Launching Your Teen Into Adulthood with guest Danica Copp, MSW

In this episode of the Brainy Moms parenting podcast, Dr. Amy Moore and Teri Miller interviewed Danica Copp, a licensed clinical psychotherapist specializing in adolescent communication and development. Danica shares what parents need to do starting in elementary and middle school to make sure their teen successfully launches into adulthood when the time comes. It’s a fun conversation where Dr. Amy and Teri both admit they’ve dropped the ball on some essential skills. Get YOUR adolescent launching checklist along with some excellent advice on this episode. 

Read the transcript and show notes for this episode:

Episode 129
Launching Your Teen Into Adulthood
with guest Danica Copp, MSW

Dr. Amy Moore:

Hi, and welcome to this episode of Brainy Moms. I am Dr. Amy Moore here with my co-host Teri Miller, coming to you again from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Our guest today is clinical social worker, Danica Copp. As a licensed clinical psychotherapist, Danica has over 25 years of experience working with adolescents. She’s an expert in adolescent communication and development, and counsels them through major life changes and struggles. Now, she’s helping parents launch their teens to adulthood successfully. Hi Danica.

Danica Copp:

Hello. Thank you.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So, glad you are with us and talking about something that I think most parents struggle with, how to help launch our teenagers? I think most parents… we just struggle with having teenagers at all. It’s just really challenging. And then, how to-

Danica Copp:

Absolutely.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, how to help them launch into adulthood, and to spread their wings and fly when one day they act like a child, and the next day they want to be an adult. Oh, it’s a hard topic.

Danica Copp:

It is, it is.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah. Before we even get into all your work and your amazing advice, tell us your background. Tell us your quick story and what brought you to where you are doing this work today?

Danica Copp:

Sure. Thank you. I am a licensed clinical social worker. So, I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree, both in social work. I was lucky that at 16, my parents had a foster child and I was, I want to do what the social worker does. So, I got into that right away. And, I think when I graduated from college, it was easy to go work with teenagers. It was an area that I felt like I could be an expert in, and when we graduate and we’re going to go get our first career, you want to feel like, okay, I’m not faking this. I don’t want to go work with parents when I’m not a parent, I’m a 22 year old kid.

Danica Copp:

So, I also hated being adolescent so I could really resonate with the pain points of being a teenager, and feeling such on the outside, and feeling like you’re just never good enough. And, just that really resonated for me. So, teenagers have been my specialty. And, despite different job, career changes… I worked in the ER doing psych screenings, I’ve done home-based, I’ve done directing a foster care agency, I always end up back with teenagers as who I want to be with. And so, when I went into private practice 12 years ago, I was, all right, mental, everybody, anxiety, depression is my main things. And, of, course I work well with teenagers so you see one teenager who likes you and then refers other people to you, and next thing you know, I had a caseload of teenagers.

Danica Copp:

And, again, I’ve always kind of remained in that pain point that they sit in. And, I think as I’ve seen the generations change, how much social media and the tech-centric nature of our lifestyles really has changed the ability to be social. And so, that’s what led me to, all right, I’ve got to help parents now because I’m helping a teen at a time, but I’m not helping a lot of teens and I’m seeing more and more teams with no direction and a real level of social anxiety, but not because they’re actually anxious, they’re anxious because they just don’t know what they’re doing. And so, it is scary. It’s scary to go out and have to talk to an adult. It’s scary to have to ask a job. Can I take a break? When I don’t talk to people, how do I do that?

Danica Copp:

And, these were natural skills that probably all three of us got growing up because we had a house phone. Hello. Oh, may I speak with Mrs [Bollack 00:03:44]? Yip, one moment, please. Oh, may I take a message? We were naturally instructed on how to do that. It wasn’t even like a skill or, hi, Mrs. Smith, can Johnny come out and play today? That’s how we interacted. And so, we naturally had those skills to talk to people because you had to.

Teri Miller:

I definitely see that in my own teenagers. My older kids that are young adults, that was a big struggle. Yeah. Even simple things like nobody ever called on the house phone, it didn’t exist. So, simple things like, okay, buddy, you need to call and schedule that appointment. And yeah, you can just see the anxiety rise. What do I say? And then, he gets on the phone and they’re asking things like, what’s your birth date and what’s your name? And, he’s, [inaudible 00:04:38]. He can’t speak.

Danica Copp:

Yes. Yep. But, to realize that we send these kids off to college and resident’s life when there’s an issue in their dorm and they need facilities to come out, isn’t going to text them, they’re going to call and say, what’s the problem? Okay, what time works for you? So, my sister works for BU, she’s, we have massive issues with getting in touch with people and so we have parents calling us and we’re like, yeah, we’ve been trying to reach your kid. Your kid doesn’t answer the phone. Or, you take your car in for a service. They’re not going to text you and tell you what’s wrong, they’re going to call you and say, oh, this, that, and the other thing. Like, this could wait, this can’t, what do you want to do? These things are not going to be texts, they’re just not.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Well, and I noticed that teens don’t always set up their voicemail.

Danica Copp:

They don’t.

Dr. Amy Moore:

And so, they’re not going to know if they’ve been called, unless they-

Danica Copp:

Yes.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Or who called them, if they don’t set that up.

