Stalk your college kids!

This video is a riot. Check out how the mom is in her “mom jeans.”

If you’re a parent on Facebook, and you have a college-aged kid, how do you draw the line between keeping in touch and butting in too much? If you’re a college student, and your mom or dad is on Facebook, how is that going?

Are you bubblewrapping your kids?

I’ve been waiting for this story for a long time. And who better to write it than Time magazine’s Nancy Gibbs, who explores why we have become a generation of parents raising our kids in overdrive, so obsessed with how they will turn out that we hire tutors to teach kids how to hold pencils, we insist on background checks for birthday parties, we send irate text messages to teachers when we don’t like our kids’ grades.

Can These Parents Be Saved? traces the history of how we got to this point.

Gibbs has gathered some stunning statistics on the injury rate (decreased, likely because parents have lobbied the jungle gyms out of playgrounds), the number of kids who walk or ride bikes to school (decreased, as obesity rates climb) and the most appalling statistic of all to me- that free play time for six to eight year olds has decreased by 25% from 1981 to 1997.

handle with care, but no bubblewrapping!

Gibbs mentions Lenore Skenazy, one mom that started the backlash brewing against all of this bubblewrapping with her blog, Free Range Kids. Skenazy has taken the heat for this role, but she’s the first one I remember proposing that shows like CNN’s Nancy Grace, (yikes!) with the parade of incredibly sad stories of missing kids, fuel the idea that at any given moment a stranger is laying in wait to abduct your child.

Look at the facts, Skenazy said in Gibbs’ story. The odds of being kidnapped and killed by a stranger are about 1 in 1.5 million; 80% of kids who are molested are victims of friends or relatives.

The recession we’re in may be putting the damper on the endless afterschool activities and lessons and tutors that we felt were tantamount to raising high-achieving kids. We spend tons of money every year to make sure our kids have the best strollers, ipods; the latest jeans and video games. We don’t want them to make a mistake, get cut from a team, or denied a part in a play.

But as long as free play is free, and there is mud to dig in and trees to climb, our kids stand a chance of turning out fine in spite of all of the overparenting.

We still have a long way to go, however. At the end of the first section of Gibbs’ thoughtful article you’ll find a link to the 25 Best Gadgets for back to school, and I’m talking big ticket pricey stuff here. A Kindle, a Sonicare, cameras, computers and smartpens, whatever they are. Oh, for the days when back to school meant a new pair of Keds and a set of number two pencils – and parents let teachers teach, and kids were left alone to dream.

College indecision? Kick start the search from your sofa

My daughter is shopping for colleges the same way she shops for shoes.

Really.

She sits down next to me on the couch with her laptop and shows me the websites she’s checking out. She goes over each one the same way she scours Zappos.com for flat black boots or shoes.com for fire engine red stilettos.

It makes sense. She’s a junior.  She’s seen three siblings ahead of her go through the process of looking, applying, and making the decision, so she’s been ready to look for a school of her very own for a while now.

It’s not always easy to engage a junior in high school and get them interested in starting to think about where they’d like to apply. But because of the growing number of incredible web resources available, sitting down and beginning the conversation is getting a lot easier.

Her top pick among all of the web sites she’s checking these days is Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. She’s already decided she wants a city experience for college, and her cousin goes there, so VCU was a natural place to look.

What she likes about the site are the big photos of the campus and the students,  how easy it was to actually explore different majors, and what classes were offered. The site makes all of that easy to find -it’s clean, clear and unstuffy. She’s interested in digital arts, and she learned a lot about what major might fit with that interest. She also learned that she might want to start organizing her photos to create a possible portfolio some day.

A variety of views of this school in the slideshow

You can even click on a live chat button to ask questions on the VCU site. That’s not a feature available on every college site, including another favorite of hers, Seattle University, but on the SU site they’ve taken the time to spell out many of the basics that a prospective student needs to know, such as what is a major, and a detailed list of bullet points on how to choose one.

A virtual campus tour is another way to start the discussion about where to start looking. Some college web sites do virtual tours themselves, with slide shows and video- often they are slickly produced but show gorgeous scenery, like the University of Colorado at Boulder. You get an idea of the area, but not a whole lot of insight into the school.

YOUniversityTV has a good start on the college tour video franchise. They are well on their way to showing off most major schools in the nation. You can get a good first look here, and save your favorites. The hosting by college aged talent and rapid fire edits are formulaic, but they add map graphics and details about the community. Useful stuff.

Then there’s YouTube. It’s the second biggest search engine next to Google, of course, and you can find plenty there. When my son was looking last year, he found a simple video tour, with no narration or  graphics that was made a by a student just carrying a camera around on a fall day, right at eye level. Nothing fancy.

It was actually one of the best ways to take a good look at the school, which he ended up choosing. He passed that one on to grandparents who haven’t had a chance to visit yet so they could get a feel for where he is. It’s lost in the YouTube pile now, but I hope more students will upload simple footage like this in the future.

