What Happens After Graduation

High school graduation is a weird thing. It’s like society drives young people up to this jungle and then just opens the car door and says, “Good luck in there!” Or, if the expression is “It takes a village to raise a child,” high school graduation is the first step out of the village and into the wild. Yes, graduation is kind of crazy when you think of it as the arbitrary spring date we choose to kick our children out of the village. Maybe it shouldn’t be that harsh,

I really worry about what happens to my students in the years that follow graduation. For their whole lives, they’ve enjoyed the safety, comfort, and security of their childhood which has often been headlined but their school experience and the guidance they’ve received from their guardians and teachers. So much of that falls away on graduation day though. Sure, good parents are going to stick around but are probably taking at least a little step back and certainly the routine of grade school is gone.

That means there is a lot left for a young person to figure out on their own and I believe the years that follow graduation are every bit as crucial in a young person’s transition to effective adulthood as their teen years. So, I think it’s really important for the “village” to stay vigilant and keep a careful watch over the people they’ve supported at this time. Actually, they probably need to be more vigilant now. Gone are the support networks offered by schools and the web of support they might have received from friends is likely smaller too. In spite of this, they’re facing some of the biggest decisions of their lives involving career and relationships when they need support the most. There’s a lot of significant things going on and there’s a lot that can go wrong.

Providing support to this demographic is complicated. These people need a balance between letting them be the adults that they and this continued support. Playing the role of the overbearing, I-still-know-what’s-best-parent likely isn’t going to work. Young people in this situation need to fall down sometimes, they need to be a little hungry, they need to discover what they like and don’t like about being an adult because those opinions will drive them down the path they choose. The supporters of young adults need to accept that mistakes will be made. They can’t and shouldn’t prevent the inevitable lessons that will be taught by those mistakes. However, supporters can be ready to extend a hand to pick up their young people, to bring them in from the jungle with the storm grows too fierce, and be willing to offer advice, when solicited, which the right amount of touch. In other words, your job as a parent isn’t done at graduation. Except when it is.