On today's episode of WNYC's popup advice show, David Furst, host of Weekend Edition on WNYC, leads an advice call-in conversation about the psychological and social challenges that kids face in college today, with Matt Lundquist, founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. Listeners call in with questions and their advice for navigating the transition from youth to adulthood.
Note: You are listening to the podcast version of a live radio show. The call-in number only works between 1 and 2 PM Eastern, while the show is live. Some music that was part of the live broadcast has been removed from the uploaded program due to license requirements.
If you'd like to submit advice questions to be featured on the show, or topic suggestions for future shows, please use the form on our showpage at wnyc.org/advice
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David Furst: Welcome to Please Advise, a popup advice show here on WNYC. I'm David Furst. I'm your host this week. Please Advise is now available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcasts. Give us a follow if you want to get all of our shows sent straight to your device every day that we are on the air. Thanks so much for calling in yesterday. We were joined by certified sex therapist Sari Cooper for advice on sex and intimacy.
It's a vulnerable subject, it can be hard to talk about, but we had so many thoughtful texts and calls from you, and all of us here at Please Advise want to thank everyone who shared their questions and their advice yesterday. We had so many more calls than we had time to get to. Thanks again. Your calls and your texts bring this conversation to life. Looking ahead. Coming up tomorrow, we'll be talking about masculinity. Dr. Niobe Way, author of Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture, will join us to offer advice on raising a son at a time when the word masculinity is so often linked with the word toxic.
Today we want to hear from college-age young people and their parents who are hitting the midpoint in the school semester. Many students have been taking midterm exams, and many parents have been visiting their kids for parents' weekend events. How is it going? We want to know what advice you have and what advice you need for navigating the period of transition from childhood to adulthood.
Freshmen, are you having trouble adjusting to life on campus? Parents, how are you managing the change and maybe managing your empty nest? Or if you're a young person or the parents of a young person who has chosen a different path, vocational school, apprenticeship, a job. How is that going? Maybe it's fantastic. Maybe school is amazing. You can let us know what you love so far. Listeners, we want you to join this conversation, call us or text us with questions and your own advice. Here's the number. 212-433 WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Here to help us today is Matt Lundquist. Matt is a psychotherapist and the founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. Matt, welcome to Please Advise.
Matt Lundquist: So nice to be here.
David Furst: Listeners, once again, join the conversation by calling or texting 212-433 WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Matt, let's start here. What do you typically hear around this time of year, when it comes to young people making that transition to college or to life beyond high school, what are some of the biggest concerns you hear about?
Matt Lundquist: My practice has gotten to be of an age similar to mine, which is that most of the conversations I'm in are with parents of young people. I'm hearing from a lot of them secondhand through what they're sharing with their parents, or in some cases, what they seem to be working very hard, perhaps, to avoid sharing with their parents. Certainly there's anxiety on both ends. I think parents are struggling with the departure, particularly for those where it's new.
I think students are having the troubles, I think, that you would expect, by and large. I think the struggle with independence, discovering that roommates are harder than expected, making friends and organizing social time, dealing with independence, which I think for some of this cohort of young people is harder than maybe it was given where perhaps COVID was in their upbringing and some of the ways that they've spent the last number of years of their lives, struggles academically. I think some additional anxieties about AI and the economy and the future and what comes after college. Probably most of the things you'd expect, certainly folks are talking to me about
David Furst: If your child is struggling academically or socially at college, what campus resources should we consider?
Matt Lundquist: I think most strong colleges and universities have excellent resources. Parents often are nervous about, is it uncool to reach out? Is it inappropriate to reach out? What I find fairly universally is that colleges and universities want to hear from parents. One, sometimes they hear from parents what they're not hearing from students. It's the first that they hear concern, and they want to know because they have resources. Colleges, they are rated and graded on their success at retaining students, helping students do well and graduate, and they want their students to succeed. Most of them have pretty terrific resources.
I think investigating on college websites and making a phone call or scheduling a time to talk I think is a very good thing to do and pretty ordinary and pretty welcome by colleges, I think.
David Furst: What about the parents and some of their issues as well? What do you hear from parents once we get midway through this first semester? What are some of the healthy approaches to navigating this new chapter in our lives?
Matt Lundquist: I think parents have their own anxieties about what it means to be having an empty nest, or perhaps if there's multiple kids moving further in the direction of an empty nest, and those challenges. Some of the work that I do to help them is to separate their own anxieties and struggles with this change and transition from their fear for their kids, and often both are there. Doing some work to disambiguate those things, I think, is often really quite helpful.
