Preparing Your Teens for College: Faith, Friends, Finances, and Much More - Softcover

Alex Chediak

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1414383126 ISBN 13: 9781414383125

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

Will my teens' faith be strong enough to withstand the tests of college? Will they focus on their studies or squander their free time? Will they form healthy friendships or join the wrong crowd?

Dr. Chediak has watched too many college students flounder over these and other issues. Sadly, 44 percent of those who start off at a four-year college will not complete their degree in six years. At a time when college has never been more expensive, too many of our children are failing. What makes the difference? Character, a strong faith, and a willingness to delay gratification. And where is that learned? Ideally, at home, in the 4-6 years before they leave the nest.

In this book, Alex will give you everything you need to help your teens prepare to successfully navigate the college years and beyond. Alex covers all the hot-button issues: studying, grades, time management, choosing a major, friendships, dating, what to look for in a college (and how to pay for it), God, and much more. You won't want to be without this essential survival manual for getting your 7-12th graders ready for what comes next.

About this title

From the Author

Preparing Your Teens for College is about getting teens ready to leave the home and enter the adult world with the faith, character and maturity to be successful. It's about training them not just for college but for the totality of their lives.

You don't have to look far to see that many teens are having a tough go at it. In school, their teachers will tell you about short attention spans and superficial interests crowding out their appetite and even capacity for learning. Out of school, even part-time jobs are hard to come by, depriving them of the chance to develop a work ethic, build skills, and earn money. At home, one in three is being raised without the love, protection and security of a father. After high school, the link between higher education and professional success has never been stronger. Yet higher education has never been more expensive, and the U.S. now has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world: 44 percent of those who enter a four-year college will not graduate in six years. And 71 percent of those who start two-year degrees will not finish them within three years.  

The message of Preparing Your Teens for College is that thriving at college begins before they get there--with what you do as Moms, Dads, youth pastors, mentors, and guidance counselors. Academic and professional success flow from character and maturity. And as Christians we know that character and maturity flow from a God-mastered life, from the heart of a person who has bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Preparing Your Teens for College is about helping you raise teens who understand the biblical message and are committed to putting away childishness, embracing responsibility, pursuing godly relationships, practicing moral purity, aiming for academic excellence, working unto the Lord, and honoring God in every aspect of their lives. If that describes the kind of teen you want to see leave your home someday, then this book is for you.

From the Inside Flap

Preparing Your Teens for College is about more than preparing them for college. It's actually an outstanding book about preparing them for adulthood whether or not they go to college.
Jerry Bridges
Author of The Pursuit of Holiness

Don't let the college years derail your teens. Too many are floundering in college, losing their connection to God and reality. Let Alex be your guide to preparing them for college. Highly recommended.
Josh McDowell
Author of More Than a Carpenter

Alex Chediak has provided a comprehensive manual, packed with biblical insight and practical wisdom.  It should be required reading for all parents in preparation for the "bittersweet sorrow" of seeing our children in the rear view mirror as we drive away from the college campus.
Alistair Begg
Senior Minister, Parkside Church
 
Parents have no guarantees, but they can boost the likelihood of a successful transition to college by absorbing Alex Chediak's book. Preparing Your Teens for College is not a gassy theoretical work but a practical, easy-to-use map through the spiritual, social, sexual, financial, academic, and occupational minefields.
Dr. Marvin Olasky
Editor-in-chief, WORLD News Groups

My friend Alex Chediak has done it again. He has provided parents an invaluable and reliable guide regarding the all-important college years.
Tullian Tchividjian
Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Author of One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World

In Preparing Your Teens for College, Alex Chediak presents parents with all the tools needed to launch their young adults successfully into college life and beyond.
Gregg Harris
Conference Speaker, Father of Alex and Brett Harris (co-authors of Do Hard Things)

At a time when both college officials and employers are recognizing that certain 'soft skills'--timeliness, professionalism, proper speech and dress, etc.--essential to adult success are lagging among young adults, Alex Chediak's primer on college prep is timely, informative, and effective.  'Character matters,' he says, more so now than ever when teens grow up in a youth culture suffused with irreverence and irresponsibility, a Digital Age flooding them with distractions and vulgarities, and a college scene all-too-often taking the form of a 4-year party.  How can they resist it all?  Chediak lays out a sound and workable guidance plan, one oriented toward Christian faith, but accessible to all concerned parents.  He understands well the force of peer pressure, the nature of temptation, and the difficulty of long-term thinking, and his chapters provide wise and steady paths beyond them.
Dr. Mark Bauerlein
Professor of English, Emory University, Author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future

