Choosing a college is a big decision, and sometimes families don’t agree.

Maybe Dad thinks it’s best if their son starts out close to home at a two-year college, but Mom thinks their son should go away to school.

Often, as parents, we come to these conclusions because of what we did. If Dad, who started at a two-year school, is successful, he might believe a two-year community college is the obvious answer.

Every successful adult has a story, but most successful adults would have been successful even if the story had been different.

Daniel wasn’t doing well in school, and he was very busy. Every week, in addition to school, he had drum lessons, tennis lessons, chess club, swimming meets, religious instruction, and karate.

Not surprisingly, he was up to all hours of the night finishing his homework. Daniel’s Mom worried because Daniel kept having  meltdowns and she didn’t know why.

Daniel wasn’t suffering from low confidence. He was suffering from one of the “Terrible Toos,” having too much to do.

Now that school is starting, it’s a good time to plan ahead for outside activities. You may not know exactly what will come up but you’ll have a good idea. It’s much easier to schedule fewer outside activities right in the beginning than to wait until your child is involved and then discover that she needs to drop a couple of them.

Keep in mind that school is your child’s most important activity. If your child is involved in too many outside activities,

A 3-hole punch is one of the most important items to buy for your six-year old, your 12-year old or even your child going off to college.

Your child is going to have piles and piles of papers. These papers need to be organized. they need to be hole punched and filed in 3-hole binders. Some are necessary for the next test and some are notices about next week’s cupcake sale . . . or last week’s sale, oops!

Every night or at least once a week, go through the papers with your elementary-school child, tossing the unnecessary sheets into the paper recycling bin and hole punching the others. Encourage older children to follow this plan. It could even be on their to-do list that’s on the fridge.