3 Things to Know About Sending Your Kid Back to High School

Once your teenager enters high school, they’re also entering some of the most transformative years of their lives. As if out of nowhere, they suddenly have to deal with much harder coursework, extracurriculars, jobs, standardized tests, college applications—all while trying to make friends and maintain a social life. All of these things and more will shape their personalities and prepare them to be independent. During this time, while teenagers are learning how to navigate new responsibilities and make decisions for themselves, you as a parent can either be the support system that they need to get through it all or the point of contention that stops them from growing their autonomy. How you interact with and treat your student during these next few years can be a factor in whether they succeed or fail. At the end of the day, you as a parent know what’s best for your young adult. However, as you send him/her back to high school and into college applications season, there are a few things that you ought to remember as you interact with and make decisions for your child. Read on for some helpful tips explaining what your student is going through and how to help them put their best foot forward. Often, when your kid is a freshman and maybe even sophomore in high school, you may still be doing most things for them like taking them to school, giving them lunch money, and buying their school supplies. However, once they become upperclassmen and start doing things like driving and getting jobs of their own, it’s safe to say that your kid is now a young adult. That can be a difficult concept to grasp for some parents. Just a few years ago, your child needed you for everything. However, as they get older, sometimes they become more independent, which may make you feel like you don’t have as many opportunities to protect them and make sure they’re doing what’s best. There is a delicate balance between treating your child like the independent adult that they have become while also making sure they’re doing the right things (even if the right things aren’t what they want to do). Here are some suggestions to help you find that balance: Our Early Advising Program helps students in 9th and 10th grade discover their passions and build strong academic and extracurricular profiles to succeed in high school. Even though you can still help your child with their homework, high school now is not the same as high school when you were a student. Nowadays, students use laptops for their assignments, are in constant communication with their friends or peers even when they’re not around them, and are trying to prepare themselves for a much more competitive college application process (see State Colleges are Getting More Competitive. Here’s How to Stay Ahead of the Curve ). So, when they tell you that you don’t know what it’s like to be them, in many ways they’re right. As a parent, you may be worried that you can’t relate to what your child is going through or even help them out at times. If this is a concern, here are some ways for you to better understand what they’re experiencing: Even though your kid is now a young adult and may not need you to protect them or do things for them, your teen still needs your support. The easiest way to support a high school teenager handling a bunch of new responsibilities is to listen to them and be there to talk if and when they need it. Your teenager may not always be able to find the right words to express what they’re feeling. When that happens, it’s perfectly normal to not understand them or get what we’re saying. Odds are, they’re not sure either. All you as a parent need to do is listen to them and tell them that everything is going to be okay regardless of how the process turns out. Simply letting your child know that you are here for them whenever they need you is a huge comfort to most high school students. After all, the road to adulthood and college is not an easy one, and it’s always nice for a teenager to know that he or she has the resources to succeed and the cheerleaders to help get there. We at are here to support the parents of college-bound high school students in whatever way we can. Here are some helpful guides for parents going through the high school and college application process with their young adult: Finally, if you’re looking for something that will help your child build their academic and extracurricular profile to impress colleges, check out ’s Mentorship Program. We carefully pair each student one-on-one with a mentor from a top college, who works personally with the student for an entire year. The program is designed to help students discover their interests, develop significant self-motivation, and become high performing individuals.