I think that what I'm hearing in terms of-- A big one is, I think, what your first question referenced, which is, how involved should I be? Should I let my child struggle? Should I let my kid perhaps get a bad grade? I'm noticing some bad habits. Should I offer advice? Should I be pushy? A lot of parents are grappling with, should I visit? Should I visit again? How welcome would that be? Grappling with this question of how much independence to have and how much maybe struggle to tolerate.
David Furst: Well, we're getting some texts if you want to join this conversation, the number to call or text is 212-433-9692. That's 212-433 WNYC. I'll get to a couple of texts here. This one, just some advice. "Hello, Please Advise. I'm a college professor listening to the program now. I have a quick piece of advice for students. If you're experiencing difficulty, speak with your instructor, please! I can't speak for all of my colleagues, of course, but in most cases we would be happy to try to do what we can to help, but we can't read your minds. Let us know how it's going for you." There's a piece of advice from a college professor.
Matt, here's a question for you. This is a text that came in. "Our daughters are 24 and 21, one who recently graduated, another who graduates in May. I'm seeing them struggle with small doses of rejection from employers, graduate schools, and potential romantic partners. Now I'm wondering if we were too effusive in our praise as they were growing up. Is there any way I can help them become more resilient at this stage in their life?"
Matt Lundquist: Of course, I don't know, in the case of this texter, whether they were or weren't, but I think that probably as parents, we all could look in the mirror. I think many parents are probably indictable on that account. I think it's a real struggle to find a balance. Often parents talk to me about their struggle when their children are struggling. Most of the time, I find that the struggle with that is actually harder for the parents than for the children themselves. I do think at 21 and 24, rejection is challenging.
I think what likely is going to do the work to help these young adults grapple with rejection is the world, because certainly there's plenty of rejection out there. What it means to date, what it means to put yourself into the job market, is that a good amount of the time the folks that you're trying to date or find employment with are not going to be interested, and you have to face that.
I think the counsel here is to hang in there. I think the counsel is to try to not mix up your own reckoning with how you raised your kids, which probably this texter is being too hard on themselves with the question of what it means to support them. I think it's simply to remind them that they will get through it and that you're here, and to not try to be overly fixing and certainly not try to rescue them from the difficult feeling. They need to face it. It's hard.
David Furst: It's hard. We have to all face these kinds of feelings. If you want to join this conversation, the number 212-433-9692, and certainly a lot of these questions, we focus on some difficulties that we're trying to solve and stresses but I don't want to forget about the positive stories, Matt. We can quickly get wrapped up in the concerns and the stresses. This can be such an exciting time for students and parents, right?
Matt Lundquist: I think you're absolutely right. I think in probably the most circumstances, most of the time, young people are at an institution that they've really worked hard to get admission to and that parents have worked hard to save for and to be able to pay for. It is a really exciting moment. It's a new level of independence that's full of possibilities. I spent some time by chance on a college campus last week, and I was blown away by being reminded of how many fun and interesting things are going on. There's so many interesting things to study and social opportunities. I think you're absolutely right.
I would add that I think it tends to be the case, as parents, and I think this is true with 7-year-olds as it is with 20-year-olds, that what we mostly hear about is when things are not going well, and when things are going well, we tend to maybe not hear so much about that. It's a struggle to keep in perspective what we're hearing about versus reality.
David Furst: I want to ask you about this. The New York Times reported last month on a trend on TikTok where students post these videos about their decision to drop out of college after as little as two weeks. The article references a report from the Educational Data Initiative that says 22.9% of all students who entered college as freshmen in fall 2024 did not return in fall 2025. If a student is struggling to adjust and they're thinking about dropping out, how can we sort out that decision, help them figure out whether that's the right choice or whether they should be pushing themselves to overcome some discomfort?
Matt Lundquist: I did see that article, and it certainly raised my eyebrows. That number was bigger than I would have thought. One thing that I found was heartening is that a number of older college students were creating TikToks to try to encourage those young people to hang in there. It seems like universities are doing some creative things to attempt to do that, which seems really very good. I think your central question is, is it the case that some students head off to college and decide that it's not for them either not for them right now, or that particular college, or college at all?
