Even James Bond Steps on a Banana Skin

Hilary Jeffs Welcome to experience your Weekly Dose of Wellbeing, all wrapped up in a current affairs wrapper. This is where we take what's happening in the world, be it the news headlines, current affairs, or what's going on, maybe down your street. And we look at it from a psychological perspective. We look at how that is driving human behaviour, and as a result, have a nice good old chat with myself and Peter Kinderman. Peter. Hello,

Peter Kinderman I have to say that I'm, I'm recovering from a camping expedition, and so there's a balance between feeling miserable and enjoying the luxuries of life. So I'm somewhere in the, in the balance between the two.

Hilary Jeffs Okay, so you are in Nirvana right now after the hells of being in a campsite. Nice tan though.

Peter Kinderman thank you very much.

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, I love camping myself, but I take it it's not for you.

Peter Kinderman no. I like luxury and camping and luxury are the same thing.

Hilary Jeffs Well, you're gonna have to try some glamping. Were you not in a yet? You're doing it all wrong.

Peter Kinderman I was in a small and wet tent.

Hilary Jeffs Hmm, well, at least the garden got some rain then if it was wet. That's the important thing. this week we're gonna be talking about a level results day, because that is what is gonna be going on up and down the country in lots of people's living rooms. As young people get more and more anxious. And before you switch off, you must remember that it takes a village to raise a child. And whether you are a mom, a dad, a student yourself, or an aunt or uncle, a grandparent, a neighbour, or even a future employer of these young people, we all have a vested interest in making sure that it goes well for them. But anyway, we are gonna be talking about it from a psychological point of view, so you're gonna get handy hints and tips on how to handle disappointment about how you can look to making better life choices. And indeed, about some hints and tips about how to make friends and make connections with people that will actually work. So that's what our subject's gonna be. Peter. But perhaps before we get started with that, you could let us know a little bit about the teenage brain because it's still developing, isn't it?

Peter Kinderman absolutely. Yeah. It is developing physically. I think the current sort of vague age that people are talking about when brains become more or less adult is around 23. So teenagers physically developing, the most obvious sign of this is that young people wake up late in the morning and, and there's a straightforward biological reason for that, which is when you're my age, cortisol levels are stress hormone effectively and alerting hormone peak at about four 30 in the morning. So you wake up at six or start to peak at four 30 in the morning. You wake

Hilary Jeffs just thought it was my bladder.

Peter Kinderman It, it, it's, it's bladder, it's prostate, it's arthritis, but it's also cortisol. And when you are about 15, your cortisol levels don't start to rise until about 10 in the morning. And so kids find it physically more difficult to, to, to wake up in type.Peter Kinderman: One of the most insane things that we do as a society is we say, well, we've got working people working day start somewhere between, eight and nine. So we'll start the school day. Then, the schools are, you know, the schools are a big building. They have kitchens, but no, we won't actually put on any childcare in the morning and no, we won't do breakfast for the kids. What we'll do is we'll start at like half eight in the morning, work through till three when all parents are working, forcing them then to provide childcare and teach the kids in the period of the day when their brains are less receptive to working. I mean, I think that one of the things that we could do to massively improve the performance of the UK would be to start school at 11, have have childcare between eight and 11. School at 11, finish school at six, perfectly as attuned to the teenage brain. And life would be much better. It genuinely would be much better. I haven't been able to persuade anybody to do it, but yeah, physically, teenage brains are not fully developed

Hilary Jeffs This does become a bit of a debate quite often about whether teenagers should start school later on in the day. But may I just say as a parent of a 17, 18, and 19-year-old children, yes, they are that close together. That 11 o'clock is just not late enough. I have one child who regularly is nocturnal, so wakes up at 6:00 PM and, and goes to bed about, hmm, eight in the morning, something like that.

Peter Kinderman It, it, it's a well thought through balance between the needs of the child, which is as late as possible and the, the needs of the adults, which is kind of like a decent working age. but anyway, the, the, the thing about cortisol and teenage brains being not yet adult, and you can see it in the cortisol levels, tells us that teenage brains aren't, aren't terribly well developed. It's a, it is a vaguely interesting fact. I think that a lot of the learning that happens is actually with a reduction in the number of synapses that we have. So, so what we do as we learn is we prune abstract connections. So there's this phrase, I think is William James, a blooming, buzzing confusion of the, the infant brain and all of the connections like between the visual cortex and between motor cortex. All of these connections, all of these dendrites in the brain get, get pruned down over time. So adult brains have fewer synapses per square millimetre than do, kid brains. And that pruning is still going on when people are hitting adolescents. There's also, probably more importantly, there's the non-physical stuff going on. So kids are selfish. It's difficult for kids to appreciate the perspective of others. It just, they, they need to learn it. I mean, they need to learn it morally, and they're, they're selfish in the sort of capital s sense of selfish, but they're also selfish in the small s so they don't take other people's perspectives. So, you know, if you say, even with small kids with food, you go look at all these other people, all of these other people are enjoying the food. They must think it's delicious, including kids of your own age. And they go, no, it's horrible. They, they, it is just, it just difficult for them to take on perspectives.

Hilary Jeffs up in the seventies, may I say that the, seventies version of that was if you don't eat it, I'm passing it up and sending it off to African for people who don't have any food. And may I tell you that also did not make me want to eat my food either, although it did give me a great dose of Catholic guilt.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, it made you resentful of, of your parents that it doesn't

Hilary Jeffs No, not resentful. Just guilty. It was all my fault.

Peter Kinderman so when you get sort of 14, 15 year olds with GCSEs and when you get 17, 18 year olds, I mean, they like to think that they're knowledgeable and sensible about the world, but they simply don't have the perspective. And they would like to think that they're perfectly formed human beings, but they still got another six years of neural development left. So yeah, we, sometimes decisions have to be made in their best interests. That's just the way it

Hilary Jeffs you know, it really does remind me of last year's results day. the reason that I can talk with a little bit of authority on this is professionally. I've worked a lot with the education bodies like UCAS and the Student Room and have been there holding the hands on results day of the chief exec, But equally as a mum, I went through this last year and what I really saw was someone who wanted to be an adult making those decisions, but was so needing their hand holding through the whole process. so you have to kind of love them through it and remember that all behaviour, even if they are punching your fridge at the time, is communication about their frustration, and they haven't yet got the skills to be able to process that more rationally.

