Austin Scholar #115: How my family and I are prepping for college
& how you can help your kids prep, too
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How my family and I are prepping for college
How you can help your kids prep, too
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been up to…
Happy Mother’s Day!! I am so beyond lucky to have my mom in my life and don’t know who I would be without her. She is truly the kindest, most beautiful soul I know. I love you, Mom!! Have the best day <3
In other news, Alpha High had prom last weekend!! The theme was Ancient Greece – which meant flowy, goddess-y dresses and backdrops of the ruins. It was absolutely stunning and I couldn’t have imagined a better event for my last prom.
I’ve also been in the throes of senior trip planning and figuring out how to use my dad’s credit card points to get our flights. Wish me luck :)
Austin’s Anecdote: How my family and I are prepping for college
I’m pretty scared to go to college.
It’s miles and miles away from my family, my friends, and my home.
And at this point, my parents and I are so close that I can’t imagine not being able to give them a hug whenever I’m upset.
I intend to do things to keep us close while we're apart. And in the meantime, my parents and I have been spending these last few months preparing for my college journey. Somehow it feels like planning with them to leave makes me leaving feel like something we're doing together, instead of me leaving alone.
Here’s what we’ve been doing:
My mom has, on the whole, been helping me transition into a more independent, adult lifestyle. She’s helped me start calling in my medications on my own; we’ve tackled my skincare so I feel confident in myself; we’ve worked out together so I can continue to be active in college, and she’s taught me how to use an air fryer to cook. What I most love about all of this is that she’s established herself as someone I can go to whenever I have any sort of problem – whether that be an emotional one or a physical one (like my air conditioning not working – she taught me how to fix that, too).
Meanwhile, my dad and I have been doing things together that we’ll also be able to do while I’m in college. We watch a multitude of TV shows together that we then discuss. We send each other TikToks and X posts we find interesting. And I call him pretty much the moment something awesome, funny, or cute happens. I’ve always known I could ask my dad for help on the “big stuff” (and the more work or academic-focused stuff), but now it’s the little things that I want to talk to him about. And that’s going to keep our relationship strong.
How you can help your kids prep, too
Here are a few things you can do to make the most of your kid’s last year at home to make sure you’re anchoring your relationship for the future: