Hi, I'm Rina Ninean and this is Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting Podcast.

It's a podcast to help parents better understand their kids.

Dr. Lisa DeMore, a psychologist with three decades of experience, and the author of three

New York Times best-selling parenting

books takes your questions. Both of us are moms ourselves, and we're eager to hear from you.

So send us your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.Lisadamore.com and join our community by following us

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Episode 114, Should My Kid Take a Gap Year?

We talk a lot about the college process, Lisa, because it's so anxiety-riddled.

We've had authors Jeff Selengo and Ron Lieber on, but it's interesting to hear

everyone's thoughts on a gap here. It's true, right? So we're at the point right now where

kids and families have a lot of information. They know largely probably where they got in.

They may know where they didn't get in. And they're trying to sort that out. They also are

probably waiting on financial information. Many families are trying to figure out what schools are offering in terms of support.

So this is a big decision-making time, and one of the things that folds into that can be questions

about whether or not it makes sense to go to college right after high school.

And that's the letter we got from a parent. I want to read it to you.

Dear Dr. Lisa, I love your podcast and regularly share episodes with my friends and networks. You recently talked about

the price of college and I followed it up by listening to Ron Lieber's book. As a follow-up

question, can you talk more about a gap year? Is it a good thing? I'm not sure my 16-year-old

junior has enough motivation, drive commitment to be as successful as he could in college, especially when we're looking at 10,000 a year.

I like the idea of a gap year so he can get a bit of growth and maturity.

...