Our Mission
“How do you help your kids grow into the most authentic, healthy, and fulfilling version of themselves.”
Adolescence is a time of exploration, social experimentation, and burgeoning intellectual curiosity. Above all, high school and college-aged kids should feel safe to explore many paths and make mistakes along the road to self-discovery. And to understand that suffering the disappointments and fears that come with such exploration is an integral and normal part of the human experience.
Increasingly, the pressure to embody our culture’s narrow definition of success–largely commodified and attached to quantitative measurements and status labels, and chronically reinforced on social media–has crushed the excitement and courage required to grow into yourself and your passions. That is, if you can even find them. Students, and perhaps their parents, educators, and college advisors, contribute to perpetuating this cycle of measuring themselves against unrealistic, impersonal, and perfectionistic standards. Too often, meeting these standards seems to guide students to sacrifice the curiosity, connection, and passion that they will need to identify their values/guiding principles and nurture their emerging sense of identity. Along the road to achieving this misguided holy grail, teens often adopt unhealthy habits, compromising their sense of right and wrong and–perhaps most importantly–losing themselves.
The Listen More Project is designed to help parents of adolescents and emerging adults support and guide their kids on the bumpy road to a thriving and independent adulthood.
We will talk to experts across a range of disciplines that touch kids’ lives, and we will talk to the kids as well because, after all, it is their adulthood and their path to travel. We will address head-on the many challenges they are facing, from sleep deprivation to the pressure to be perfect to the expectations to self-define at such a young age. Our goal is to share perspectives, guidance, and support for parents who-more than anything-just want their kids to be happy and