I’m hiring 4 year accounting majors (so can’t sit for the CPA without their masters) in a LCOL area at $60k this summer. My rising college senior is hoping for an HR offer at the bank she’s interning for. I think having strong summer work experiences helps land a full-time job after graduation. Food service, retail, and Jewish education, while solid jobs, wouldn’t cause me to prioritize a candidate over someone with internships in their career areas. Those jobs are definitely better than no college jobs! I’m not sure I would look at a candidate without a job unless they had really strong college extracurriculars….extracurriculars that would replace a job (which definitely includes college sports).

Red Cross minimum age is 15yo. Lifeguarding has been all my kids’ 15yo jobs.

My professional workplace is desperately looking for employees, and we are trying to get college kids in sooner vs later so we have a talent pipeline. We are really struggling to find good candidates. My college junior struggled to find a summer internship, but I also don’t think she started looking soon enough. She waited until late Feb, and a lot of internships (especially the better options) are filled before Christmas. She was applying around her college city, our home city, and the big city three hours away. I suggested she look at the smaller big city where her brother goes to school, and she was hired the day after she applied. We had to scramble a little to find housing, but she did end up with a fantastic professional internship. I’m really excited for her! So, I guess my thoughts are that geography matters. My 15yo and 16yo will be lifeguarding for the summer. My college freshman doesn’t seem to have any plans for obtaining paid employment, but he does have options.

Our viable PSEO options are all online classes. In-person PSEO isn’t viable due to my kid’s B&M high school schedule. The online classes are less than ideal, but some college credit is better than no college credit. The paperwork separates the classes from technical credit and four year degree credit, but I will check the credit transfer situation. I’m inclined to stick with our online community college classes for next year because that’s what my older kids did and I know how that works.

DS’s guidance counselor is recommending Online College in the High School for PSEO classes. My older kids took classes through our local community college, so I am not familiar with this new option. I’m wondering if Online College in the High School is truly a good option or if it’s just the cheaper option for the school. Any thoughts? if it matters, DS is a rising junior in a MN public high school https://distanceminnesota.org/app/custom/ochs/index

H&R Block is free for basic filing.

I would initiate contact sooner rather than later. All our high school sports have off-season training and practices as well as team camps. Our sports are very competitive to earn playing time, so I would try to get the individual sport’s calendar now so we can schedule those events into our lives. Here are the expectations for my kids’ high school sports: Football - year-round lifting multiple mornings/week, spring morning practices once/week, summer team camps for two weeks, fall/winter daily in-season practices Volleyball - spring club team (highly encouraged), summer practices, team camps, and tournaments (coach sets fall lineups during the summer), fall daily in-season practices Wrestling - spring Freestyle/Greco club (optional), summer team camps and practices (optional), winter daily in-season practices Basketball - summer team camps, practices, and tournaments, winter daily in-season practices Baseball - spring daily in-season practices, summer club team (highly encouraged) All events are technically optional, but the kids who attend earn playing time. Maybe they would play anyway, I don’t know. We are rural enough that we don’t have cuts or tryouts, but making the varsity roster is extremely competitive and earning playing time is even more competitive. My freshman and sophomore are on their varsity rosters, and we have been to four state tournaments so far this year. We do ALL the things. My comments are undoubtedly biased.

We would probably have a blanket rule of no to going to hang with someone whose dad has a restraining order. My dh is an attorney and sees a lot of tough situations. Usually a home environment with a restraining order is not stable. We have similar rules for kids without restraining orders when we know of difficult home situations (and my dh is privy to all the known to law enforcement difficult home situations) I would absolutely invite the kid to my home, if the kid could be in my home without dh having a conflict of interest. That does cause issues for us at times. if this were my kid, I wouldn’t turn down invitations from others. We can bake at home anytime. We don’t get invitations to hang with friends very often.

That’s my philosophy. The more hours behind the wheel while I am monitoring them and have control, the better. I obviously live in a different world than most on here. Not only do most kids start driving with farm permits at 15yo and full licenses at 16yo, but nearly all the kids have licenses and cars. I prefer my kids to drive when with friends, so we provide free gas through high school. We don’t have traffic court either. We just have regular court, and my attorney husband is very familiar with all the court cases going through our county. Teens drivers aren’t a blip on his radar. He definitely has serious concerns with certain things he sees through his work, but teen driving definitely not an issue. My #4 will be in drivers ed next week, and she will be getting her permit when she turns 15yo next month.

We live very rurally, and most new drivers have been driving tractors and farm trucks for many years by the time they turn 16yo. We personally don’t live on a farm, but we try to get our 15yo as many hours behind the wheel as possible so they are ready to drive solo at 16yo. Then, when they are 16yo, we give them pretty much free rein within a 30 mile radius and within legal limits of underage passengers. We also generally don’t limit who they ride with, but our kids make good choices and are not risk takers. By the time they leave home for college, I want them to have lots of driving experiences and to have made all kinds of driving decisions. I want them to be able to drive safely and comfortably in big cities, on interstates, and with noisy passengers. I don’t know many (any?) kids who have had accidents resulting in injuries. We hear of fender benders here and there, and of course, winter weather situations. I think the kids in our community having more driving experience than average 16yos actually makes driving overall safer.

Have you asked her what she needs from you? Is she looking for someone to help her pace herself or to prioritize? Is she looking for a cheerleader?

