Just when parents feel they can finally relax after the insomnia-inducing stress of getting their kids into a suitable college in order to avoid a lifetime of basement dwelling, suddenly it’s time to worry about their kids getting summer internships to avoid the same fate. The internship concept is basically the same as the one that led us to press our kids into community service as if they were convicted felons; it looks good on applications. Only, instead of college applications, everyone is hyper-focused on jobs in the real world. The real world is not a friendly place. The competition for …

Have you lost hours upon hours gobbling up endless tidbits of useless information instantaneously provided at the click of a mouse? If you have, you may be suffering from “Mental Obesity” and need a “Digital Diet,” terms coined by David Ryan Polgar, author of Wisdom in the Age of Twitter. Recently I sat down with David to discuss how this age of information overload is impacting how we think. The bottom line is, all the inane information we take in on a daily basis is making it harder to concentrate, be reflective, and think critically. In other words, our smartphones are making us stupid. …

It’s official, I’m old. Not only do I have to scroll for a ridiculously long time on drop down menus when I have to plug in the year I was born, but I recently found myself telling a student a “back in my day” story when I got a look at her gym grade. This bright student, who is the picture of health, failed to make high honors because she got a D in P.E. It’s actually kind of impressive because getting a D in gym is difficult. All you really need to do is show up, have your gym clothes, and appear to put in a minuscule amount of effort, and you are pretty much guaranteed an A.     When I …

If everybody works for the weekend, will everybody work harder for a longer weekend? I really don’t know, but I do know a new trend in education trend has been quietly growing. In 2010, about 120 school districts were on a four-day school week. The following year, 300 school districts were operating on a four-day week. The idea is to add about an hour and a half to the school day Monday through Thursdays, with schools closed on Fridays, to help reduce costs related to transportation, staffing, energy and even serving school lunches. But is the monetary savings worth the potential cost in …

My son opened a door for me. He actually opened the door, stood aside and let me walk through. It took 20 years, but something I taught him finally clicked.  Don’t get me wrong, both my boys are usually very polite, to everyone else. Many people have complimented me on how nice and respectful they are, but I usually look around just to make sure someone else’s kid didn’t walk into to the room confusing the person speaking to me. Are we talking about the same kid I drop off at school every morning and say, “Have a good day! Love you!” to, which he responds by slamming the door?  I have given …

Today my youngest child begins driver’s education. I am alternately terrified and overjoyed. Terrified because he is 16 and can’t figure out how to turn on the vacuum cleaner, yet he will be operating two tons of machinery on public roadways. Overjoyed because I will never again have to subject myself to carpooling. I hate carpooling with the same exuberance as I hate bathing suit shopping. You may be wondering why I have such a strong dislike for something that seems so innocuous. If you are you have clearly never endured the stress of being in a carpool.  Carpooling is a necessary evil for …

Like many parents of college-age kids, I loaded up the car Beverly Hillbillies-style with all of my son’s essentials; including a half-dozen cans of Old Spice spray, enough Mountain Dew to keep his entire dorm awake until winter break, an Animal House poster, and my son, and headed to Binghamton University for his sophomore year.  This experience was a bit different for me this year. Last year, I was worried he would spend too much time at frat parties and too little time in the library. I was also worried how he would cope on his own because, as I have mentioned many times in various …

Dear Today Show Family, I’m a Today Show junkie. As soon as I wake up in the morning, I tune in and within minutes I know the weather forecast, how to make a refreshing Gazpacho and that, unfortunately, ‘80s fashions are back in style. I trust Matt, Natalie, Al and Savannah to give me infotainment that has been thoroughly researched and interview experts who actually know the best food excursions in Puerto Vallarta or if gum really does take seven years to digest (no). At the very least, I expect them to know more than I do.   However, I am sad to say that this morning my trust in you was …

As president of the League of the Chronically Disorganized (LCD), I have spent most of my life reading every book and article ever written on organization, which takes up most of the time I should spend actually getting organized.  After wasting at least five years of my life looking for items I use on a daily basis, I have come to the realization that the key to organization is to have systems that work for you.  In grad school, I found a way to stay organized because disorganization was not an option. I did not have time to spend a half hour looking for an assignment.  What worked for me …

A few months ago at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, I saw a mom showing a very well behaved 8-year-old boy flashcards with Chinese characters on them in Panera.  Homeschool alert! I figured this woman was either a very conservative Christian or a crunchy granola type. Being annoyingly curious and inappropriate, as is my MO, I struck up a conversation with her. She wasn’t either of the stereotypes I narrow-mindedly predetermined. She was very nice and talked to me for a while about her experiences homeschooling her kids. I learned homeschooling is way more organized than I thought and very in vogue at …

