Welcome to college decision season, a time filled with anxiety, tears, and, unfortunately, rejection. College rejection impacts the whole family, but in the midst of all the tears, it’s important for teens to remember that a college rejection has no correlation with how smart we are and what kind of people we are. There are millions of teens that feel exactly the same, so if your child falls victim to college rejection, here are some ways you can help them out.
1. Cry With Them: Don’t let your child mourn alone. Let them know that it’s okay to be sad and okay to mourn. This is the biggest decision in most teens lives thus far and to be rejected is heartbreaking. In my opinion, college rejections are like breakups: you will miss the feeling of connection that you felt with the school, but you can’t wait until the day where you move on and try new things. So let your child eat their tear-filled ice cream and mourn the loss of a long-lasting connection with the school that rejected them. 2. Distract Them: Although it is difficult to mask sadness, just doing something can help. These distractions can take many forms and that depends on what your child has fun doing. All I am saying is, there's only so much moping a teen can do, so take them out into the world and keep them busy and distracted. Moping is healthy to some extent, but when it comes to be too much, sometimes a little push to do something really helps. 3. Get Them Excited: Remind them that they belong at a school that wants them! My parents were incredibly supportive of the choices I made during my application process, but they do have other ideas for me that they have expressed. For example, my dad travels to DC often, so he expressed a lot of excitement that I applied there for college. That lifted my spirits a lot. If this isn’t the case for your family, then find a way to make your teen excited about their other options and try to bring a little hope and excitement into this sad time. Rejection is a scary thing that can make us feel like life is over, but instead of acting like it’s the end, we need to try and have some hope, optimism, and strength for the future. I hope you all enjoyed this post and I am crossing my fingers that your teens get into the schools they want, but if they don’t, you know what to do.
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Hey everyone! Quick self promotion!
I am so excited and honored to announce that a project that I have been working on has been nominated for a Diller Teen Award. The project is called The Worthy Project, which includes a free sign language course that helps me work toward my overarching goal of creating a space for minority groups to express themselves and make their voices heard. If you want to learn more about the site, visit https://aslintrocourse.weebly.com !! Welcome to any new subscribers! I am so sorry for my nearly 2 month hiatus. As a senior, I have been finishing college apps, polishing off my community service hours, and building my resume, but I am back and more inspired than ever! As an insider, I love observing the teenage world and seeing what has been trending over the past year. Here are some things I observed!
Fashion: Parents, get ready to have a major throwback because the latest trends circulating the teenage fashion world has been 80’s and 90’s pieces like colorful turtlenecks, fuzzy sweaters, and lots of denim. The new staple clothing items are now crop tops, and us teens are never afraid to chop off the bottom of our shirts to fit the trend. When we aren’t in the mood to chuck on our high-waisted denim and a nice top, a cute set of workout clothes will always suffice. “Athleisure” is always the go-to, whether we are going to the gym or not. The new teen style has evolved into dressing for comfort, which I think is brilliant. With all of the stress going on in our lives, we need a nice pair of jogger-style sweatpants to make life a little easier. Activism: Walk into any trendy store (urban outfitters for example) and you will find clothing that promotes gender equality. It’s everywhere. Not only is gender equality trendy, but gender acceptance is too. As of now there are 63 established genders, 3 of which are most common - male, female, and transgender, and teens are pioneering this movement of acceptance. Transgender is not what it used to be and trans teens and young adults are making us more aware of that. If you want to learn more about gender acceptance, educate yourselves with this documentary by National Geographic! Education is a prerequisite to acceptance and if your teen is accepting, maybe you should be too. Social Media: I’m sure you parents already know about this, but social media is a large part of a teens daily life: It affects our work habits, our friendships, and our social life. As great as social media can be though, it’s important to make sure your teen is not abusing it. When new apps or platforms emerge, we get more insight into other people’s lives which can be beneficial and detrimental. In my opinion, social media isn’t going away anytime soon, so make sure that your teen is using it in moderation and it is not messing with their mental health or well-being. If you want to know what your teen is doing on social media, go check on my post on Raising Teens Blog! Love and Relationships: As I have been getting older, I have kept in touch with very few people from my childhood (elementary school and middle school). But, of course, social media has helped me know everything I need to know about their lives. I have noticed that the people who used to be obsessed with hookup culture have now settled down and are getting into serious relationships, many of which, are being carried on to college. This definitely isn’t the case for all teens, but I think that hookup culture wears off as we get older. Hookups and relationships are both experiences that teens want to have before they go to college, and as we have gotten older, relationships are trendy! I encourage you all to contact me (you can find the form under “contacts” on my home page) if you have any questions about your teens, broad or specific. I am always looking for relatable topics to write about that will give you more insight on teenage life! I recently received this letter from a loved one about some tips for senior year. After my never-ending junior year, I needed something like this to adjust my perspective and get me excited about the year to come. Sometimes, we fail to realize how valuable something is until we hear another perspective on the matter.
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