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Orthodox Christian Parenting, hosted by Faithtree Resources Executive Director (and mom of four!) Michelle Moujaes, is a weekly podcast for parents and grandparents navigating the holy struggle of raising kids in the Orthodox Faith. Each episode offers honesty, encouragement, and practical wisdom from the Church—creating space to exhale, freedom from the pressure to be perfect, and openness to grow as you raise children who are deepening their knowledge and love of Christ.
Welcome to Orthodox Christian Parenting, where we bring the church's timeless wisdom into the everyday chaos of raising kids. I'm Michelle Mujaias, and today's conversation is one that's hitting particularly close to home for me, literally. Right now in my own house, we are in the thick of the college application season with one of our sons. And if you've been through it, or if you're heading into it, you know the feeling. Deadlines and essays and the spreadsheets of schools and scholarships and the quiet pressure of rankings and acceptance rates that seem to literally be everywhere the moment your kid hits eleventh grade.
Michelle Moujaes:But what if this season, as stressful as it can be, is actually an opportunity? Not just to find the right school, but to help our children discern who it is God is calling them to become. That's exactly what we're digging into today with someone who has made it his life's work to help Orthodox families navigate this process without losing sight of what matters most. I am so glad to have this conversation right now in this season with this guest. Christopher Chocolis is a veteran high school counselor and the founder of Orthodox Christian College Counseling, a ministry that helps Orthodox teenagers and their families navigate high school and the college search.
Michelle Moujaes:And they do it from a faith first perspective. He's also the author of this book, Paving the Road to College Through an Orthodox Christian Perspective, where he lays out a practical framework for approaching this season with wisdom instead of just panic. Christopher, thank you so much for being at this exact moment in the year when so many of our families, including myself, need this conversation.
Christopher Chiakulas:Thank you so much for having me.
Michelle Moujaes:It's fun to have you. So you spend your days, tell me if I'm right, as a public high school counselor, and you're just immersed in it, right? You've got spreadsheets and deadlines and all the things that we are dealing with as parents trying to get our kids into the right school. But when was the moment that you realized it may look a little different for Orthodox parents?
Christopher Chiakulas:Yeah, it's yeah. So I'm a public school counselor. I just finished my thirteenth year and 11 of those working specifically with families on their post high school plans. And it was a couple of years ago where I really started feeling pretty confident in the actual logistics of the whole process of how admissions works, applications works. It's always changing, but I thought I had a pretty good grasp on it.
Christopher Chiakulas:And then I started to just see some of the panic and the pride and everything in between that families were going through. And then I also saw some stats that like seventy five percent of young people come out of college not being part of a faith anymore. And I just kind of put the two and two together and was like, not right, like there's a way to do this while still keeping immersed in the faith while making our faith part of the process. And so I started you know doing some things, presentations, book and so on and so forth to try to explain to Orthodox families that here's the practical sense but here's how you can still incorporate the faith and then it's a win win.
Michelle Moujaes:So in your book, which I have to show this book and I have to tell a story about this book. So this is Christopher's book, Paving the Road to College Through an Orthodox Christian Perspective. So on the podcast, we always order and study, just as research, prep whoever's materials that we're interviewing and so we got your book and I was reading it and loved it and then I lost it. So, when I went to bring it with us today, I couldn't find it. And so, I searched my house which is not likely that I wouldn't know where it was and I found it in my son's room.
Michelle Moujaes:So I have a son who's going into his senior year in college and you can't see it but there are notes he underlined and he was so into it because he loved clearly, what you had to say and I think it's a call out to parents. This is a great resource because it's super practical, which I'm all about practicality, like what do I get up and do tomorrow? And you have six things that you walk families through the six p's you call them. Can you tell us a little bit about them?
Christopher Chiakulas:Absolutely. Well first that's amazing. It's great to hear sure that someone's reading it especially a young person for sure. So yeah, the crux of the six P's isn't necessarily anything that I 100% came up with. I used the first five P's in my public school and added the sixth one which is prayer for Orthodox families.