Peter Kinderman Mm. Yeah. And I think for a lot of young people, especially if there's disappointment, they have an idea of how they would like the world to be, but no real idea of how to get from here to there. So if you have a single trajectory mapped out and then the results come in and it diverts you from where you are wanting to be, you still have your vision of where you want to be, but you are, you don't have the trajectory mapped out. And all you can do at that point is use the technique that you've used for the past 17 years, which is to moan and demand things of your parents. Make it happen. How are we going to make it happen? I don't know. Just make it happen. And yeah, that's the position we're left in.

Hilary Jeffs it is. So we're gonna talk about what you can do between now and results day on Thursday. but also after that we will go on to how to handle Thursday itself, and the results coming in, and maybe some of that disappointment. And then we're gonna take you beyond that and about how you can prepare for, you know, quite a big step. Leaving home for the first time is most often what is happening for these young people at that time. So that's all what we are gonna be covering. But in the lead up between now and Thursday, as a mum, I've got some advice and you are gonna come on and give your advice as well as someone who's been closely related to universities. In fact, how are you doing, as a former professor, because you

Peter Kinderman No, I'm still a

Hilary Jeffs level is, oh well.

Peter Kinderman I'm just former salaried professor.

Hilary Jeffs Ah, yes. Okay. Sorry. Yes, I must remember that title. I apologise. It's very important to your identity as we've been exploring over the last few weeks. you have been teaching me so well, Peter. so as someone who no longer works with the university, are you a bit bereft this week to not being involved in the hot seat on the day as those young people frantically try and get into your university?

Peter Kinderman No, not at all. It, it's hell and and very, very difficult. So the, the universities themselves, spool themselves up for results day because they know they're going to get, first of all, they need to manage the pu they, they need to know who's coming onto their courses. So, you know, over a period of time you, you get, you get the data in, you see how your courses are filling up, and there it goes. It is quite stressful for the universities because there are financial penalties for missing your targets. they're also, and the financial penalties, to be honest, you know, so I was quite senior in, in management in the universities, and if you're talking about financial penalties, it, it's rather foolish to go, oh, it's all money. The point is, if, if you miss out on your targets by a hundred thousand pounds, then you lay off to, or fail to appoint two more lecturers. It, it makes a difference to real people's employment and their pensions and their mortgages and so forth. So,

Hilary Jeffs And our kids' education.

Peter Kinderman and our kids' education, so hitting your targets is quite important. so the universities are quite stressed. They also, of course want the kids with the good grades. So they, you know, they want to improve their teaching performance from that side. They don't want their students to be disappointed. They certainly don't want kids to be coming on their courses where they're disgruntled that it's there. So, so the universities have a very strong interest in getting it right. So they put on extra staff and other people manage in the, the, the phone lines. And there's a period of discussion between the universities and the clearinghouse to, so it's a very stressful period of time for them, and they are very well aware that it's a stressful time for the parents and the students and half of them are going through themselves. So half of the people manning the phone lines talking about the entry grades for their course are people whose their, their own kids have just got the envelopes in the post as well. And, you know, sometimes good and sometimes bad. So it's very stressful for, for the universities. I, I was never manning the phones, so, so I didn't have that stress, but I certainly don't miss it. It, it is, it's a horrible period of time. And, and the best you can hope for is that after a couple of weeks it's settled down and gone away from, from the university's point of.

Hilary Jeffs Well, it has been a really huge bun fight and in some ways that's quite useful for students, as we go forward. The dip in international students meant that it's, got even more opportunities now for our young people. So at the moment there's headlines appearing about how grades are being dropped and how universities are making more, offers than ever before. And more young people will get into their first choice than ever before. And that's great to reassure your young people in the lead up to Thursday reassuring them that, you know, a huge proportion of you will get into your first choice. That Russell Group universities are dropping their grades, say from, I saw one that's gone from a star AA down to a Triple B offer. you've got other courses that may be traditionally A, a, B going down to B, C, C. So there are going to be opportunities for young people. So that's something you can reassure them about definitely in the lead up. But I've got some practical tips that perhaps might be useful to try and engineer over the next couple of days. I sat down with my young person last year on the night before, a level results day and said, okay, let's just map out what you think is going on. I know you are nervous about what your grades are gonna be and whether you've got into your first or even into your reserve choice, what would you actually, in an ideal world, all things being equal, what do you want to study? And they said to me, PPE. And I said, well that's really interesting 'cause you haven't actually applied for PPE at all on your UCAS form. No, they said, all right. Okay. So we now know that that in the ideal world is what you would like to study. Not history, not politics, but PPE, that's philosophy, politics, and economics. Yes, they said, so we go and get the envelope on the day. And indeed, it wasn't what he wanted. They didn't want to have a, reserve choice either because their reserve choice was not the university that they thought they reversed. Their preserved choice actually was so all around it was a massive, massive disappointment for this young person. But there is hope because of that conversation, because I knew PPE was the absolute ultimate choice, of course, that they wanted to do. It really focused our brains when it came to clearing, so we knew what we were looking at. So that's my first tip. Have this conversation, first bank, some sleep tonight, tomorrow night, Wednesday night, whenever it's gonna be because you are going to need that sleep on the Wednesday night. I didn't get any sleep at all ahead of the results day, because we were up just trying to manage the stress of my young person. So you really do need to hold their hand would be my advice. But maybe, you know, we are just doing this modern parenting where we don't cut the apron strings, early enough. But I did really feel that this young person needed it as it went up to it. So take them cups of tea, except they're gonna be surly. Try and find different ways to have a conversation. take them out for a Starbucks or a Costa or other coffee places are available. Talking in a car, I find sometimes quite useful because then they're not feeling you are gaze directly upon them. So those are all the practical things I would say to start doing. Now. You can even register for clearing alerts at universities of their choice already. And you can go onto the student room and onto UCAS and find out more about clearing and other things and other places where your young person may want to go. The idea being that you've got them, if things go wrong, let's, we hope that it won't go wrong. What could you do to help them manage their nerves, Peter, in the lead up to Thursday? Because that weight gets harder and harder, doesn't it?

