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While the challenge of “senior spring” has received ample attention (“The Waiting Game,” “6 Ways to Maximize Spring Semester of Senior Year” and “Already Gone” come to mind), less so may be the rigor of the two semesters that precede it. Junior spring and senior fall define the circus that has become the college search…

The Oscar-nominated film “Boyhood” offers a rambunctious tour inside the life and times of Mason Evans, Jr., actually tracking the real-time coming of age of actor Ellar Coltrane (IMBD, 2014). While rife with the familiar conflicts and conquests of growing up as a boy, the film also tracks the identity search of Mason’s sister, Samantha…

Research from SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) revealed that parents are the number one reason why young people make good choices. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the same research pegs peers as the number one reason why they make bad choices. Perhaps the best news of all is that peers are…

Girls are on the run. But what are they running from? Or to? That’s what I wanted to know, so I asked Cheryl Stumpf, executive director of the Greater Susquehanna Valley Council (PA) of the national Girls on the Run organization and a counselor and outreach coordinator at the Susquehanna University Counseling Center. Here’s what…

Late October focus groups with teens and parents in Chicago, Illinois, and Alexandria, Virginia, yielded a familiar, if disconcerting, reality gap between well-meaning parents and their sometimes less than honest offspring. For example, a teen might say his parents give him free rein on weekends because they trust him, yet later acknowledges that he tells…

The recent football recruiting scandal that rocked West Point (Roeder, 2014) smacked of similar incidents involving both military and civilian athletic programs at schools across the country. And while the Academy sought refuge in the “harsh punishment” it levied against the cadets involved, it simultaneously pointed out that what transpired is deemed to be only…

The tragic conclusion of the search for University of Virginia student Hannah Graham reminds us of the vulnerability of young adults in college. Indeed, this academic year has already spawned tragic tales of missing, injured and dead college students spanning schools across the country. While each case has its own particularities – and the ones…

Addiction, recovery, and summer camp — four words that don’t often appear together. Nevertheless, addictions of all kinds, perhaps especially to alcohol and other drugs, remain hugely problematic at individual, familial, institutional, and societal levels. They beg the question, “If camp experiences are transformative in so many ways, might they also result in easier, faster…

Several years ago, I contributed to a book titled Where Should I Sit at Lunch? The Ultimate 24/7 Guide for Surviving the High School Years (McGraw-Hill, 2006) by Harriet S. Mosatche and Karen Unger. Covering more than the classic cafeteria dilemma, the real-life stories of teen collaborators offer guidance on a host of other issues,…

For many young people and their parents, the transition to college holds great promise, likely mixed with a smaller dose of trepidation such change typically brings. This may be especially the case for first generation college students whose families may have little experience with which to guide their new enrollees. Indeed, a November 2012 article…