I was once again talking to strangers at Starbucks and got into an interesting conversation about how parents of today suffer from information overload from their kids. When I was a teenager, I told my parents nothing. If there is such a thing as “less than nothing,” that’s what I told them. Now kids feel comfortable discussing all kinds of details about their social lives that we really don’t want to know. Except we do. It’s like rubbernecking on the highway after a gruesome accident. We kind of hope to see something we really don’t want to see. Obviously kids don’t tell us absolutely …

So many people have asked me if my son is going to summer school that I’m starting to feel guilty that he’s not. I even feel I need to explain why, “Well, he would be going to summer school but he is a counselor at sleep-away camp and I feel that is a valuable learning experience...blah, blah, blah.” When did summer school go from being something kids only did if they were flunking out to a status thing? What would motivate high performing kids to ditch the beach and schlep to class at 7:30 a.m.? It’s tough to get into top schools. You can’t just be a really good student with high SAT or ACT …

Yesterday, I received a stack of unopened mail that was forwarded to me from my son’s mailbox at college. They were all bank statements (balance = $25). When I asked why he didn’t check his mail before he left he said, “Mom, nobody checks their mail.” (giant eye roll) Of course! How prehistoric of me! I’ve had many college students I work with tell me they never check their email either, which accounts for the large percentage of college students who have no idea what their grades are at the end of the semester. This made me think about life skills. When I was still a classroom teacher, there…

Hello, my name is Sue and I’m a Powerschool-aholic. With the exception of Diet Coke, which I’m pretty sure I could give up with minimal side effects, I don’t really have any addictions. At least I didn’t until I got hooked on Powerschool. Before Powerschool, parents had to rely on conferences, progress reports, report cards and the occasional email or phone call to let them know how their child was doing in school.  Then, all of a sudden we have current access to grades for every assignment, quiz, test and project our kids do, or don’t do. Truth be told, I’m not sure if this is a good or bad …

I will let you in on a little secret; checking PowerSchool five times a day does not make the numbers go up any more than getting on the scale every hour will make the numbers go down.  To lose weight you just have to motivate yourself.  To improve grades you have to motivate your kids, which is infinitely more difficult. I would trade places with Bob Harper any day of the week.  I spent this past week trying to light fires under my students, who seem to think the school year will wait until they finish all their assignments and research papers, while simultaneously talking parents off the …

Recently, I was reading an article online about the “Worst Teacher Gifts Ever.” The article had a slide show attached, which featured some superbly awful gifts. My favorites were fishnet stockings and unicorn soap. There was also a ceramic mug with a cat face on it from a student who told the teacher, “My mother thinks you’re a cat lady.” Ouch.  With the end of the school year fast approaching, many parents are looking for teachers’ gifts, so here is my unsolicited advice on what not to get your kid’s teacher: School Supplies: One year I received my own school supplies as a gift. A student …

The school year is winding down and, for most parents, that means prom pictures, graduation parties, class trips and lots of other fun and exciting activities. Some of us have the additional pleasure of attending our child’s annual PPT (Planning and Placement Team) meeting each spring. Fun and exciting? Not so much, but extremely important because this meeting sets the groundwork for all the service your child will, and won’t, receive next year. For most, the annual PPT is a matter of “same conference table, different year.” We are told what services will be granted for the next school year …

I have always been put off by IQ tests. Not because of my sub-par score, actually I have no idea what my IQ is and don’t want to know because, judging by my lack of ability on those Mensa tests in the back of airline magazines, it will probably depress me. I’m not a fan because IQ tests don’t look at the big picture.  The idea of IQ tests is to assess a person’s cognitive ability and is also useful in identifying learning disabilities. However, a student’s success is often related to far more than purely an IQ score. The majority of successful students possess a high EQ as well. EQ, or …

I’m a terrible speller and secretly jealous of people who can spell effortlessly. I harbor the same ill feelings toward people who are natural spellers as I do toward those who are naturally organized, another area I am constantly waging an uphill battle against. I read constantly, obviously write a ton, so why have I not honed my spelling skills? In an effort to find out why spelling is so difficult for some people, namely me, I googled “bad spelling.” I found an assortment of reasons, ranging from a chromosomal deviation to learning disabilities, but most experts agree it has something to …

Often a parent will ask me if their divorce is affecting their child’s academics, and, most of the time the answer is yes, especially when there is shared custody. I know, shared custody seems like the best thing for a child and, on an emotional level, it may be but that’s not my area. However, on an academic level, perhaps not so much. But, there are ways to avoid the pitfalls and make a difficult situation easier for everyone. I hear almost the identical story from a good number of my students with divorced parents. I ask why they didn’t do their homework. If they spent the previous night …