The reactions to my most recent weekly columns, “In Defense of Helicopter Parents” and “Is the SAT Obsolete?” have been fast, furious and too numerous to reply to each of you individually. This development convinced me that now is the time to launch something on the drawing boards for awhile here at College Parents of America. Yes, we’re creating a blog and, for this one time only, we are pushing it out to you for a look-see.

We’re calling it “Hoverings: A Blog for College Parents.” It is intended to empower you to clear your child’s path to and through college. The blog won’t replace my weekly column (which I will still push to you), though I do envision that it will be a place where we can continue the conversation that begins with my column, a complete archive of which is available here.

From now on, you will have two choices about how to get in touch with me. You can still e-mail me directly the old-fashioned way, either by responding to my column or writing a message from scratch and sending it to jboyle@collegeparents.org. That way your comments to me will remain confidential, and our dialogue will be private. However, I often find myself wanting to share the comments you send me with your peers, the nearly one hundred thousand other current or future college parents who are recipients of the column. This blog will accomplish that, as your comments (if you choose) will be posted for all to see.

I’m told that blog entries should be short, so I’ll sign off for now and come back another day soon, but on no particular set schedule. And yes, the “Hoverings” title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but this “helicopter parent” thing is on quite a media ride right now, so I figured that we might as well capitalize. “Hoverings” is sort of my College Parents of America way of saying “Musings,” though I hope that my thoughts will be a little more cogent than the analogy implies.

I’ll be back again soon,

James A. Boyle