Back-To-School: Friends, Feelings and…Forms?
This time of year, we all shift gears in many ways, marking the end of Summer with Labor Day weekend. We move from vacations back to work. Those of you with kids at home have also begun the process of getting everyone ready for a new school year. That first week of school is an adjustment for the whole household, sometimes it’s met with relief and sometimes tears (from the kid or parent or both). In financial planning, we talk about emotions and how they play into investment decision-making and planning, and it’s worthwhile for these reasons to better understand why they show up and what they are telling you.
OFF TO SCHOOL
There’s no question we often resist changes because of the emotions they evoke. I was a smart, geeky kid who loved school and didn’t love the limits of hot summers in Southern California, so going back to school was a happy time for me. Not every kid shares this perspective, and however a child might feel about moving into a new academic year is valid. Ultimately you might not want to give into these feelings, but they are telling you something that needs attention. Same goes for grown-ups.
One of the highlights of my summer was seeing Inside Out 2, the sequel to the 2015 movie, Inside Out. The first film introduced five core emotions in the life of an 11-year old girl: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear. Inside Out 2 adds four new emotions to the mix. IO2 is – amazingly – even better than the first film [1] . Both movies tackle the emotions that make up our interior world, and which also guide us in the outside world, in relationship with others.
THIS EMOTIONAL TEENAGE LIFE
Part of the magic of the Inside Out movies is the basis of the story in science. The animators and storytellers at Emeryville’s Pixar Animation Studios utilized the resources up the road at U.C Berkeley to get our emotional nature correct, consulting with the psychologists and other mental health researchers at Cal’s Greater Good Science Center. The GGSC’s researchers study the psychology, sociology and neuroscience behind the roots of compassion, happiness and altruism and teach the skills to foster more resilient and compassionate humans.
If you’re sending a teen off to high school, you might recognize the new emotions that puberty has delivered onto your sweet little one. Child and adolescent psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour was one of the consultants on the second film, and she breaks down the four new emotions and why parents can benefit from IO2 to better understand their teenager’s worries about heading back to school, here.
Dr. Damour also has a podcast where you can hear more about the making of the movie, but also about the complicated emotional life of teenagers and how the lessons of the film can help both parents and teens: Ask Lisa Podcast, Episode #174
THE FEELS IN YOUR FINANCIAL PLAN
We talk about wanting to make investment and financial decisions “free” of emotions. And yet, emotions are important clues to where we are in life and what we want. We all can relate to the four new emotions introduced into 13-year-old Riley’s life in Inside Out 2: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. These four emotions show up in us as grown-ups, too, as investors and financial decision-makers. [2]
Here is how they can show up in your planning:
ANXIETY – Thinking about the state of your finances and whether you’ll ever be able to retire – or what you’ll do once you do – can breed anxiety. The rational variety can help direct you, can help you plan and take action. The irrational kind can erode your ability to plan or act, and can have a negative impact on your health. But trying to avoid anxiety is a short-term fix. It doesn’t last and often sets up long-term problems.
ENVY – It’s hard to admit (sometimes) that we covet what someone else has. In our hyper-consumptive culture, it seems like it’s a national sport to compare ourselves with others, and social media tends to amplify this. That discontent about not having something that someone else has also has two sides. It can breed discontent, or it can help us to strive for what we desire, it can be a motivator. Envy can show up in financial plans when it identifies an aspiration to work towards; it can be destructive to planning when it blows up your budget or savings strategy, or when it hijacks your money as a tool for solving non-monetary problems.
EMBARRASSMENT – We’ve all had those moments, the ones we wish we could forget, if not erase entirely. Some of us are eternally grateful we made it through high school, college and grad school before social media was invented. As uncomfortable as embarrassment may be, it helps keep us from repeating the same mistake. You may be embarrassed by past financial decisions – or lack thereof – and that’s a signal to acknowledge it and to learn from it.
ENNUI – While trying desperately to avoid Embarrassment, teens (and adults, too) long to be COOL. Sophisticated, worldly. Teens are caught in the no-longer-kids-but-not-yet-adults crevasse and ennui is a coping mechanism. As a youth, you might have experienced this as a lack of motivation; as an adult it can show up even when you’d like to override it – and who can blame you after decades of what can be a work grind and demands from many directions. Dr. Damour notes how Ennui shows up in the lives of Gen Z and how it can be a natural reaction when expectation meets reality.[3]
These movies are meant to entertain, no doubt, but they also give our emotions life and personality, making them that much easier to talk about.