Danica Copp:

Exactly. So, I think normalizing and helping kids to start to make those appointments, like you having your son… My daughter’s sophomore year, she was planning to go away to college, not near me. So, I was like, all right, come on over, we’re going to make your yearly physical appointment. I’m going to put it on speaker phone and you’re going to listen to me. And so, it was kind of like an I do, we do, you do sophomore, junior, senior year. So junior year, we’re going to call together. And, I said to the woman, we’re making my daughter’s yearly physical appointment. She’s here, I’m going to have her set it up. So then, okay, what’s your name, honey? And, looking at my daughter and I’m, tell her your name, what’s your date of birth? You know your date of birth, right?

Danica Copp:

And so, then she had done it and then taking her to the doctor and being… I prepared her, what are your concerns? What do you want to talk to the doctor about? Let’s make a list. That’s what I do before I go to the doctor. I’m just kind of here because I have to, because you’re under 18, but you got to be able to do this on your own. You got to know what your allergies are. You got to know what medical conditions that run in our family because you’re going to be asked that. And God forbid, you go to the ER from college, you’re going to need to know these things.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Absolutely. So, I want to back up just a little bit, because we’re talking about some specific examples and I can’t wait to talk about lots of specific examples. But, I want to talk about the general idea of launching our teens into adulthood, right? And so, what does that mean for parents who have preteens and teens that are thinking about this ahead of time, need to be thinking about this ahead of time? What does that mean?

Danica Copp:

So the sooner, the better. Recognizing that the idea of a successful raising of a child means that that child leaves the nest and goes and lives independently. And, I think parents nowadays really struggle with, at 18, is my kid really ready. And, probably not, which is why a lot of kids do go to college where there is kind of that built in safety net. But, the idea that your child needs to be able to make decisions on their own. And, how do you get them to that point where they can do that? Where it’s not, mom, this happened, mom, that happened. Oh, I have two classes and they’re 15 minutes apart and on opposite sides of campus, I don’t know what to do. How do we set our kids up to, that’s not a panic situation.

Danica Copp:

Okay. So let’s think about this. 15 minutes probably is enough time because the college schedules your classes freshman year. Perhaps you need to talk to your professors, maybe we need to look at, do you need a bike? There are things to do. But, to not always be solving our kids’ problems because when we do that in middle school and high school, they then expect, well, mom, will fix it. And, we want to create children, adults, young adults who can problem solve, who don’t feel like, oh, mom will do it. And, I think that there’s a level of us that don’t like to see our children sit with discomfort, of course not. But, where does the most growth occur in life? When we are uncomfortable, when we hit a pain point, when we struggle through something. And so, we need to allow our kids to have those struggles while they’re in a safety net of our homes.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Absolutely. Then, this is one of those things that, as parents, we don’t realize when our children have made poor decisions and our automatic thought is, I am so mad at this child right now for making this decision. We need to take a step back and say, did we teach them what they were supposed to have done in that moment?

Teri Miller:

Yes.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So, is this a teaching opportunity or is this an actual discipline opportunity? Right? A lot of that is on us, right? Because, the whole idea of discipline is to teach our children.

Teri Miller:

Yeah.

Danica Copp:

Absolutely. And, I think that we struggle, a lot of us, as parents from going from that command and control type parenting to kind of shifting to that more consultant type parenting where, I’m here to talk through things, but I’m not going to tell you what to do. That I want you to kind of sort through what are your options? What are the choices? I know with my own daughter you’re going to have parties so I want you to try alcohol here. What kind of alcohol do you want to try? I will let you try any alcohol under our roof. I will take you to the liquor store, I will buy you anything you want. You will try it in our house safely. And quite frankly, she found she didn’t really enjoy alcohol. So when she got to college, she wasn’t really interested. She’d have the opportunity. So great. Check.

Danica Copp:

She didn’t get in trouble. And I would say to her, these are the concerns about drinking. The lack of being able to give consent, your inability to make good decisions. And she’s like, yeah, it’s not going to happen. And, she didn’t, she went to two parties and she was miserable. And, I even was like, just go and I’ll pay for an Uber for you to come home when people get too drunk because I want you to about social part. She’s like, I just have no interest. I have no interest. So, win.

Teri Miller:

Yeah, I’m listening to this right now and thinking, oh my goodness, such intentionality. I missed the boat with… I still have a lot of younger kids, too. I’ve got two teenagers now and then three even younger than that. And so, okay, it’s not too late. Definitely missed this intentionality with the first three. However, I feel like, whoa, that’s what I’m hearing. Listeners, are you hearing that? Launching your teenager doesn’t just happen. It’s not haphazard. They’re not going to just graduate high school and move out and kind of, fly with wings like an Eagle. Whoa, I’m hearing that I’ve got to be intentional about teaching them some things.

Danica Copp:

Yes. Most definitely.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So, I have this funny example. My oldest son, Cael, when he went away to college the first time, he went out of state, right? So, he went to California and he got an eye infection. So, he calls and says, “What do I do?” And I said, “Go to urgent care.” And, I looked up which urgent care in his area took our insurance. He goes to the urgent care. He gets the prescription. He takes it to the pharmacy, fills it, calls me and goes, “Mom, it was $126.” What? No, it should have been $3. We have insurance, right? It’s a $3 copay. Wait a minute. Mom knew to tell him, you have to go to an urgent care that takes your insurance, mom did not tell him, you have to pick a pharmacy that takes your insurance. Did not occur to me, right? So I have to eat the $126, right? This is my fault. This is on me for not teaching my child, hey, only certain pharmacies take our insurance.

