April 1. April Fool. The ideal day to start a new, crazy adventure.

Twelve years ago, on April 1, 2009, College Parent Central was born.  It felt right. Launch something that seems as though it might be a good idea and see what happens. Who knows?

Now, on April 1, 2021, we’re proud to say that we still think it’s a good idea and we’re still here. Still growing. Still finding new and interesting ways to reach out to parents. Still providing support.

We’re celebrating our birthday!

First things first

As we celebrate this year, the first and most important thing to say is thank you. We are grateful for the many parents, educators and counselors who have shared our information with others, who have provided us with helpful feedback, and who have taught us so much over the years.

Thank you.

You’ve kept us going. You have inspired us. You have taught us and let us know what matters to you.

Back to our roots

Anniversaries and birthdays are a good time to reflect on who we are and what matters to us. Each year at this time we look back at the basic principles that got us started and we reaffirm that they still matter.

Our appearance may change over time. Our attention may move from one issue to another. We adapt and try new things. But our foundation hasn’t shifted. We still believe that parents matter and have an important role to play in preparing their students for college and in helping them achieve a successful conclusion.

• We believe that parents are partners in their child’s education from pre-school through college.
• We believe that our parental role changes as our child grows, but never ends.
• We believe that parents have a place in their child’s college experience.
• We believe that if parents understand their role in the college experience they will be able to support their student toward success and independence.

We continue to grow

Anniversaries and birthdays are good occasions to reflect on what we’ve accomplished. Although our body of knowledge has developed slowly over the years — one article, podcast episode, or email at a time, in retrospect we realize we’ve produced a lot.

College Parent Central now has over 700 articles.  That’s a lot of information, and much of it is ”evergreen” content.  That means most of our articles cover topics that don’t change — even if some are a few years old. We have over 50 book reviews and recommendations for college parents and nearly 200 holiday and graduation gift suggestions. We’ve had nearly 4.5 million visitors to the College Parent Central website since we began.

In the fall of 2019, we launched the College Parent Central podcast. Dr. Lynn Abrahams, a learning disabilities specialist, has joined Vicki Nelson as co-host to share our information in a new format. We have now released 37 episodes with more down the road. We’re pleased to have been able to host interviews with some great experts in their fields, including topics such as the First Year Experience, spiritual health and college students, resilience, college success, learning differences in college, student physical and mental health, and an upcoming episode (April 7) on preventing substance abuse.

Last year we introduced a new e-book, 60 Practical Tips for Using the High School Years to Prepare Your Student for College Success. We hope to be able to add to our library soon.

We enjoy staying in touch with parents and professionals through our monthly newsletters and index of helpful articles from around the web, as well as occasional emails at important times during the college year. We never share our mail list with others. If you’re not on our list, we hope you’ll consider signing up.

The pandemic has kept us all at home, but we love getting out and talking to parents. We hope we’ll be able to offer parent workshops again soon.  If you have a group of parents who’d like to learn more about college parenting, please reach out to us.

Moving forward

If you’ve read this far, thanks for indulging us in a bit of self-congratulation. We love hearing from and working with college parents, and we believe that this work is important. Thank you for allowing us to join you on this journey.

Twelve years ago, we may not have predicted we’d still be here, still finding new things to learn and share, and still reaching out to more and more parents. We look forward to continuing to connect with and support you as you and your student embark on the college parent journey.

Birthdays sometimes involve gifts. If you’d like to give us a birthday gift, please leave a comment below and tell us a topic you’d like to see us discuss — either on the website or in our podcast. We can’t promise we’ll be able to do it all, but we’d like to know what’s on your mind.

Happy April!  Happy spring! Here’s to a healthy 2021!