College Parent Central Podcast
You don’t stop parenting the day you drop your student off to college on Move-in Day. Your role simply changes. (Actually, it’s not simple at all, but it changes.) You’re a parent for life. Join Lynn Abrahams and Vicki Nelson, higher education professionals and former college parents, as they explore the topics that can help you be a more effective and supportive parent to your college bound student. Whether you already have a child in college, college is still a year or more away, or your student is about to step out, start now to gather the information that empowers you to be an effective college success coach to your student.
Episodes
133 episodes
#133 Rekindling Your Child's Motivation: an Interview with Ellen Braaten
What happens when bright, capable students seem completely unmotivated about their future? Dr. Ellen Braaten, author of Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less joins us to unpack this phenomenon that can leave you feeling frustrated a...
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Season 6
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Episode 133
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50:00
#132 – What’s Your Student’s College Timeline?
You send your student off to college and you’re already anticipating that Commencement Ceremony four years later. But traditional four-year college timelines are becoming less common as students forge their own unique educational paths. In this...
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Season 6
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Episode 132
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44:48
#131 The Bigger Picture: Neurodiversity and College
Elizabeth and Vicki were joined in this episode by Jane Thierfeld-Brown and Lorraine Wolf, important experts in disability services in higher education. Jane and Lorre shared their insights into the complexities that autistic students fac...
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Season 6
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Episode 131
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58:15
#130 – A New Approach to Career Readiness – and What Does a College President Do, Anyway?
Vicki and Lynn were thrilled to be joined in this episode by Jay Gonzalez, president of Curry College, to learn more about what college presidents do and why it matters. With his background in business, politics and law, Jay brings a weal...
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Season 6
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Episode 130
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46:54
#129 – Raising the Self-Driven Child: A Conversation with Authors Ned Johnson and Bill Stixrud
In this episode, Elizabeth and Vicki are joined by education experts Ned Johnson and Bill Stixrud, authors of the book The Self-Driven Child and of the new workbook for parents, 7 Principles for Raising the Self Driven Child for a thought...
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Season 6
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Episode 129
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1:08:03
#128 Help Your Student Complete Challenging Required Courses
Almost all colleges have a set of required courses for all students – sometimes called General Education or Distribution courses. They’re designed to expose students to a variety of different subjects and disciplines. But what happens when that...
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43:44
#127 – Encore Episode – Navigating College Financial Decisions: An Interview with New York Times Bestselling Author Ron Lieber
If you are in the midst of the college search and admission process, financing this college education is likely top of mind. Merit aid is an important part of many financial packages and there’s no one better to talk to about the topic than Ron...
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42:05
#126 They're Back! Parenting Our Boomerang Kids
Nearly half of recent college graduates are finding themselves back in their childhood bedrooms, and it’s not just nostalgia pulling them home. Financial pressures are nudging this generation towards a new developmental stage of life. These shi...
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Season 6
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Episode 126
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42:45
#125 – Encore Episode – Second Semester of College: The Transition No One Talks About
The transition to second semester of college is so important – and often hidden – that we’ve decided to share this episode again. You and your student may be taken by surprise when the start of the second semester of college seems so difficult....
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Season 6
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Episode 125
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40:11
#124 – Looking Back at 2024 and Season 5 of the College Parent Central Podcast
This is the time of year when we reflect on the year and another season of the College Parent Central podcast. It’s been a busy year for all of our cohosts, Vicki, Lynn, Elizabeth and Sarah. It’s always fun to get all of us together to share th...
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Season 5
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Episode 124
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1:13:06
#123 – Is Your Student Ready to Be a Citizen? It’s Never Too Late to Learn.
We were excited to have a chance to talk to Lindsey Cormack for this podcast episode. Lindsey is the author of the book How to Raise a Citizen (and why it’s up to you to do it.) Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about how our students l...
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Season 5
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Episode 123
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41:23
#122 – Encore Episode - Signs of Trouble: How Do You Know If Your Student Is Struggling
Once your child steps into the world of college – even if it is in the next room – both parents and students begin experiencing a new stage in development. Students are exploring the academic and social world of college; parents are exploring t...