Peter Kinderman It. Yeah, it does. And I think there, there's a, a tendency for parents to think that if they've got a nervous child and possibly a nervous child that they as a parent are a bit worried about, then the thing to do is to reassure and make everything nice. but I think on this particular situation, there, there are a series of actions that need to happen if the kids are disappointed. And I think it's worth, worth surviving the potential anger and disappointment of frustration of the child by having the conversation about what if you don't. I think the other thing is that, if our concern as parents is that our kids aren't really kind of aware of the dangers that they do stupid things because they're naive, then we shouldn't be naive. If you look at the statistics and the statistics of the statistics, you know, very, very competent people have spent quite a lot of time making plans for our children. So if their predicted grades are two C's and a D and they're hoping for three a's either something has gone bizarrely wrong in the education system for the past 2000 years, or that is giving you some useful information, and in that instance it's probably wise to prepare for bad news if it turns out to be good news.Peter Kinderman: All of that irritating preparation will be, you are really stupid, dad. Why on earth did you doubt me? And we can get rid of that. But if it turns out to be bad news, then you're suddenly in the territory that, that you need to be in. And you have the clearing house numbers and you have the plan. And the plan includes, you know, what do you want to do? If you got enough upgrades to go to clearinghouse with, the, the clearing system with reasonable confidence that you'll get into another university, what sort of university, where do you want to go? What would you accept? What would be acceptable to you? Would you be happy with that? Or do you want to take some time, take a gap and have all of those discussions? Because then if it turns out to be the worst of all possible news, then you implement plan C. If it turns out to be disappointing, then you implement plan B. If it's great news, then you open the champagne and it makes life a little bit better because even if you're going to implement Plan B and go, right, well that is disappointing. We were kind of prepared for that. So let's do plan B. You've then got endless out of waiting for the phone to answer and looking at websites where the grades keep on changing and you see that there are seven places available and then you press refresh and there aren't any. And yeah, you, it's good to have a plan.

Hilary Jeffs And it is important that you can frame this so it isn't you being disappointed in your children or expecting them to fail. that's why I phrased it with my child of, in an ideal world, what would you like Thursday to look like? Where would you like to be going after Thursday? What would you like to be doing? but equally there is a whole like, you know, this is common sense. You wouldn't get on a boat if there weren't enough life jackets for every person that was going onto that boat. All you are doing is getting them a life raft ready and hope you don't go onto a boat thinking it's gonna sink, but you want to know that if something does go wrong, that you've got yourself covered, don't you?

Peter Kinderman Yeah. So I mean, one way to think of it is, you know, it would be nice that if you as a child were at every point in your life there's an option or an opportunity or a challenge, and every time you are asked a question, you give the perfect answer to it. Every time you're set an exam, you get 80, 90% in your exam. Every time there's a job interview, you are the one chosen as the candidate. Every time that you see, a glint on the pavement, it turns out to be a 10 pound note every single time. But it's so unlikely to be the case. What's much more likely is that you really wanna be James Bond, who sometimes steps on a banana skin. And when James Bond steps on a banana skin, what sort of recovery do you want James Bond to have? When James Bond opens the door and somebody hits him on the back of the head with a cosh, how do you want him to get out of that difficult situation? So there's a, what does the expert human being do when confronted with a situation that is a little bit more challenging than they expected? Because it certainly work will happen. And if it doesn't happen at clearing, it'll happen in your first year at university. I mean, for me, I did quite well in my A levels, so I got my first choice at university. So I packed my rucksack, I went off to university and then I thought, shit, these people are all much cleverer than me. And so my cha well, it absolutely was. And my challenge came not with the A level results. My challenge came with performance in first year at university, but there's still a challenge. So I think that we need to think about, it would be great if the A-level results day were, everybody gets what, what they hoped for, but there will be challenges in your life. And this is a, actually, it's not a good opportunity, it's just the necessary opportunity to do the preparation for what if it turns out that your aspirations need to be, be juggled and yeah, this, this leads on to it. It's a challenge, not a condemnation of the person.

Hilary Jeffs Absolutely. And I do think of life as being, you know, the art of gracefully pivoting all the time because obstacles come into your way and you have to be able to go round them or over them. Sometimes you have to plough on through them. But essentially to give our young people the idea that there is never gonna be any obstacles for you to get over it and to not be equipped with how you get over those obstacles is actually really bad for their resilience, isn't it?

Peter Kinderman Absolutely. And, and you can teach them really important lessons now, which is, so you can ask exactly what, what you were saying, you know, what do you hope for? What's your aspirations? Where do you want to go? Where do you want to study? And they'll go, you know, I'm, I'm really hoping to go to Birmingham to study air nautical engineering because Tesla, Elon Musk's space, that's what I want to do. And then you can ask, you can ask what happens if you don't get the grades? And you do all of that. You can also ask, 'cause really we should be doing the preparation over a few days rather than five minutes. You can also ask why, because if the answer is I wanna go to Birmingham to study aeronautical engineering because then I'll, you know, get involved in, you know, high tech engineering of the future, which is what I really want. Then you go, okay, if you don't get your grades, how can you still be involved in high tech engineering of the future? So you can focus the kids on their longer term teleological goals as in, you know, what's important to me in my life? And see the A level results as a stepping stone towards that. If you don't get your A level results, you still have your goal, but you think of a slightly more wiggly route in order to get it. Hence take a

Hilary Jeffs way to skin a cat.

Peter Kinderman You could do an, you can, you can now do doctoral level apprenticeships. So change tack, go, go round the obstacle. Find, find a way.

Hilary Jeffs yeah, absolutely. So in the lead up, there's plenty that you can be doing to support your young person, and it's a really good bit of advice for life, isn't it? To be thinking really about some life goals going forward for yourself, and then starting to make steps about how you could see yourself making those little stepping stones towards where you want to go.

Peter Kinderman Yeah. And also, I mean, I, I, I, I genuinely don't want to reveal too much about my own personal experience, but there is this phrase about you're only as happy as your least happy child.

Hilary Jeffs Oh yes.

Peter Kinderman it is possible to sit down with your children and discuss their university choices and then deal with a-level stay and then deal with clearing. And then find that by carefully engineering the situation to, to make sure that your child gets into a decent university, you've made them completely miserable, and you have to change tack. Because, because the answer to the question, why do you want to go to Birmingham? Might be, 'cause I want to work in aeronautical engineering. To which the answer to, to the response is why, and ultimately is because I want to feel successful and happy in life and to generally do good and feel good. Which is why sitting in a cold basement in, in Milton Keynes is probably not a good idea. And if we force our children into the universities that we want. Happy children are most important things.

