I think these are generally good habits.
I do sometimes sense a kid or parent is struggling to come up with a reasonable range of options that fit all their stated preferences, so I might try to suggest ways in which they could consider bending, with examples of what that could mean. But if they are not receptive, then that’s that.
A version of that I find myself often doing is suggesting that if a person is looking at a bunch of mid-size private research universities and/or private LACs at the Reach level, but then only larger publics otherwise, they could consider some privates that would seem to fit their other criteria but are less Reachy, and might in fact offer merit.
But again if they say they are not interested, OK then.