Danica Copp:

Right.

Dr. Amy Moore:

And, that insurance even covers medication.

Danica Copp:

Right.

Dr. Amy Moore:

I learned the hard way. You can’t be mad at your kid for something that you did not teach your kid.

Teri Miller:

Yeah. And, that they’re clueless about.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah.

Teri Miller:

And, we all were. Oh my goodness, yeah, my firstborn… again, I wasn’t intentional. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why he was the Guinea pig.

Dr. Amy Moore:

All firsts are guinea pigs.

Teri Miller:

Oh, my goodness. And, he made so many bad financial choices because he just didn’t know. Okay, here’s a funny story. This is a financial and just responsibility choice, but he’s super kind-hearted and gentle and sweet spirit. So an older woman, backing out, hit him in a parking lot. He was there, getting in the car, just getting out or something. I mean, bashed his car. Broke the front headlight. The front crippled. She’s all, I’m sorry. And, oh, goodness, what should we do? Do I need to pay for it? And he’s all, oh, it’s an old crappy used car anyway, I paid $1,800 for it. Don’t worry about it. It cracked all this but the headlight’s not broken. Whatever. She drives away. That’s it. I’m like, dude.

Teri Miller:

And, he just didn’t know, he was supposed to [crosstalk 00:14:08] hat kind heart. And, I never told him. People have insurance, insurance pays for things. So his car was crunched and rusty and horrible, you know? I left him.

Dr. Amy Moore:

All right. So, I want to ask you a question. So, you mentioned that neuro-diverse kids are taught social skills that neuro-typical kids aren’t necessarily taught, but still need to know. How does that happen?

Danica Copp:

Yes. So, when you think about our kids who are on the autism spectrum, right? We do a lot of social skill training with them now. That’s a big part of treatment for them and IEP work and stuff like that. So, they’re getting a lot of that, look somebody in the eye, how do you introduce yourself? Like, hi, I’m Danica, and I shake their hand. They’re being trained in that because that’s not something that is intuitive for them in the same way. So, we worked really hard at developing social skills training for these type of children. And, what we’re now seeing is these children are great at it because they’ve been trained and rewarded for making strides in this. We’re not giving our neuro-typical, our regular kids, any kind of training like this. And, we expect them to still know how to do it, but they don’t.

Danica Copp:

So, I’m talking to actually a very good dear friend of ours, close family friend, she has two boys in the spectrum. We were kind of talking about my program and she was like, I always hear how great my kids are at introducing and looking people in the eye. And, I’m, well, we hammer that in every day. When somebody comes to the house, you go up to them and you say, hello, how are you? It’s not natural for them. It’s very kind of, stilted, but they do it.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right.

Danica Copp:

And, we almost need to back it up and give our regular kids, all kids, that same kind of training at this point, because they’re not getting it in the same natural way that again, kids in the 70s, 80s and probably even 90s got it now because everything’s so tech-centric. So everybody has a cell phone. So if I want to get hold of Johnny, I’m going to just text Johnny and say, hey, I’m outside. I’m not going to have to go ask his mom to send him out.

Teri Miller:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Dr. Amy Moore:

Good point.

Teri Miller:

Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So whose job is it to teach these social skills to our regular kids?

Danica Copp:

I think it comes back to being parents. We’ve got to kind of take that on as parents. And, start young. Back when kids really want to interact, we’ve got to kind of keep that going. That when we give our kids the screens, suddenly everything’s about the screen. And so, having that expectation, the younger, the better, of basic social skills. We look people in the eye, we address them, and letting them practice that… My daughter, I don’t want to order, you order for me. Well, it’s not my dinner. So, if you want dinner tonight, you need to look at the waitress and tell her what you want. What do you think is going to happen? What’s scary about telling her that you want chicken nuggets and french fries? Do you think she’s going to tell you, no, you don’t get chicken nuggets? We’re at a restaurant, we get what we want.

Danica Copp:

So, I need you to look at her and tell her that you want chocolate milk, chicken nuggets and french fries. And, she might be, I want chicken nuggets and french fries. And I’m like, sweetheart, she can’t hear you. Oh, I’ve have chicken nuggets and french fries. They’ll work with you, but pushing them out of that comfort zone. If I just said, okay, I got it, I’ll just order for you again. I don’t let her be uncomfortable, which is hard. It’s hard to see her in discomfort. But, if I keep doing that, how do I expect my 17, 18, 19-year old to go off and do it? And, I know, at 13, food showed up at our house. My daughter was 13. And, I was like, “Who ordered food?” And she’s like, “Oh, I did.” And I’m like, “What? I’m sorry, huh?” Oh, I guess, you go on an app, but she has a debit card. She ordered food.

Teri Miller:

That’s awesome.

Danica Copp:

I never did that at 13. You couldn’t do that when I was 13, but I can imagine my parents would have said, no, you’ll eat the dinner that we prepared.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right.

Teri Miller:

That’s great evidence that you have empowered her. You’ve done that intentionality well and so she had the strength and competence to do that. That’s awesome.

