Spring is in the air and college is on the mind of many seniors across the country. Some seniors have made their college choices, some are waiting for more decisions, and many are comparing and awaiting financial aid offers. In the next three weeks or so, seniors should finish receiving Read more
The new school year is well underway. It is an exciting time for high school students especially; the new school year brings with it several rites of passage in the school setting. For juniors, that means it’s time to start thinking more deeply about their college plans, though students react Read more
Now that we're safely past November 1, when almost all seniors have had at least one deadline, you may be wondering what happens next. Here are some tips for you. Relax and reboot! Take a few college-free days if you're getting overwhelmed or if you don't have any deadlines for Read more
If you are either a current 9th or 10th grader or the parent of one, it is likely that college prep has or will soon come up in conversations. Realizing this, Westtown School’s Director of College Counseling visited our ninth and tenth-grade students in early February and shared these Read more
When your teenager is grumpy, monosyllabic and irritable, do you find yourself taking it personally, and then, perhaps, even confronting them about it only to find it may have made things worse? Please keep in mind that their grouchiness almost always has nothing to do with you. The answer is Read more
There are many advantages to getting older, and I am actually a big fan of this, my fifth, decade because I can boldly say, “In over 30 years of working with teenagers...” and feel like I finally have the expertise to express opinions without any official statistics. So, here goes: Read more
Our teenagers are hardier than we give them credit for. Hardiness, resilience, grit, and tenacity are qualities we know our teenagers need to possess in order to succeed in a competitive world. But often we act in ways that interrupt the growth of these vital characteristics. When we overreact to Read more
As a dean at an independent school, I sometimes have to call parents and tell them their child is in my office and has broken a major school rule. Sometimes, in their shock and dismay, a parent will say something like "how do you know it was my child?” and Read more
One of the primary differences between parenting now and parenting when we were growing up is our current fixation on the "relationship." The measuring tool we use for this is what I refer to as “closeness points.” In some families it manifests itself in just how much free time the Read more
In our swiftly moving and shifting world, adaptability is a skill our children will need in order to find gratification and success. As the job market becomes increasingly competitive and the speed of life feels as if it is aligning with the speed of light, most of us need to Read more