I think it's important that we relate to that as a reasonable and legitimate choice. At the same time, I think it's probably next to impossible to know that as early as two weeks in and maybe even as early as two months in. I think there's a difficult balance between, on the one hand, wanting to respect that that's a choice and are now young adults who we want to empower to make that choice. At the same time, I think it's important to hang in there and endure things. If I think back to my first few weeks of college, I think if I felt like my parents would have let me come home, I might have been inclined to do that.
I'm not necessarily telling parents to not let their kids come home, but I do hope that colleges and fellow students and parents are encouraging their students to hang in there for more than two weeks, for sure.
David Furst: More than two weeks. Yes. We're talking about college-age young adults, and their parents talking about the period of transition from childhood to adulthood. Here on Please Advise, our guest, Matt Lundquist. We're getting a lot of texts, so I'll get to a couple of them right now. If you want to join in, 212-433-9692. We have a text here, Matt. "Can you please talk about homesickness that first year of college? I struggled with it when I started school years ago, but I don't hear much discussion about it." What about that?
Matt Lundquist: I have kids that are a little bit younger and of the age that they have been going to summer camp for a few years. Homesickness is something that summer camp folks spend a lot of time thinking about, and I think have really mastered some understanding of that. I think the most important thing is a recognition that it's normal. I think it's helpful to give young people a heads-up and to say, "Even though you're 18 or so now and have done some big things in the world, this is a different change, and you may feel that more intensely."
I would also invite, perhaps inviting young people to do some disambiguation in terms of, what are they feeling, how much of what they're struggling with is homesickness, how much of what they're struggling with is maybe other things, adjusting to a new social environment and independence, academic struggles, roommate struggles, social struggles, dating struggles, some of those kinds of things, and to consider that there may be multiple things going on that are being understood in that way.
I think the wisdom similar to your last question is again, I think to encourage hanging in there. I think it's important to remember to remind young people and each other that we can do very hard things, that this too shall pass and to recognize that I think this is a growing pain and sometimes growing pains are, in fact, painful. I would counsel again, trying to support young people to hang in there.
David Furst: We had a text earlier about facing rejection and struggling to be resilient and picking up on that thread. Let's take a call right now. This is Joy in the Bronx. Welcome to Please Advise.
Joy: Hi. Thank you for having me.
David Furst: Sure, welcome.
Joy: I am calling in because I'm in a similar situation. I heard about the 21-year-old and 24-year-old daughters who graduated from college. One is going to graduate and struggling with rejection for jobs and relationships. My thing is I have a 25-year-old who graduated from the University of Buffalo, and he's in the same plight. He's sent numerous applications, has been rejected because of not having experience outside. That's a problem.
If you don't give a kid a chance to get the experience, where are they going to get it from? That's the situation he's in, and it has caused some depression, where he really doesn't want to do much. He only goes out with me. He doesn't go out individually, independently, rather. I try to encourage, and sometimes I feel I'm at fault.
David Furst: Joy, you're bringing up a lot of really interesting things here. Do you have a question about what you should do or what he should do to manage that?
Joy: Yes, I need to know, how can he navigate his rejection? What is the best way for him to go out there? What can I do to support him?
David Furst: That's a great question. Thank you so much for joining the discussion. Matt?
Matt Lundquist: I think we always worry. I think parents worry about and it's something they talk to me about a lot in a similar situation that Joy is in. We obviously don't know what's going to follow for her 25-year-old. I would say most of the time when somebody's in that position, they figure it out. They work through it, they develop a deeper strength of character. They find their way to being open to exploring perhaps more different paths to figuring out what a career is going to look like for them and finding places where there are opportunities.
Obviously, I think there's two concerns here. I think one is, is it perhaps the case that this young man is going to get more deeply stuck, in which case I think Joy may need some help, some family therapy, or looking at some therapy for her son. Then also just wanting to acknowledge, I think there are all people, I imagine, all college students regardless of the time period, have anxieties about finding a job and building a career and making money and supporting themselves in the ways that they want. I do think we're at a moment where there are some particularly intense anxieties in that regard.
We've had high interest rates and the war in Iraq and AI, and there's a number of concerns that I think feel different than we have experienced in the past. I want to acknowledge that there are some material conditions and a measure of uncertainty that young people are entering the personal world around that are more difficult, and there is some measure of uncertainty that's challenging. I think to encourage young people to recognize that lots of folks are struggling with that, and probably they will find ways of making meaning in the world and building a career. Certainly want to acknowledge some of the particular anxieties that exist right now.
David Furst: Also picking up on that topic of rejection, let's welcome another caller, Ellis in Metuchen. Welcome to Please Advise.
