THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2026 75 What FS Teens Need to Know— and How to Teach Them Lauren Steed, PhD, is an independent college consultant with more than 20 years of experience in postsecondary education and a Foreign Service family member. She is the author of College Conversations: 25 Discussions for High School Juniors and Their Families. She supports FS family members and other Americans abroad in the search for their best-fit educational options. At the end of every college admissions cycle, as I sit with students to weigh their options and compare financial aid offers, I also have to walk them through one task that adults are all very used to, but which seems to mystify my teen students: multifactor authentication (MFA). Where their parents may have been taught the importance of separating their laundry by colors, not getting in a car with someone who had been drinking, or balancing a checkbook, what today’s teens need to know before flying the nest is a bit different. Technical skills and financial literacy have taken on a new and urgent importance for the successful transition of Foreign Service teens to adulthood. Basic Tech Skills Yes, your teens are digital natives. Their hands have developed calluses exactly where their phones rest against their fingers. But while they can turn their dog’s photo into a meme, they often don’t know how to do basic things, like adjusting the margins of a document to match the requirements specified by the Here are some things you can do now to help set up your Foreign Service teens for life after high school. BY LAUREN M. STEED recipient. How can they learn this? A great option, particularly if your teen is thinking ahead to getting a future office-based job, is to take the free courses offered at www.skills.google. Learners work through the modules at their own pace, earning badges to add to their résumé or LinkedIn profile. Start with “Implement Cloud Collaboration and Productivity Workflows” and then move on through the 10-hour “Google Workspace Core Services” course to take nascent computer skills into a college-ready mastery of the day-to day-tasks done in Gmail and Google docs. There are also more complex, personalized tools like no-code app builders or Gemini they can use to design, enhance, or automate their creations. If they’re angling for a summer-hire job in the mission next year, Microsoft’s learn.microsoft.com offers the same ISTOCKPHOTO/OLEKSIIK EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT Adulting 101
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