Danica Copp:

Yep.

Teri Miller:

Thinking about, yeah, when my kids were younger and even my youngest right now, she’s been in our family about five years in the process of adoption. And so, she was not with us in those early years when you have a toddler and you begin to teach your toddler those things. It is intentional. When you have a toddler, your his teacher saying, hi, say hi to your teacher. And, you teach them to respond. You teach them when someone bends down and says, what’s your name? You teach them to say what their name is and to interact. And, that is something, it’s been surprising how intentional we’ve had to be because she didn’t have that time with us. And so, still, now at 9, a teacher, a new friend will say, and how old are you? And, she’ll just kind of shrink back. She doesn’t want to respond. And, I’m like, it’s okay, can you tell her how old you are? Because a lot of times in the hurry, I want to just go, oh, she’s 9.

Danica Copp:

Yes.

Teri Miller:

I have to go, got to be intentional. Got to be intentional. I have to be more intentional with her than I would for a typical 9-year old.

Danica Copp:

Correct.

Teri Miller:

But, that’s how I should be with all of my children, I’m hearing from you, about all these things.

Danica Copp:

I’m not out here to judge anybody. Certainly, I didn’t get everything perfect either. It’s a learning experience. We do the best we can with what we have.

Teri Miller:

Yeah. This is great.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, but the longer that we do it for our children, the longer we’re going to have to do it for our children.

Teri Miller:

Right.

Danica Copp:

That’s very true. That’s very true.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah.

Teri Miller:

And, especially then, they’re not 9, then they’re 13, then they’re 15, then they’re 10, then they’re 20 and they’re in California and they don’t know how to pick up a prescription. Or, let somebody bash their car and they don’t know about insurance. Yip.

Danica Copp:

Absolutely.

Teri Miller:

Okay. Checklist.

Danica Copp:

Yes. Amy.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yes. Okay. So you have a free checklist. I love to say the word free.

Danica Copp:

I do.

Dr. Amy Moore:

The adolescent launching checklist. So talk to us about that. What’s on it? How did you decide what’s on it? Why are those things important?

Danica Copp:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, a lot of that came out of my own practice and kind of working with teenagers and recognizing the skills that they didn’t have, but they would come to my therapy office and be like, oh, I have to do this. And, I don’t know how to do it. Like, help. I’m, okay, yeah, I’m your therapist, I’ll help you with whatever you need help with, but this doesn’t look like a therapy option, but sure. So, some of it came just from things that kids would need from me. Some of it came from, obviously I have a 20-year old, so as I’ve launched her, the things that I think she needed to know. And then, I actually reached out on social media to people, what do you wish you’d known before you were sent out of the house? What kind of skills did you not get that you wish you had?

Danica Copp:

And so, it came out of a lot of different ways. And so, it’s kind of broken down into there’s financial kind of things kids should know, there’s health things they should know about their insurance, about their name, their date of birth, their medical conditions, allergies they have, medications they take regularly. Why do they take them? They should know all that. And, it’s funny, I post on social media some of these things. I was raised by an RN. My mother was a registered nurse. So, we didn’t go to the doctor until we were dying. And so, I understand, you take Tylenol for this, you take Advil or Motrin for this, Neproxin is a longer kind of, Advil Motrin. I didn’t realize, a lot of my friends were like, I don’t know how to use all that stuff either. And, I was like, oh, that’s not… my mom was a nurse so we were using all that because you didn’t go to the doctor until you’d used to all that.

Danica Copp:

So I taught my daughter, here’s how you use those. And, Tylenol is a different product than the Motrin, Neproxin, or aspirin products. And so, you could take one of those and a Tylenol, but don’t take more. We had all that discussion and I didn’t realize that wasn’t necessarily a skill that a lot of adults knew. So then, there’s kind of household things because a lot of parents were telling me their kids didn’t know, we don’t put aluminum in the microwave and we don’t put boxes in the oven, which actually my own husband did that and started a fire in our oven. So, some adults don’t know that.

Dr. Amy Moore:

I put a Capri Sun in the microwave when I was 11. My mom used to freeze them because we grew up in the south, it was hot, right? And so, she would freeze them, put it in my lunch, and then by the time lunch came around, it was liquid again. But, I wanted a Capri Sun one afternoon and it was still frozen so I threw it in the microwave. Those of you who’ve never had a Capri Sun, it’s an aluminum package.

Teri Miller:

Oh, dear.

Dr. Amy Moore:

I caught the microwave on fire.

Teri Miller:

Oh, no.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah.

Danica Copp:

Ouch.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Anyway, go ahead.

Danica Copp:

So, for kids who have never really made a simple meal, they’re then just going to order out, then that gets expensive. For kids to understand on the financial, the impact student debt is going to have on you when you graduate. What is your salary expected to be when you graduate? And then, what is that student debt going to look like monthly? And, are you going to be able to afford to live? That those are important skills for kids to really stop and think about. And then, there was also kind of just some general ones, like they had some car stuff and other stuff. So, there’s multiple different sections.

Danica Copp:

And then, it has over 75 tasks that… I’m sure there’s more. I don’t think it’s all inclusive by any means. But, I came up with 76. Because I had 75 and I was like, perfect. And, my sister’s like, this is a really important one. And I was, all right, now I have over 75. So, it just puts them all out.