Ellis: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a therapist. I work with children of all ages and sometimes their families. I have a little advice for Joy because I got into this career later in life, and if her son doesn't have experience, perhaps he can talk to someone in the field, just anyone who he knows who's in the field that he wants. Find out how they got into the field and also find out if he could do an internship for free to get some experience on his resume.
When I first got into being a therapist, I did internships in hospitals and facilities, and that was my experience in this field. Internship is really valuable. Also, I did talk to someone in the field and asked her questions. Like I went to a hospital and spoke to a therapist, and she talked to me about the field. That often helps. Also, if children are going through rejection, it feels very personal. It feels like it's only them, but normalize the rejection. Tell them that it happens in the world. I know that it hurts. Support them by talking to them, but try to help them to not take it as personally as it feels.
David Furst: Thank you so much for those thoughts. Matt?
Matt Lundquist: I think all really good advice. One of the things I'm thinking about, and again, it's so hard to know Joy without knowing your son. I think one of the things that often happens in young adult life, I think launching post-college, is that even when there are good opportunities out there, and you are, in fact, well trained to find work of meaning, the pathway for how you get there isn't necessarily always what you had planned.
Sometimes I think what young people need to do is go through a period of grieving disappointment of like, "Oh, I thought this was how this was going to go. I thought this was an area of work that I was going to find, or I thought the path would be a somewhat easier or straighter path." After a period of grieving, I think sometimes they might be open to doing things in a different way. Perhaps some of Ellis's suggestions are something down the line that he'll be open to exploring.
David Furst: Well, midway through the semester here, we are checking in with college-age young adults and their parents. We're talking about the transition between childhood and adulthood. You're listening to Please Advise, a popup advice show here on WNYC. Our guest today, Matt Lundquist. He's a psychotherapist, works with kids, teens, adults, and families. Founder, clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. The number to call if you want to join this conversation, 212-433-9692. Call us or text us. That's 212-433 WNYC. Back after a quick break.
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David Furst: You're listening to Please Advise, a popup advice show here on WNYC. I'm David Furst. Our guest today is Matt Lundquist. We're checking in with college-age young adults and their parents, and we're asking for your calls. 212-433-9692. We want to hear from you. Is your child having a rough first semester or a rough sophomore year, or maybe having a fantastic time? Maybe they're having too good of a time and they're struggling to resist the urge-- You're struggling to resist the urge to get involved and micromanage their study schedule. Or maybe you have no idea how they're doing. Maybe you need help getting them to call you back. We will be there for you.
We're happy to answer your call. The number, 212-433 WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Matt, we have a text here. Someone says, "Mom of freshmen. She is blowing it. Missed a deadline last week for insurance, which she already has, but she did not send in the waiver. We were billed $3,200." What about those situations? Is it okay for the parents to step in and maybe issue some reminders on some of these situations?
Matt Lundquist: Well, first of all, ouch, what a painful lesson that, unfortunately, it sounds like the parents are going to be underwriting. I think this is such a complicated question. I think that the project of raising children, and as they move towards adulthood, is what we call in developmental psychology separation-individuation. It's this challenge of how do we increasingly let you take ownership so that you can learn to take ownership and face some consequences so that you can learn to take ownership. The challenge in that case often is it's not always the young people that face the consequences. Often it's us, in terms of that hefty bill.
I don't know that I have a prescription for what's the right way to do that. I think the challenge is to allow young people to experience consequences of making mistakes so that they can learn from those things. I think you have to decide is the consequence to you of a $3,000 or so, is that one that maybe is more of a consequence to you, in which case I think I might be inclined to be on top of them and give some extra reminders on that one.
David Furst: If you want to join this conversation, we'll take another call right now. 212-433-9692. Julianne in Brooklyn. Welcome.
Joanne: Hi. Sorry, it's Joanne, but that's okay.
David Furst: Oh, sorry. Let me hear you say your name.
Joanne: Oh, sorry. It's just Joanne.
David Furst: Joanne. I'm sorry.
Joanne: No problem. I have a college-age son and one of the things that struck me listening to this conversation, I'm very sympathetic and can relate to a lot about questions about when to step in and when not to and all the worrying in the world that, on my part leads to nothing. One thing that struck me is thinking about when my son thought about work or when I've encouraged him to find summer jobs or find jobs, for him it needs to be perfect, it needs to-- Sometimes work is just work. I'm wondering if there's something in their generation that may be because of social media, because you see people post about all the things they're doing that are so perfect and so wonderful.