Christopher Chiakulas:Because really, because this is such an important topic and important time of our lives, like we need to pray about it. We pray about so many other things. Why wouldn't we pray for God to guide us in this sense and make sure we're making the right choices? Not please let me get into this school or please let me you know what I'm like, but just please show me the route that's going to help me be successful and work, you know, best. So that's the last I'll kind of go back from the front.
Michelle Moujaes:I love it.
Christopher Chiakulas:From there, what I've seen so much is that families skip the first couple and jump right to just like what is the best school or what is the best school for this major or I want to major in this. So what are schools that have this major? And that's one way to do it but I would argue it starts with the first P which is person and the person is the student. Who is that student? What are their talents?
Christopher Chiakulas:What are their struggles? What kind of learner are they? What gets them excited to go to school to learn? Why do they want to go to college? And I challenge parents, you know, especially when I talk to them face to face that you need to be honest about what talents and struggles and things your child has as well.
Christopher Chiakulas:Because I always kind of reference the parable of the talents where our Lord gave five talents to one, two to another, and one to another according to what the master or the Lord knew that they could handle. Not everyone is a five talent person and that's okay because if you do what you were given, the five person and the two talent person both doubled theirs and the Lord was equally as pleased with the two as he was the five, then that's the whole point. If we try to pretend that we or our kids are five talents when they're only one, we're misguiding them and we're setting them up for failure.
Michelle Moujaes:So you're saying not everybody has to go into, you know, the medical field. Not everybody has to pursue the, elite athlete route, but that
Christopher Chiakulas:Yeah. Not everyone is Ivy
Michelle Moujaes:League us
Christopher Chiakulas:to. Is Ivy League ready. Not everyone is four year college ready. Not everyone is college ready. Like, we have to really look at what what are those talents.
Christopher Chiakulas:And if you have one talent and it's music or it's working with your hands or it's something like that then you know you try to lean into that and see what route that takes you. If you have music and you're an athlete and you're ace the ACT and like okay then you put all that together and glory to God and you find something that's going to work with all of that. But when you try to undersell or oversell or you know not kind of look at what honestly the student is bringing to the table it causes a lot of trouble. Usually it's more of the overselling because pride comes in and we don't want to admit that we're not a five star, five tool athlete or whatever.
Michelle Moujaes:And it's like you have now an environment that is all about marketing and personal branding of yourself. It's, I mean, when my first two boys, I have two sons who are going into their junior year of college, when they went, Christopher, I was like, I started with, I don't care if my kids go to college. Like if he calls them to the mission field, go serve him in the mission field. Be able to live within your means and like, we're not going there. And then when we went through the process, I was like, you could totally do that.
Michelle Moujaes:You could rock that. Let's go on that tour. Let's And I found myself getting sucked into this kind of cultural mindset of this is so much about who you are and your worth and your identity, but how do we not do that?
Christopher Chiakulas:It's hard. Right? Because like you said, and I think the peer pressure sometimes is even harder for parents than kids
Michelle Moujaes:because Oh my goodness.
Christopher Chiakulas:Because the kids are trying to live up to what the parents, you know, kind of expect. And if the parents are expecting Ivy League, they're gonna do whatever they can in most cases to try to appease you. So if you can come up approach it with moderation and with how things really are, then that lessens their stress because more so for the parents, yeah, it's, you know, I can't go and post in my front yard or put a bumper sticker on my car for a school that's not on this list of 10, you know, popular schools. It's like why? It's like we call it either the bumper sticker test or the sweatshirt like what dad sweater am I going to wear afterwards?
Christopher Chiakulas:It's a school that no one's heard of, people are going be like, oh, like what is that school? It could be the perfect school for your kid but if it's not a well known school or something like that you know it's like people are like oh what are you doing or like how come they didn't get into it but there's all these things and you just have to block it out and really look at who your student is and the student really has to look at and I know it's super hard but forget what everyone else is doing. Who am I as the first person? And then going into the second P of people is in who will be going to school with me? Who are the other students on this campus?