Hilary Jeffs How do we get young people to handle that disappointment when they open that envelope and it isn't what they were hoping for. What would you say, as a psychologist, how can we support our young people?

Peter Kinderman I, I su suspect the answer as a psychologist is, parents usually know their children better than experts. And yeah, the idea of saying, nevermind, give them a hug. there's always next time might work for some, the idea of going, okay, we're gonna deal with this. We'll work for some saying, right? What are you gonna do? We'll work for others. Saying, we've had this discussion, what did we say we would do yesterday? Probably would be the best thing to do. I, I think is, I'm going to say, say later. I think what we as parents need to do more than anything else is go, okay, well we'll take this on the chin, rather than, oh my God, what bastards, how terrible that they didn't, right. We're going to challenge the these, we just go, right, okay, we need to deal with this. I think we need to return to, okay. You know, how do you feel about it and do that. I think one thing we can do is just, just for the first few minutes after the disappointing envelope opens, we do the little bit of going, okay, okay, okay. What do you want to do about this? How are you feeling about this? And then stop them making impulsive decisions at that point. So rather than say Right immediately we're gonna do X, just go, well, let's not do X yet. Let's just think about it for a while. there is a pressure.

Hilary Jeffs to tell them that you love them. That they're more than just those results. You know, they've, they're excellent like at telling jokes or they're wonderful to their little sibling. You know, they have other strengths than just the academic. And it's also not the time is it for, I told you so, I told you you didn't work hard enough. No, let's park all of that. Recriminations are not for now.

Peter Kinderman Absolutely right. I mean, mean in about three months time, you can point out that if the little bastard had done some revision, then it would've all been different. But wait three months before you do that because, you know, and also wait until they say it and then go, yes, I, yeah, I had thought that, I think you're right. I, I think the thing, like I say, I

Hilary Jeffs waiting a long time for my elders to accept that or to proffer that.

Peter Kinderman there is an element of you, you, you do have to play the long game, which is kind of quite useful, Willie. which I'll come onto to in a second as well. But, I, I, I think that, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I think the idea of not, not necessarily saying, well, you haven't done very well at maths, so you won't get to Durham, but you're good at sports. I'm not so sure about that. I, I, I think that the, the, you, you wouldn't necessarily say this out loud, but the better strategy is to say, you're just a brilliant human being. You'll be able to deal with this. You just take it on the chin, you know? Come on, you know, you are, you are, amazing. Yeah. It, it was it, I I,

Hilary Jeffs You give the best cuddles, whatever it might be.

Peter Kinderman yeah, I was thinking of the, the female equivalent of, of James Bond, and I think it's, Eve from Killing Eve is, it is like, you know, you, that that's who you are. So, okay. Minor disappointment. You're, you're stuck in the loo in a, in a, in a Moscow nightclub with, with bad guys outside the door. Come on. You can get out of this easy. so not necessarily, don't worry about it. You are really good at writing birthday cards, but more, more, don't worry about it. You're a super human being. You'll find your way to success with this minor. Yeah. Maybe take 'em again or maybe go to a different university. Well, yeah, of course you'll be able to survive these things. because I think when you're talking about a level grades, the, the, the reality of the situation is that people do have a plan for how they're gonna move forward in a particular direction. So an immediate vault faster, maybe you could go into competitive football is probably,

Hilary Jeffs Yes, let's be realistic.

Peter Kinderman and lots of support. And also there, there is a big element for parents, which is when the A level envelopes open. If the kid has got what they want and they're happy, then you just drop all the stuff that you're preparing mentally. But if the results are disappointing, then what you have to do is accept and absorb an awful lot of, if you'd got me that iPad, it's all your fault, mom and the slamming door, because you just have to accept that for a couple of days because that, that's the game.

Hilary Jeffs what I would suggest as well is that if you can do not accept invites to have like a celebratory breakfast with other parents and their young people on the day, because your young people, if it hasn't gone well, do not wanna go anywhere near that. So be mindful of the fact that they will be embarrassed, they could be humiliated and they need to have that space. But the other thing is, if you're on holiday, if you're at work, make sure you've got things where you can either get to a wifi, you can be there, you can support your young person and really make sure that they've got someone with them. If you can't be there yourself, how are you gonna make sure that young person is supported, I think is really important.

Peter Kinderman I did, I did clearing for my daughter, sat by the side of a lake in Southern France, and it was quite stressful.

Hilary Jeffs Yes, absolutely. You need to make sure you've got wifi. That's

Peter Kinderman we need to make sure, add a pen and a piece of paper. Yeah. treat it a bit. Treat it. The, the image that comes to mind is when you're trying to get tickets for glass bury, which I have never managed to do. You, you have a plan with five laptops that that's the way to do it. So you have a laptop open with the clearing house de clearing details. You have a laptop open that can look at different universities. yeah, you have, you have mobile phones. You write numbers down. Just treat it like a bit of plan. And again, if you don't need to implement the plan, fine, drop it all, but have it ready.

Hilary Jeffs Well, last year, as I said, my eldest told me that their best course, the best outcome for a-level results day would be to get into a good university to study PPE. And of course, the results hit and they were a hundred percent convinced that that life that they'd envisaged for themselves was entirely over. and then I found a place on PPE at a Russell Group University. And so I was on the phone and they're rampaging, why are you doing that? Why are you wasting your time? Blah, blah, blah. You know, on and on and on at me. Like, you know, there's no point. There's, it is just not worth it. I can't get anywhere, just total doom and gloom merchant. it was just so hard to see them going through that. So of course I hung up because I thought, well, I can't, if they answer and you are rampaging. And then it was, why have you hung up? Why have you done that? Oh my God, no. Get back on, I, no, all the paces will go. So I was like, okay, well if you are quiet, we'll call again and make sure. And then of course, when, when the phone answered and they were having a chat with my eldest about getting onto this course, my eldest kind of went, yeah, what's up? And you're just like going, oh my goodness, you need to be making a good impression. But the guy on the phone actually laughed. They're so used to young people, so do not be afraid of that. They understand goodwill out and, you know, they got onto that course, they got onto PPE at a Russell Group University, and there are so many options now, it is available to 'em, but equally, as you said, there are other things that can be done for a year, aren't there? There are great op you can do lots of volunteering now abroad and things like that as

