These are tough times we live in. From the coronavirus to the widespread protests, families have had to cope with some difficult circumstances and answer some tough questions.
My grandsons have asked questions–many questions about what is happening in their world. We try to prepare our children for foreseeable difficulties as adults, but sometimes life slaps us in the face and we face obstacles we did not anticipate and would rather avoid.
The question we should all be asking our students is: Are you prepared for college?
I’m not talking about academic, extracurriculars, or standardized tests. I’m talking about the “real” college prep: adulthood. Because this is the most important college prep of all. If your student isn’t ready to study without being constantly nagged, attend class without a wake-up call, or make wise choices when every negative influence in the world bombards them, then he or she is not ready for college.
We must, as parents, prepare our teenagers for independent living. That means they must know how to self-advocate. They must know how to say “no” to behaviors that have negative consequences. They must be responsible with their time and their money. It’s no easy task and in today’s world, we have to add the ability to make wise social and economic choices.
I love “American Housewife” for the examples of good and not-go good parenting techniques. Their daughter, who will be attending college in the fall, was required to complete a massive to-do list before they would agree for her to attend her senior prom. Some of the items seem simple to most, like changing a tire; but the goal of this parenting was to prepare her for independent living.
Do you have a to-do list for your future college student? Can they live within a budget? Do they understand the importance of study and class attendance? Do they know how to choose the right friends? Will they make wise choices about alcohol, sex and other risky behaviors. Preparing them for college is so much more than academics.
Families with children are known as the highest demographic to most likely own a pet. Children have numerous gifts to offer a pet, with countless hours of attention and play, cuddles, and a life-long companion. However, the rewards work both ways.
Your children can learn a lot from owning a pet, whether it’s compassion, empathy, or the responsibility they may need to take them through college and into adulthood, these 10 valuable life lessons are what they could learn:
Responsibility
Whether you choose ot have a dog such as a chocolate lab from https://chocolatelabradorretriever.ca/ or a smaller pet like a guinea pig, pets need to have daily food, affection, and exercise as well as potty time and grooming. Older children can learn these skills and use them and even younger children can help to feed them and play with them.
Trust
It’s easy to confide in your pet, they will offer you unconditional support in return. Pets make trusted companions for children and can be an important step to helping your child build trust in other relationships they may have through their life.
Compassion
Caring for a living creature requires compassion, empathy, and understanding, Kids learn to be kind and how they can take care of another’s needs.
Bereavement
You child will inevitably feel the pain of any loss of a pet, but it will also teach them how to cope through a bereavement period. A lesson not many get to learn when young.
Physical Activity
If you own a dog, your children can learn how to have fun physical activity through games like fetch or tug of war. And enjoy going for walks. Research suggests that children who own a dog spend more time being physically active than children who don’t.
Patience
It can take time to bond with a new pet, so your child will learn patience whilst your new pwr becomes comfortable and starts to feel at home during training.
Respect
Owning a pet is a great way to teach children how to respect others. They much tend to their needs, touch them gently, and learn not to disturb them when they are sleeping or eating.
Self-Esteem
Pets will show them unconditional love, which can be a wonderful boost to a child’s self-esteem. So, too, can the proudness and satisfaction from having the responsibility of caring for a pet’s needs.
Loyalty
A pet’s loyalty toward its owner is hard to match. With this, children can learn the importance of showing loyalty to their furry friend.
Social Skills
A dog can be a fantastic way to break the ice in social situations. This means taking your dog on family walks can help to improve your children’s social skills as they see you interact
With a new school year quickly approaching,
many parents are figuring out how their child is going to afford college.
According to CollegeBoard, the average student budget for the 2019-20 academic
year was $26,590 for students attending a four-year university. This figure
includes the cost of living on campus, which may be required of incoming freshman students.
This means your child’s education could cost
well over six figures. And no parent wants their child to start their adult
life with that amount of debt.
As a parent, you can help guide your child to make smart decisions
that will impact their finances for years to come. This begins with choosing an
affordable school.
There are also other ways to help pay for the
cost of attendance and living expenses. Here’s how to help fund college costs
and ways to borrow wisely.
Apply for financial aid
opportunities before borrowing
Before you or your child
take on debt to pay for college, you should exhaust all other available
resources.
Your child can access financial aid opportunities, like grants, scholarships and work-study programs, by
completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
The FAFSA filing window
is October 1 to June 30 for each upcoming academic year. Keep in mind that some
financial aid is available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and cutoff
deadlines vary by state. Encourage your child to complete their application as
early as possible.
Also explore third-party
scholarship opportunities through your employer, local community organizations and
online databases. Each additional scholarship or grant — even if it is only for
a few hundred dollars — can prevent your child from taking on more student loan
debt.
How to borrow wisely for college
Once your family has explored all financial
aid opportunities and pooled existing resources (e.g. 529 college savings plan
and other family contributions), your child may still need to turn to student
loans.
Whether your child is taking out loans in
their own name or you’re borrowing on their behalf, it’s important that your
family only borrow what is needed to fill the remaining financial gap.
The first way to approach student loans is
through federal loans. Federal loans have more flexibility and have certain
protections and benefits. This is why it’s best to maximize federal loan
opportunities before taking out private loans.
For example, your child can enroll in a
repayment plan that matches their financial situation and may be eligible for
loan forgiveness opportunities.
Your child should borrow funds in this order:
Direct Subsidized Loans.
Subsidized loans typically have the lowest rates, and the government will
cover any interest that accrues while your child is in school.
Direct Unsubsidized Loans.
Unsubsidized loans aren’t need-based, so any student can qualify for them.
However, your child is responsible for the interest that accrues during
school.
Private loans. Your child
will likely need a cosigner to qualify for a private loan. Shop around
with various private lenders to find the lowest rate and best terms for
your credit.
You may also have the option to take out a
federal Parent PLUS loan in your name to help fund your child’s
education.You’ll be solely financially responsible for the loan — not your
child.
Make a debt repayment plan
Student loan borrowers
should always be aware of interest charges that will accrue during school and
after graduation. These charges should be included in their overall financial
plan.
Your child should also start making a debt
repayment plan as soon as possible. Popular student loan repayment methods
include enrolling in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan or refinancing student loans after graduation to
get a lower interest rate.
When considering refinancing federal loans
into private student loans, it’s important to understand the consequences of
losing out on federal benefits and protections, like loan forgiveness and
forbearance.
The earlier your child plans for their educational costs, the more likely they can save money during their college experience and beyond.
Our guest post today is by Travis Hornsby, CFA, and Founder and CEO of Student Loan Planner. He lives with his wife in St. Louis, MO, where he loves thinking up new student loan repayment strategies and frequenting the best free zoo in America. As one of the nation’s leading student loan experts, he has consulted on $500 million of student debt personally.
This has certainly been one of those years. It all began with news of a virus in China. Then it began to spread and the world was in the midst of a pandemic. As time progressed it made it to our country and everyone was frightened and scared. People were dying. There seemed to be no hope. Schools closed. Businesses closed. Churches closed. We all stayed home and waited.
Just when it seemed the outlook was improving, a senseless and cruel act of murder occurred at the hands of a policeman—someone we trusted to protect us. I kept remembering the words spoken in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: “All hell done broke lose around here!” Truer words were never spoken.
I’m certainly not a psychologist or pretend to understand what it’s like to live as a person of color in this country. But I have children and grandchildren and it’s moments like these when they are watching us. They watch how we respond and how we treat others. Raising an independent adult should also involve raising a compassionate human being.
These are teachable moments.
Violence is not the answer
On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his dedication to nonviolence:
“The experience of these last few days has deepened my faith in the relevance of the spirit of nonviolence, if necessary social change is peacefully to take place.”
Look for the helpers
Mr. Rogers’ mother had the best advice for a time like this—look for the helpers. We looked for the helpers during the pandemic at its worst. We should look for the helpers in the midst of this civil unrest.
Policemen, sheriffs and mayors speaking to the protestors and asking to “walk with them” in solidarity and as a promise to do better. People showing up to help business owners clean up after the damage from the riots. Protestors protecting the police when surrounded by an angry mob. A protestor bringing a case of water to the policemen standing watch. Helpers put all of this into perspective.
