Wendie Lubic: Hi! My name is Wendie Lubic and I am the parent educator and coach from the Parent Encouragement Program. Today I am going to talk to you about smoothing the transition between high school and college for you and your teenager.

This is an exciting and busy time for parents and teens and I'll be talking about the ways that you can be involved without taking over. I will begin by sharing the five most important steps you can take as a parent to help your child while they are still in high school, and then I'll discuss how our expectations and actions can both positively and negatively influence the choices our teens make about where to apply. I will also provide tips on how parents can educate themselves about the college application process.

Next I'll ask you to take a realistic assessment of what your teen skills and abilities are and balance that with what aspects of the college experience are important to you and to your teen and then I'll talk about supporting your teen without controlling them, by dividing up the jobs so that each of you knows what you are responsible for.

Finally I'll include tips and techniques for handling the emotional ups and down when that transition happens from high school to college.

The most important tools you'll need are you knowledge of your teen and their strains. Your time and most importantly your patience. If you don't have a computer, access to a library with a good college admission section will help.

Before we begin, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I have been a parenting educator for more than 14 years with over 1200 classroom hours. I specialized in teaching the Thriving With Teens class and moderate a preparing to launch, monthly support group for the parents of seniors.

I have 4 teenagers, three of them in college. I am also the author of an upcoming book on preparing to launch, that I hope will be published next year. Let's get started.