Lisa Endlich's Blog, page 456
July 1, 2015
5 Ways to Keep Your Family Close While You Grow Apart
College kids and young adults communicate and share more with their parents than in past generations. Some of this is the changing relationship between the generations and some of it is technology. Research shows our children are happier to talk with us and more comfortable sharing information about their friends, relationships and finances than we were with our parents.
Yet, as our kids leave for college or when they move out of our homes, we need to take more deliberate actions to stay clo...
June 28, 2015
The “Sibling Factor” in College Choice
High school seniors are influenced by many factors when selecting a college to attend but new research suggests an additional influence: siblings. Researchers from Harvard* found that an older sibling’s college choice had a measurable impact on younger kids in the house, particularly if the siblings were the same gender, close in age and academic ability. The study found that fully 20% of siblings follow their older brother or sister to the same university and fully 31% applied to that same u...
What Parents Worry About When Their Kids Go To College
Letting our kids go can be hard. Part of the difficulty in watching them go to college is simply the pain of separation from those we love so passionately. But for many parents, (hand raised) worry, or maybe just concern, is a big part of the challenge. We worry about illness, safety, happiness, in short, all of the things we have fretted over since we first beheld our children. In the end, we know that most of it will be alright. But there is a wall of worry between here and the end.
As they...
June 21, 2015
Dad, Alcohol and the Dipping Birds
On the main street of the town I grew up in, there were two restaurants – the Edelweiss and the South Seas. How a small town in Connecticut ended up with these dining possibilities I do not know, but in any case we never went to the Edelweiss (where I imagined the women wore lederhosen and the sound track to the Sound of Music was played in a perpetual loop).
On the other hand, we did venture with some regularity to the South Seas where the drinks, with alcohol and without, came with paper um...
Parenting Teens During the Busy High School Years
Like most teens, my 17 year-old daughter is busy. Even though she lives just a few rooms down from mine, some days I feel like I have barely seen or spoken to her. On weekday mornings she is out the door by 7 a.m., has full day of school followed by a two-hour track practice. She comes home around 5:30, showers and eats a quick dinner before heading off to her room to do several hours of homework. Weekends are not much better. She has track meets, homework and then wants to see her friends. P...
June 17, 2015
Until I Saw the Clover
It was the clover that got me. I thought it would be the college acceptance letters, or the graduation ceremony, or the graduation trip with just the two of us, but it was none of those. It was the clover I noticed in the backyard tonight while I was outside with the dog. The clover that breeds the clover mites that invade her room through the window every spring. They are tiny red insects that love the warm, south-facing wall, that crawl over the desk and the computer and the window sill, th...
June 16, 2015
Going to College: 7 Big Talks to Have Before They Leave
When we send our kids off to college it is all too easy get caught up in the whirlwind of graduation, dorm shopping, packing and moving. They try to squeeze in every last second with their friends and we may succumb to some nostalgia and sadness. But motherhood means looking forward and preparing, not for doing their own laundry and signing up for classes, but for the real challenges ahead. The summer before going to college is a time to talk, really truly talk, about some of the most importa...
June 15, 2015
First Apartment Cooking: 5 Fab Recipes from Katie Workman
When we sent our kids off to college, they lived in dorms and ate in the cafeteria. But soon, some of them found their way into their first apartments. With their tiny kitchens and equally tiny budgets, they needed some suggestions for cheap, easy, quick, yet delicious meals. We turned to our friend Katie Workman for recipes to offer any college kid or young adult. Katie’s best selling cookbook,The Mom 100 Cookbook: 100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket
is full of great suggestions fo...
June 10, 2015
Lessons for a Ninth Grade Son
You are about to embark on life clinging to the lowest rung of a well-organized social food chain. A ninth grade boy occupies the bottom spot in a pecking order that was established many generations ago. You will inevitably rise from this spot. But do not be in too much of a hurry, there is much to be learned as a basement dweller.
There are good guys and bad guys and it can be easier to distinguish between them when you don’t travel amongst them. Watch t...
June 8, 2015
A Review of Julie Lythcott-Haims’ “How to Raise an Adult”
The first half of Julie Lythcott-Haims’ new book, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success
makes for painful reading. In tracing the path that parenting has taken over the past two decades, she shines a bright light on some of the ways we have let fear, competitiveness and our own insecurities cloud our vision of what is best for our kids. For anyone who has brought up teens during this era and, at times, overparented (and my hand is raised h...
