20 Ways to Celebrate your Senior
/Our school district here in Portland, Oregon, recently announced that they'd be having an official outdoor graduation. We may have to watch it virtually or with a strictly limited number of spectators, but we are all excited and hopeful we can celebrate them in this way.
But how else can we honor them? While school officials are devising remote ways for seniors to complete classes, parents should be scheming together to create magical milestones from our homes. To help jumpstart your brainstorm, here are six ways to celebrate your senior now.
If you have more ideas or have heard of fun things done in your area, PLEASE list them in the comments below to help parents and teachers around the world to celebrate the class of 2020!
Celebrate your Athlete — As a mom of several athletes, the saddest thing is the end of spring sports.
Decorate the porch or front door with things that celebrate your senior’s sport. Cheer banners and pom poms, lacrosse jerseys and sticks, baseball caps and gloves, track shoes, etc. Put up photos, streamers, balloons, posters and signs to celebrate their sport on your front door.
Create Big Heads for every member of your family just like you would during their final home game. Get flowers and create a slideshow of photos from them growing up playing that sport until today and watch it together as a family. If you need help creating a slideshow video, you can do it yourself in an app like Animoto or email me for a quote, and I can do it for you!
Similar to the slideshow, but if you have video clips of different games, create a “highlight reel” of the last few years of sports clips.
Spotlight your senior on your social media account. This is when bragging about your kid won’t even be frowned upon b/c everyone feels your pain! Brag away and make them feel special! Show images of them from birth to adulthood!
Recruit coaches, friends and family for help. Everyone feels for the seniors during this time. Ask them for a favorite memory of coaching, watching, and cheering on your athlete and put all the letters in a special book.
Have some kind of competitive virtual tournament. To sweeten the deal, offer to Venmo $20 to the winner or Dutch gift cards are still a huge win. Other ways to soften the blow of a missing sports season?
Celebrate Senior Prom — So missing out on senior prom isn’t the end of the world for everyone, but it IS pretty sucky for many of them. Though I am holding out hope for some great alternative to come forward through the school, PTO or creative parents before the summer is over, I am brainstorming options in the meantime.
Dress up for a photoshoot. Wear your dress, fix your hair, put on some extra long fake lashes, and make yourself a corsage. Check to see what your local senior photographers are offering for Prom photoshoots and hire someone to photograph the dress—at the end of the day, the photo was always the best part of Prom, AND Prom of 2020 will be one that will never be forgotten!
TikTok Prom. I have heard it is a thing.
Everyone is holding meetings on Zoom right now, so why not prom? Sure, it’s a little awkward to dress up and get down in front of friends, but if you dim the lights, teens might be willing. Don’t forget the corsages — picked fresh from the garden!
Bottom line is to stay optimistic. Being angry, frustrated, and even sad is okay for a little while, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t help anyone. Make the best of a bummy situation, and we will all learn a valuable life lesson!
Celebrate Graduation
Backyard Family Celebration. Be sure and watch your school emails for the cap and gown pick-up date and time. Then set up chairs and a podium and maybe even some speeches prepared by siblings. Think outside of the box. Even if this isn’t the ideal graduation, it will be memorable and something everyone can talk about for years to come!
Every teen dreams of walking across the stage to Pomp and Circumstance, but the next best is a parade of graduates waving out their car windows while the processional blasts. Don’t forget to decorate their car so everyone knows which star student belongs to you.
Do some research and find your local senior photographer and have them do a photo shoot of your senior in their cap and gown. Learn more about my senior sessions here.
Pool refunded resources - School sports fees, grad party refunds, and the money you save not buying food for a giant graduation party can be pooled together to provide a nicer gift than you might otherwise have been able to afford. Maybe it could go towards a trip in the future, or a Macbook or other highly coveted item for a soon-to-be college student. While circumstances are frustrating for the seniors, I don't believe this means they are entitled to extra special gifts, but if the refunded money and savings from not having to buy a prom dress/ticket, grad party catering, etc., make it so you can buy an otherwise less than affordable gift it could go a long way to make up for other missed opportunities!
Focus on the future — Help give your senior closure by fixing their gaze on what comes next. Surprise them with spirit wear from their soon-to-be school, or take a virtual tour of the college campus. Little reminders of life still to come will help ease the pain of what they’re losing now.
Take a picture — Oh, how I miss taking senior photos! Thankfully I was able to capture senior smiles in the fall, but please take lots of pics of your teens for me during this break. Remember all the “last time” moments you would be photographing if life were normal, and compensate by taking pictures of all the “first time” moments that quarantine life has introduced.
Of course, clever celebrations are fun, but your senior needs most right now is a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. Don’t try to one-up them with worse situations or rush their grief by offering distractions. Just sit with them in their disappointment and let them know that this SUCKS. Losing a chunk of their senior year is a true loss, and it’s okay for them to mourn.
Seniors, we love you, we remember you, and we celebrate you!
