Keep Your Student On Top of Planning for Next Year with These Tips

A Primer for Registration

Registration activities slowly ramp up beginning in January. I encourage you to take time during the holidays to get your student thinking about his or her experiences this fall and goals for next year.

You can preserve a sense of exploration and limit stress if you keep these things in mind:

Remind your student that no teen can clearly see their future. Brain development limits our ability to problem-solve and plan long range. The skills will build over the next years and it should get easier as years pass. Meanwhile, support them with tools that substitute for skills.
Freshmen will face confusion through this process and about their future. Remind your student that their counselor will help. Also, with this early start, your teen will have plenty of time and opportunity for questions before committing to course selections.
While our counselors keep all our students on a path to graduation and college admittance by meeting course requirements, teens should choose courses that explore personal interests as well.

College admissions officers want students who sought out experiences until they found a passionate interest. Then they want to see your teen dig deeply into that subject with higher level courses, individual exploration, and after-school clubs and programs.

Remind your students that everyone expects interests to change. Most students don’t stick with the first one through college graduation. Meanwhile, exploration will bring them closer to the right fit.
Having a strong focus at Newport will help your teen make a successful transition through new challenges and experiences in the first year of college. Data shows that focused students don’t get lost during their first college year.

It may help you to know that 95 percent of Newport Knights who enroll in college will return for their sophomore year. This happens not just because we prepare them for intellectual rigor, but we partner with you to help them find their path as well. That process must include exploratory conversations at home.

Having a personal passion also helps admissions panels see that your student has enough intellectual discipline to pick an interest, work hard to understand it, and spend free time pursuing it.
This point is so important that I frequently repeat myself: Make sure that you do more listening than talking in these conversations. I’ve repeated below a technique may help you with discussions. The goal is to ask questions that help your student think about the information they should gather along their journey, not to tell them exactly what to do.
Remember my advice to try to walk along with your student rather than directing them. Use this opportunity to practice that. At the same time, your student will be practicing problem-solving, long-range planning, and analysis. They also will gain confidence that will help them with stress as college admissions and graduation draws near.

Try This Protocol to Engage in Positive Conversations With Your Teen

Listen for at least a minute without interrupting or forming responses. Listen for deep understanding: listen to the words, what might lie between the words, watch body language, etc. Make your focus a deep understanding, not a response.
When a break appears, let your teen know you are taking 10-30 seconds to think about what you heard.
When you are ready, paraphrase, using the speaker’s words as much as possible, what you think were the key points.
Give them a chance to clarify or continue. Let them do the talking as long as they need to.
Continue to paraphrase and check your understanding.
Once your teen feels heard (that you understand their thoughts, situation, feelings, fears, etc.), you will find them more prepared to hear your thoughts and to share problem-solving with you.
Try to think of it as discussion or exploration of the situation that leads to mutual understanding, not a debate that one of you will win.
If this technique varies from the norm in your family, it may take your teen a few discussions before they trust the process.
And finally, don’t wait for these conversations to happen. Actively seek opportunities. Seize every opening to use discussion to share your values, perspectives, and solution-finding techniques. Your teens will soon go out the door to college, and your window will close. I know, that is a tall order in our too-busy lives, but it is what our teens need to be healthy now and to take care of themselves when they graduate.