Christopher Chiakulas:Are they like minded in a lot of ways, in the way they learn, the way they think, various demographic you know aspects in there. If there's a religious component to the school, how does that mesh with the Orthodox faith? Sometimes it can be we can look and see oh college is a cesspool of, you know, temptations and whatever. So we're going to look at a super conservative Christian school and that will take care of all that. But that can have struggles for Orthodox students too if it's not Orthodox because now you might be spending your day defending icons or holy tradition or different things like that.
Christopher Chiakulas:And that isn't necessarily gonna be a it's just a different challenge that you
Michelle Moujaes:or may
Christopher Chiakulas:your kid may not be ready for. So looking at, you know, who else is going, to school there. So that's the second p, people.
Michelle Moujaes:As a reminder, this is our last episode of season two before we take a short summer production break and come back with season three. And as we prepare for the next season, we would love to hear from you. What conversations from the season were most helpful? What questions are you carrying right now? What topics do you wish we would talk about in future episodes?
Michelle Moujaes:We wanna know all of it. We've created a short listener survey to help us shape the next season, and it only takes a few minutes to fill out. Your responses will help us prepare conversations and continue creating episodes that serve Orthodox families in a faithful and practical way. You can find the survey at faithtree.org/parenting. And listen, thank you for tuning in and for sharing and for helping us prepare for what comes next.
Michelle Moujaes:You're the reason we do it.
Christopher Chiakulas:The third P is place. So that's a lot of things. The size of the school, the location of the school, the setting of the school. And then one of the big things that I always add in for Orthodox students and families is, is it near a church? Is it near a community?
Christopher Chiakulas:Because the people and the place have to do with community. And recent research has shown that belonging leads to actual graduation. So we know as Orthodox Christians, we're meant to be in a community. We're not meant to live the faith in our bedroom alone like we're supposed to go to church, engage in the sacraments, be with everyone, take holy communion, right? So if we don't have that opportunity at college, if there's not a church nearby or a place where you can live the sacramental life of the church and if there's not other students who maybe can help you on this path, then it makes it really tough.
Christopher Chiakulas:It makes it really tough. So you're looking at how close is it? Is there an OCF? Is there a parish nearby where you can engage in that community? So not only will that of course help your soul, but it will help you graduate as well because you'll feel this sense of belonging on campus be excited to do your work and move forward.
Michelle Moujaes:I also really like the idea of being a part of a church community because there's something about losing generations when you hit a college campus where it's just a bunch of young people making decisions together, not necessarily on their own dime. And it feels to me like such a partial view of the Christian life. Like I want my kids to be around grandparents and people with wisdom who've gone before them so that they have those relationships at any point in their life. And if you're not a part of a parish community, it's very hard to do that in isolation.
Christopher Chiakulas:Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, church online these days and things like that, people might say, Oh yeah, well, that's one way to but it's not the same. You want to be actively involved. And so I always recommend that before you pick your school and this isn't something to research once you get there, part of your decision making process of where you're going to attend school when you go visit the campus, you take the tour, you talk to admissions, you go find the local church or churches depending on where you're at and check those out, maybe talk to the priest there, see the community, do those things as part of your process so that when you get to campus you've already got that community set up, lined up and ready to go.
Michelle Moujaes:And you know what? If I can be so bold as to give shout out to our friends at OCF and to all those good people working with Deacon Merrick and Christine Andresen and all those folks. It makes a huge difference if you have an OCF chapter that is thriving on campus. And I would highlight let me just tell you what happened with one of my sons. One of my sons is on the Villanova campus which is in Philadelphia.
Michelle Moujaes:And he had a Crossroad, another great organization. To parents listening, if you don't know Crossroad Institute, find it online. We'll link it below. It's super, super helpful for young people as they discern who they're becoming. So he had on a Crossroad backpack and some kids stopped him on campus like the first week of his freshman year and said, Are you Orthodox?
Michelle Moujaes:And he said, I am. He said, I went to Crossroad. I went to Crossroad. He said, Come to OCF. So this OCF chapter, listen to this, it's like what we should all aspire to.
