Advice for the Parents of Graduates

The transition from home life to beyond home life can be a trying one for parents.  This May we

would like to offer our friends who are sending young ones out into the world a collection of advice. 

What good news do you have?
What do you wish you had known?

Please write your offering in the comment section below. 

This will be collected and curated into a small booklet (and kept alive here online) to be given to them on May 17 (Senior Celebration).

I haven't done this (parenting thing) so I need you to make it happen!

Advice for Graduates

Graduation season is rapidly approaching.

I would like to assemble a whole page of advice for our soon to be graduates.

This sage advice will be collected and curated and kept here on this always accessible platform, and printed and given to our young friends on May 17 (Senior Celebration).  I know some of you prefer in-person communication, however I think it is important that this be collected online. 

Perhaps it is simple things like laundry and cooking skills.  Perhaps it is big stuff like 'be nicer than you feel'.  Think of it as a 'cookbook' for life beyond high school (and Running Start).

Please use the comment section below to offer your wisdom (and include your age range, young adult, middle adult, or, mature adult).

Here are my Top 5:

• Know how to boil water and bake a potato.
• Room decor is nice, but basic tools such as a thermometer and a flashlight are critical.
• Always have crackers, tea and applesauce, because college life is quite the germ fest and you never know when you will get sick.
• Some people end up on the path they thought they were starting as they entered college and they absolutely love it.  My guess is that this is the minority.  Most people change course, so do not be afraid to redirect.
• Stay involved in an inter-generational community (like a church, but it could be something else).   Peer-group-think can lead people down wretched pathways.  There is tremendous value in finding a community that has elders to trust and children to be a good model for.  All these years later I am deeply thankful for the community of families I babysat for in college.  There were about 5 families, they all practiced with our Church and happened to mostly be part of the same law firm.  They welcomed me into their homes and would feed me at dinner parties before going out.  I frequently say that they loved me into the church.  That is true, but they were also an incredible gift to my well being in those college years.

So friends more wise than I, what is your contribution to this cookbook for life?

(Advice for the Parents of Graduates here)