Dr. Amy Moore:

You talk about laundry, operating tools in the kitchen.

Danica Copp:

Yes. So, for example, you might be able to use the washing machine and dryer at home, but you go to college and it doesn’t look the same. And so, going to a friend’s house and reviewing how their washing machine and dryer… it’s going to be the same buttons, knobs, types of washes, but it’s going to look different on how you set it up. You’re going to your friend’s houses, go look at their wash machine. Hey, can I check out your washing machine because I’m learning where the different cycles are and stuff. My sister finds, at BU, kids come in and maybe they know how to do wash at home, but it doesn’t look the same, the washing machine and dryer at school. So, they’re lost.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah.

Teri Miller:

Well, generally, they also get to college. I found this with my first and second born. At home, we sorted the laundry, darks, lights, bleach load. In college, everything goes in one load and, oh, that cute blouse I got for you is gray. What happened?

Danica Copp:

Or, pink and you’re a boy.

Teri Miller:

Yeah. Okay, well, there’s how we learn sometimes. But, we can be more intentional, too.

Danica Copp:

Yes. Most definitely.

Dr. Amy Moore:

You have grocery shopping items, which is super important, right? Because, typically, they’re not doing the grocery shopping for the family.

Danica Copp:

Right. But, understanding where the healthiest foods are kind of around the outside stores where you’re going to find the healthiest non-chemically foods. And so, that’s going to be kind of your best bet for staying healthy. And then, also understanding that just because it says like, oh, 2 for $4… yeah, but it’s dollars normally so that’s not a big deal. Understanding that the sales stuff that they put in and the middle, your eye level’s, where are they going to put everything they want you to buy and it’s going to be most expensive. So kind of, look up, look down. That don’t just buy what you see because that’s not going to be necessarily your most cost effective way.

Teri Miller:

Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right. Absolutely. So, you even have car care.

Teri Miller:

That’s exactly what I was going to get to, Amy, because I’m, uh-oh, guilty.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah. I think that, I don’t even know how to do the things on this list

Teri Miller:

Not remotely. Nope.

Danica Copp:

Fair enough. Again, they don’t necessarily have to know exactly how to do it, but perhaps how do they get the help then? I’m the oldest. I wasn’t allowed to drive until I could change a tire, I could jump the car. I literally was not allowed to drive until I could do those things. My sister came along and they handed her the AAA card.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right. Yeah.

Danica Copp:

She’s still, I have no idea how to change a tire. I’ve never done that. I can’t believe dad made you do that. I’m, yeah. He literally sat in a lawn chair while I did it myself,

Dr. Amy Moore:

I have a funny story. A few years ago, Teri’s car wouldn’t start in the parking lot at the office. And, I said, “Not a problem, I will jump you. I do know how to jump you because I’ve done that at some point in my adult life.” But, newer cars, the engines are covered. You pop the hood and it’s encased now, right? So you can’t even see anything in the engine anymore. So I opened my car hood and I have no idea where the battery is, how to find the battery, how to access the battery, where it’s kept, how to even open this stuff. So, Teri and I are in the parking lot on YouTube, trying to figure out how to find the battery in my car so that then I can jump her car.

Teri Miller:

Oh, my goodness.

Dr. Amy Moore:

You don’t remember that?

Teri Miller:

It came back to me.

Dr. Amy Moore:

We were two grown women who should… How many letters do we have after our names?

Teri Miller:

Right. No idea.

Dr. Amy Moore:

On YouTube, trying to figure this out.

Teri Miller:

No idea how to figure it out. I love that your dad taught that to you, though. Again, it’s intentionality. How do you help teens launch into adulthood? Intentionally scaffolding, intentionally leading them. I love what you said at the very beginning. I do, we do, you do. That’s such a beautiful just basic educational scaffolding concepts that we can be more intentional with our kids about.

Danica Copp:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Teri Miller:

I’ve got to. Medication stuff. Yeah. So, my daughter was 23, so she’s 25 now second born… she was 23 and going in for knee surgery. I was with her heading into it. I went to where she was, off in college to be with her. And, of course, my gosh, big deal, she’s going into surgery. So, I’m with her, I’m in the room… this was pre-COVID.

Danica Copp:

Yeah.

Teri Miller:

She’s going into the pre-op stuff, we’re talking to the anesthesiologist and all of a sudden, light bulb, I realize the anesthesiologist is talking about what they’re going to do. And, I had been kind of confused. Well, I don’t understand why they’re doing it that way. We have malignant hypothermia in my family and my daughter knows this because my oldest son has had lots of surgeries. But, it’s been a thing we’ve talked about, but she just didn’t put it together. And, I was never intentional about teaching her.

Teri Miller:

And so, here she was about to head into a surgery where they’re going to do gas, which can kill you if you have malignant hypothermia. And, if it’s in your family, it’s genetic, you don’t do it. It’s not done. They have to do propofol or some other anesthesia. And so, oh my goodness, the anesthesiologist was so mad. I should have known this. We should have this in the pre-op. They had to delay the surgery.

Danica Copp:

Oh, wow.

Teri Miller:

All these things because, Amy, just like what you were saying, I missed it. I wasn’t intentional. And so, I was sitting there with the anesthesiologist, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. My fault. Don’t be mad at my daughter. You know, it all worked out. But, those things are so important.

