Lisa Endlich's Blog, page 432

Freshman Orientation: 5 Ways Parents Can Make the Most of It

Before they pack up their belongings, sign up for a meal plan and then proceed to order pizza every night, most college-bound students participate in some iteration of a freshman orientation at their chosen university. While these programs differ in format and scope, they fulfill a common purpose: to serve as a bridge between the acceptance letter and move-in day. For many teens, it might be the first time they are referred to as a “college student.”

For you as a parent, perhaps, it’s the fi...

“Windshield Time” With My Teenage Daughter is Never Wasted

My morning drink of choice is coffee, black, with a vanilla latte for my teenage daughter, our hands cradling the cups in the chilly Minnesota air, not just for the promise of the liquid within, but also for a little warmth in the still-cool early mornings of June.

“How can people be so perky this early?” she asks of the cashier at the gas station as we exit, of me and my constant need for conversation in the morning.

My daughter is 15, void of perkiness this year for the first time in her l...

How to Nail a Job Interview: 3 Things to Remember

It was the spring of my senior year in college and I was jammed into a small office in the Career Services Center with fifteen of my classmates. Graduation was around the corner, and this was the last rush to secure a job before we left. We were waiting for the coveted job interview with the recruiter from Procter and Gamble for a consumer products marketing role. As a marketing major, I felt obligated to apply since it had the word “marketing” in the title. I really had no idea what the job...

“From Mom to Me Again”: 8 Ways to Get Going

Parents of college-bound kids have had move in day circled in red on their calendars for months. To-do lists for our darling sons and daughters are pages long yet, in the midst of the hustle-bustle over our kids’ new lives, how are we preparing ourselves for this major change about to happen to us? In From Mom to Me Again: How I Survived My First Empty-Nest Year and Reinvented the Rest of My Life[image error],author Melissa T. Shultz has written a guidebook filled with inspiration from launching her two s...

Executive Function: How to Help College Kids Who Struggle

When our children go to college, they receive far less feedback about their performance than they used to. Not only are we, as parents relatively uninvolved in their daily goings-on, but the institution of school itself is expecting our children to be self-aware enough to know when they need help and self-directed enough to pursue it. For a teen who struggles with executive function skills,* the lack of constant feedback in college can make freshman year especially challenging.

College and H...

How to Ruin a High School Grad’s Last Summer of Freedom

This is the summer between my son’s high school graduation and the start of college – his Summer of Freedom, as he likes to call it. This is the summer when teenagers like my son hang out with their friends from high school for what might be the last time.

Shortly after graduation, my son informed us that he does not want to work this summer.For several years, we’ve explained to him that he is going to need to save as much money as he possibly can for college. Even if his financial aid pays...

My Teenage Son is Dumb, He Thinks I’m Dumber

When my son was a toddler, he went with me to tour an open house. Within minutes he found the fireplace. Awestruck he stared at the flames and time slowed as I watched him stretch his small hand toward the hot glass screen.

“Don’t touch,” I warned.

Guess what?

He touched it.

“Ouch!” he squealed and looked at me as if I’d divulged a top-secret to him. I could see his little brain spinning. Oh she does know something. I kissed the boo-boo and I told him to never do that again. And he didn’t.

Fa...

Missing My Babies: 5 Things That Surprise Me Most

Last week after I begged, bribed and threatened, my teenage daughters finally cleaned out their closet. I guess it had been a while because as I was folding some of the laundry that they had blithely tossed into the hallway (poor things, cleaning is such hard work), I came across a tiny pink leotard.

I started to cry.

Were they not, just yesterday, two little ballerinas flitting gleefully across the stage at their ballet recital? Wasn’t it only a moment ago that every dress had to be twirly a...

Summer Plan: How to Light a Fire Under Your kid

The school year has ended and summer is upon us. It’s a wonderful time to relax and recharge before the next school year. But, it’s easy to watch as time slips away in a summer haze. Three months of break become two, two become one, and one becomes a matter of weeks, then days. If your student has summer goals—i.e. books to read, admissions essays to draft, practice tests to take—then the passage of time can become a stress-inducing pressure-cooker.

But, as a parent, it’s a tricky balance: w...

Newly Single Mom of Four Sons: What’s Up With Men?

My mother in law always told me that there was a special place in heaven for mothers of all boys. I laughed but wondered why she found having all boys so worthy of a special place in heaven. My boys were great. Not perfect. Not even close. But a special place in heaven–seemed superfluous to me. Today, sitting as a newly single mom of four boys, I am beginning to understand why God would grant us that special place.

In the early years, it was all about hearing “mommy” screamed from every corn...