Peter Kinderman Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I, I, I wouldn't, well, I, yeah, I probably would say it to a young person. I, I think that following as a result of Blair opening up the, the universities, which generally a good thing, I think when I went to university, the default was that about 80% of people didn't go to university. So the 20% of people who did go to university then got into what were then still called graduate jobs now because more than 50% of people go to university. I think it does put you at a disadvantage in the jobs market if you don't have a degree. I, I think there is more of a pressure for people to go to university and I, and I think that, you know, I would be, I'd be more encouraging of kids to spend another three years in education now than, than when I went to university. I, I mean, I wanted a particular sort of a career and therefore the university was the route in. But yeah, started my own business or, or working in a craft would've been perfectly acceptable. Now, you know, there, there are degrees in, in everything, including craft. So if you want, you know, if you're interested in the performing arts and you want to be a stage lighting director, or you wanna be a costume director, people do degrees in it, right? So I think there is more pressure to go to university and I think it's more valuable, but you can wait. So, so just as an example, for the past sort of three or four years, my son has been working as a butcher, and earning more money than me. but for technical reasons, evolving visas. He's now thinking that you might go back and do a master's degree, which he can. So I think you, you can choose your, your moments, you can choose your time. it hasn't saved any money, by the way, which is, which is a

Hilary Jeffs But that's also young people.

Peter Kinderman to me. but I think there are more, more, more opportunism, and more flexible routes for studying.

Hilary Jeffs and there has really been a massive debate about whether we are overed, educating our young people. And to me you can't overeducate anyone. But I do understand that we haven't had the same parity with technical, skills in our environment. And we've constantly gone and looked at Germany or Switzerland really as paying the paragon of virtue when it comes to giving people the parody of the technical route as well. And I, I think that's a benefit to our nation if we could get that right. And I know that's on Burnham's agenda, isn't it, to try and sort out the technical, but when he talks about re industrialising the country with ai, I'm just not a hundred percent convinced. I mean, actually, what are the jobs gonna be? And I suppose the AI proof jobs are probably plumbers and electricians. So all is not lost if you don't go to university. As long as you do keep learning, you learn through life. You don't just learn at university, do you? And that's important to be open to learning, I think as you go forward.

Peter Kinderman Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, yeah. All, all sorts of things. And, and you know, again, I think the undergraduate degree does have certain advantages for people, but there are lots of people I'm meeting, who are, I suppose in their thirties and forties who are doing MBAs because, or other forms of business administration degrees, because, as well as learning the technical skills of their craft, whatever it is, they're also wanting the educational input to improve their ability to, to perform in the marketplace, in, in the workplace, and so forth. And again, this can come back, come back later. and, and again, why, I mean, I mean for me, education was a way of escaping from home because at at 18, I was unlikely to get a job immediately on getting my A levels that would allow me to live independently in a flat, because you know, who does Back then who did we go to university? I was basically given free accommodation for three years. So great. So off I went. And then

Hilary Jeffs these days though, is

Peter Kinderman not quite the same these days, but there are loans and, and you know, one of the things about, again, the Blair agenda and, and the student loans is that I've heard debates in, in very senior, rooms in academia about whether, loading debt onto young people makes it difficult for 'em to go to university. Or the fact that you can apply for a student loan and get it means anybody can go to university. So, so I think, yeah, the argument goes backwards and forwards there as well.

Hilary Jeffs Well, I mean, fees are a lot, aren't they? I think they've gone up this year to 9,700 and something. and of course with your living costs as well, if you're getting nearly another 10,000 pounds worth of loan for your living, it's no wonder that more young people are actually living at home while they're working. I, I reached out to you Cas actually to get some stats on how young people are finding it and in their top three concerns, having enough money and worrying about budgeting was up there. And more young people now than ever before are actually working. I dunno if it's ever before, but certainly it's been an increasing trend over the last few years, is to have to work and earn while you learn because they just can't afford it otherwise.

Peter Kinderman which is, which is bad. When, when I went to university, it, it, you, you, you could be, you could lose your place at university if you had a job because the point was that you were supposed to be spending a hundred percent of your time focusing on your studies. I didn't spend a hundred percent of my time focusing on my studies,

Hilary Jeffs What were you doing?

Peter Kinderman oh, stuff generally learning, becoming, becoming an adult, becoming a human being rather than a robot, really mainly, learning how to interact with other human beings, which was kind of a skill that I had to learn, I think. so I, I don't think we should organise higher education in the way that we organise it at all. I, I mean, I've been to, to Norwegian universities quite a lot and the conversation with, because I engineer it this way, the conversation with Norwegian colleagues is, Ooh, what a, what a lovely campus you have. Yes. It's been recently rebuilt by the state. Right. have you had it had to borrow any money in order to rebuild your campus? Of course not. The state builds the campus for us. So you've been using student fees in order to be, well, there are no student fees because the state pays for everything and your salary seems to be very high. Well, of course, because I'm a university professor and I'm valued by the state. So the state pays my salary because the, they just pay for everything. Why? Because it's really, really a good idea when you go to the doctor with a sore throat to have a doctor who's had a decent education. It's just an investment in the future. So you walk around Norway and everybody's intelligent and they understand. They go, Ooh. They go, Andy Burnham. So as there any tensions between the sort of southern political elite and the sort of northern powerhouse issue, go and you go, hang on. How do you understand these things in such depth when they're actually conversed in a foreign language and they go, because the Norwegian government has decided to invest in education rather than make the students pay for, I mean, that's basically what, what happens. You spend three years studying, you know, basically the liberal arts, the, the arts that, that you would choose to study if you had the time and money on your hands to study them. And it's paid by the state and it's a wonderful, so I wouldn't put students into debt, but given that that's the way that we work, definitely I'd take it and I think I would go to university in a heartbeat, even if it meant loading myself with debt right now.

Hilary Jeffs We have one of the best education systems, and it really does upset me every year when they talk about things being dumbed down. So many leaders around the world are educated in our universities. It is unbelievable. It is such a massive soft power that we have to be able to have influence in the world. that and the B, B, C are two things really we should be so proud of in our country and really get behind because what IT projects is an image of Britain really, that does enable us to punch above our weight a hundred percent.