Danica Copp:

Absolutely. Yep. It is really important. There’s so many kids on medications and you’ll ask them like, why are you on that? And, they’ll be, I don’t know. Well, at 16, you need to know why you’re taking medications. You know? I really think almost any kid should know why they’re taking medications because if we’re giving them something put in their body, they should know why.

Teri Miller:

Right.

Danica Copp:

So, yeah, 16, 17, I don’t know, I take something for my allergies. I don’t know. I’m, what are you allergic to? I don’t know.

Teri Miller:

Ah, yeah.

Danica Copp:

You kind of need to know.

Teri Miller:

And, like you said, need to know the difference. What’s the difference between ibuprofen and Tylenol and can we take everything altogether and a handful of aspirin? And, watch out.

Danica Copp:

That’s right. Exactly. And, we really want to be careful with Tylenol. Tylenol is something we really want to follow the directions on.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Well, and if I’m at a friend’s house and I’m already on the medication, what can’t I take if I’ve got a headache and that my friend’s mom wants to give me something, right? If I’m on a blood thinner, I can’t take Motrin.

Danica Copp:

Correct. And too, if I’m taking a multi-symptom cold medicine, can I take something in additional? Because like, I need to look and see like, oh, hey, this already has acetaminophen. That’s Tylenol. I can’t take any more Tylenol then. To be aware that you can see what’s in the medications on the box or bottle. You need to be aware of what you’re putting in your body. Don’t just randomly take a handful of medications.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah. All right. So, this is a super comprehensive checklist and you’ve leveled it. Can-do, needs practice, plan to start, and accomplished. So, can you talk about those criteria a little bit?

Danica Copp:

Yes. So, understand that some of these things, your kids may already know. That you don’t have to really be intentional about teaching them. They may just kind of already know because they’re inquisitive about what medications they take. So if they already know how to do it, obviously skip over it. If it’s something that you’re like, oh, this is something that I feel like, we need to kind of teach these couple of things first, let’s put that off then. Let’s do it more in order. But, kind of looking at what’s the plan to get through these things?

Danica Copp:

And, I think, too, to just give you an idea of, again, things you might not have thought of. That was kind of the goal. To not just think of like, well, my kid knows how to do laundry, they do their own laundry. Right, but can they do their own laundry in somebody else’s washing machine? They know how to do it with the products you give them. What if the products don’t look like what you give them?

Teri Miller:

Right.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right.

Danica Copp:

Borrowing from a friend.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So, how do we use it? How do we use the checklist? Do we just sit down one Saturday morning and say, all right, we’re going to have a marathon launch checklist day.

Danica Copp:

I would say probably not because you’re going to lose your kid in about five minutes if it’s that long. I think it’s something that as parents… and I think you can show it to your child. It’s not a secret. Something you hang on the fridge and, hey, these are kind of things that we’re going to be talking about working on. I may be asking you to do things that seem kind of crazy. Why would I make you go out and look and learn how to change a tire when the tire’s is fine. But, these are skills I want you to know how to do. I want you to know how to find the book in our car that tells you where the battery is, or how much to inflate the tires to. I want you to be aware of this.

Danica Copp:

So, as we go to the gas station to put air in the tires, I’m going to ask you to come with me. We’re going to kind of, oh, I got a flat tire, I’m going to have you come out and change it with me or you come change it. Or, that I may be asking you to do these things that may seem like, why does she want me to do them? Well, I want you to do them because I’m trying to give you these skills for when you’re on your own. Maybe even to have your teen look at them, what of these don’t you know how to do? And, they may be like, oh, yeah, no, I know how to do… or they may say, wait, what’s the thing with microwave and metal? What’s wrong with aluminum foil? That’s a simple discussion. Well, hey, when I was 11, I put a Capri Sun and it ruined the microwave.

Danica Copp:

So we don’t do that. The way microwave’s work that sparks and we create fires and we don’t want fires. I remember, I went to college and I was an RA. So I was a resident assistant. I was a leader in the residence life. And, we had training up the wazoo. And, one day there was a small fire in the bathroom of the boys. And so, my best friend and I were on duty together. And, it was, oh my God, we need the fire extinguisher. So, she goes and gets the fire extinguisher, throws it to me. And I’m like, “I don’t know what to do with the fire extinguisher, I’ve never used one.” And she was, “Wait, there’s directions.” So, literally the trash cans on fire and we’re, let’s read the directions on the fire extinguisher. And, we still to this day laugh about that because we were trained in everything except how to use a fire extinguisher.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Is that on the list?

Danica Copp:

I don’t think that is on the list, but it probably should be.

Teri Miller:

Yeah. I’m sitting her thinking, oh, my goodness.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, we should add that. I need to go over that.

Teri Miller:

You’ve got 77 now, Danica.

Danica Copp:

Yes. Well, 78 because somebody else wanted me to put on there how to write a check. That’s not actually on the list. But, how often are we really writing checks nowadays.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right.

Teri Miller:

Yeah. That’s true. Writing a check [crosstalk 00:36:54]-

Danica Copp:

That’s more of an obsolete.

Teri Miller:

Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore:

You know what, there’s not a fire extinguisher app on their cell phone. So, we still need to learn how to use a fire extinguisher.