He only wants to do something if it's going to be the greatest thing. Sometimes a job is just working at a supermarket or working-- There's nothing wrong with just work for work.
David Furst: Joanne, this is such a great question. I feel like this is really resonating. What about that, Matt? This feeling that everything has to be perfect can sometimes hold us back from doing anything.
Matt Lundquist: I would join Joanne in her analysis that social media and the like are complicating that. I think I referenced what I was saying earlier about the idea of, you have an idea of what it's like to be in the world and how things will go, and your place in it and what's going to be easy for you and the ways that you imagine that you're hot stuff and the ways that you assess the world will be and then you have an actual real encounter with the world and you discover that maybe you're not as hot stuff as you thought, that certain things are going to be harder and that certain things are a lot less fun and glamorous than they they were imagined to be.
I think that they have to have a confrontation with that reality. I think there's a process of growing up and growing into that and some grief that I think is necessarily messy for most young people. They have to go through it. I will say you mentioned, Joanne, the futility of worrying. I would add to that. I think most adults, most parents of young adults that I'm in conversation with, warning their kids and encouraging them to think about these things ahead of time tends to not work. I think you have to let the encounter with reality do its work for them.
David Furst: Let's take another phone call here on Please Advise. This is Maria calling from Brooklyn. Welcome to Please Advise.
Maria: Thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation. I really am getting so much out of it. I'm sending love and support to all of the concerned parents who are trying to find just the right balance between being supportive and not helicoptering. I just also wanted to respond to Joy with something that helped us. I had a son. My son graduated in May. His whole life, he's been in charge of his academics. He knows what he's wanted, he's worked really hard, he's been a really good student. Then all of a sudden, he goes to being on the couch, with no real sense of where things are going to go.
What we did was, my son had, still has a wonderful mentor in his life. It's his piano teacher from the age of three. Now, my son is not George Gershwin. He's not going to pursue music in any kind of meaningful way as a career, of course, but the relationship that he's had with this piano teacher is just very precious. She said to him about a month and a half ago, "Theodore, why don't you join this adult choir?" It's for adults now, for young adults, people working in different professions, not necessarily his field. He did join, and he was reluctant. I stayed out of the conversation 100%. He did, and it's been meaningful, and it's gotten him into the working world of New York.
Actually, he did just land an internship. It's not a full-time job, but he landed an internship, and he's going to do it for the next six months. When he had his heart broken in college, his first relationship, he called me, he said, "Mom, I can't work. I think I'm in trouble." I immediately pointed him to the mental health services on campus. Then I backed off. Then he did it, and he got through that. The big takeaway I want to say is, I trust my kid. I trust my kid to figure it out.
David Furst: Well, that's. That's a wonderful thing to say. Congratulations to you on many of the things that you were bringing up there.
Matt Lundquist: Yes, well, and points for offering that counsel, Maria, and then backing off. That's often the hardest thing to do as a parent. I think some success that managed to work out. I will say, going back to the earlier thing that Maria said, unfortunately, one of the things that young adults discover is that being good at school is not necessarily the same thing as being good at life. Hopefully, school and what young people learn through their successes at school and what they learn from school ultimately get translated into success in life. I think, unfortunately, they're not the same thing.
Often, in fact, one of the things that young people talk to me about is, I was in college, and I was grappling with the big issues of the world, and I was reviewing case studies of what CEOs had done in crises in their giant businesses. Then I showed up at a job, and I was asked to make copies and tolerating the humbling experience of that that all of us had to go through, but I think helping them tolerate the challenge of that. Hopefully school ultimately gets translated into success in life, but not necessarily right away.
David Furst: It was interesting to hear about the advice about joining a choir. That makes me want to-- We got someone talking about extracurricular activities. "My son is a freshman. He's doing great. He joined a club. He has a group of friends. He loves his classes." Oh, this text saying, "I'm expecting the honeymoon to end anytime now, so I'm nervous for a crash." What about that? What about getting involved with campus activities and clubs and how this can be a great way to socialize and become an active participant in your new community?
Matt Lundquist: I think particularly on larger campuses, although depending on where young people are coming from, you're coming from a small high school, even a small liberal arts college is very large. I think often the reality is that's where socializing happens and opportunities to connect happen. I do sometimes hear from parents about their young people feeling like, "Oh, that's lame. That's boring." I think encouraging folks to perhaps be more open to exploring those things, I think often is a great way to make connection and also a great way to make connection maybe an opportunity to intersect with faculty and staff at a university in different ways.
