By Virginia Young

The gap year has always been a mystery to me. When I was growing up, the beaten path was to attend college immediately after high school graduation. Over the past few years, I’ve been hearing from more and more friends and acquaintances that their teens are taking gap years before college. As it turns out, American students are just discovering what European students have been doing for ages. Since I have teens at home, I decided to dig deeper to find out what all of the buzz was about. The stories these parents shared with me opened my eyes to the benefits of a…

By Virginia Young

Back when my oldest child was...well...a child, I had a hard time finding good academic and extracurricular activities for him. I’d find resources online, including lists of programs which looked promising at first but did not appear to be curated. When I did find something that might work, I’d search for reviews of the program but most of the time there weren’t very many or there were none at all. I have several memories of throwing caution to the wind and hoping for the best as I entered my credit card information to register for some of those programs. But to…

By Virginia Young

As a parent of three competitive fencers, I’ve watched my kids struggle with balancing sports and academics. The one concept that I drilled into my kids’ heads early on was that school ALWAYS comes first. Solid academics will increase a teen’s chances of being admitted to competitive schools and finding a spot on an NCAA fencing (or any other sport) team. Likewise, poor grades will limit a teen’s choices for college, regardless of how good of an athlete she may be.

So, how can a teen keep her grades up while performing at her peak in a sport? I asked my…

By Donna Meyer, Editor at Fencing Parents 

Finding one’s passion is not easy. If we are lucky, we find it through experimentation, trying out different activities that appeal to us until we find that one thing that holds our attention, and inspires a deep interest. For children and teenagers, it is even harder to find a passion. Like the adults, they are most likely to find their passion through trial and error, albeit with adult supervision. 

When my 2 sons started fencing at ages 8 and 10 in Singapore, I crossed my fingers that they would stick with the sport. They had…

Splash programs are a fantastic, inexpensive way to get your child fired up about learning and discovering new passions. The program was started in 2007 by Learning Unlimited, a group that began at MIT, whose mission is two-fold: 1) to create and make accessible educational opportunities for middle school/high school aged children, and 2) to provide teaching and leadership opportunities to college students. 

What is it?

Each Splash program is run by college students who design the curriculum and teach subjects that they are passionate about. The result is a class catalog…

Finding what your child deems engaging and loves doing is important from a developmental and practical viewpoint. To find a place where he belongs will give him a sense of identity and purpose with a clearer view of what his future might look like. So, while it may be a difficult exercise to help a young child pinpoint what captures his interest, it’s a worthwhile endeavor not only for your child but also as a fulfilling process for the parent. There’s nothing more rewarding than helping your child find that thing that he loves. 

In the beginning, focus on getting a general image…

Before you think about college, it may be more beneficial to ask when is a good time to start actively thinking about how you can maximize your child’s school years, a time when her brain is rapidly growing and expanding. College isn’t the end goal, but rather an opportunity to explore one’s interests and passions at a higher level. The sooner children begin this journey, the more CHOICES they will have in life. So the answer is simple: NOW is a good time to start thinking about your child’s educational development, regardless of her age. 

Finding Yourself Takes Time

It…