If you have a student who isn’t showing much interest in a particular school, and the clock is ticking, settle in on the sofa with a laptop, or grab a couple of chairs and sit at the computer. It’s no substitute for a visit or that one-to-one conversation you find at a college fair, or a visit to campus, but it’s a way to get the conversation going.

Are you a tee pee-ing parent?

Are you one of THOSE parents?

You know, the one who answers “yes” to the question your middle schoolers ask on a Friday afternoon, as they gear up for the sleepover:

“Mom…Dad…we want to go out tee peeing tonight. Will you drive us?”

Are you? Would you? Well, I’m not. In fact, I just can’t get my head around why a parent would decide that this is a good idea. To me, it’s not fun and games. It’s vandalism, plain and simple.

The night before Halloween, a week ago, my daughter and I pulled into our neighborhood and saw a driveway full of shaving cream at a house on our street. That’s odd, we thought. Kids don’t live in the house anymore, it’s just a nice couple of…grandparents.

The people who used to live there were tee peed all the time. Once, I spotted a dad and a couple of kids hard at work over there, throwing the white stuff high into the citrus trees. Feeling protective of our former neighbors and knowing they were out of town, I walked over to ask them what they were up to. “We get each other all of the time,” he told me. “We go back and forth with this.”

You are an idiot, I said to myself.

So that was my first thought, as we swung around the cul de sac for a second look. Maybe the vandals didn’t realize that now living in the house were two wonderful neighbors who give hours to the community.

Scrubbing the brick

Never mind the plans they had made for a fall Saturday. The mess took hours to clean up.

Cleaning up the goop

Besides the puffs of shaving cream on the driveway, some of which were graphic depictions of certain parts of the male anatomy, the perps had sprayed a bottle of citrus scented dishwashing liquid all over the front door. And left the bottle in the shrubs. Along with some pet food, sprinkled around the petunias.

Dishwashing iiquid stained this door, will need to be repainted

A trail of shaving cream ran from the driveway across the street and abruptly stopped, likely where the miscreants got into the car, and drove away, leaving a mess to clean up and a front door that will probably need repainting.

Why do people do this? Why do they take their kids to do this?

Make readiness for college a reality

The First Annual Arizona ACT Conference,  “Making Readiness A Reality: All Arizona Students College and Career Ready” takes place on November 19, 2009 at Arizona State University – Memorial Union, in Tempe.

The Whole Child, The Whole World Afterschool Conference offers 36 workshops throughout the day. The goal of the program is to help afterschool professionals to gain knowledge and skills to take back to their own programs immediately.

Presentations will focus on rigorous preparation for student success in postsecondary education and beyond. Arizona educators will lead discussions that will examine the issues of today and discuss strategies to overcome obstacles and inspire students to succeed.

For more information or to register online, visit the Arizona ACT State Organization.

This is a conference for all afterschool professionals in Arizona sponsored by the City of Phoenix Youth and Education office. Check out the list of workshops here.

2009 Afterschool Conference The Whole Child, The Whole World
November 14, 2009
Mesa Convention Center 263 N Center Street

Don’t miss the November 6 registration deadline!

Add this to your list of questions when looking at colleges

The International Association of Counseling Services suggests that a college campus should have a minimum of one counselor for every 1,000 students. If a counseling center falls short of that, and many do, waiting lists for services can be long, according to a story on 10/26/09 by Deborah Franklin on NPR’s Morning Edition.

There’s a growing need for counseling services, with an increase in the number of  incoming students grappling with serious emotional issues. Combine that with the ubiquitous budget cuts and the result is many students waiting weeks for help.

Getting stuck on the waitlist for counseling increases the chances of dropping out, according to Franklin’s story. Plus, many mental illnesses show up in the teen and young adult years.

During parent orientation at my son’s college last August, we listened to a speaker from the counseling department who talked about how many counselors were on staff, where the counseling office was, and how students could make an appointment. I felt like my son, should he need those services, was in good hands.

But the time to ask is when you take the tour, or during a Q & A session.

Counseling Centers at Arizona Universities
Northern Arizona University Counseling Services
Counseling Centers at ASU
UA Campus Health

The view from my kitchen counter

zuchini and onion three cheese pizza

A degree in three?

Finish college in three years?

Heather Horn writes about this latest trend in Atlantic Wire, noting that many families are thinking about it as a money-saving answer to tough times.

Former education secretary Lamar Alexander concurs, saying that a boost in summer tuition would cover the costs for universities and colleges of maintaining facilities during a time when typically, enrollment is light.

This is an idea that looks good on paper, getting your degree, getting it over with, paying less for it. Yes, it may be right for a some students, absolutely.