You have an encounter with them outside of the regular context of coursework, and that often can be helpful. To have an older soul that you're connecting with, to offer some guidance.
David Furst: We have a couple of texts talking about communication with our students who are away. One person says here, "My son started at UMass Amherst this fall. Texting is our issue. He'll remember to text his dad about one thing and then mom with something else. No one's on the same page. We have to get everybody on the same text thread, which means my husband now has to see all the silly cat videos I send our son." This text from Rebecca in Rutherford, New Jersey. What about this? It's difficult to communicate when someone goes away from home for the first time. How much communication is the right amount? A lot of stuff to sort out.
Matt Lundquist: It's such a wild thing. It's such a different kind of relationship. This is a young person you're used to seeing most every day, often just a couple of times a day. The expectation, of course, of communication between parents and a high school is very, very different than parents and college students. There's a lot fewer adults facilitating that communication and double-checking that things are being well communicated. Obviously, much more is being put on the young people. I think your husband has to endure those cat videos as you all figure out what's the new right way of doing this. I think it's probably you tolerating a little bit less communication and your son doing a little bit more reaching out.
David Furst: I think if the worst thing we have to tolerate is a few more cat videos, I think we could probably find a way. Picking up on that same thread, another text here says, "As a parent of a freshman last year, I tried to give him space and didn't call or visit too often. Now, in retrospect, I underestimated how difficult and isolating that first-year transition can be. I would suggest that parents keep an eye on their kids starting out. Check in often on their mood and how they're feeling."
Matt Lundquist: One important thing to keep in mind, the first year of college is known to be a particularly challenging year from a mental health perspective. I think for all of the obvious reasons, we're talking about the massive adjustment to a new environment, new kinds of pressures, both socially and academically, intellectually, independence. It's also, I think, the first time that young people begin to really grapple in a new way with, "Okay, who am I? I'm now somewhat launched into the world. Where do I come from, and what internal emotional resources do I have, and where perhaps am I lacking?"
I think, I think your caller, unfortunately, or your texter there, I think unfortunately, is right, which is there's a degree of opacity. It really depends on a young person's willingness to communicate and a willingness to communicate really very honestly. Again, we find ourselves at a really tricky balance. On the one hand, we want to support independence and let young people take increasing charge of what they choose to share and how they grapple with their own problems. You do also hear about young people who are struggling and perhaps hiding it, or perhaps just disinclined to share and feeling like you're a little bit late to find out and to know. I think it's a very difficult balance.
I think that there's times where leaning in is the right thing to do. I think there's times where leaning back is the right thing to do. There's not a formula for that. I think parents have to trust their gut and decide, and hopefully trust the young people to communicate what they need.
David Furst: You're listening to Please Advise here on WNYC. I'm David Furst. We're here with Matt Lundquist checking in on the college experience. We're about midway through this first semester. We're talking about this period of transition from childhood to adulthood. We want to hear your questions and your advice. We have several more texts to get to in just a moment. If you want to join this conversation, here's that number again. It's 212-433-9692. That's 212-433 WNYC. Back with more Please Advise, just a moment.
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This is Please Advise, a popup advice show from WNYC. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm David Furst. Our guest today, Matt Lundquist. He's a psychotherapist. He works with kids, teens, adults, and families. He is the founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. We are taking your calls. 212-433-9692. That's 212-433 WNYC. As we are going to get to the next question here, getting a text here that says, "Wonderful discussion about the transition of childhood to adulthood. You are talking about my life exactly. All the way down to the cat videos. Thanks for that. Really feel understood and a sense of community. Thank you, WNYC."
Thank you very much for that message, and thank you for joining the conversation today. We have a text here. Question for you, Matt. "My child is getting politically active in college. Yay. Sometimes, in my opinion, she sees things in black and white, and I find some of the positions she advocates to be problematic. How can I open a constructive dialogue about this?" Okay, very interesting question.
Matt Lundquist: Well, one of the, I think, central premises of academia, of institutions of higher learning, is the great hope that they succeed in educating young people and expanding their minds and their capacity to think. I think probably most of what will do the work to hopefully move your young adult child from exploring this to perhaps exploring this in increasingly complicated ways will be the process of being surrounded by people who are themselves grappling with this and teaching this. In a lot of ways, I would urge you to celebrate that this is a new interest and a new engagement and let college do some work for her.
