. You can say yes to downtime and unscheduled hours. You can opt out.

The students who truly flourish in college and beyond aren't the ones who had everything perfectly managed for them. They're the ones who learned to manage themselves, who can ask for help when needed, who know how to recover from setbacks, and who have a sense of who they are beyond their achievements. These capabilities don't develop through pressure and close management. They develop gradually, through supportive parents who make space for their children to practice being independent—even when it's uncomfortable to watch.

And it is uncomfortable. It requires tolerating our own anxiety when our child struggles. It means resisting the urge to compare when it seems like other families are doing more, pushing harder, or getting better results. It means trusting that our child will find their way, even if it doesn't look like what we imagined.

None of this is easy-I know this first hand! Parenting teenagers through these high-stakes years is genuinely hard, and if you're feeling anxious or uncertain, that's not a sign you're doing something wrong—it's a sign you care deeply. The goal isn't to be perfect or to have everything figured out. It's to stay connected to what matters most: raising a young adult who is capable, resilient, and who knows their worth isn't determined by any admissions decision.

When your child eventually leaves for college, the goal is for them to be ready—not because they checked every box or gained admission to the most selective school, but because they've learned to take care of themselves, advocate for their needs, navigate disappointment, and make their own choices. That's what these years are really for, and that's what will serve them long after the college admissions process is just a memory. Parents, hang in there. We know the high school years are stressful, but remember this takeaway: Your child's entire future truly doesn't hinge on any single decision made during high school. Take a deep breath, give your child space and grace to make mistakes and learn from them with your support, and remember to celebrate the wins, even if they seem small!

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Garrett Educational Consulting, LLC is a full-service, academic consulting firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Katie Garrett, Certified Educational Planner and Parent Coach, guides and supports students and families who are navigating important academic decisions. Services include all aspects of academic advising, comprehensive college planning, independent day school consulting, and boarding school application guidance. 

Garrett Educational Consulting

www.garretteducationalconsulting.com

info@garretteducationalconsulting.com

980.677.0311