Danica Copp:

There you go. Yes. And, they’re pretty easy to use. Having had to use one, they are pretty easy. The big takeaway is you got to hold the hose because the hose goes everywhere.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So, the lesson I’m hearing here besides the fire extinguisher, is that we don’t want to wait until the week before they’re leaving for college to start this process.

Danica Copp:

Absolutely not. I really think this is a process that starts elementary, middle, into high school. This is kind of an ongoing process. And really, I think a lot of the launching stuff starts in middle school, but I’m starting out. So, we’re starting with the high school kids because we got to start somewhere.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Absolutely. All right. So we need to take a quick break and let Teri read a word from our sponsor. When we come back, we want to hear about your coaching program.

Teri Miller: (Reading sponsor ad from LearningRx)

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Dr. Amy Moore:

And, we’re back talking to Danica Copp about how to successfully launch your teenager into adulthood. So Danica, you’ve got a coaching program for parents. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Danica Copp:

Yes. So I am now coaching parents to successfully launch children they like into the world. So, my goal is to not only have your child be successful in the world, but ideally that you remain connected with them and that they actually want to call you when they’re away at college. Because, I think that’s a real critical piece. Not only that they’re successful out there, but that you still have a relationship with them.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Okay. So I have to say, I missed the modifier on that for a second. But, oh, it’s only for the children that you like, not for the children that you don’t like.

Danica Copp:

Yes.

Dr. Amy Moore:

You saying, you want to like your children when they’re adults.

Danica Copp:

Yes. That I want to help you, too. Yeah, no, we just want kids that we like. The other ones, whatever, good luck. Yes, I want you to be able to have a relationship that your child wants to connect with you, you want to be connected with your child. But, basically, as adults, you are now connected as friends. You’re still going to be the consultant because you’re the parent, but that you’re not the, you do, you do. And, that your child sees you as a resource and as a friend. As somebody that they can reach out to, who’s got their back, who cares about them, but that it’s not one sided where you’re like, I never hear from you, I never hear from you. That’s my goal. So looking at… Go ahead.

Teri Miller:

Oh no, I just was saying, yeah, I see that. What you’re describing. Yes, such a delicate balance because-

Danica Copp:

It is.

Teri Miller:

Yeah, I’ve got friends that have young adult kids that don’t want to have anything to do with them. The friends on both sides of the line, kind of where one friend she was too controlling. And so, even when her kid was in college, she tried to control and do everything and hold on. And now, that kid’s, get away from me. Then, you’ve got the parent that was, look, you’re in college, sorry, done with you. I’m not going to help you anymore. And, oh, my goodness, what a delicate balance, because we haven’t all done it right and been intentional all along the way. And so, my goodness, then when we’re in that launching, oof, to walk that delicate balance.

Danica Copp:

Absolutely. I came from an upper middle class affluent area and I moved back in with my parents at 30. As I’m kind of getting ready to get married and giving up apartments and trying to buy a house, where am I going to go? Like, okay, mom and dad, can I come crash back in my bedroom? When we moved out of state and the crash of 2009 was really hard, my parents helped pay the mortgage on our house in Massachusetts because we were going to foreclose on it. I don’t really think that you ever stop parenting, right? I was very fortunate that my parents were able to help me in that way. And, I know not all parents can do that. But, the idea of, good luck, you’re on your own, I did it, is not a helpful way of parenting. Even if you can’t financially step in and help, you can still help them brainstorm, you can still be present with them, you can still empathize with their struggle, right?

Danica Copp:

And, I think, too, on the flip side, when you talk about the parents who were helicoptering and trying to come in, it’s, oh, my God, just leave me alone. You’re overbearing and it’s too much. And so, really kind of looking at, in healthy parenting, our children are going to launch successfully and we are not going to have them in our nest forever. That’s not the goal of a family life cycle. Family lifecycle means they go off and create their own family and start a new cycle. And so, it’s coming to terms with, again, as my daughter began to drive… I only have one. So, she’s been everything. I had done everything with her and my husband worked every other weekend. So, she and I were buddies and we’ve thankfully always gotten along.

Danica Copp:

But, I’ve also been very cognizant to kind of, this is your choice, I’m here to drive you. But, once she started driving, I knew my life was going to drastically change because everything I did was about her activities. And now, she’s going to be taking herself there. She has a car. And so, I, as she approached that time was, okay, what do I want to do? Let me get back into the crafting I used to like to do when she was little and I had time. And, oh, hey, I love the water, let me take up kayaking.

Danica Copp:

I was intentional in looking at what are the activities can I engage in because I’m going to have more time on my hands? And, I don’t want to sit there and go, whoa is me, I don’t have my kid. And, I also didn’t want to overcrowd her, right? I wanted her to be able to fly appropriately. And so, it wasn’t her job to entertain me. And so, it’s a real kind of re-looking at your life and your relationship if you still have a partner. We did that, too. Kind of like, okay, hey, it’s going to be the two of us again. Do we still like each other? What do we like to do for fun, the two of us? We went through that. And, yay, okay, woof, we still enjoy each other, we still have things in common. That’s good.

