College Drop Off: 6 Steps to Navigating Any Major Change Like a Pro | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Change is hard for everyone, and so is watching people you love go through it

  Recorded on the spot after a kitchen conversation with two colleagues, Amy and Lynn, during drop-off season, this episode is about any transition: college, a new grade, a first job, a move or dating again. Mel's framing is that we struggle with change ourselves and also get triggered when the people we love are struggling with it.

• 02

  Getting swept into their distress destabilizes them

  Lynn describes herself as an empath who absorbs others' emotions. At her son's first college drop-off he thought he'd chosen the wrong school, and she cried with him and wanted to take him home. Looking back, she says she robbed him of the chance to rise to the challenge. Mel admits the same tendency: she hates seeing people in distress, and her own tears in goodbye moments made things harder for her kids.

• 03

  Flip into strength mode at the goodbye

  With her daughter this year, Lynn let her be emotional without matching it. She switched off "empath mode" and focused on encouragement — "you've got this" — while understanding the transition was her daughter's. It can feel cold, but it keeps you steady enough to be useful.

• 04

  If they spent a year choosing it, give it a year

  When Lynn's daughter said after her first drop-off that she'd made a mistake and wanted to come home, Lynn said no, and not after the first semester either: she'd spent a year choosing the school and couldn't judge it without a full year. Mel thinks the same rule works for a new job or a new grade.

• 05

  Expecting excitement sets you up to panic

  People build changes up in their heads — the next school year or post-college life in New York will be amazing — and then it doesn't feel the way they imagined, so they think something's wrong. Mel says what you imagine and what your body experiences in the moment are different, because everything is new.

• 06

  Being upset about big change is a sign you're mentally well

  The script all three hosts take away: "Of course you're upset. This is your process for change. You always do this before something that turns out great. It shows me you're mentally well." Feeling turned upside down by a new place, people, commute and rhythm is the appropriate response, and it's temporary.

• 07

  Let them borrow your belief in them

  Amy's insight from leaving her daughter in Málaga, Spain, for a gap year: in that moment a parent has to believe in the child more than the child believes in herself, so she can borrow that confidence. Not in a shaming way, but "yes, you can." Amy says she needed this as a child and did much better when she got it.

• 08

  Build a bridge to the next time you'll see them

  Amy points to a technique psychologists recommend for preschool drop-off: link the goodbye to a specific future moment — "I'll pick you up tonight and we'll do this," or "I'll see you at Thanksgiving." Mel says it gives emotional stability at any age.

• 09

  Don't make the moment about your own feelings

  Mel realizes her goodbye pain is tangled with her own history: she left Michigan at 18 for Dartmouth, never moved back and misses her parents. She admits nudging her daughter toward the East Coast and vows to stop. Amy adds that you should ask probing questions so kids decide for themselves, not to please you.