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[quote=Anonymous][quote]This is great! I want to see a spin off on how you managed high school stress and college applications.[/quote]

There are a few things I did for high school. 
1. Each quarter I gave each high schooler a "coupon" for a "This entitles Mom to clean my room."  This way they could hide whatever they needed and hand me the coupon when they were overwhelmed. I mainly just made their bed, washed all dirty clothes and put them away and organized clean clothes, vacuumed their rooms, aired them out, neatened up desk/dresser/night table. Generally the kids used it during a big testing week. 
2. Each semester, provided decent grades and attitude, if you did not have a test or presentation you could take a mental health day. The kids would generally sleep until noon. Then they'd do anything from playing basketball all day to going to the beach to taking the train to NYC for a long weekend to laying in front of the tv. 
3.  During midterms/finals if you write the rough draft or dictate, I will type for you. If you ask nicely, I will waive your obligation to cook one dinner a week and clean up from one dinner a week. 
4.  I figured out what each kid found relaxing, and cleared the way for them to do those things. I offered to drive DD to the pool so she could swim laps if we could carve out two free hours. I paid Baby DD to fetch the basketball and return it to DS while he shot baskets for an hour. I made their comfort foods during stressful times. Immediately after taking the SAT's, I picked them up, rolled down the windows and blasted music all the way home so they could scream.

For college apps: 
1. I had each kid make spread sheets of what each school required, and when it was due, when it was submitted, what the response was from the college. As they wrote in dates, I was happy to update the spreadsheets. 
2. We did two college tours per kid - one to see schools to know if they wanted to apply (DD thought she'd like rural until she saw rural), and a second to tour schools they got into and were considering. 
3.  I purposely gave terrible suggestions for essay topics. I knew whatever I suggested would be rejected, so I did not offer good topics; that way both kids could pick those ideas themselves. :) 
4. I swore to them there would be no Facebooking or gossiping about what schools they were applying to or accepted to or rejected from. My response to EVERYONE aside from grandparents was "When Zack is ready to share, he will. I'm respecting his privacy on this one." 
5. We take four vacations a year and let each kid pick once a year. But the years they were applying to colleges, I told them they did not pick and instead I would pick for them. They were grateful to not have to make yet another big decision. I picked something I thought they'd like, but I took away the pressure of decision-making. 
6. I allowed ONE totally inappropriate temper tantrum style freakout. For DS it was stamping his feet all the way up the stairs screaming and crying he didn't need any new clothes for college (he owned one pair of jeans). For DD it was an "I hate you" with a metric ton of curse words. Neither were punished, both were forgiven.

In all, humor goes a LONG way. I have had them hold out their hands palm down, and I've slapped their hands with one finger. I've had them repeat after me "I just went temporarily crazy just then, but I'm better now and that won't happen again." [/quote]

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