Category: Parent Focus

These blog posts are focused on parent coaching.

Adjusting to College Life: Empty-Nesters’ Guide to Reliving the Glory Days

By Jane Taylor | May 17, 2023 | Parent Focus

A smooth transition to college is not just about the college student. Adjusting to college life can also be challenging for the parents. On one hand our hearts break to pieces as we leave our ‘little one’ all alone in a strange new world; on the other? Who doesn’t want to relive their glory days of college?

Empty Nest Syndrome is real. As parents, our role changes, some of us get lost in that transition.

Where Are They Now? Part One.
Lynne Mooney Teta, Parent

By Jane Taylor | October 11, 2022 | Outcomes,Parent Focus

Lynne Mooney Teta

Lynne Mooney Teta is an Ed. D and an adjunct faculty at Boston College where she works in school leadership. She is also the proud mom of Amelia, a Focus Collegiate graduate.

Why did you decide to enroll Amelia in Focus Collegiate?
She transitioned from a very rigorous high school to a residential treatment program. When she transitioned back, she wanted to finish high school requirements online.

What Now?

By Jane Taylor | March 16, 2020 | Coaching and Support,Parent Focus,Student Focus

Colleges in Boston and around the United States suddenly shuttered, leaving every student in our community and everywhere else asking, ‘What Now?’

Student Needs
Such a disruptive and radical routine change has left many students grappling with uncertainty and feeling ungrounded. In addition, almost every university is requiring students to complete the balance of their semester on a remote platform. Focus Collegiate is in a unique position to help ease this transition.

» Read more about: What Now? »

Thanksgiving Reflection and Renewal

By Jane Taylor | November 26, 2019 | Parent Focus,Student Focus

Thanksgiving is an excellent time for reflection and renewal.

Learning comes about not only from doing, but from thinking about what we do. Reflecting on a student’s path through the semester, or what we call the Learning Agenda, is an important part of what we do at Focus Collegiate.

The discrepancy between the student’s personal reality and personal goals helps us co-create the foundation of each student’s learning agenda. Skill building,

How to Make Difficult Conversations more productive during the Holidays

By Jane Taylor | November 19, 2019 | Emotional Regulation,Parent Focus,Student Focus

The holidays are notoriously fraught with difficult conversations. Conversations about next semester, conversations about progress, choices, direction, expectations – the list goes on. Many of these conversations are bound to take place at the holiday dinner table.

We believe that these difficult conversations do not happen in isolation; students struggle to assert their new independence just as parents struggle to define their new role. While there are no standard protocols or rules of engagement applicable to every family,

The Crisis on Campus

By Jane Taylor | July 23, 2019 | Parent Focus,Student Focus

Do a Google search of the word “crisis” and you will find countless results. Okay, that’s not true. Google is counting. There are approximately 1,030,000,000 search results (and counting). Topping the list of crises are opioid crisis, refugee crisis, climate crisis, crisis in Sudan, and crisis on earth (this is a live-action television series starring superheroes – go figure). A fairly new member to this list is “crisis on campus,” as a recent article from the Los Angeles Times entitled “There’s a Loneliness Crisis on College Campuses,” illustrates.

Minding the Gap: 20th Century Parents; 21st Century Kids

By Jane Taylor | June 18, 2019 | Parent Focus

My best friend was “born in the first half of the last century.” He introduces himself this way as he proffers his hand to my son, a hipster college student, who ignores the hand and goes in for the manly hug. It’s a small interaction that speaks volumes about the times. We are 20th Century parents raising 21st Century kids who have completely different lifestyles, dreams, and stressors. Deluged by news, information, and social media,

Self-Regulation in College: Redefining the Freshman Five

By Jane Taylor | June 4, 2019 | Parent Focus

Remember the Freshman Five? The phrase refers to the pounds we gained during our first semester in college. For many of us, college was our first opportunity to eat unsupervised. And we did! We ate for fun, we ate to reduce stress, we ate to socialize, we ate to abate anxiety, we ate for comfort. Studies show college freshmen gain weight at a much higher rate than that of the general adult population. [1]

In the first semester,

Let’s Look at LD College Success Rates

By Jane Taylor | May 29, 2019 | Parent Focus

It’s college landing season. Social media is flooded with images of exuberant students unpacking their parents’ minivan. As one, we are caught up in energy and excitement about the future.

Filled with pride at the accomplishments of recent high school graduates, we can’t help but wonder about their next steps. We are especially curious about the future of those students who learn differently. What does it hold for them?

One in five children in the U.S.

Success Depends on Student Buy-In. Here’s How We Get It.

By Jane Taylor | May 16, 2019 | Parent Focus

All of our programs are based upon student goals and student buy-in, without them, we and our students are nowhere. Because we know that the foundations of success are desire and determination, we start with student-centered purpose-driven inquiry. We engage with the student early to create an informal, trust-based relationship. This is where student buy-in begins: we acknowledge the student’s desire and create the framework for determination and success.

“Desire is the key to motivation,