Our three boys each received Xbox series X. Those were a surprise and a hit, as expected. What we didn’t expect…their old Xboxes were passed to our girls, and the girls spent yesterday gaming together. They are so excited to have Xboxes too! Neither girl has ever expressed interest in gaming or Xboxes, but maybe they were interested but just prioritized their wish lists differently?

We don’t wake up our teens. They open presents when they wake up, which means we usually have 2-3 shifts of present opening. we do wait on dh & I, but we usually get up with the first kid.

I’m guessing these disconnects are common I. Families, regardless of SAHP or not. We’ve had these disconnects throughout our marriage as well, and it’s tough. I’ve watched my dh, and I see that he doesn’t enforce his own decrees. Over time, I have essentially told (maybe even more shown him by leaving him in the hotseat) him that if he wants X, he needs to enforce X himself. I refuse to enforce X when I know he won’t enforce it himself anyway! I don’t have time or energy to fight other people’s battles. Whoever is the active parent in the moment makes the decisions on these small items. I don’t have any sage advice on how to get to a better spot. We got there by me basically ignoring dh, and I think he realized, over time, that these things really didn’t matter.

IME, Debit cards don’t have fees as long as you use them as a credit card. My teens have debit cards attached to their checking accounts, and they are authorized users on my credit card. They put my credit card into their ApplePay. When they are 18yo and in college, they also get their own credit card. My teens use Venmo a lot too. Cash isn’t used very often anymore.

I must be weird. We don’t text each other any of this stuff, and I don’t want to start! I have enough to keep track of in my life. Keeping tabs on a fully functioning adult does not make my list. When dh leaves the house, he’s on his own unless he truly needs something from me. I have my job, the kids, and myself to manage. He can manage his own stuff.

I feel the working world pressure of the season. I work in accounting, so year-end + annual audit is always a gauntlet of stress. This year we’ve added two very new employees to my team, a large acquisition closing on 1/2, and our international owner is looking for significant reporting changes next year. It’s too much, and I know the pressure will be intense until 3/1. yesterday I was dreaming of a simple job, but simple jobs don’t pay anywhere near what I make. We do enjoy the $ a lot. I have to remember what I like about the larger $…college tuition, vehicles, vacations, etc. not much help with dreaming, but I do know every day is a day closer to the end of the stressful period. I focus on one day at a time, highest priority first.

My mom’s family has a tradition of getting together for July 4th which has been a really fun tradition. Weather is easy for everyone to travel, no competing family gatherings, and magical fireworks.

We have had a nugget couch for about five years. We don’t use it as a couch, but it has been used & abused over the years. We have used it as an extra bed for sleepovers and as a comfy chair. My 12yo uses it as a landing pad in case he doesn’t land his backflips. We don’t have a wrestling mat, so it’s had to fulfill that duty for my boys too. It’s clearly durable. My very adult sized 18yo & 16yo still wrestle on it, and they are rough together. The one thing that we struggle with is having a good place to keep it. It’s big enough and our house is small enough that it’s always in the way. we have kept it for five years, so we clearly find the value outweighs that annoyance. We have never really used the triangle pieces. We only use the rectangle cushions.

Exactly this. I continually emphasize to my team at work that I spend a lot of time crafting and recrafting my emails so they are succinct and easy to read. Effective communication takes time and effort. I see a lot of crap communication that people think is effective.

I personally would focus on increasing income before I resorted to living in a camper with a kid for a couple years. Increasing income would include working hours opposite my spouse to avoid daycare expense and working more hours overall. New grads in the workforce should see their salaries increase quickly over their first couple years, and the market is strong right now for job hopping for increased salaries. I wouldn’t push to buy a house until I was more stable financially. Buying a house is expensive too, and once that purchase is made, it’s difficult to chase more lucrative employment prospects. if this was one of my kids, I would probably just give my kids cash to help out. I would rather give my kids money than pay the increased electric and food expense.

Our HOCO dance theme was black out. My 14yo dd wore a black hoodie, black lululemon leggings, and black converse. My 16yo ds wore a black sweatshirt, black tshirt, black sweats, and black tennis shoes. Both went with friends, and they had a blast. I am very thankful the date and dressed up HOCO dance experience hasn’t hit our school yet.

I disagree with the idea. female dress up shouldn’t mean less clothing, but it does. Not just in dress up, in sports uniforms and pretty much everywhere else. That concept makes me angry. Why does my 14yo’s volleyball uniform have teeny tiny shirts while the male volleyball players have running type shorts? with that said…I am so very, very pleased that girls seem to be so much more comfortable with their bodies now than when I was in high school. I remember when legging started being fashionable and I thought, no way will I wear those as an overweight middle aged mom, and yet here I am. I am so thankful to see this progress. Our school doesn’t hold a formal HOCO dance, so I don’t have to worry about dresses, but they do wear hem lines that seem uncomfortable. Doesn’t phase then, and they do wear shirts underneath for their own comfort.

I look at all the girls and dresses and am so impressed with how comfortable all the girls - of every size - are with their bodies. I am also impressed that the girls don’t automatically think negative thoughts about each other for wearing those dresses. I really wish my generation had grown up in a similar environment. I do disagree with the idea that dress-up for females mean less clothing while dress-up for males means more clothing.

This sounds like a kid who needs a FT para assigned to him.