Which brings me to the next teachable moment…
Love one another
Nothing good ever comes from hate. Our children are innocent and loving when born. If they are taught to hate, they will hate. If they are taught to love, they will love. Teach them to unconditionally love their fellow humans. Martin Luther King Jr. said,
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Stand with those who are hurting
Every single person who viewed the video of that policeman kneeling on George Floyd’s neck was outraged. There’s no question that he used his position of authority to murder that man and showed no mercy when the man was crying for help. Your teen should know you are outraged and understand why. It should open a discussion about how you feel about racism and give you an opportunity to talk about this issue. If you feel moved to act, allow your teenager to participate if they ask. Nothing will change if we don’t teach our children to be color blind. Martin Luther King Jr. explained it clearly,
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Dyslexia can affect one in five people, according to the National Institutes of Health. Once you have noticed the symptoms such as laboured or inaccurate reading and/or spelling. As well as difficulty rhyming, associating sounds with alphabetic symbols, sequencing and ordering sounds you can take the next step to be diagnosed. There are many ways to help Dyslexia.
Schools that specialize in Dyslexia
Schools such as CLOI’s Dyslexia PD offerings can often provide extra attention towards teaching them how to utilize, systematic and sequential instructional approach while reading and writing. The best method they use is a multisensory method. This can ensure that each plan is helping them to succeed with every journey with something like their writing and reading. They understand Dyslexia in a way that looks at it from different views to ensure that they choose the best method for them as every case is different. Having a personalized program is essential.
What parents can do to help
If your child has Dyslexia, you can often feel helpless. There are multiple ways in which you can help at home. Start reading aloud of your child as young as you can, even six months and younger can make a massive difference to their vocabulary. If you are not comfortable with reading aloud yourself, then playing a recorded book with your child can be an effective method. Work side by side with your child’s school to ensure that you can proceed with the same techniques at home to avoid confusion. Scheduling in reading time each day can encourage your child to read that will improve their literacy skills. You could do this by reading something of your own while your child read their book. This shows that you are there to support your child, and they will see that reading is an enjoyable activity to do together.
Support your child
Finding ways to support your child without being intimidating can be difficult. Expressing your love and support when they are reading or talking can help build their skills and show their strengths. This can be done by having conversations with your child regularly.
Designating a specific time of day to help them at home by organizing a place and time for your child to study. This space is then known as a place of work rather than play. This also means limiting the amount of time they spend on electronic screens and swapping them for reading practice.
If you are feeling alone at this time, then joining a support group can help you massively to provide useful information and emotional support. Building you and your child’s relationship to helping their strengths and weaknesses.
Hopefully, with this guide, you will be able to find different learning techniques to learn your child’s Dyslexia. Whether that is having support from a school such as CLOI’s Dyslexia PD. They offer comfort and personalized methods to help your child. And changing up your home environment to allow your child’s reading and writing to grow and improve.
Whether your child is leaving for college soon or they are coming towards the end of their studies, ensuring you support your child in the right way, not just in a professional sense but in an emotional sense as well, can prove to be a wide-ranging subject. Ultimately, there is a massive transition from college to the real world. For anybody that has been through college education and has now come out on the other side, they may tell you just how much of a shock to the system it is to go into the real world. So what can you do to make sure that you support your child in the right way when they are transitioning toward independence after graduation?
Will Additional Qualifications Help At This Point?
Many people decide to move on to a master’s course after their degree. For some, this can be prolonging the eventuality of going into the real world. But it all depends on the degree that your child initially undertook. If they’ve got a very clear-cut career plan but they need to acquire a master’s in system design & management or a niche subject, it’s vital that they work towards this. The best thing you can do if your child is adamant about completing extra qualifications is to make sure that they’ve researched their career choice at every angle.
Encouraging Them To Find The Best First Job
Some parents feel that their child needs to get any job after they come out of college, but this can be a huge mistake. If your child is not continuing their education, you should encourage them to explore a wide variety of opportunities. Many people these days decide to accept a job for the sake of it, but this means that they could very well get stuck in a professional rut. And even if you, as the parent, have been in the same position before, it’s essential to encourage them to diversify their efforts. Encourage them to make strategic decisions from the outset. This could mean undertaking career questionnaires or helping them to realize what skills they have right now that lend to a specific profession.
Remember To Take A Step Back
They are your child, and you want the best for them, but you have to remember that you can’t force them to do something. If you feel the need to go down a particular direction, they will likely do the opposite. Think about your emotions and keep them in check. Manage their moods rather than trying to force them down a specific path. After college, your child can feel somewhat empty in-between that chasm of finishing their education to starting a career. There will naturally be bumps in the roads, and they may feel the pressure to get on to the “right” career right away. The best thing that you can do is to take a step back and also realize where you are helicopter parenting.
