High School

Snowplow, velcro, and helicopter really are synonyms describing parents who try very hard to manage their children's lives. While I have written about velcro parents, I was amused and, at the same time, disheartened to discover this new, pejorative term for parents who won't let their kids be stand-alone adults, namely, snowplow parents.

Helicopter parents are real. They exist. You probably even know a couple of them. I encountered a helicopter parent years ago when I was managing a call center in Raleigh, North Carolina. We were interviewing candidates for account manager positions. The candidate in question made it through the screening interview but failed the interview with the sales managers. The next day the candidate's mother showed up in our lobby demanding to know why we would not employ her son. He was 24 years old! Needless to say, she was not successful in getting her son a job with us. I was appalled that a parent would act that way.

As a school teacher, I also encountered my share of what I would describe charitably as concerned parents. At least they kept their distance. My late wife and I acted in the same way with our children's teachers and other adults they dealt with in their daily lives. Yes, we heard tales of woe about Miss So-and-So or heard how mean Mr. S. the soccer coach was. But we kept our distance. We gave advice and guidance. But our kids had to sort things out on

As a young person, I can remember being told that I had to go to college. My mother had finished high school. Dad flunked out of first-year engineering. World War II was raging. They signed up in the Royal Canadian Air Force. That experience shaped their adult lives in profound ways. That's really what a college education should be about. It can shape lives in profound ways. To make sure that happens you must consider five metrics when choosing a college. Yes, there are more than five metrics involved in selecting the right college, however, let's keep it simple for the moment. Choosing a college can be an overwhelming process.

I am assuming that your child is in a private school with grades 9-12 or 13. That being the case, you will have the advantage of a professional guidance counselor to help you choose the best college for your child. Instead of dealing with hundreds of seniors as a public school guidance counselor does, your school's guidance counselor will be able to allocate enough time to help you with the process of choosing the right college. You can enhance the process further by hiring an education consultant. We did that for one of our daughters and it was worth every dollar we spent.

These are the metrics that I recommend that you discuss and explore thoroughly as you search for the right college for your child. Please include your child in the discussions. She will not appreciate

When you send your child to a private day or boarding school, you might well assume that bullying is a non-issue. You have read the school's discipline code. You understand the consequences for major infractions of that discipline code. In the McCallie Student Handbook, "Hazing or mistreating another person, whether it is mental, physical, or emotional" is a major infraction. Private schools take discipline code infractions such as bullying, intimidation, harassment and so on, very seriously. Perhaps you still have concerns about what might happen if your child is bullied and nobody in the school community notices. Let's review five ways to protect your child from bullying.

Be able to identify the types of bullying.

Start by reading an informative article such as Sherri Gordon's 6 Types of Bullying Every Parent Should Know About If you grew up before computers and the internet flourished, you probably think that bullying is threatening somebody physically. But it is now much more than that. Bullying lurks in the digital corners of your child's online life. Learn about those dark spaces. Understand them. Talk about them with your child. Your child's well-being, indeed, her life, is at stake.

Know the warning signs of bullying.

Read Warning Signs of Bullying on Violence Prevention Works! I can speak from my personal experience because I was bullied when I was in 6th grade. What made it rough for me was that my neighbor across the street was the bullier. He was bigger than

Editor's note: I asked the experts at Noodle Pros to show us how to improve verbal scores on one of the most widely-used private school standardized admissions tests, the SSAT. I am most grateful to Rebecca Scott, Clarissa Constantine, Travis Chamberlain, Karen Lister, Loren Dunn, Jonathan Arak, Garrick Trapp and Neil Seltzer for their invaluable advice and expertise. ~Rob Kennedy

1. Make learning vocabulary a family competition.

Pick two to five words a day and keep track of who in the family uses the words correctly the most. Players get extra credit for using 2 or more words in one sentence. The more students can hear words in context, the better they will be able to remember the meaning. Let your child choose the prize for the week's winner. To improve reading skills, have children read short online articles to you and explain what they mean. Ask what the main idea is and ask how the main idea is supported. - Rebecca Scott, 17 Years Tutoring

2. Study root words.

You may not know what malfeasance is, but if you recognize 'mal' you'll know that it has a negative connotation - Clarissa Constantine, 18 Years Tutoring

3. Create a word journal.

You don't have to know a new word every time you hear it, but you should write it down and then create a flashcard for each word. Memory tricks are helpful. Example: The mean truck driver was feeling truculent. - Travis Chamberlain, 15 Years Tutoring

Having raised four children, I can tell you that occasionally you will have to think seriously about providing some kind of tutoring for your child. Now, don't confuse tutoring with the specialized help which your child will require if she has special needs or learning difficulties. That is a completely different situation. I have written about that in When Should You Consider A Special Needs School

Why does your child need a tutor?

Think of tutoring as that extra help your child needs to master a skill or to understand a concept. I know that you are probably wondering why your child can't get by with the teaching she receives every day at her school. Truthfully, her teachers may be providing about 90% of what she needs to learn something. Now, I am not knocking your child's teachers. The reality is that every child learns differently. And sometimes it simply takes a little longer for the light to go on, for that "Eureka!" moment we all have when suddenly we get it.

In this brief video Alex of Prepped & Polished offers three characteristics to look for when you engage a tutor.

Personally, I used to struggle with learning history in high school. It most likely had something to do with the very dry presentation of world history which was in fashion back in the early 60s. But history began to make