At the high schools my daughters and sons attended, it was possible to rack up Rio Salado Community College credits concurrently with honors and AP level classes, making it possible to earn a year’s worth (sometimes more) of college credits. You didn’t have to score a four or a five on an AP test; you got credit for taking the class.

In order to do this, you paid Rio Salado tuition, but that was a bargain by comparison with college per credit hour fees. Not all colleges would accept credits from a community college, but many did. I knew a few students who did this. They ended up with law degrees by the time they were 22 or 23 years old. They went straight to work at that age. It’s a great option to have.

But what’s the hurry?

Maybe it’s an American thing. My German exchange student son, who will be 19 in December, is finishing his senior year in high school this year. He took what would have been his junior year in high school to come live with us in the states to learn English, in effect, lengthening out his high school years to five.

He’ll take next year, after graduation, as a volunteer year in another European country. He had the choice to do military service for next year, too, but could not because of a back injury. He’ll start college when he is twenty years old, almost 21.

Snarkmarket’s Tim Carmody writes in favor of a three-year baccalaureate degree for adults who are retraining for another career or starting a degree later in life. That sounds about right to me, too. But Carmody also agrees with Christopher Shea, who writes in Boston.com, that a semester abroad can often be a waste of time. The photo shows a beach in Spain. Too much goofing around to really learn anything.

Huh?

What happened to the value of global awareness? Even if the classes aren’t as rigorous, I don’t know any college student who comes back from abroad without understanding that the world exists far beyond the tip of his or her nose. Like I wrote in a story for Raising Arizona Kids magazine on the Phoenix Sister Cities program, the only way to overcome the ignorance that leads to prejudice and intolerance is to bring people of different cultures together together for dialog.

The goal isn’t to educate our kids as fast as we can to get them out in the work force. That may have worked a hundred years ago, but not anymore. Living in a different country, not just traveling there on a “grand tour,” after graduation, as Chris Shea suggests, is the best way to understand that Americans aren’t the only ones on the planet.

College kids should take all four years when they can. Study abroad, go on an immersion trip, a service trip. Try out new things. Take your time. After graduation, the chance to enter the world of work will still be there.

Parents Weekend

I’m sorting through the stack from my carry on bag that is now on my kitchen counter. Maps, walking tour guides of the campus, receipts, programs, the usual papers you end up with after a Parents Weekend at college.

There’s an unused ticket for a pre-game lunch from Saturday’s football game. There’s a third ticket, also unused, for a reception and Pops concert that took place last Friday night. There’s a list of stuff that I forgot to bring (red bathrobe) plus a few more items (sweatshirts) that I did remember to mail when I got home.

Parents weekend is truly a weekend for, well, parents. The university that our older son graduated from tries to call it Fall Family Weekend, but that’s a pipe dream.

Students are just settling in at their new school the first year. Or, if they’ve been there a year or more, they are well-ensconced at their home away from home. Either way, they’re busy with their lives. New-found freedom, independence. Sure, they miss home, but not much.

And then we show up, wanting to have dinner with them, wanting to go to the football game with them, wanting to hear all about their new lives in the dorm, the classroom. They aren’t used to including us in their plans. We’re kind of in the way.

I’ve been to six or seven Parents Weekends (including a few Fall Family ones, too).  I always go with the hope that I’ll get to spend lots of time with my student.

It never happens.

If they are adjusting well to college, which is what you hope, you end up with extra tickets, lunch plans are cancelled at the last minute, text messages you send in hopes of meeting up with them go unanswered.

Visiting campus as a parent is kind of like going back to the eighth grade after you’ve been sick for a while. You’re excited to get back into the rhythm of school, friends, drama, and all, after being away- but somehow, you don’t fit anymore. They’ve moved on without you.

But I’ll take what I can get. Which was a dinner or two with a happy, busy son.

Death by Sharpie

Back from a  trip to the east coast to see my son, I thought this morning’s blog post would be about the do’s and don’ts of a college Parents Weekend.

But first, I had to share this.

Honestly, living in Phoenix with scorpions is difficult, alarming, and painful. But I’m always on the alert. I believe I have developed a sixth sense for detecting their presence.

I sense tiny movements in my peripheral vision that I swear I didn’t have before I moved here.

You can get really good at this if you do it often enough.

That’s what happened as I walked into the bathroom this morning. I didn’t even have my contacts in yet; and I’m pretty nearsighted. But I saw it.

It glided across the backsplash over the sink, near the soap dish and just behind the hairspray.

My husband gets full credit for this morning’s kill.

He usually uses a shoe. But in the same way I’ve developed my visual senses for spotting scorpions, he’s developed a talent for simultaneously keeping his eye trained on a scorpion while grabbing an appropriate household object suitable for the kill.

As this one was impaled, we watched as it repeatedly stung the red Sharpie top with it’s tail. Sorry, pal.

Guess it’s time to go to the hardware store and fetch some more glue traps.

Next up: How to really enjoy a Parents Weekend at college.