Michelle Moujaes:They have 40 kids registered in their OCF. They meet for evening prayers four nights a week every week. He said they don't always have all 40 but they always have at least 10. And Villanova, the school, allows them to check out a van and so they go and pick up all the kids on campus and they go one week to the Antiochian church, one week to the Greek church, one week to the Serbian church but they have like their own community now where they're participating. So I would call out for OCF if you don't know OCF, we'll link that one as well.
Michelle Moujaes:But that's a great reason maybe to consider also what an OCF chapter looks like on campus as well.
Christopher Chiakulas:Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. That's awesome. And yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah, so cool.
Christopher Chiakulas:While you're visiting with the priests in the church, like see if you can connect with the OCF students, like before you go, you know, when when you're an athlete and you're being recruited, you meet with the coach and the team and meet with the OCF and their advisors and things like that. Because how much easier I guess you could say to live your faith if you have, I know I've heard others students say, we set an alarm so we'll pick you up on Sunday morning and take you to church. I always use the example like doing college things but with other Orthodox students. So March Madness is a huge thing. You know, in basketball, people usually it usually falls during Great Lent.
Christopher Chiakulas:Hey, I can go to a March Madness party and know there's fasting food there and you don't know like whatever. You do the college experience but within the context of other people who understand these other things just makes it, know, again another win win. It's fun. It's the college experience but you're not drifting from your faith because nobody understands what's happening. Great.
Christopher Chiakulas:That's really huge. Yeah, Crossroads. And I've done some work with OCF and hope to in the future again with that, you know, with the high school age students to get them aware of these considerations before they get to college.
Michelle Moujaes:Love it. All right, what's the next P?
Christopher Chiakulas:The next P is program and that's usually where people start. What's a major? What major do you have at your school? And so really for major, a few things to consider, of course, is it something that's going to be God pleasing down the line or are you gonna have to do things that compromise your faith before you spend years and thousands of dollars going down the road just to realize, oh, I don't know if I can do this with a good you know conscious or whatever. You know is it something that you can do at another institution for a lot cheaper?
Christopher Chiakulas:So teaching is an example I always use having, you know, come from that, you know, background. You're only going to make so much money as a teacher and so if you are going to a school just because of the name and you're spending $400,000 to get this teaching degree, you're never going to make that amount. So, you know, why do you need to get your, you know, degree from this school when it's all on the same pay scale and it's all the same state license in the end and things like that. If it's out of your budget, if it's something that you are taking out loans for, which is the next P price, so really looking at do I need to go and spend this amount of money or go halfway across the country or go to a school that doesn't have, know, a Orthodox community or whatever just because of the name of the school for a program I can get a lot of places. So me, I majored in business actually as an undergrad.
Christopher Chiakulas:I live in the Chicago area. There is a lot of schools nearby and so I commuted from my house and saved the money on room and board and was able to still be involved in my local church and young adult group and all that without needing to go halfway across the country away from my sister 50 who's fifteen years younger than me so I wouldn't have gotten to see grown up. All of that I could get my major right where I needed in my backyard and be just fine versus you know if I was gonna major in oceanography, yeah I might have to there's no oceans in Chicago, I might have to go to you know a coast or something like that that's different, but there's a lot of you know things to think about with your program you know that are important especially when it comes to price and especially if your program is longer than four years. So a lot of times I'll see students really you know feel like they have to break the bank and go to this top ranked school for kind of a general bachelor's degree when their long term goal is law school or med school and like that's another three to seven years of paying for school where it's not so much about the name of the school you went to but again what you did while you're there.
Christopher Chiakulas:So that fifth P being price is you know again are you taking drastic measures out of your family budget to go to a school and are there other options. So I never tell families how to spend their money or not spend their money, but I think as Orthodox Christians we do need to be aware of, you know, is this money that could be spent elsewhere? Are we going into debt? The status kind of conversations I have are when parents say yeah we're gonna dive into our retirement or delay retirement or un retire because we feel like our kid deserves to go to this school. And again, I don't want to tell people how to spend their money or how to parent, but as Orthodox Christians, what is the ultimate goal?
