Everyone prepares you for the toddler years. The sleep deprivation, the tantrums, the endless mess. People warn you about primary school transitions and the social complexity of the tween years. Nobody really prepares you for Year 11. There is something about having a teenager in the second-to-last year of school that catches parents off guard. The stakes suddenly feel real. University applications are no longer an abstract future event. Subject choices have consequences. And your child, who not long ago needed you for everything, now mostly needs you to stay calm and not make things worse. Here is what that … Continue reading What Nobody Tells You About the Year Your Child Turns 17