Advice to Parents of Seniors

If you’re the parent of a senior, chances are that there is a high level of stress in your house, especially this week as she scrambles to get everything completed by the Nov. 1 early deadline. Dr. Lisa Damour offers some great advice! Even though she has counseled teens and families for decades, she said she never realized just how stressful first semester senior year was for the whole family until she went through the process with her own daughter last year.

A few tips she offers are:

1. Focus on what you can control (like your grades, “rigor” of course load, college essays). (Funny thing is that my trainer for my workout this morning said the same thing about focusing only on what we can control!)

2. Accept that getting by is good enough right now. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed. Just keeping your head above water counts as a successful day right now.

3. Where you go is not who you are. Ask your teachers if they know where other teachers went to college (those who don’t decorate their room in their college’s colors).

4. Think of the college process as a grumpy roommate who has moved into the house. This is a stressful process. It’s not your kid’s fault. When the process is over (soon), the grumpy roommate (at least this particular one) will move out.

5. Recognize that this process involves tasks they have likely never done before and offer to help out/model how to write a business email so they can learn.

6. Remind them that it's still okay (and necessary) to have fun this semester. Happy distractions are necessary and don’t mean they’re slacking.

7. Don’t be more disappointed than your kid if she doesn’t get in to her dream school.

Here’s to doing your best and forgetting the rest. It kind of sounds like what my dad used to tell me every day when he drove me to first grade, “Listen to the teacher, and do your best.” Your teen will have a great college experience at any number of places. One last thing to bear in mind is that according to a recent UCLA study, 77.8% of seniors got admitted to their top choice school.