Christopher Chiakulas:What are we hoping to teach them in this process that you get whatever you want?
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. When you get to the other side of it, it's so much less exciting than you thought it was gonna be. Like, it's awesome. I love that my kids are in schools that are great for them and that where they're both thriving and that's beautiful. But the things I thought I would be most excited for are not really the things I'm most excited for.
Michelle Moujaes:I'm not as thrilled about as you said the logo on the dad shirt as you might have anticipated you would be.
Christopher Chiakulas:Think one thing to be aware of for parents too is that it's usually with good intentions, right? I wanna say like you want the best for your kids. So when you're starting you know looking at what's the best school or the best program you know, it's not necessarily start up starting out being because of pride. It's just you want the best, but then if you get stuck into it and you start looking at others you look on social media, you see what everyone else is doing you see all the likes you know, then you can get kind of carried away and a recent kind of stat that that someone who just wrote a book about college came out was was it only like. Seventy five percent of students make it to their sophomore year, like at the school where And they're I teach a community college class also, and there are a lot of students who started at a four year and came back.
Christopher Chiakulas:So when decisions are being made in spring of senior year of high school and we're posting it on ours as parents, our kids are posting it, they're getting all these likes and congratulations and hearts, We get all excited and oh yeah, like I did such a great job as a parent and whatever. When August rolls around and all of that's forgotten and the student is there on this campus, if it's not that right fit, if you didn't go about it this right way and they start to, you know, drift or not be happy or then nobody shows that. Nobody shows, hey, like I failed out of first semester because it wasn't the right fit. Like, let me post Like nobody does that. So you're getting a skewed view of the process where all the good things it looks like.
Christopher Chiakulas:Look at everyone, oh, everyone's getting into all these great places. Like, is that the point to advertise where we got in Or is the point that they thrived and they stayed connected to the church and they graduated on time and they got a good, you know, if that's the point, that has to be the ultimate focus.
Michelle Moujaes:Thank you so much for being part of this season. When we started this year, we planned to release the podcast in seasons. But as more families began listening and sharing, it became very clear very quickly how much parents need these conversations. So we kept going. Because of your generosity, 75,000 has already been raised to help us make weekly episodes possible.
Michelle Moujaes:That support has meant so much and has helped us reach more families than we ever could have imagined. So as we close season two, we're going to take just a short summer production break to give us time to prepare season three well and to keep raising the support needed to move toward those weekly episodes. We're not stepping away, we're just getting ready for what's next. During that break, we're still going to share clips and highlights and helpful resources. So please stay connected with us on YouTube or in your podcast app and through our emails.
Michelle Moujaes:And if this podcast has encouraged your family, would you consider making a gift today at faithtree.org/donate? Thank you for listening and for sharing and praying and for helping us bring these conversations to more families. God willing, we'll see you in season three. The first thing we need to really think about what I hear you saying is what is the point? Like, let's think about what we're using this next phase and this investment of time and resources.
Michelle Moujaes:What's the end goal? Like if we were to nail it, at Faith Tree we always ask ourselves this question, what does a win look like? So what does the win look like? Is it that they get the degree from the fancy school or is it something different?
Christopher Chiakulas:I would argue in my you know, cheesy little quote that I see sometimes is, you know, the ultimate, you know, goal, the ultimate location of admission that we should want for our students is the kingdom of heaven, not Harvard or any school. We're not going to be asked on the final judgment as parents. Why didn't you send your kid to more tutoring or club sports? Or how come you didn't like push them to get into this? They're going to say, why didn't you, you know, keep guiding them in the faith?
Christopher Chiakulas:Why did you kind of throw that off to the side when you came to college and forgot about their spiritual life? So yeah, the end game for sure is to keep them involved in the church. And then at the practical level, like yeah I would say depending on the student what is that end goal? If it's to get your degree and be as debt free as possible and have built a great resume wherever you went and you know taking advantage of all the opportunities at that school and now you're ready to move on to the next phase of your life, then it was successful. In the working world, in the corporate world, wherever, it's more about what you've done and the experiences you have and when you interview the kind of person you are and those other skills than necessarily that name on your diploma.