Peter Kinderman Absolutely. And, and, yeah, I mean, and from my perspective, maybe particularly in, psychology, but I think generally in science, British universities are also innovative. So certainly in in psychology, what you see is innovative research in UK universities, which then get translated to American University where they put, you know, tens of millions of pounds into running studies that basically confirm what the UK university found in the first place. And, you know, if that's what they wanna do, great. But I think we are kind of like, we are kinda like the, the mere cats of the university world. We, we are nimble and swift and we cobble things together out of sticky tape and old Lou rolls and then say, wow, look, we've created a battery that works 10 times more efficiently than somebody else's. And then, you know,

Hilary Jeffs The mere cat with a blue Peter badge. There you go. That is an image I've not thought was gonna come into my head when it came to describing our university sector, but I like it. I'm gonna take it. when Ucas looked at young people as well and their experience of going off to uni, it was meeting people is one of the many things that they're looking forward to. 72% expect that they'll have to adjust to a new environment. Hmm. No shit. Sherlock 48% expect they'll be developing their social skills just like you. but the concerns that you have, 71% are worried about making friends, which is no surprise at all is it? Now, last year there was a masterclass here from my eldest who has had a very tight knit of friends, group of friends for their entire school career. And it's not really got bigger than say three or four people, but they've been consistent. So I was a little worried about how they were gonna cope, going off to university and making friends when it's not, they're not gregarious in nature naturally. they do like to keep themselves themselves with a select few. And what they did was straight away they got onto WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups to connect with other students at their college, their university, their course, so that they had people who they were interested in talking to, but it even went more grande than that. They sort of syphoned off and those who had particular interests became WhatsApp friends as well. And for the next few weeks between a level results date and going off to university all times of the day there they were communicating with these people so much. So I moved them into their university accommodation and then they spent the next two, three days helping other people they'd met move in as well, which gave them a little tight knit community and also got them a girlfriend. I mean, you can't say fairer than that, can you? So, that was a masterclass and that's the sort of thing that we did not have when we went to university. This technology is brilliant way for young people to connect and communicate with each other, isn't it?

Peter Kinderman It is, it is also a way of being bullied, of course. And, there's quite a lot of bullying going on, on what's happened so forth. So we, yeah, we need to be careful. I mean, I, I think there is a tendency if you are nervous about such things to be a little bit, distant and reserved and then there is a slight difficulty because, relationships forge quite quickly. And if you see that other people are bonding and you've held back a bit and then they're tight friends, then it's more difficult to get involved. So yeah, I think start early and gently. yeah, and, and certainly I come back to, to, to my tip for last week or before, which is just ask people questions. I mean, the best, the best possibility that you think you could do with anybody is just go, oh my God, that's really interesting. Tell me more about that. So, you know, if Andy Burnham comes past and he goes, oh, I like your t-shirt, you go, well, that's really interesting, Andy. Tell, tell me more. Well, why do you find it so interesting? And they, they, they can't do anything other than, than engage. And then they're engaging with you. And that's basically what you want is, is people engaging with you. So I ask lots of questions of people, and, and there, there's nothing more fascinating than somebody who's interested in you. That's, that's what people like. So get engaged, ask questions, find

Hilary Jeffs One of the things that I think works is should we grab a coffee? I made my best friend in the queue about to sign onto my course and we bonded over taking the mick out, somebody who was in on the game as well. It wasn't like cruel taking the mick, but the banter. And when she started taking the mick out of me, I was like, brilliant. You're my friend. I like that. That's brilliant. And we became friends and we are still friends now. It's just been her best woman at her wedding. So these friends can work, but often fresh as week is not the time that you make your really close friends. I was just very lucky indeed.

Peter Kinderman Especially this week is quite useful. So if you are fortunate enough to be a young person who has an interest, so, you know, let's say that you have a particular sport that, that you enjoy, and you are the, the people that you play with, obviously you're gonna kind of leave behind as you go to university. If there, if there's a club, then obviously join in. If you don't have interests, then Freshers Week is an opportunity to see the social events and the social clubs and so forth, and they are very keen for you to join. So there's all of this opportunity. So, you know, typically, you know, show an interest in everything, it signed up to quite a lot, then drop out later, don't pay any fees, but, you know, drop out later. there, there is a serious thing about Fess this week as well, which, which is that alcohol is worrisome and should be carefully avoided. Some young people are very sensible about alcohol. Some, some young people are not.

Hilary Jeffs I tell people not to drink at fresh as week. I mean, we all know that there is great social bonding that happens as a result of the libation. It, it helps us reduce our inhibitions. It makes us more friendly. I mean, yeah, do not end up in an ambulance or in a coma in the corner.

Peter Kinderman quite a few kids do. I mean the, seriously, I mean, this is coming possibly from a pofa and miserable university lecturer,

Hilary Jeffs said it.

Peter Kinderman but they, the, the university authorities do worry about fresh this week. The kids drink an awful lot and half of them fall down. So they've all got broken wrists. The ones that don't fall down, get their wallets nicked, the ones that haven't even fallen down or get their wallets nicked, then get chlamydia and, you know, alcohol is a bad thing,

Hilary Jeffs Okay. Wear condoms, drink in moderation, but have a laugh really. I mean, let's face it, young people are better behaved than we were at fresh as week. More of them don't drink now than when we were younger.

Peter Kinderman That's probably true. I just, you know, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm old. I, I just go, you know, take, take your alcohol moderately and also alcohol's great. But if, if you, again, James Bond, if you are socially anxious and you want to join in with a group, have a couple of drinks, because chemically it'll make you a bit more fluid, a bit more sociable, a bit less anxious, it'll be great. You have five drinks and you'll stumble over your words like an idiot. The girl that you're trying to chat up will think that you're a drunken ass. It won't end, end well, and you'll start to get depressive because alcohol's a depressant. So, okay. Fair enough. Stick to two.

