Lisa Endlich's Blog, page 354

Advice On Selecting A College From College President (and Dad)

The college admission process can be daunting. Here are some ideas from a college president — and a parent who has been through it twice — on the ways parents can help with the final college selection.

Let me start with a simple observation. You can get a great education at a wide range of colleges in this country. But if the fit is wrong, it is nearly impossible to get a great education – no matter how good the college is. Conversely, when you get the fit right, your student will have a grea...

What I Wrote About My Boys Was Unfair and My Son Called Me Out

“It’s kind of sexist, though. Right?” my son says to me.

It is not a question, but a statement.

“It was meant to be funny,” I reply.

“It makes us look like idiots, like stereotypes of who we are,” he says.

“It’s tongue in cheek, you know? Just a joke,” I say.

“I guess,” he replies. “Unless it is about you.”

He is not really mad, but not really happy either. He is also not alone.

My recently published Grown and Flown essay pokes fun at life with my three sons, comparing our days and nights to...

The One Phrase All Parents Need To Start Saying Right Now

Several years ago, I joined some other parents to watch our sons play a lacrosse game. We were so busy chatting that we didn’t notice that we’d chosen seats in the midst of the other team’s parents. As we continued talking to each other, one of the parents noticed that we “didn’t belong.”

“Hey everybody, it looks like the enemy is among us,” he said to the crowd.

His comment seemed a bit aggressive as if we were there to spy on the opposing team’s parents. Perhaps his comment came out in a mo...

15 Silly (But Very Real) Questions All Moms Ask Themselves

As a parent of a teen, I often find myself wondering, am I missing anything with my teenage daughters? Should I be asking more questions? And then I think, of course I am missing something; I am human. The trick is to not miss the really important stuff that could happen to any of our children – depression, bullying, drug use. And I do always remind myself to ask the important questions. Is she ok? Is he happy? Do I need to intervene?

And then there are the not so important questions that pro...

Is the College Waitlist Just Another Way to Torture Our Kids?

Our teens are expected to hoist themselves over a fair number of seemingly insurmountable hurdles during the college process, but one of the cruelest and most frustrating may be the college waitlist.

Let’s review. It has become nary impossible to get into the top schools, the so-called “highly selective” schools. I’m not saying that getting into those schools should be the holy grail because I don’t buy into the hype, but if a top 25 school is where you desire to be, it may be time to reasses...

Dear Young Adults: This Is What Your Parents Need From You

Young adults: what an interesting term. You are young, but you are still at or right over the threshold that means you are an adult. You have to make your own doctor’s appointments, pay rent possibly, and do other ‘adult’ things. However, you are still close enough to being young that you remember what it was like when your parents did most of those things for you. Being a young adult is difficult, I get it. I’ve been there and amazingly enough, your parents have been there as well. Now that...

This Is Why Our Teens Are So Awesome

The other night, all of my kids were out of the house and I was in the mood to eat the contents of the fridge – you know the feeling – you aren’t starving or anything, you just want to eat like there’s no tomorrow. I knew there was some left over Mexican food in the fridge, and there had to be corn chips because I’d just bought two family size bags a few days ago. I was planning a fiesta and I couldn’t wait to get home and heat up the leftovers after slipping off my jeans and snuggling into m...

A College Rejection Might Be Just What Your Teen Needs

“Where are you going to college?” I ask every high school senior I’ve ever met.

More often than not, I get a shrug.

I ask my son, “Where is Julian going to college?”

I get a shrug.

“How about Yani? She’s smart. Where’s she going?

I get a shrug.

“You don’t know or you don’t want to talk about it?” I ask.

My son says his friends don’t talk about college. They don’t talk about where they’ve applied or where they’ve been accepted.

And they certainly don’t talk about where they get rejected.

My...

How Hard Can It Be?

I have been waiting for this book for 16 years. The summer of 2002 I sat on a Rhode Island beach ignoring my kids, who were probably not strong enough swimmers to be left unobserved, so that I could laugh out loud at with the woman who had managed to put my entire life between to hardback covers. With every page I turned of I Don’t Know How She Does It, I became more certain that my life had 

I had lived in London for over a decade with my growing family.

I had worked on a trading desk witho...

I Want To Leave My Husband And Here’s Why

I want to leave my husband, but it’s not what you’re thinking.

We’re not having marriage troubles (at least any more than the rest of you).We’re not dealing with infidelity (as far as I am aware).

And neither of us is utterly depressed and completely unhappy (though a few cocktails surely help those grins stretch across our face).

We’re two people who married young, had kids relatively young and have been working to balance a partnership, some romance, a home, work, two dogs and parenting dut...