Danica Copp:

But, there’s a real kind of shift in the family as kids begin to launch. And so, parents recognizing their own anxieties and worries, and again, wanting their children to be successful, but needing them to do their best, right? And fail and allowing that to happen and sitting in that discomfort as a parent, but also recognizing that this is normal, this is okay. And, that maybe our moms didn’t go through this because they weren’t as involved in parenting. My mother never set up a play date for me. Like, play date?

Danica Copp:

I remember her saying that to me, “What the hell’s a play date, Danica?” I’m, “Oh, it’s where we get the girls together and they have a playtime.” And, she’s like, “Yeah, no, you just went outside and you created a play date on your own. There was no play dates.” That was never a thing. And so, for my mom, yeah, bye-bye. She loved me and she was available to me, but there was no launching, like. This was just, yeah, okay, peace out, you’re an adult now and we’re here when you need us.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Absolutely.

Teri Miller:

So good.

Dr. Amy Moore:

What does it look like to work with you in your coaching program?

Teri Miller:

Yes.

Danica Copp:

So, luckily, right now, I’m still fairly new. So right now, if you get in, you’re working one-on-one with me. But, I’m developing modules. So, I’m looking at helping you determine what does success look like because for your family, it’s going to look different than it does in my family. So, really kind of hammering down, what is success going to look like? And then, how do you communicate those expectations to your child, right? Because, it’s one thing for us to be like, oh, he’s going to college. Well, what’s he going to study? And, have you really looked at what they’re interested in studying? And, then what kind of jobs can they get?

Danica Copp:

So, there are some you can get in the academic area and you can still get a job, but your kid wants to be a CSI because they love that TV show. Let’s have a discussion about that. So, kind of being intentional around what the expectations are. For some families, they get married very young and there are some religions and stuff out there where they might do a junior college or a year or two, and then they get married and that could be success for them. And, that’s great. Again, whatever success looks like in your family, go for that. For others success is med school. And so, you’ve got a long haul to get there.

Danica Copp:

So being able to identify that and then identify the values that you have around that. And again, that communication with your children, looking at, how do you begin to kind of release some of that and, again, become that consultant, not that command do, and kind of going maybe with some of the checklist items to, how do you make sure your child’s prepared? And, I think beginning to have those discussions around, as your parent, I’m going to start to kind of step back. I want to be able to kind of problem solve with you around situations. So, hey, we’re going out to a concert, is that okay? Well, let’s talk about that. As opposed to, no, you can’t go to a concert, it’s too late. Well, I need some more details like who you’re going with, who’s driving, where’s the concert, how will you get home?

Danica Copp:

And then, what I would say my daughter is, [inaudible 00:47:23] concerns about that. I was like, what happens… you’re going into DC and that’s a big city and I’m a little bit nervous about, at 16, you going into DC, so let’s problem solve, how else can I help with this? At 18, I’m going to have less say in that. But, hopefully, I’ve kind of prepared her again all along. I might say to my 16 year old, I want you to go to this concert, but I’m willing to drive. Or, maybe, another parent would pick up. So, not just saying hard no’s on things, but let’s problem solve. These are the concerns I have about that decision, help me to feel comfortable, as opposed to blanket yeses or nos.

Danica Copp:

And so again, in bringing up your concerns, you’re allowing your child to then also think through, oh, I didn’t think about that. And, I want my daughter to be able to go to a party and college and make good decisions because she’s had to kind of think through, well, what would mom say about this? Mom would say her concerns are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t a no. I actually rarely said no to her. It usually was, these are the concerns I have about that activity or these are the concerns I have about that plan. So help me not be concerned.

Teri Miller:

Yeah. That’s good.

Dr. Amy Moore:

I like that perspective. You also have a Facebook group.

Danica Copp:

I do. Yes. So, I have a parenting Facebook group where you can also ask questions. I tend to post YouTube videos, so you can suggest topics for that. And so, that’s all free. Obviously, working with me, coaching, has a cost to it, but I have lots of free resources with YouTube, the checklist, my Facebook group, I post on Instagram. So, yes.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Fantastic.

Teri Miller:

Yep.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Well, this has been a great conversation. And, Danica, thank you so much for taking an hour out of your busy day, just to share this wisdom. And, something that seems so simple, but we just screw up over and over again, right? And so, I just love that we had this conversation about something that we can easily take care of.

Teri Miller:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Dr. Amy Moore:

Right? This is one of those problems that has a really easy solution. We just have to know to do it and then take the effort to do it.

Teri Miller:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Danica Copp:

Yes. Well, thank you. It’s been my pleasure, also.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So if you want to connect with the Danica, we will put our social media handles in the show notes, along with a link to download her adolescent launching checklist. It is free. Everybody needs this. Are you hearing me? So, we will put that link to download it and a link to her parenting Facebook group as well.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So, thank you so much for listening today. If you liked our show, we would love it if you would leave us a 5 star rating or review on Apple podcasts. We are also on YouTube if you want to watch us. And, follow us on social media @TheBrainyMoms. So, look, until next time, we know that you’re busy moms and we’re busy moms, so we are out.

Teri Miller:

See ya.

Connect with Danica:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danicacoppmsw/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Copp-Coaching-Consulting104579811855372
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danica-copp-4b3942a/
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfacHbbf5gtzBy7OlqJYjAg

Download your free copy of Danica’s Adolescent Launching Checklist