CINEMA THERAPY
For even more on the art of these movies and the lessons they sneak into the show, one of my favorite YouTube series, Cinema Therapy, tackles both. Cinema Therapy offers a licensed marriage & family counselor and a filmmaker who sit down together to screen and review movies. There are often tears. Check out these two episodes, on each of the two movies:
A Therapist Reacts to Inside Out (27:42) (with spoilers)
A Therapist Reacts to Inside Out 2 from Inside PIXAR (31:00) (no spoilers)
THE COLLEGE CHECKLIST….FOR ESTATE PLANNING?
You no doubt had a checklist for getting your kids back to school. What you probably didn’t have on a list for college-bound kids was some basic estate documents.
We don’t think our little ones headed off to college might need to think about estate planning issues. (They still might not, but you need to.) Once your kids turn 18, they are legally – if not practically-speaking – adults, and have autonomy over their own health information. Under HIPAA and other protective statutes, a school or hospital may not be able to release information about your child in the event of an injury or accident.
In addition to all the formwork you’ll be signing to get them enrolled, add these to the list:
• Durable power of attorney (for financial matters) – this document allows you as the parent to help with things like money issues when maybe your child is studying abroad, or is away in an internet-free area.
• Durable power of attorney (for health care, aka Healthcare proxy) – once 18 years old, your child is legally an adult, and health care decisions are his/her own; this document lets a parent speak to healthcare providers if a child cannot.
• HIPAA release – this form gives you the authority to be included in discussions and decisions about your child’s health.
This article outlines these documents and a few more for you and your college student.
Often we don’t take care of needs like these because they bring up unpleasant thoughts or emotions. One help to work through those is to think of this as a teaching moment. You’ve invested so much to help your kid get this far – now this is truly a lesson in Adulting.
COLLEGE LIFE AND BEYOND
Beyond what goes on inside our heads, part of what happens in the shift through puberty and into adult life is considering others, and what the rest of the world thinks and does. The move to college in particular can be stressful as a student leaves a familiar environment at home for the unfamiliar one at school.
Part of the joy (and stress) of college is forming new social networks and finding new friends. College is one of the ideal places for adult friendship-building, as you are thrust into life with others at the same life stage, and the “job” of college is organized into groups of individuals with similar interests. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, and it doesn’t mean it’s not a lonely time. The mental health challenges of young adults have been widely documented.[4]
Many of the solutions revolve around self-care. But an interesting study of college kids shows that prosocial behavior (actions with the goal of helping others) had a measurable effect on improving happiness, optimism and joy. The actions the study participants took were things like taking out the trash for a neighbor, making conversation with a cashier, saying thanks to an Uber driver, sharing class notes or hand sanitizer. The first-years studied reported higher well-being when they did more of these types of actions than their personal average. Interestingly, the same results occurred whether the acts had a greater social connection for the student with others, and thus a clear personal benefit (i.e. giving someone directions), as they did for more solitary acts (i.e., giving to charity or picking up garbage).
MAKING THE RANDOM MORE ROUTINE
Making those “random” acts of kindness more intentional, especially during times of personal stress, can be a boost for lifting us into a more positive space. The study cautions against too much of a good thing, though, and I know I would be careful about getting swept up by the seemingly never-ending drumbeat of self-sacrifice that women in particular are subjected to.
These lessons aren’t only for school-age kids and newly-minted adults in college. They are useful for all of us. Making friends as adults is hard, and loneliness has been called out as a health-threatening epidemic. Maybe the next time we think about picking up our phones to scroll for who-knows-what, what if we took that moment to consider what small act of kindness we could do for someone else. And in that little kind action, offer a balm for ourselves, too.
[1] I first saw the original Inside Out at Pixar Animation Studios, thanks to the San Francisco Film Society. It was only the second screening worldwide after the film’s premiere at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, and it was followed by a panel discussion with its creators. A superb film and a cherished experience.
[2] Many financial planners will relate to Anxiety. Anxiety is a planner.
[3] Gen Z includes those born between about 1997 and 2012, ages 12 – 27, and its the older members of the demographic have just launched into work life.
[4] Mental health of parents is on the list now, too. The US Surgeon General issues an Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents (August 28, 2024).