I think the hermit essay is kind of fascinating!
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But probably not best as an essay for college app where collaboration, teamwork and interdisciplinary are highly regarded values.
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Iâve become a little addicted to college admissions podcasts, and Iâm looking to find another one or two to add to the mix.
Iâm up to date on YCBK, Admissions Beat (Lee Coffin - Dartmouth), and Inside the Yale Admissions Office. I love each of these, but Iâm out of fresh content, since only YCBK is coming out with new ones this time of year.
Iâve tried Just Admit It, and itâs fine but I donât love it. Any other podcasts you all would recommend?
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Oh my gosh us too-I was just about to post! It is terrible. S24 had what we assumed was either flu or some other viral illness last week. Then, yesterday morning, met me in the hallway at 5am in tears in severe pain - the entire right side of his face from below his ear to neck was swollen and hard. He was diagnosed with a blocked salivary gland and treatment is supportive care (fluids, pain control and heat). They swabbed him for everything under the sun, did bloodwork, etc. Flu A. High fever last night.
Woke up D26 for school this morning and she has fever and sore throat so I can only assume it is the same thing. DH and I were down all weekend with fever and cough. Such a hard time of year. And of course I worry about him missing school because he is missing three days at the end of the month to go back and visit his top two schools to make a decision. That will make 6 missed days in a quarter which is nuts. Anyway, sorry to hijack your post but I can totally commiserate and empathize- hope everyone feels better son.
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While my kids were in Jr High and High School We went on a few kind trips to places fairly distant. In a few I was able to pair with work events that lessened the cost a bit. But we did SF for a few days and then went to the Big Island. Did a trip to Rome, Paris and then visited friends in Norway. Finally did San Diego and Seattle.
All great trips and created lots of memories.
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We as parents didnât put any restrictions on TV/electronics/gaming time on D24 since middle school as she always put her school work as a priority. On the other hand, younger one who is in middle school can easily spend hours at a time on computer watching youtube, on the gaming PC playing BeamNG (he is REALLY into cars/driving etc.) and now obsessed with Pokemon. D24 often complains about why she wasnât given all these devices and free time to binge on devices when she was younger 
Both do like playing on Xbox together although it doesnât happen too often due to the age gap and schedule conflicts. They do love playing card games!
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@NiceUnparticularMan I am convinced you and I are kindred souls. The drinks, the popcorn, the ânon-regulationâ of our children - 
In all seriousness, we parented much the same way. As long as grades and responsibilities were good, do what you want. They all had phones by 7th grade out of necessity. Everyone turned out great - had jobs at 16, good grades, needed few reminders about chores and things. The biggest problem we encountered was my daughterâs ADHD.
Everyone turned out great and thriving.
Not criticizing anyoneâs choices! But I find it interesting to see the differences.
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Yes, same on our end. Family road trips were frequent when the boys still lived at home, and we spend a lot of time together at home despite the stereotype of teens holed up in their rooms. (OK, sometimes they did a little of that as expected, but it was never the norm.) Games, puzzles, cooking together were all frequent. Not so much watching things together anymore though âŠ
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Same, my daughter has few limits and Iâve only been burned once or twice. Her friends feel comfortable hanging at our house, getting ready for dances, camping with us etc and as a result we know who is who (and hear enough gossip to know who to steer clear of). She knows whatâs expected of her and delivers, for the most part. That said, I wish Snapchat never existed. We allowed that in middle school and then couldnât go back. Between the FOMO and the map showing where everyone isâŠugh.
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We have 4 kids with a range of 9.5 years between the oldest and youngest. My two older boys were just a grade apart and we put many more screen limits on them. By the time D27 arrived we had gotten pretty lax. The boys are âgrown and flownâ but still love to shake their heads sadly and intone âtoo many screensâ whenever their sisters screw up. My D24 does say she worries about a few of her friends who have had VERY controlled home lives. She thinks they will go crazy with their newfound freedom in college. Itâs always about finding the right balance.
D24 submitted one last application yesterday during study hall lol. Those extended deadline emails did their job! It was for a reach school that she had already done most of the app but had one more essay. She burnt out over winter break and decided to be done. But with a little rest and distance I guess she felt she had one more in her. She just didnât have one more editing session with parents left in herâŠshe doesnât even want to tell DH that she submitted.
Sorry for all the illnesses everyone! This has been a tough winter. My husband also had a blocked salivary gland. We had never heard of that before! Instead of happening overnight, it happened right as he sat down to dinner. My D24 and I watched in horror as his cheek rapidly swelled and doubled in size. It was so bizarre!
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Snapchat is the worst!!
