Lisa Endlich's Blog, page 383

How to Say Goodbye to Your College Kids

It was hardly a big surprise. Rather, a playing out of the natural progression of life. A rite of passage. A milestone we had known was coming for 18 years. Yet, nothing I had read in magazines, scrolled through on Facebook or heard from been-there-done-that parents could have prepared me for the way I felt when I bid the first of my three children farewell.

My spouse and I drove the daughter 500 miles south to the college of her dreams in the old minivan, which wasn’t quite as old then,...

The 40 Thoughts All Moms Have at College Drop Off

You did it moms! You made it to college drop off!

You survived 18 years of breakfast making, lunch packing, spelling tests, extra innings, marathon dance recitals,  endless loads of laundry, and now you’re actually here!  (And you’re carrying 25 Rubbermaid bins up five flights of stairs into your sweet child’s dorm room and ohhhh the thoughts swirling around in your head……)

40 Thoughts at College Drop Off We made it! I can do this! I am brave and strong and will not lose it! Moms have been...

The 3 Words Harvard, Princeton and Yale Professors Offer Freshmen

Fifteen faculty members from three of the nation’s best known universities offer the class of 2021 three words of advice: Think for yourself.

In a piece entitled, “Some Thoughts and Advice for Our Students and All Students” the faculty and scholars from a variety of disciplines united around a singular message. The thought leaders acknowledge that thinking for yourself is harder than it sounds as all of us are easy prey for conformity and group think.

As parents this is an important message t...

How Not to Let Your Ex Ruin an Otherwise Perfect Day

My youngest daughter graduated from college last May. For months, every time I’d see her graduation date on the calendar, I would hear the Beach Boys sing Graduation Day in my head. As they crooned, “I’ll remember always,” I’d smile just before remembering that some part of me also wanted to forget. Since my ex and I broke up more than a decade ago, my two daughters have graduated many times between them. I was 18 before I got my first diploma but kids today seem to graduate often – from kind...

Is Your Kid a Senior? Here are 5 Things NOT to Get Stressed About

It’s all so completely overwhelming. There you are just cruising along through the high school years when BAM! You get a letter over the summer from the school’s “senior picture photography studio” with the date for your child’s SENIOR PICTURE. What? A senior picture? But I don’t have a senior yet! Oh, but you do. Because while you blinked, that awkward nervous freshman-the one who has been eating you out of house and home and memorizing try theorems at 1 a.m. for the last three years – woke...

How to Help a College-Bound Teen Who Has a Disability or Illness

When my second child left for college, he took some extra baggage. Along with his duffel bags full of sweaty socks and ripped, but beloved, t-shirts, he flew off to school with a chronic, incurable and sometimes life-threatening disease: Type 1 Diabetes. Before he went away, I spent months agonizing over all the horrible possibilities he might encounter and prayed he’d develop tight friendships with people who would care enough to look after him in an emergency.

All of my fretting was pointl...

Never Forget That This is YOUR Journey and Your Journey Alone

First of all, I wasn’t one of those moms. The mom who read every article, scrupulously creating lists (I mean, who are we kidding…me and lists just don’t go in the same sentence) of what she needs, what she doesn’t need, what to expect, what not to expect, how long is “too long” to say good-bye, or whether or not I should give her space & wait for her to contact me (AS IF). Nope.

We were far too busy with the business of senior year – college application essays, seizing every possible sen...

This is How I Helped My Daughter Get Ready for Community College

It’s been a whirlwind year so far. Our eldest turned 18 in the spring and graduated from high school in May. Like any parent, we are so proud of her and all she’s accomplished. A 4.0 student who loves to write, a gifted singer who belonged to the local children’s chorus, a valued employee at the day care center where she’s worked for three years. And she got a jump on her college career, taking four classes at the local community college during her senior year of high school.

The thought of...

Reach School: If Your Kid Applies, be Prepared for THIS

One short year ago I was you: A mom about to send her firstborn to college far away. It was the August farewell tour that wouldn’t end. I obsessed about his bedding as a coping technique for the constant knot in my stomach and verge of tears mood. We packed that car to the brim, sobbed in an intertwined mess of hugs on the walkway and drove off. My brain knew he was ready. My heart felt this was an impossible leap of letting him go.

I am standing here a year later to tell you that it’s going...

They are the Last College Class Born in the 20th Century and 60 Other Facts

Every year we await the Beloit College Mindset List as it makes us ponder, laugh and feel really, really old. This year does not disappoint starting with the very first line reminding us that this is the last college class to be born in the Century that we consider home.  Today’s 18 year olds were born in 1999, the year we were sure we would see “lights out” come New Year’s Day. They are the very last of the Millennials.

Last year’s list stunned us by reminding us that the class of 2020 have...