Hilary Jeffs Okay, good. Okay, so you're allowed two drinks. Don't make them a pint of cocktail. That's my advice because that those two drinks will cause you, hell, I mean for parents though, this is a really stressful time. When mine went off to university last year, we live in a village. They'd been driven everywhere. If they were going to a party, I knew exactly where they were at all times. And still, we are on five my iPhone, so I can be a lovely parent, sleuth anytime I want and keep tabs on my young person. But when it, they first went, there was one night and they'd spoken to me and they were drunk and I was like, okay, where are you? Oh, I'm in town club. Just going into a, get something to eat. So of course I was watching them all night walking back because I was so worried about them because they weren't with their friends at the time. And I saw them stumbling around the streets of York before then. Stumbling through a cemetery. Whatcha going through a cemetery for, you're an idiot. Don't do that. And I, I think I got to sleep about 5:00 AM when I realised they were back in their student accommodation. That's how great it can be. But actually after that, once I got used to it, once, I was happy that not only were they responsible and looking after themselves, but actually they were walking other people home and making sure they're safe. I mean, those are really important lessons to give your young people is to, to be the person that steps in. Don't let someone else be drunk on their own, you know?

Peter Kinderman I, I, I think, I think that you can combine great lessons, which is, you know, look out for your mates because that's what you should do. And, you know, if, if, if you arrive together, then you leave together and, you know, make sure everybody's together tho those sorts of lessons are very important and yeah, they're very important for young people. I, I would hope that it's more, you know, all the lessons that you know, but make sure that you apply them over the next couple of weeks because don't get Gideon, forget them, rather than them being necessarily new lessons. but also, I mean, there is an element which is, so there there are, there are two big things happening here. There's, there's some quite important grades. I mean, finals at university are another kind of crunch point of, you know, you're gonna get the grades necessary for getting the job or the next degree that you want or whatever. But the a level envelope clearing university acceptance, ucas, that's an important, and, you know, emotionally challenging, but also sort of developmentally challenging period. So is going off to university. has to happen at some point. And, you know, because we live in a civilised society, what happens is that we collectively have said, you know, these events will happen between, August and October when the kids are 18, that's when it happens. So at some point you kick the baby bird out the nest, at some point they're living in a flat somewhere else, and at some point they have the key to their own front door, and at some point they're going to vomit into somebody else's, waste paper basket. And society has dictated that. It happens generally in the October after their 18th birthday. that's when it happens. So, you know, it, it,

Hilary Jeffs it is always, I think it is useful if young people do have an opportunity to drink a little bit too much before they go to uni so they know what that's like. Just from personal experience, I was quite pleased when, mine have had a little bit too much a drink just so they know where their boundaries are because they won't always have mum around them to hold their hair outta their face when they are vomiting up. and they'll have to rely on someone else to do that. That's a really good life trick, I think, to learn not to drink too much and doing it before you leave the comfort of your nest is probably, dare I say it, a reasonable thing to do, but perhaps people would castigate me for that. I had friends who talked to me about the lead up to university, them getting more and more dreading of it and then once their young people had left of walking past their room or going into their bedroom and crying. Now I love my children. I was not crying when they left home. I was not. And, and like when we left home, I dunno about you. I didn't speak to my parents. That was it. I, you know, maybe once a term I perhaps got in contact with them. They just had to send us off. Now you're FaceTiming them, you're sending them a text or a WhatsApp, you're looking at them on find your iPhone. Sorry, I am a mum stalker, but you know, there was no need. I didn't feel bereft about them leaving that way. It felt kind of natural that that's what you want your young people to do.

Peter Kinderman I, I, I think it is, and again, you know, you take a step back and you think, it's bound to happen at some time. I don't want to, to wait for another three years before they go off and live independently, so why not now?

Hilary Jeffs Well, but maybe I'm just reassured in the fact that most likely they're gonna come back and live with me again till they're about 35 'cause they won't be able to afford to buy their own house or something. I mean that is the reality for a lot of families now, isn't it? That these boomerang kids, they just come back and keep coming back, don't they? So university, we've covered that. You think it is definitely a worthwhile route to do, but I've got a lot of friends whose young people and with all levels of kind of educational ability, should we put it like that. or certainly, you know, school-based education ability who have chosen not to go to university. And it is sort of a real worry to young people's parents and they're sort of like, do anything but work in a pub and, you know, but perhaps people do need a bit more time sometimes to work out their route forward.

Peter Kinderman People need a little bit more time sometimes to work out their route forward. And modern universities are more amenable to that sort of flexible studying than ever before. I mean, you know, there is a kind of conveyor belt of a levels clearing university higher degree, but they're more open than they ever have been. So the, the flexibility for young people is greater than it ever has been. There are more kind of, alternatives like, apprenticeships and so forth. So people can work for a while and then find an employer that supports a degree level apprenticeship and then maybe they've, maybe they will get their degree two years later than somebody else will get their degree, but they'll have been earning money for those five years. So it probably works out. okay. I think that there are, there are plenty of careers that still don't involve, a degree personally. I think that, going to university also involves doing things like learning about international politics, about living with people who come from very, very different backgrounds to yourself. thinking about the arts as well as the sciences or thinking about the sciences as well as the arts. So I think university brings you a whole load of stuff other than the degree. And it, also it, there, there's other thing about it, which is it's the socially acceptable, protected and prepared for way of kids leaving, leaving home. I mean, you either kick 'em out and they go and I know take a job somewhere or you kick 'em out. They go to university where there's student accommodation, which is designed for students with security guards who kind of know how things work and with Freshers week and it's quite a good way of achieving that, that sort of independence. So yeah, there are lots of ways in which people can find their way through in life. The universities will always be there to accept people even up to their, you know, sixties. You can still go to university and study 'cause they'll take your money. So all, all opportunities are open to people.

Hilary Jeffs So my advice that I would give my younger self or to other people who are younger, my advice that I would give to young people would be to think that life is a long game is to not worry about decisions and needing to pivot in your teens, in your twenties, certainly, and really not even in your thirties. Plenty of people have found success later on in life, and I made a lot of decisions when I was younger that were based on a fear of worrying about things going wrong. And so staying on the same course or not making the leap and doing something different just because I thought, oh, I don't want to take a step back. Nonsense. When you're in your twenties, you are so young. We're expected now to work till we're in, you know, our seventies. Quite often now. I think our young people will have to work till then. So you've definitely got time. Life is hopefully, fingers crossed, a long game. What advice would you give to your younger self?

Peter Kinderman I, I would, I would take that advice and, absolutely accept it. I think, like I say, I, I did get the a level grades that, that I wanted, and so I didn't have to be faced with any of those decisions. I think if I had taken my second choice university, I would've been very happy and would've had a very different life if I hadn't gone to university. do you know what? I actually think I'm a reasonably competent human being, so I would've survived. It would've been fine. I would've done something different. I dunno what I'm, I'm, you know, I have no idea

Hilary Jeffs a billionaire right now.