Christopher Chiakulas:Might get your foot in the door initially, but eventually they're going to look at you and your character and what you bring to the table. And it's not it's not as important in the long run as I think some people think when they make the initial decision, like we've got to go to this school because it's going to set them up for life. They're not like thriving and they're not happy and they're not doing well there, it's not going to.
Michelle Moujaes:That's been our experience with our two that are now often in college. We started out and it was again all the spreadsheets and worrying about the scholarships and worrying about admissions and all the essays. There's so many essays. Watching And them kind of struggle through that process, it's very different now when we're really interested in, are they leading men that could lead a family toward Christ? Could they support a family and live within their means and work with a spouse, God willing, if that's what God calls them to, in such a way that it's more about getting them to the kingdom than it is about making sure that they had, you know
Christopher Chiakulas:Right.
Michelle Moujaes:The right GPA or all those things. But I I felt like it was a process for my husband and I. We kinda went through it with them.
Christopher Chiakulas:And I think because of all those pieces that it is now with essays and they're looking at activities we call the holistic review, you know, the colleges do and you you hear all this stuff online and most of it is nonsense, how you have to basically cure cancer by the time you get to high school. I mean, come on. You can't do these. Like I saw and I've tried to make some rebuttals on my YouTube channel. Like, oh, forget, like one of them was summer camps are worthless because you should be focused.
Christopher Chiakulas:Like, no, you need to go to camp. You learn so much other stuff there that is important. And so when, again, when parents say like, oh, we don't have time for youth group or camps or retreats or even Sunday church liturgy because of college, it's like, woah, wait, what? Stop. That's that's first of all, you know, not true in a lot of sense.
Christopher Chiakulas:Number one, of course, the biggest thing is spiritual life making it to the kingdom. But there's so many opportunities within church that you can do that can pad your college resume as well. Going to those camps and retreats and things can build crossroads or historical festivals. I've read essays from Orthodox students, you know, that those can be life changing moments that you write about on your college essay. Being a youth group leader, an altar team captain in the choir, those are activities that you can do that show leadership, show commitment that not everyone is doing.
Christopher Chiakulas:You put those on your college applications, it boosts your college applications, but you're still involved in the church and you're still keeping the So number one there's a lot of win wins that we can have as Orthodox Christians in this process if we don't get too focused on the practical stuff and forget completely about the spiritual life.
Michelle Moujaes:I love it. I love it. And I do think that's a great call out, is keep the main thing the main thing. We can so easily buy the lie, which is I mean, if you look at the marketing efforts that surround the whole college world, it's impressive. Even going on campus for a tour, you leave there feeling like you're a rock star and you have to go here.
Michelle Moujaes:It doesn't matter the school. It's a machine if you will. So I think for parents to keep top of mind, like what is the end goal? What is the win at the end of the day with our kids? And certainly where they're educated and what they choose to pursue as a career is a huge piece of that.
Michelle Moujaes:But again, the goal is the kingdom. What would it look like if a parent has a child in college that doesn't have a church nearby or doesn't have an OCF chapter nearby? Would you have any advice for them? What could they do?
Christopher Chiakulas:Yeah. So especially if they're already there, it could be tough, you know, to obviously change schools all the sudden. So really think outside the box, like are there ways to get connected? So one example that I have in my book is my own wife. She went to a school and kind of in the middle of nowhere Michigan.
Christopher Chiakulas:And when I went to I met her at the OCF College Conference by the way and when I went to visit her for the first time and being no Orthodox Church around I said well let's Google the closest one and it was like 30 miles away. Like alright, well let's drive there and so when we got there you know an hour plus later because it's pretty rural out there, you know the community was like oh who are you what's going on? So long story short, an older couple who made that same commute from where the school is to the church every week offered to drive her there. And so for the next like four years, they drove her on Sundays and other feast days to church so that she could still participate in the life of the church. It was so instrumental to her and to us that we invited them to our wedding and they came, you know, and all that.
