With a 15 year old, 13 year old and 11 year old we think about college everyday. We were lucky for a long time when the kids were all getting A’s and B’s all by themselves. I took it for granted. Then one day the grades went bad like sour milk. What in the world happened? I thought the kids were just blessed with natural intelligence. Did they just have easy teachers for the last few years?
This is how I fixed things…
First, I sold them on not having to work while they are in school, getting to join sports teams and clubs. We talked about how fun traveling to football games and wrestling games would be. And how many friends they would make if they knew all the kids in your classes and all the kids on their teams and the kids who volunteer for other organizations. The extra time with some of the kids doing the same things would make their friendships stronger and that would make being at school more fun. It would also give them more friends to do things with when they weren’t in school.
Then I sold them on how fun it would be to be in college with their own house and a bunch of friends living with them. We talked about sports and fraternities. We talked about dates and parties.
Then I gave them an exercise…
I handed each one a newspaper. They were instructed to find a job that they could get hired to do if they dropped out of school or didn’t go to college.
Then I handed each kid a paper, a pen and a piece of paper. They calculated how much money they would make every week with the newspaper job.
Then they looked for an apartment to rent. They subtracted the cost of rent from their income.
Then they turned to the car section. They picked out cars. I printed an amortization schedule for them. We estimated the cost of insurance. They decided they couldn’t afford the cards. We looked up on line the cost of a bus pass and then looked at the bus schedule.
Then they wrote grocery lists. We went to the grocery store and they brought a piece of paper and wrote down the price of everything they wanted to buy.
The final project was to calculate how many hours they would have to work at minimum wage each week to survive.
I asked each one how they would take a pretty girl on a date. I had them calculate the cost of their date ideas. I asked them if they thought the girls would want to ride the bus to their date.
I asked them where they would go on vacation.
We then looked up houses and calculated the cost. They realized that they would not have a car or a house and all they would do is work.
I explained to them that if they got straight A’s that they would be able to college. I showed them on line the different programs to help them. I explained scholarships to them and grants.
Then I asked, “Would you rather live in a cool house with a bunch of fun friends, go to fun parties and on dates with pretty fun girls or live the other life?”
By the end of the semester they both had all A’s and B’s and their attitudes improved too!
Maya Thomas
Exit Realty Old Island Key West
1511 Truman Avenue
Key West, FL 33040
(305) 5221398
www.ShowcasePortfolioProperties.com
MyRealPro@gmail.com
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