Peter Kinderman I doubt it. I would've, I would've gambled it away or something. But,

Hilary Jeffs So it's the non gambler.

Peter Kinderman this says non gambler, but I would've been happy. I'd probably be running a, a, a, a surf shack in Thailand or something. I dunno. I would

Hilary Jeffs I'm liking it. I would

Peter Kinderman I'd probably

Hilary Jeffs Bermuda shorts.

Peter Kinderman that, I'd probably be on a respirator in a UK hospital after being air evacuated from Thailand. 'cause I would've become a, a, an overweight, alcoholic bar manager in Thailand. Some, I don't know. But I, and I would've enjoyed myself immensely. I mean, I mean, certainly playing the long game. I think also, well, I, so I think that that, that there's having your eye, you know, in that long game, having your eye on, on ultimate end goals. You know, not just which university do I want to go to? Where do I want to go to? But I think that, that my, by particular advice within that context, so, you know, in the context of playing the long game and thinking, what is it that I want for my life? What actually happens on Thursday when the, when the results slip comes through the, the letterbox is it gives you information,

Hilary Jeffs inbox anywhere.

Peter Kinderman it is just information. It's information, which might be disappointing, but it's information that is vital to your future. If the information is, you now have a confirmed place at that university, deal with that information. If the information is, you have not got a place at that confirmed university, and your grades were in fact what your physics teacher did predict for you, despite your, well, now you've got some feedback, you've got some data. I'm not saying that you should not be emotional about it. You can be angry and you can be upset, and you can be anxious and you can be, de you know, miserable or you can blame other people. You can, you can do whatever emotions you like. But if you can just step back for me and say, you know, okay, what is this telling me? What, what data is this giving me? And how do I need to respond to it? At, at all points, what, what's going on is, as, as, as an, as an organism, as a, as a human being. What we're doing at each point in our life is thinking, how do I respond to this situation? If I'm, if I'm lying on the beach next to my extremely profitable bar on the, on the beach in Thailand, and the money's coming in and life's good, I need to think to myself, okay, this is pretty good. We'll carry on doing this then for the next X number of years. And then we'll, we'll reevaluate the situation if the A level results come in and I go, shit, I'm not gonna get to Durham, then you think, right, what do I do in this situation? So treat it like data. It's sometimes negative data, but it's data and deal with the situation as it comes in.

Hilary Jeffs And that is our tip for the week, isn't it, Peter? Triple T, our tip to try as is, do something you love. If you do something you love, then you never work a day in your life. And Peter and I are finally doing something we love in our podcast with you right now,, moving on to concept of the week. What is it that you'd like to share with us this week?

Peter Kinderman So the, the concept of attribution theory. So when cognitive theorists, including people who do cognitive behaviour therapy, they talk about how we make sense of the world. Probably one of the most important things about that is how we explain events, how we explain positive events and how we explain negative events. And there are loads of biases that can come in. So on the whole, there's something called fundamental attribution lever where on the whole people say, you know, that good thing that happened, that was me. That was, and the bad thing that happened was definitely not my fault. And it's just, just a bias. When we come to a level results, I think that's very important because the way that we explain success or failure will shape what we do. And I think it's important to get it right, including success. So if we think that success, was due to something ephemeral or less likely to be repeated, then we have less confidence in the future. It might be a nasty self-serving bias to say The reason why I did well in my A levels is because I am intellectually superior to other people that might be unwise because you might think I really did quite well in my A levels, 'cause I had some good teachers and some good parents. But the explanation for why, because if you go after university and you go, I don't need to study because I'm an intellectually superior being, then you'll fall flat on your face equally.

Hilary Jeffs Think my, my eldest perhaps, has a touch of that or something going on anyway, as I am trying very hard now to prepare him for his maths retake as part of his, university first year.

Peter Kinderman It, it, I realised about 20 years after the, the fact that one of the reasons why I did well in my A levels is because at home I had absolutely nothing to do other than revise.

Hilary Jeffs Lucky so

Peter Kinderman probably had quite a lot of to do with it. So what am I gonna do today? I'll do some revision. What am I going to do tomorrow? Probably revision. What am I going to do the, the day after? Well, that'll be revision again. So that's probab. So the idea that I'm an intellectually superior being is probably not the attribution of my success.

Hilary Jeffs Admire your commitment to the revision. Cause certainly revision was not something I enjoyed doing.

Peter Kinderman Oh, hang on. It wasn't, it wasn't commitment. I just literally had nothing else to do. I had nothing else to do in my life. So yeah, it was, it was boredom that forced me into, into doing revision. But when it comes to, when it comes to failure, if people go, you know, I've done poorly in my A Levels, I'm not going to get to the University of my choice. That's because I'm an idiot. Well, I think again, the attribution that you make for your failure is very important. Because if the answer is well in my, yeah, in my case, I didn't do as well as my university degree classification as I might have done. Why? 'cause I did no sodding work, allowing me to continue to believe that I'm an intellectually superior human being.

Hilary Jeffs Well, but isn't it true? Is it Einstein who said that, you know, success is 99% perspiration and only 1% inspiration. And I think you do see that time and time again. And one of the things that I've really tried to help my young people understand in the household is just the importance of keeping going and doing that work. And, you know, because it's all very well being able to cram and fly by the seat of your pants. But actually there's something really, really exciting about working and preparing hard for something and then achieving isn't there?

Peter Kinderman So that leads to the sort of perfect scenario that the kid opens the email and says, excellent. Ooh, I'm really pleased. And you go, well, that's because you worked really, really hard. You can have two alcoholic drinks to celebrate.

Hilary Jeffs if you've got any ideas that you would like to share with us about our show. Any thoughts, any comments, or any deep dive information subjects that you would like us to go through. The email to get in touch is hello@experiencepodco.com. we'd love to hear from you. Don't forget to like and subscribe and then you'll get to find out exactly when we've got each new episode coming out. And, until next week, we hope you have a really lovely time and good luck on Thursday.

Peter Kinderman Good luck. Thank you.

Hilary Jeffs The Experience Podcast is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Peter Kinderman, produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. You can find us on social media and you can get in touch by email at hello@experiencepodco.com with any questions or comments or topics you'd like us to cover. And don't forget to leave us a review.