I’ve written before about just how harmful parental peer pressure can be during the college admissions process. It just takes a couple of misguided friends to make you feel like your family is behind, at a disadvantage, and at the mercy of a cutthroat process where only the straight-A’s survive.
It turns out there’s actually a scientific basis to this. Shawn Achor is a Harvard professor of positive psychology. As he describes in this five-minute talk, when he and his team look at actual brain scans, they can see changes occurring based on a subject’s surroundings.
“It turns out that negativity, stress, uncertainty—we can actually pick it up like secondhand smoke. You don’t even have to be the one smoking to have negative health effects. The same is true around the ways that our brains are designed. If you’re surrounded by people who are pessimistic about the future, they’re gossiping, they’re negative, they’re full of complaints, even if you have an optimistic brain, your brain will start to process the world like that person is unless we’re conscious of it.”
One of the core tenets of a successful, enjoyable college admissions process is to focus on the parts that you can control (while letting go of the other parts). You can’t control the way fellow parents behave. But you can control your own behavior, and whether or not you engage with those people who ruin what should be an exciting time for your family.
You’re only going to experience this transition from high school to college once with each of your kids. Don’t let other parents ruin it for you. Spend time with other people who love their kids and just want to see them happy at whatever school they attend, who don’t feel the need to turn this into a status competition, and who project an air of support and that you’re all in this together.
Your family’s college admissions process will be happier and healthier without secondhand stress.