The Song That Took Me Back | Preparing Kids For Adulthood

June 22, 2026

Nicole Runyon, Author & Psychotherapist, Book Author, Keynote Speaker

Tom O'Connor, Publisher

Do You Have A Song That Can Take You Back In Time

You know how a song can take you back to a moment in time? Not just remind you of it, but drop you right back into it. This morning, after school drop-off, I was driving home with my music app on shuffle when a David Gray song came on.

Instantly, I was back in my college apartment. I could smell the cigarettes and the stale rum in the air from the night before. I could see the tiny TV tucked in the corner where my roommates and I gathered for movie nights. I could feel the wild freedom of college life.

But more than anything, I remembered the feeling. Hope. Wonder. Excitement about the future. That feeling of life being wide open and anything being possible.

But when I graduated and stepped into the real world, that feeling was gone.

I have a degree from a prestigious university. A piece of paper that said I was capable. Worthy. Prepared.

Unprepared for Real Life

But I didn't feel any of those things. I felt terrified. Because the truth is, I wasn't prepared for life. And looking back, I can see how much time I wasted in college. Drinking. Partying. Obsessing over boys. Dieting. Trying to become someone instead of learning who I was.

I did all the "right" things. I was studious. I sold my student football tickets for a profit on Saturdays and went to the library to study because no one was there on football Saturdays. And this was the University of Michigan during the Tom Brady years, people!

The College Promise Versus What Adulthood Actually Required

Still, as I drove home this morning, watching the sun glisten on the lake beside the road, I kept thinking about that gap between what college promised and what adulthood actually required.

We've treated college like a cultural pause button for decades. A time to sow your wild oats. Get it out of your system. Have fun now, settle down later.

But what if we've misunderstood that season entirely? What if young adulthood isn't a throwaway chapter? What if it's one of the most important developmental windows of a person's life?

Because magical thinking in childhood eventually ends. At some point, the world expects more from you than your parents ever did. And for many young adults, that moment is deeply disorienting. They feel unprepared. Disillusioned. Apathetic. They wonder what the point of life is.

Are Today's Gen Z Kids Prepared For Adulthood?

And today, Gen Z is facing this transition with even less internal stability. Many of their brains and nervous systems have been shaped early by gaming, smart devices, social media, constant stimulation, and quick dopamine hits. 

They often don't know how to calm themselves, sit with discomfort, or move through pain without escaping it. So the wonder and awe that should come with adulthood start to disappear.

Dreams feel unrealistic. Aspirations feel exhausting. Goals feel pointless. And instead of kids prepared to step into adulthood, many look back to their parents asfor answers.

Because so many parents, often with the best intentions, kept the illusion alive.

That they would fix everything, clear the path. Remove the pain. Create a clean life.

A perfect life. But life was never meant to be painless.

Prepared For the Future

And our children were never meant to arrive in adulthood untouched by struggle. They were meant to be prepared for it. They were meant to develop strength, resilience, imagination, responsibility, and a sense of purpose.

That doesn't happen by accident. It happens when we stop treating young adulthood as a time to escape life and start honoring it as a sacred stage of development.

Because adulthood can be full of wonder. But only if we prepare our children to meet it. This is the conversation we need to be having as parents. Not just how to get our kids into the right schools, but how to prepare them for real life.

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Read Nicole's bio by clicking her icon at the start of this article.

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