Winding Down Without Giving Up

Tutor Doctor
Published: May 5th, 2011

Tutor Doctor Provides Insight on How to Keep High School Seniors from Self-Destructing as Summer Looms

May 05, 2011 // Franchising.com // [Toronto, ON] – Now that the school year is drawing to a close, many high school seniors have already made plans for the next chapter of their lives. If this chapter involves college, they have already received acceptance letters. By this time, most seniors have already mentally "moved on." However, it is not unheard of for seniors to thwart their own best interests by engaging in self-destructive behaviors that can cause their college entrance letters to be rescinded, result in school suspension, expulsion or cause the child to repeat the entire grade level. This phenomenon is so common, it even has a name: Senioritis. Tutor Doctor, the premiere one-on-one, in-home tutoring franchise, can help parents to encourage their seniors, so they can reach their post-graduation goals.

"Like a personal trainer, a one-on-one tutor can help a high school senior whose motivation is flagging," said Frank Milner, president of Tutor Doctor. "The checking in and accountability factors alone can sometimes be all a student needs to avoid traps, such as 'Senior Skip Day'."

The professional tutors from Tutor Doctor are available year-round. Tutor Doctor's network of professional tutors can work with students to reinforce academic, organizational and behavioral goals.

Tutor Doctor has compiled a list of tips for parents to help their children move ahead to the next stage after high school.

1. Look at yourself – Are you sending mixed messages to your child about this next developmental stage? Have you inadvertently made negative comments about "the real world" or your child's ability to navigate it? Sometimes parents have difficulty expressing the fact that they will miss their child and instead, send the child a damaging, self-fulfilling message that he or she is incapable. If this is the case, change your statements or your child may still be living at home at age 40.
2. See if you can get your child to take an EAP test – This is an Early Assessment Program test. This will allow you and your child to see how prepared he or she is in most subject areas for college, if that is the goal. According to a Time magazine article devoted to Senioritis in May 2006, approximately 50 percent of college freshmen need some sort of remedial coursework. Therefore, the test can be used as a wake up call, but low scores should not discourage potential college students from taking the plunge.
3. Look for Internship/Shadowing Opportunities- If it is too late to enroll your child in an internship program, look for other ways to have your child learn about his or her career area of interest. If you have a friend or business contact in the field he or she hopes to learn about, perhaps he or she could interview and/or shadow that person.
4. Discuss Consequences and Benefits of Senior Year – If a student is on a college waiting list, poor senior year grades could cause the school to skip to the next person in line. Similarly, college acceptance letters and academic scholarships can be withdrawn after a poor senior year academic performance or excessive absences. A 2007 The New York Times article stated that The University of Colorado at Boulder revoked their 2006 admission of 45 accepted students. 10 of these students already attended their freshman orientation, selected their classes, or even met their would-be roommates. On the other hand, Advanced Placement high school courses give high school students a taste of college academics and offer students the ability to waive those classes in college.

Tutor Doctor is a rapidly expanding one-on-one, in-home tutoring service is designed to help students from ages three and a half to 96, offering communities and students a private, easy way to improve in any of area of schoolwork. Tutor Doctor even provides services for adults to assist them in learning the basics of email, the Internet and more.

About Tutor Doctor

Tutor Doctor was founded in 1999 as an alternative to the "one-to-many" teaching model most extra-curricular learning centers offer by providing a personalized one-on-one, in-home tutoring service to students. The company quickly grew and in 2003 turned to franchising as a way of expanding the company's impact and meeting the vast market demand. Now with offices internationally in Canada, the United States, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean, the Tutor Doctor vision is becoming a reality as the lives of students and their families are being positively impacted throughout the world. With 180 locations worldwide, Tutor Doctor was listed by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the fastest growing franchise brands. Tutor Doctor is affiliated with the National Tutoring Association (NTA) whose mission is to foster the advancement of professional and peer tutoring, support research into best practices and standards for all tutors, support tutor training, advocate for tutor certification, and uphold the NTA Code of Ethics. For more information about Tutor Doctor visit the web site at www.tutordoctor.com.