Socializing boys and everyone else for college

The seed for college attendance starts early

So much has been said about Black boys and their low attendance and graduation rates for college since that NYTimes article came out. There are think pieces everywhere and I could add to the chaos, but I’m going to take a different route. I’m not a boy and I’m not raising boys. I have speculations, but they are just that, speculation. I can only tell you how I was socialized to believe that college was not just an option but the necessary next step after high school and how I do the same with my own daughters.

Feel free to grab any of these or all and use them with your kids, nieces and nephews and godsons and daughters because it’s the village that tills the ground for college attendance.

• College tours - I’ve been taking my kids on college tours since 6th grade. It’s free and a great way to spend a summer afternoon. We’ve been to SCAD several times, Spelman and Kennesaw State and we’ve taken her friends with us to make a day of it.

• College swag - They’ve been gifted college sweatshirts and t-shirts since pre-school. My goddaughter has a lovely picture in a her auntie’s AKA hat when she was in diapers. Guess who’s the president of her chapter at college, and her auntie got to pin her. Sweet. We gift our nephews with Morehouse gear. Will they attend Morehouse? Maybe, but they’re thinking of college as the next step in elementary school.

• Home library - We have an extensive home library. There are books in every room of the house and magazines delivered monthly. Literacy is made to be something that is part of everyday life. They each have their own bookshelves and have had them since birth.

• College fund - We let them know we’re actively saving for college. We’re not saving for a car or down payment on a house for them, explicitly college.

• Explicit college conversations - We talk to them about what it takes to get to college and that they’ll need good grades for scholarships to pay for college. The end game of their academic career is COLLEGE. We ask them and our other family members what majors they are thinking about in middle and high school.

• Extracurricular activities - We invest in camps and encourage after school activities with the language around those not being just fund, but that these can help them get into college.

• Soft Skills - They don’t teach typing in school so in the summer sometime in elementary school we teach the kids to type. This is important for school in general, but it’s a skill for college.

• Gifts for Grades - Now everyone will not have the means to do this, but as parents and their grandparents give cash money and treats for good grades. Report cards are currency.

These are all the things we do and it may go without saying, but I will say it anyway, we gift books. You can’t get to college or through college without being able to read and read well. They get books for birthdays and Christmas and as treats when we’re out. We visit bookstores on vacation and have family reading time. You can find a great list for books for boys at the link below.

Now that we’ve covered the things we do, now let’s talk about the things we don’t do.

• No credit or praise for C’s. Any chatter about ‘well I passed’ is cut off at the knees. Passing is never good enough.

• No mixed messages. We never say that ‘college isn’t for everybody’. College has accommodations for everyone so college IS for everybody. We set the expectation for college and once they get there they can pivot if necessary.

  I’d love to hear from older parents who have navigated through the waters and seen themselves safely to the other side of college graduation for their children. And if you’ve got a story of a sibling who didn’t make it, let us know what you think could have made the difference.

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