The common conception is that Christian teens head off to college only to have their faith, values and character stripped from them. But Alex Chediak argues that it doesn't have to be that way. This book gives parents a wealth of helpful information as they send their kids to the halls of higher learning.
Jim Daly
President - Focus on the Family

Alex Chediak has provided guidance for parents on preparing teens for college that is at once useful, practical, and insightful as well as undergirded with a clear biblical worldview.  In some ways it has as much to say to parents of a pre-teen as it does to parents of a high-schooler. The emphasis on character, conversation, and personal faith development while dealing with the pressing issues of college cost, selection, and value, is both wonderfully practical and deeply spiritual.  Parenting an emerging adult in the "habit forming period of life" and assisting her to come to grips with full personal ownership of faith is messy.   The six marks of college readiness are extremely helpful as benchmarks for parenting priorities during a young person's high school years. This book will be a great resource to any parent, youth pastor, or school guidance counselor who is involved in leading, advising, and coaching a teen for responsible Christian adulthood.
Derek J. Keenan, EdD.
Vice President, Academic Affairs, Association of Christian Schools International   

In his book, Preparing Your Teens for College, Alex helps parents realize that our hard work of preparation has a lot more to do with getting them ready for life than with getting them into the "right" college. And, preparation involves much less doing everything for our kids, and much more equipping them to be able to do things for themselves. As kids step up, they and we get a better indication of their unique giftedness - an important consideration, especially as it relates to life's next step.
Kay Wills Wyma
Author of Cleaning House - A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement

In my work with Christian college students, I know that significant numbers of them arrive at school without adequate preparation for what they will encounter. This is the case at our local state university and New St. Andrews, the Christian college I am associated with. Now for those who know what these kids should be doing, certain things might seem to 'go without saying,' but that is unfortunately not the case. They don't go without saying. What many Christian families need at this point is some sturdy horse sense, grounded in Scripture. Preparing Your Teens for College meets this need in an admirable way.
Douglas Wilson
Pastor, Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho, Author of The Case for Classical Christian Education

This book does more than show parents that they can prepare their children for college. It offers specific, practical, wise advice on the larger task of raising teenagers, including topics that often prove most daunting for parents:  instilling sexual morality, forming positive friendships, dealing with peer pressure, handling social media, and internalizing their faith.  In addition to useful tips for helping sons and daughters choose and succeed in higher education, whether at a university or a trade school, this book can function as a guide for Christian families in one of the most important tasks of parenthood: teaching children how to be adults. 
Dr. Gene Edward Veith
Provost of Patrick Henry College, Author of Loving God with All Your Mind 

Alex Chediak has provided us with a much-needed and thoughtfully-written guide for parents, guidance counselors, and educators alike.  The insights found in this outstanding book will be most beneficial for those who invest the time to read and reflect upon Chediak's wise words.  Heartily recommended!
Dr. David S. Dockery
President, Union University

Combining practical experience with research, Alex Chediak helps teens (and their parents) prepare for the migration to adulthood.  As that migration is made increasingly later in life these days, the wisdom laced throughout this book is welcome indeed.
Dr. Michael Horton
Professor of Theology, Westminster Seminary California

Preparing Your Teens for College is relevant, accessible, insightful and practical. But best of all it is biblical. This is not a book of helpful hints from a wise man on guiding older teens. It is instead a faithful book of soundly applied biblical wisdom on guiding older teens. Alex has a rare ability to lead the reader to not just compare the Bible to the culture's expectations of what is normal, but to demonstrate the beauty the flows from submission to the Word. Our Lord sets before us life and death. Alex powerfully communicates the wisdom and beauty of life.
Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr.
Associate Professor, Reformation Bible College (and father of eight)

This book helps calm parents' fears in sending their children to college. With tremendous insight and wisdom, Dr. Chediak helps to prepare parents to prepare their children for college. I know of no other book that deals with many of the hard questions this book helps to answer.
Burk Parsons
Co-pastor, Saint Andrew's Chapel, Editor, Tabletalk magazine

Edition details

• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1414383126
• ISBN 13: 9781414383125
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 448