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Yes! This is us as well. Two daughters. We obviously monitor all of their social media and have parental controls as well as all their passwords. But we do not regulate their time on electronics or anything like that. First daughter is married now with a child on the way. Youngest D24 has never given us any issues thus far, very active in school and cheerleading as well as a company dancer.
I will say that the rules that the cheer coach made for their social medias was actually a big help and made parenting even easier. The rule was that you represent your school on and off of the the field / blue mats and it reflects on the program as a whole. So the coaches follow all of the girls social media accounts and monitor them. They are not even allowed to post a tik tok that the music in the background has cussing or anything distasteful about drugs or drinking or s*x. Being that cheer has been her life her whole life these are just the rules she grew up with. So if she had ever thought of breaking any of those rules she never did.
Every child is different and therefore they all require different parenting. What works for some may not work for others.
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Weâre fairly permissive, too, at least with regard to how the kids spend their time. We also had a âno screens on weeknightsâ policy for many years (because when he was six, S29 got into the car after chess club and told me he wanted to quit because chess was taking away from his tv-watching time), but thatâs become more lax as the kids have gotten older. As long as their school work is done and their grades are good, they can have screens.
Due to a bunch of different things, we havenât taken a family vacation since January 2020, but one thing weâve done a lot this year is escape rooms as a family. It turns out we all really like them and itâs fun to see the different things each of us contributes to solving the various puzzles. One of my favorite moments ever was when I was with C24 on a college visit and we walked past an escape room, and C suggested we go in and do one together.
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Add us on to the sick kiddo list. Hope everyone is on the mend soon.
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I can equally remember our then five year old stepping into Canterbury Cathedral and was blown away by its soaring architecture. That awe of churches faded fast but itâs a cherished memory for me.
We believed from the get go in self-control and that we were raising an adult and not a child. We never had restrictions per se or set chores. We modeled good self-control and family cooperation. We were lucky to have a child that bought into that model.
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Get Schooled By Reeves And Ford is pretty good. Comes out about once a month now.
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It is funny because some of S24âs peers and friends are currently, to put it bluntly, knuckleheads, oafs, or assorted goofballs. All fundamentally good kids, but also the kind of kids where I am asking S24 to please watch out for them to try to help keep them safe (and out of trouble), and of course do not follow their lead.
I do wonder if some of those kids might have benefited from maybe a little more intentional development of responsibility. But some of them we have known forever, and I am not sure there was really a remarkably different path for them. I suspect many will grow up a lot more in coming years, but then in my own experience with peers, there are always a few people who seem not so much interested in that overrated âmaturityâ thing.
Point being I donât want to make it sound like I think this is the magic formula to raising well-behaved kids. I did think it was worth trying, and it worked for us so far, but that I am sure is partially just luck of the draw.
Yeah, another of our big philosophical commitments is just trying to be available when they want to interact, but not so much forcing that into certain times and activities, and again I think that has worked out pretty well. Maybe not in terms of sheer quantity of time, but the time we do spend together means something to them, it is entertaining, or they want to learn something, or they want to talk about something, or so on.
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Wow, that also flashed me back to that age range, and some great travel memories. The kids could be so unreservedly enthusiastic about stuff! Big stuff, and also small stuff we would have just cruised by unappreciated, and everything in between.
And they hadnât learned yet to make sure to finish their fries before I was done with mine. Good times!
Interestingly, I was just thinking about how I am not sure D30 took to it quite as naturally as S24, but then S24 started counseling her. Basically, his message was, "They will let you do whatever you want! You just need to . . . . " And we can see her increasingly buying in.
So I think we got lucky in terms of order too.
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We are waiting at urgent care again for D24. Her cough has become nastier and Iâm going to ask for a chest X-ray. She had to sleep sitting up last night. It sucks right now.
We havenât done hardly any mega-long family road trips (just 2) because, honestly, DH is married to his job and he spends half the time on the phone when we are in the car. And heâs a shout-talker, so after a few hours of that, we all are miserable except for him.
Of course, he loves the road trips and wants to do more of them. I told him that the kids have flat out said no way and also told him that Iâm not going on another road trip like the cross country one we went on unless heâs not going to be on conference calls. Otherwise, Iâd rather go to the dentist. 
Somebody mentioned awhile ago to start following some of the collegesâ instagram accounts. Just wanted to say thanks for that suggestion. One of the schools D24 got accepted to has a freshman first year experience account and they post stuff all the time on thereâŠitâs been very informative! D24 doesnât have any social media accounts though (not even Snapchat)âŠitâs made for much less friend drama than some of her peers have experienced. However, I do think that she should sign up for Instagram before heading off to college because itâll make it easier to connect with people at school.
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