Hat tip to Jessica for pointing out this NY Times article about this concept that has recently (maybe I’m late at noticing) come into vogue, “adulting:”

Rachel Ginsberg is a clinical psychologist at the NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center, a research and clinical program that brings together experts from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine. She is part of its Launching Emerging Adults Program aimed at teenagers and young adults.

Dr. Ginsberg works with clients on lack of emotional readiness and academic and “adulting” skills, as well as on social anxiety — issues that can become more apparent in college and can lead to students’ lives’ unraveling.

So how can a person develop these skills? Below is a list of “exposure tasks” to help students develop strategies for coping with possible challenges and “assertively get their needs met, or manage circumstances that do not go the way that they wished,” Dr. Ginsberg said.

Dr. Ginsberg goes on to list the “exposure tasks” as categories them academic challenges, emotional challenges and daily functioning challenges. I created a Google sheet (cuz that’s what we do) with this idea in mind (and please share any better ideas that you have!): Have your students calculate an “Adulting Score” by completing the checklist and counting how many of these behaviors they complete over the next week.

Here are a few reflection questions for your students to complete as they review their own checklist:

• What challenges (academic, emotional or daily functioning) do you feel are your strengths? Weaknesses?
• What tasks were you most proud of completing this week? Why?
• Which tasks did you find most difficult to complete? How did you motivate yourself to complete it? Describe how you were able to accomplish it?
• What “exposure tasks” were easiest to complete? Why did you find them easy?
• Which tasks were you surprised to find on this list? Why do you think the task was included as critical to the development of “adulting tasks?”
• Can you come up with your own “exposure task” that you think can help to build “adulting” skills?
• What surprised you about this activity?
• What did you learn about yourself going through this process?

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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