David Furst: Let's take a call. Welcome to Please Advise, Claire in Denville, New Jersey. Thanks for joining the discussion.
Claire: Hey, how's it going?
David Furst: Great. It's good to have you with us.
Claire: I know. This is an interesting topic because I'm not relating too much with most of it. I feel very lucky when we are looking at some schools for my son. I was thinking of cities first and what city I thought would inspire him. He's a skateboarder and a snowboarder. He loves graffiti and good food, and he loves finance. First I was like, okay, I want him to study, I want him to go to school. He was like, "I'll go to Colorado and snowboard." I'm like, "No, where can he go where he would be inspired?" I thought of Montreal.
That's where he is. I googled English-speaking business school in Montreal, and Concordia showed up, and it's the only school he applied to. It was an easy school to get into. You just needed to have a B average and [crosstalk]
David Furst: For you, a big part of your decision was, find the right environment and let it follow from there?
Claire: Absolutely.
David Furst: Well, Matt, what about-- Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Claire: I'm just saying every kid is different. He wasn't looking for a campus lifestyle. He wants to study what he's interested in, but he wants to connect on the streets, at skate parks, and he's excited for the snow to come, and he just seems to be thriving because of that, because he's just finding himself and connecting with community in a new environment that feels safe.
David Furst: That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. What about that, Matt?
Matt Lundquist: Well, first of all, it's so wonderful to hear all of these folks talking about their young adults, and nice to hear when one is just really thriving and got the choice right. We were talking earlier when you referenced The New York Times article, David, that this idea of a lot of people quite early feeling, "Oh, yikes, maybe this isn't for me." The counterargument to that is that in some cases they don't get it right for whatever work and effort went into the college selection process. Sometimes you hit the ground and discover that it isn't right, and that's terribly difficult.
I think the challenge is obviously to not necessarily push for that to be accepted too soon, but certainly being open to exploring the question of, okay, did we get it wrong? What does it mean to engage in a process of exploring a transfer? I would also add to that, I think what's important in what Claire is offering is that there's the academics and what the institution itself is offering, but there's also things like what is the community and what's the weather like? Is the food good? Those are reasonable questions, I think, to be grappling with as well and to consider that maybe you didn't get it right. Happy for Claire that her son did get it right.
David Furst: You're listening to Please Advise here on WNYC. Have time for a few more calls and texts. 212-433-9692. Here's a big question, Matt. "How should parents talk to their kids about the hookup culture that is so prevalent across college campuses?" I'm quoting here. This texter says, "Apparently it's not cool to have a relationship anymore."
Matt Lundquist: I think the most important part of that answer, I think this is a somewhat expansive question. The most important part of that answer is that parents should talk to their young adult children about this. Obviously, in some instances, they're going to encounter a lot of resistance. I would hope that parents would be persistent and continue to find creative ways of engaging with that.
I think hopefully by the time young people have headed off to college, some questions about sex beyond the basic mechanics, but thinking about where values and priorities fit in and where certainly things like consent fit in, which is incredibly important these days, and I think on every parent's mind who has a young person at college or heading off to college and people of conscience, of course, I think that the great hope is that that's discussed. I do think it's important by the time a young person hits 18, 19 years old, they need to be prepared to take ownership of the decisions they make and the kinds of relationships they want to have and the consequences of those decisions.
I would say invite a conversation more than telling them what to do, but certainly making sure that they understand that certain kinds of things are not okay is also important.
David Furst: Well, I want to touch on the story that has obviously generated a huge amount of attention and concern during this college semester. Last month, an anonymous Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit that outlined allegations of sexual assault against seven students at Cornell University from an incident that occurred in October of 2024. The details of the alleged incident and the response from the university and police, what many people have called an inadequate response, have resulted in widespread public outrage and discussion and concern for parents worried about students living away from home for the first time and navigating life on a college campus.
How should parents talk with their students about this story?
Matt Lundquist: One of the things that I've been feeling heartened by in the aftermath of taking in and the horror of what happened up at Cornell is that it has prompted a lot of parents who were maybe reluctant or just not thinking in terms of high priority about talking with young people, about talking about things like consent and hookup culture and how to navigate being safe and being a safe person in these environments where there's tons of drugs and alcohol and where often there's a hyper sexualized culture and certainly noting where gender fits in. Obviously, anybody can be a victim of sexual abuse.