Christopher Chiakulas:And so I love that. You know, even if church is 30 miles away, like go and talk, see if there's somebody who's making that trip. Know, see if there's an opportunity, you know, if you're completely far away, then you might have to go to, you know, online services or things like that. But whatever it takes, whatever it takes to stay connected, like all options are on the table.
Michelle Moujaes:And I would say that's a great call out for those of us in parish life to be mindful of young people in our parishes that might be newcomers to the community, or they might be in college, ask, offer the ride. I know one of my sons in again Philadelphia has a wonderful parish that they often ask if he needs rides. They often are reaching out to bring him to those feast day things or come over for dinner, do you need to do laundry and it's a beautiful offering that we can, as the body of Christ, offer to young
Christopher Chiakulas:people. Definitely.
Michelle Moujaes:If a parent is struggling through this process, which I know we have now, this is our third son to do that, What's one practical thing we can do to recalibrate and keep our eye on the prize? Any advice on that?
Christopher Chiakulas:Well, first and foremost, pray about it. Pray more about it. A lot of the saints, you know, say as your kids get older, like talking to God is more than talking to them is going to give the most benefits. Try to, you know, back up and again, really look at your student as who they are as that person. Forget what everyone else is doing, forget what they're posting or where all this, all these advice.
Christopher Chiakulas:What is gonna be the best, you know, for your student? What are they hoping to get out of it? What are you hoping that they get out of it? And just laying the must haves and the parameters out on the table. Anything from budget to distance to like try to narrow it down to what is really important and what you're going to deal with and be on the same page and then go from there because if you are trying to listen to everyone and look at every school in the country it is going to be completely overwhelming.
Christopher Chiakulas:So focus on yourselves, what you can control, what parameters you have, where you're in agreement, and then pray that you'll all come to a decision that works for your family.
Michelle Moujaes:So good. All right. Do you have time for a couple of questions Yeah, from our sure. Okay. This question comes from Daniel in Virginia and he asks, My eldest son wants to attend a large secular state school with no Orthodox parish or OCF chapter nearby.
Michelle Moujaes:I want to support his choice, but I am genuinely afraid of what four years without an Orthodox community will do to his faith. Am I wrong if I push back? So you answered it a
Christopher Chiakulas:little bit, but if you push It's back, is that definitely tough. Like, I don't think it's wrong to push back. I think students don't quite get the downside of just completely being away from the church and the life of the church and the communion of the church, how important it is to take holy communion regularly to go to confession to all those sacraments that keep us strong and grounded. So if there's pushback, okay, well what are we gonna like, can you come home You know every month to go
Michelle Moujaes:to
Christopher Chiakulas:church. Know what are some of the options if you must go there? Like if there's no OCF, you know you can start one. If it's a large state school, there's got to be some other students there somewhere like, okay, then you are charged with starting one, putting out flyers, like take charge yourself, like maybe you can get remote support from a priest, you know, now you can do meetings on Zoom, like again whatever it takes like have some have a plan have a plan in place to make sure that when the struggles come if you're if you feel if the student feels like they're falling away that they know what to do and they're not just all alone in their dorm with
Michelle Moujaes:Right.
Christopher Chiakulas:No support.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. You know, I also would encourage parents and Daniel, I would encourage you as well. So let me tell you what happened to me when I was in college. So I was studying in Boston and again my whole family here in Los Angeles. And I was part of a very rigorous fine arts program.
Michelle Moujaes:And so I missed church one week. And my mom said, did you go to church? And I said, didn't. We were actually in the studio all day. We were working.
Michelle Moujaes:And she said, okay. But you didn't go last week. And I said, no. We were I mean, we had this big show. We're doing okay.
Michelle Moujaes:And she said, okay. Well, here's the thing. If you're not in church next week and every week after, then you need to come home because that's who we are as a family and that's our priority. And I was like, That is outrageous. But you know what?