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Season 5
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Episode 122
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40:40
#121 - College Lingo - Can You Talk the Talk? - Part 4
So many mysterious terms and acronyms to understand when your student heads off to college! You’ll understand how college works better when you understand the strange terms they use. In our fourth installment of our College Lingo series, Vicki ...
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Season 5
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Episode 121
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53:09
#120 – Partnering with Your Student’s High School Counselor
Just about anyone who has a student in school knows there are school counselors, but many of us don’t have any idea what they do. We know they provide guidance and assistance with college and career planning, but that’s just one part of the car...
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Season 5
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Episode 120
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59:27
#119 – Why Sleep Matters: A Conversation with Lisa Lewis, Author of The Sleep Deprived Teen
Most of us probably know that getting enough sleep makes us feel better, but there’s so much more to it than that – especially for our teens. In this episode, Vicki and Elizabeth talk with Lisa Lewis, author of the book The Sleep Deprived Teen:...
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Season 5
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Episode 119
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51:22
#118 – Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Focusing on the Strengths of First Generation Students
Zachary DesJardins and John Martinez are Academic Advisors at the State University of New York at Albany, and they work with students every day. In this conversation we learned how important it is for all of us to recognize that we are in a con...
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Season 5
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Episode 118
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1:13:41
#117 – Supporting Your Student’s Mental Health: A Conversation with Dr. Bianca Busch, The College Psychiatrist
If you want to know how to best support your college student through potential mental health or anxiety issues, who better to ask than a psychiatrist? That’s exactly what Vicki and Elizabeth did in this episode. We were joined by Dr. Bianca Bus...
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Season 5
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Episode 117
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1:00:41
#116 – Encore Episode - Transitioning from Summer to College: The Importance of the First Six Weeks
This subject is so important we decided to share it again. In this final part of our summer college preparation series, Lynn and Vicki discuss how to support your student on Move-In Day and throughout their first six weeks on campus. Parents an...
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Season 5
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Episode 116
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44:04
#115 – Zooming Out on the College Experience: Taking the Long (and Wide) View
Preparing for and transitioning into the first year of college involves so many, many details, and it’s easy to get caught up in just getting through what needs to be done. Then the college experience can be taken over by the day-to-day details...
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Season 5
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Episode 115
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35:57
#114 Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable: A Conversation with Author Harlan Cohen
Vicki and Elizabeth had a wide-ranging conversation with Harlan Cohen, college transition expert and author of The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into In College. Harlan shared why the transition to college can be so difficu...
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Season 5
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Episode 114
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58:20
#113 – Talking About Tutoring: Who, When, and Why It Matters
Talking about tutoring is a new topic for our podcast, but we are finding that college parenting begins earlier and earlier, and parents are making many early decisions with future college potential in mind. In this episode, Vicki was pleased t...
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Season 5
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Episode 113
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44:11
#112 – Our Favorite Summer Reads
This episode is sort-of an encore episode. Each year we do an episode where we share some of our favorite – and helpful – books for college parents. This year, we realized that many of the books that we’ve talked about over the past four years ...
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Season 5
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Episode 112
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37:40
#111 – What’s Next? No Longer “Almost” a College Student: the Job Starts Now!
Once your student makes their final college decision and puts down that important deposit, they enter a new leg of the college journey. Sure, you know there will be lots of preparation work ahead – summer decisions, shopping, good-byes, packing...
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Season 5
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Episode 111
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52:55
#110 – A Guide to Your College Student’s Health: A Conversation with Dr. Jill Grimes the “College Doc”
When our student heads off to college, we worry about a lot of things, and one of the primary concerns is our student’s health and well-being. We first interviewed Dr. Jill Grimes, often dubbed the “College Doc” because of her focus on the heal...
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Season 5
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Episode 110
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55:02
#109 – Encore Episode -The College Decision Dilemma: What Happens Once Those Admission Letters Arrive?
Here’s an encore of an earlier podcast episode that we think is so important it deserves to be released again. If your student is making their decision right now, you may need to hear this. The college admission process begins earlier and earli...
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Season 5
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Episode 109
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38:48