Even if you went straight into work, you have to remember just how much a shock to the system it can be going from years of education to the real world. They worked hard at getting their qualification, and now they want to make sure that it counts. The best thing you can do for them at this point is to be supportive of their decisions.
With any project or goal, you look to the experts to help you reach success and achieve the goal. These five experts know all there is to know about creating the perfect college list.
What’s Critical in a College Admission Checklist
According to Lynn O’Shaughnessy of The College Solution Blog, using a college admission checklist is critical when your child is applying to colleges and universities.
Allowing a teenager to apply to any colleges without a solid game plan can be a financial and academic disaster.
There are five college check-list items that you and your child should accomplish before sending out applications. If you’ve already submitted your applications, you can definitely still do some of these tasks:
Debbie Schwartz of Road2College.com offers parents advice from multiple college experts and points out with thousands of colleges and universities to choose from, finding the “perfect” school is a seemingly impossible task for any high school student and their parents.
Many college hopefuls have their eyes set on a particular dream school, while others may feel overwhelmed by endless options varying in size, location, reputation, and expense.
Applying to and gaining acceptance to colleges is daunting enough, let alone deciding where to attend in the fall.
So how exactly do you make the right decision?
Keep in mind that the true secret to college success is not necessarily attending the most selective or prestigious university.
It’s finding the right school for you where you can be your best self. And much like with dating or job-hunting, there is no one-size-fits-all college, but instead, a number of potential great picks for every individual student.
In this article, you can find the answers to these questions:
Katherine Price of Great College Advice, reminds parents and students that picking the final list can be a daunting task. One way to narrow things down a bit is to really look into the academic departments at the schools you are interested in. Since academics is one of the most important aspects of attending college, it is important that students feel connected to the curriculum and the major that they could potentially be studying.
When looking at college academics, consider these topics:
Jeannie Borin or College Connections, reminds us that in conducting the college search, it is important to make sure a college list is well balanced with “reach,” “50/50” and “likely” colleges that fit the student’s profile academically and socially. Thorough research is necessary to be sure that students are applying to the right colleges for them. The research will also come in handy when completing applications and when answering essay questions that ask why an applicant wants to attend that college.
Here are some helpful tips that should help in your college search:
I always recommend that parents and students take a close look at the college statistics.
You might be surprised to know that in addition to all the factors students use to choose a college, there is one they might overlook: statistics. While location, major, campus appeal, and others are certainly important statistics will help you and your student make a more informed college choice.
Why statistics? Statistics will help you determine some of the key factors involved in choosing a college. With statistics you increase the odds of your student being accepted, receiving more financial aid, and graduating on time. You can also determine the class sizes, the freshman retention rate and the odds of finding a job after graduation.
Numbers aren’t everything, but consider these eight important stats when you and your student are looking at schools:
We all have dreams in life, and these often start when we are young.
When you were at high school, you may have had visions for your future, of the places you wanted to get to, and of the person you wanted to be. Hopefully, your dreams were realized.
So, let’s think about your teen. What are their dreams? What do they want in the future? And what colleges are they considering to achieve their future ideals?
As the parent, you need to be in a supportive role – the person who encourages their dreams, and not the person who crushes them.
In your role, these are some of the things you need to focus on.
Don’t be dismissive of your teen’s choices
Remember that your teen’s dreams may not necessarily equate with your dreams for them. Too many kids end up in colleges and careers they didn’t want, and that is because their parents have pushed them in directions they didn’t want to go. So, don’t be that parent who forces them down a path they are resistant to. If you catch your teen looking at the preflight checklist for pilots on the pages of an aeronautical university website, or if you hear them talking to their friends about colleges for the performing arts, be supportive. Don’t tell your teen that such career choices are pipe dreams, unrealistic, and not for them. Show them you support their choices, and if the colleges they look at really aren’t beyond the realms of reality for them, encourage them to take the right courses at high school that will meet the requirements of the colleges in question.
Encourage them in their education
As we suggested above, help your teen make the right choices when it comes to high school courses, especially if getting grades in these courses will qualify them for admission into the colleges they like. And when they are taking these courses, encourage your teen to work hard. If they need to study for tests, and if they need to write essays, remind your teen of their college goals every time they slacken off. Help your teen with their courses when they are struggling too. Be there when they need your help to study for tests and exams. Be there when they need your advice on a paper they have written. And be there whenever an obstacle arises that could potentially cause them to fail their course. The more help you can give them at high school, the greater the chances of them getting the grades they need for college.
