Lots of parents like giving advice, but Cindy Coe gets competitive about it. Coe, the mother of senior Elena Aragon and freshman Chris Aragon, finished in second place in the Washington Post “@Work Advice Contest,” in which the winner had the opportunity to write a series of advice columns for the Washington Post Magazine.

“It was a situation where I had always thought I would be good at that sort of thing, so I thought to myself that I should put my money where my mouth is and actually do it,” Coe said. “It’s not often that you think you can do something as well as someone else, and you actually get the chance to try.”

For her application, Coe wrote a sample advice column in response to two questions. About three weeks later, the Post called Coe to inform her that she was among the 10 finalists.

The finalists wrote sample advice columns online in the following weeks. Coe answered questions about topics such as racism in the workplace and balancing a career with a personal life. Readers then voted for their favorite columnist.

“The fact that it was a contest made it significantly more difficult,” Coe said. “It was as though I was applying for a job knowing that there were ten other applicants and I could read their resume and sit in on their interview.”

Coe gave advice based on her workplace experiences as an attorney, her journalistic experiences writing for her high school newspaper and her experiences as a parent.

“It’s really a lot of what I do as a mom,” she said. “Your kid comes home with a problem, you talk one-on -one with them about what they ought to do, what the options are, and the motivations of the other person so they can have a greater understanding.”

In addition to focusing on the quality of her actual advice, Coe had to make her columns entertaining to read. In particular, she sought ways to give advice to individuals while making that advice appealing to a large audience. The judges for the contest, including advice columnist Carolyn Hax and Washington Post Magazine editor Lynn Medford, told the contestants before the contest began to make their responses generally applicable. But Coe didn’t agree with that strategy.

“Once you try to make something generally applicable, it becomes one-size-fits-all,” Coe said. “I think readers enjoy grappling with the problem in the context of the way the questioner has raised it, so I try not to make things generic, because I think generic is boring.”

Senior Elena Aragon valued her mother’s talent for giving advice long before the contest began.

“She helps me figure out what classes to take and everything, and she’s always right,” Aragon said. “Sometimes I don’t listen to her, even though she tells me exactly what to do. She’s just completely right, and it’s embarrassing when I have to admit I’m wrong.”