Michelle Moujaes:I figured it out. Yeah. I figured it out and I told the school and the professors, I'm gonna have to come but these two hours are accounted for. And I can say with great honesty that there was something that happened in that moment that allowed my faith to really take root because at first it was non optional, but eventually it became mine. It was something I think in learning that I could actually say, You know what?
Michelle Moujaes:This is a priority and for these mornings on Sunday I will not be there. And when I realized that that was a choice that could be made and actually I didn't have a choice but I had to make it, it became something that became very much a part of who I am today. And so I would just encourage all of us as parents, like the expectation is you're in church.
Christopher Chiakulas:And that's why it's so important to set those expectations like from high school when we start making excuses that, Oh, we've got this or that. There's like a quote or meme that was going around like when it's optional to us, it will be unnecessary to them. And so if you make it necessary to them, when they get there and they're missing, those figures something's not right. So even though I lived at home and commuted to college, I was on the cross country team at college and they oftentimes we did our practices on Sunday mornings. And so here there I would go but most of the time I said to my coach like I need to go to church like can I just run on my own?
Christopher Chiakulas:He said, thankfully he said sure probably because I was just a walk on athlete and not scholarship or anything so it wasn't that big of a deal but you advocate for yourself if there's certain things and if it was going to be something that takes you away from church consistently then yeah, maybe you reassess or again, come up with another plan, talk to your spiritual father. It's another part of that prayer P is, okay, what do I do in these situations as well?
Michelle Moujaes:That's right. Oh, that's so good. Alright, we got one more, Christopher. Nadia in Tulsa says, I'm a mother of three and my oldest son is a senior this year. Every time I open social media, another family is posting some scholarship win or some acceptance letter and I feel real panic that we're behind or that my son isn't going to measure up.
Michelle Moujaes:How can I protect his piece and mine when it all feels so competitive? I mean, it feels so competitive. What
Christopher Chiakulas:Stop do we looking at all that.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah, that's right. Turn off social media. I love it.
Christopher Chiakulas:There's just so much, you know, I've seen students at my school post on social media where they were accepted and getting all the likes and they're lying. They didn't get into those schools because I get the list for most of the schools of the actual results. I see kids put schools that they might might have gotten into and are going to go to, but they're really going to community college first. But nobody will post, you know, that they're going to community college. So at my school I work at 25% of students start out at community college.
Christopher Chiakulas:On the Instagram decisions page, there's like zero kids going. So you would open that up and be like nobody from this school goes to community college. No, that's not true at all. A quarter of the students go, but no one's posting that. So put it away, forget about it, focus on what's best for you and your student, what's going be the best academic, social, financial, and spiritual fit for them.
Christopher Chiakulas:And yeah, there's you know there's certain deadlines and things like that but there's 4,000 colleges in this country, not all of them you know require you to submit by you know September or October, not all of them are you know require 8,000 essays. I think it's about the stats something like half the colleges in this country admit two thirds or more of the people who apply. So it's not as selective as everyone thinks it is. So when people say it's impossible to get into college these days, no, there are certain schools that have gotten harder, but college is not as hard as everyone thinks it is. You're just looking at a small subset of schools.
Christopher Chiakulas:So expand your options, look at what's again important to you and forget what everyone else is doing and you will find that right fit for you.
Michelle Moujaes:That's awesome, that's awesome. Christopher where can people find you?
Christopher Chiakulas:Yeah so you could go to occc.info. I'm on social media For Better or Worse and you know Facebook, Instagram Orthodox Christian College Counseling. Yeah and so feel free to reach out with questions and thank you so much for the opportunity to share.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah, we're
Christopher Chiakulas:spending a stressful process but keep the faith.
Michelle Moujaes:Christopher, thank you for this and for reminding us that this season as loud and stressful as it can feel doesn't have to be about chasing the best school. It can be about helping our children discern the right one. A place where their faith can keep growing not just survive. To every parent listening who's in the middle of this season right now like I am, take a breath. You don't have to have it all figured out today.
Michelle Moujaes:We just need to ask better questions than the ones the culture is asking. And we need to remember that the goal is never just an acceptance letter. It's always about who our children are becoming. We'll see you next season.