Make their dreams become a reality
You can do this in all kinds of ways, from helping them find the right colleges for them, to helping them fill out their college applications. Take a look at the advice we gave on our site about what you can do to coach your college-bound teen too, as there is much you can do to prepare them for the next stage of their academic life. You can teach them some of the skills they will need at college, for example, and you can help them prepare for the pre-college tests they might need to take during the application process. The more you can do to support your teen, the better, so while you shouldn’t be overbearing within your responsibilities, you should still steer, gently cajole, and encourage your teen to ensure their dreams can come true.
These have certainly been times of upheaval. Students were told to finish the year at home. Parents scrambled to help their teens adjust. Graduations were cancelled and even college plans are uncertain. But that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for the day when they will leave for college.
It seems like only yesterday you are dropping your child off at their first class, and they are upset about leaving you. But now your child has decided to go off to college and will be leaving you without so much as a wave before long. But this is a wonderful testament to the job you have done as a parent up to now, and it’s hard to forget just how much you have done for them, and How they are so successful already from your support and their hard work. There are a few things you can do to make sure that you have prepared yourself for the big day, and that you don’t end up too upset when it happens. Our children taking the plunge and becoming independent is something special, and something to be proud of. So what can you do to prepare yourself for this transition?
Be proud
Be proud of your child’s achievements. Sharing this with the world and your family and friends is important, and showing your child that you are proud of them will do great things for their confidence. It isn’t always about academic achievements of course, but it does show a certain level of resilience and confidence, as well as a hard-working nature to gain a place in a college. Making sure that you don’t forget the role you have played in getting into this point, and congratulating yourself for the great support you have given your child along the way, is important. So never feel as though you are going too far by showing your pride in your children.
Prepare practicalities
Making sure that all of the practicalities such as student accommodation and the small details are covered when it comes to preparing your child for college, will give you a sense of confidence that everything is taken care of. You can, of course, continue to support your child once they have left for college, and many people do send care packages on a regular basis. But making sure that your child knows where they are going, what they are doing, and they have the support there if they need it, will help you relax and feel much better about the whole situation.
Be there
Being there when your child needs you, or even when they don’t, is all we can do. Sometimes they will act as though they don’t need any support whatsoever, and this may be true for many grown-up children spreading their wings, and if we have done our jobs correctly then they really should be quite independent anyway, but just being ready to take a call, or be there when they need you, it’s going to be the most important job you can do when your child is going off to college. Being there is our number one role once all the basics of parenting are done, we teach them everything we can to a certain age, And then must take a step back to just support when needed. You will find that even the most independent college children will feel as though they have got everything under control, but we can always be there ready to catch them if they fall.
If you have a student in college and you are hoping for them to do as well as possible, there are things that you might be able to do to help them along. While you should mostly let them do it on their own, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be encouraging them or offering them just the right amount of help – so long as you don’t get overly involved, that is, and you still let them achieve it by themselves. If you want to help your children pass their college exams, there are a number of things you can do to ensure that they are much more likely to, so let’s look at what those might be.
Stress Busting
One of the main things you can do for them is to show them how to deal with the exam stress. All children get stressed when it comes to exam time, and it is a natural part of the process that they are going to have to find a way to deal with. A little stress is not even too much of a bad thing; it shows how important the situation is, and it has been known to help people work to their fullest degree where necessary. But too much stress is definitely a problem, and you can help them by showing them how to keep stress at bay. Keeping calm, breathing deeply, and getting plenty of sleep are all good ways of doing this.
Getting Help
If you feel that your child really needs it, you might also want to think about getting them some extra education which they can make use of. If your child is falling back in English, for instance, then hiring a private English tutor could be all you need to do to make sure that they are going to get back on track, or even get ahead of their peers. However, it’s not a competition, and the main thing is that you should be trying to help them get to a point where they are confident they will pass their exams. If you can do that, you will find that they will have a much higher chance of success.
Study Skills
When it comes to the actual preparation for the exams, you can help them there too, even if they are living on campus and you are not seeing them in person. If they can learn from you how to properly prepare for exams, then that is going to do them very well, and you will find that they are going to have a much better time of it in general. That is absolutely something that you are going to want to think about if you are particularly keen for them to achieve great things. Good exam preparation is something that can be learned, so make sure that you are helping them wherever necessary in learning it before they have their exams.