I think it's important to, in particular, be in conversation with daughters, girls about what it means to keep themselves safe. Unfortunately, what the Cornell case reminds us of is that schools aren't necessarily doing a great job of ensuring that safety. I think that there's some hard conversations that need to be had. I think there's some important conversations that need to be had with boys and with young men about their participation in cultures that may not align with their values and their parents' values, and to spend some time reflecting.
I think parents are insisting on having those conversations with young people, and I'm finding that their young adult children are open to those conversations in light of what's been in the media.
David Furst: How should parents talk with the-- Well, I'm talking about young men, but with all of their children about consent?
Matt Lundquist: I think there's a number of elements. I think what this case in particular highlighted, obviously these issues are not new, but I think what this case in particular highlighted is the question of the bystanders and the other people in an environment or milieu, and thinking about how culture plays in how peer pressure plays in the ways in which certain behaviors which an individual might feel are at odds with their value system are normalized and encouraged and even celebrated.
Having those kinds of conversations, I think having very frank, blunt conversations with young men about consent, I think reminding young men that they have a lot of power over most of their female peers, both socially and culturally, often for better or worse, but certainly in most cases physically, and what it means to take responsibility for that power.
David Furst: Well, we're midway through the semester here, the first semester of this college year, and we're hearing your questions and your advice and your concerns here on Please Advise on WNYC. Our guest, Matt Lundquist, and we have time for a few more calls and texts. Let's hear now from Sarah in New Brunswick. Welcome to Please Advise.
Sarah: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm coming at this from two directions. One, I'm a parent of three children in their 20s, three amazing children living unconventional lives. I am also an academic coach at Rutgers University. I work with many, many, many young people, freshmen through PhD. I see over and over, I've seen it in my own life, my children, and the students I work with, that there is an incredibly strong set of expectations that we go into college with, that we go into life with, that we don't know how strong they are until they are not met.
The gap between expectation and reality is where the misery seems to lie. If people can sit with that and as you've been talking about, grieve that, if this my college life doesn't look like what I expected. My working life doesn't look like what I expected. My family life, if you can sit with that, grieve it, and then say, "What is possible, what is in front of me? How can I welcome, try out, be open to something?" It's extraordinary where a person can go, and I think that most people, if they think about it, can find a story in their own lives where some significant change in their life came from being open to something that didn't look like what they expected.
David Furst: What about that? Being open to that?
Matt Lundquist: Well, shout out to academic coaches, and what a reminder of the resources that exist on colleges and university campuses. Sarah sounds terrific. Such a difficult thing to encounter that collision. I think what Sarah adds is this idea of those expectations very often being implicit, and so we're not even aware of them until we encounter them. It's another one of those very difficult moments of confrontation with reality that is such a part of young adulthood. Hopefully we've raised our children well to endure those.
David Furst: Well, I want to get to this text. This is a text from a professor. "As a college professor, I want to second the suggestion for the student, not the parent, to talk to the instructor, but also the student should take advantage of other support services, tutoring services, centers for student success, on-campus counseling services, et cetera. Recognize that all of these people want to help the student. They won't simply judge and criticize."
"When the student does reach out, they need to be honest. Are they doing the homework? Are they doing the readings carefully? Are they going to class? Furthermore, are they getting enough sleep? Are they spending too much of their time socializing on social media or streaming? On the positive side, almost all students, especially first-year students, hit a wall around the middle of October. Referrals to counseling services on campus often peak around this time in the semester."
What about that now, Matt? Using this moment as a time to reach out.
Matt Lundquist: You mentioned earlier this idea of the honeymoon being over and it's not a coincidence, your timing of this in late October. I think this really is the moment where I'm hearing that, and a lot of what I'm hearing from parents about their young adult children off at college are some things that are tough, but I think that they're hanging in there through. I'm also hearing about some things that are somewhat more concerning and, as we said earlier, tricky to navigate. There are resources. Being independent doesn't mean do it on your own. Being independent means taking increasing charge of getting the help that's there.
David Furst: Matt Lundquist, founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy, thank you so much for joining us today here on Please Advise.
Matt Lundquist: Great to be here.
David Furst: Coming up tomorrow on Please Advise, developmental psychologist Dr. Niobe Way is going to be here to give advice on cultivating healthy masculinity, solving what she calls the crisis of connection among men and boys. How do you raise a son at a time when masculinity is so often linked with the word toxic? We hope you join us tomorrow with your questions and advice. This is Please Advise here on WNYC.
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