Adults know that high school is stressful. They know that teens spend too much time on homework and too little time sleeping, and often live on an emotional knife’s edge.
And still, they can’t resist asking questions that only make things worse. Watch the kids in this video express how they felt when they were being peppered with college questions by well-meaning adults during their senior year. (They appear after the ad.)
Alice Kleeman, a recently retired college adviser at Menlo-Atherton High School in California, says she filtered her questions by asking herself, “Am I contributing to the problem with what I am about to say, am I fueling the frenzy, am I adding to the stress or am I helping to mitigate the problem with what is about to come out of my mouth next?”
Don’t despair! There are lots of ways to approach the college talk with teens. But in the meantime, next time you’re about to talk to a teenager, avoid these 10 toxic questions.
To read the rest of our writing on the subject at NBC News.com, click here: How’d the SAT go? Ten Toxic College Questions to Never Ask a Teen
