WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PARENTING A COLLEGE STUDENT
Having your child begin his or her college career can be a stressful experience for parents, especially if your son or daughter hasn’t lived away from home before. During this important time of transition for the family, many parents put their own feelings and reactions on hold while helping their child prepare for college life. Attending to your own emotional needs, however, as well as your child’s, will go a long way toward helping everyone feel comfortable with the challenge that going to college represents.
The developmental issues of young adulthood are as significant as those of a developing toddler. In the four (or five) years of being a college parent, you will once again see your child struggling to walk on his or her own, perhaps falling and scraping knees, going in new directions, and also experiencing the euphoria of discovery. You will once again be asked to “let go.” The transition from adolescence to young adulthood and maturity is called “individuation,” that is, becoming a person in one’s own right, not merely an extension and junior edition of one’s parents. This is a time of uncertainty, questioning, experimentation, and vulnerability. College students find themselves in a largely unrecognized turmoil, confronted with new rules of interaction, new lifestyles, and a lack of familiar structure. This leads to a great deal of self-evaluation, comparing previous structures (from home and high school) with new ideas.
During the college years the student essentially recreates him or herself, using the sense of value you have embedded as the cornerstone. The intellectual stimulation of college introduces new horizons of thought which the student must examine and integrate into his or her view of the world. Responsibilities and problems will arise which the student will have to learn to negotiate on his or her own. As with a toddler, you will be asked to guide and instruct, to maintain loving contact, and also to allow the student to learn to walk alone, bruises and all, in order to discover new horizons.
Coming to a new and unfamiliar social environment, students will directly or vicariously witness many new models of parenting and family, and even different hometown environments. This can stimulate new awareness about who they are, where they come from, and what they need. It can even re-stimulate memories from the past. In some courses, new students may face a new level of academic standards and competition that can create anxiety and threaten self-esteem.
This can lead to compensatory behaviors such as test anxiety, writer’s block, perfectionism, or depression. Parents need to be aware of these issues in order to help their student.
Adjusting to College (Rosenberg, College Life, 1992)
Adjusting to college is a natural process of both loss and orientation to novelty. This can be overwhelming. It is an emotionally loaded period of contrasts, contradictions, hype, and drama. One person may feel very alone and scared. Others may feel excited and overindulge in newfound freedom. Whatever a student feels when he/she first arrives at college is normal. Each person will react a bit differently, depending on a variety of factors:
- If the student doubts his/her ability to get along with a roommate;
- If the student never shared a room before;
- If the student has a wavering level of self-confidence;
- If the student is worried about how he/she will fit in;
- If the student feels set apart by differences such as race, nationality, language, appearance, or disability;
- If the student has never been away from home before;
- If the student is attending college in a geographic area very different from the home area;
- If the student had a rough time saying goodbye to friends and significant others;
- If the student is panicked about being able to handle the work;
- If the student is pressured financially;
- If the student is worried about things at home.
A YEAR AT COLLEGE: Heads Up for Parents
Along with the thrill of learning and the euphoria of young adulthood, college brings challenges. The typical college year has cycles of ups and downs in the level of challenge and stress experienced by students. Below is an outline of an academic year, emphasizing some common problem. Stress issues vary according to the individual, time of year, and class of the student. The more aware that parents are of the tides of the semester, the more they can do to normalize their student’s experiences and help them through them.
Fall Semesters
September Stressors
- Homesickness, especially for those who have never lived away from home or have had a very happy childhood
- Fears of inadequacy or not fitting in.
- Longing for the strong friendships left behind at home or in high school.
- Getting to know new people, making college friends, and finding an initial niche (someone to go to meals with, someone to hang out with).
- Ending summer romances or maintaining long-distance romantic relationships.
- Adjustment to living with roommates.
- Learning to take care of daily personal needs without parental direction or support: organization, laundry, expenses, eating well, health care, adequate sleep, housekeeping, responsible socializing, etc.
- Challenges of managing freedom. Making lifestyle decisions regarding drug and alcohol experimentation, morality, class attendance, and social pressures.
- Learning time management and dealing with the college work load, which is often surprisingly more than that of high school.
October Stressors
- Academic demands increase prior to Thanksgiving Vacation; poor study and time management skills manifest themselves.
- Consequences of poor judgment during early semester may arise (remorse over sexual behavior, notices about academic deficiencies, campus judicial system, etc.)
- Mid-term pressures may weaken one’s immune system: colds, stress-related illnesses arise.
- Mid-term grades are issued.
- Some first-year students may experience depression and increased anxiety because adjustment seems too slow.
- For student and their families, Thanksgiving Vacation is often the first extended trip home from school.
November-December Stressors
- For first-year students the novelty is wearing off. They may begin to realize that life at college is not the ideal they imagined. Old problems may continue, and new challenges are added.
- Roommate and social tensions may arise prior to vacations.
- Colds, stress-related illnesses increase.
- Most first-year students have an initial group of friends; others experience tension as friendships shift to other groups. Some may question college choice as loneliness and adjustment are still an issue.
- Financial strain because of planned holiday gifts and travel expenses, funds from parents and summer earnings may have begun to run out.
- Between semester employment search begins.
- Extracurricular time strain: seasonal parties, social service projects, and religious activities divert student energies.
- Pressures increase as final exams approach and papers are due.
- Roommate and social tensions increase as all students are under stress.
- Romantic relationships: deciding how to weather the month-long separation
- Pre-holiday worries, especially for those who have concerns for family, those who have no home to visit, and for those who prefer not to go home because of family conflicts.
Spring Semesters:
January – February Stressors
- Readjustment to school and again being away from home security and friends.
- Seasonal depression and lethargy are at their peak due to weather, darkness, lack of outdoor activities, isolation. College has lost its novelty.
- Friends experience loss as some students don’t return.
- Colds, flu, and snow days may interfere with academic performance.
March Stressors
- Social scene picks up; decisions increase about drug and alcohol use, morality, and time management.
- Academic pressure may begin to mount because of procrastination, difficulty of coursework, and lack of time. Stress exhaustion or depression may occur.
- Mid-term exams and term papers are all due at once.
- Roommate and social tensions may increase as all students are stressed.
- Spring Break decisions, money issues, job or peer trip plans must be made.
- Students want and need time to play or catch up academically. Spring Break provides needed relief.
- Determining whom to room with and where for the fall semester are of great importance and may cause stress. Roommate tensions may escalate.
- Mid-term grades are issued.
April Stressors
- Many students experience optimism because the second semester is perceived as on the “downhill slope.”
- Spring fever sets in: students want to play and socialize.
- Academic pressures continue to increase; papers and exams are piling up.
- Colds, allergies, stress-related illnesses increase.
- The full activities calendar invites participation and challenges time management.
- Summer job and housing pressures begin.
- Frustration and confusion may develop because of decisions necessary for choosing a major, pre-registration.
- End of the semester nears; sadness begins due to anticipation of separation from friends for the summer or due to graduation.
May Stressors
- Final exams begin; pressure to finish incomplete work.
- Plans for summer school, travel, work, housing, must be in place.
- Roommate and social tensions may arise prior to vacation.
- Sadness over leaving friends, deciding the destiny of romantic relationships for the summer.
- Worry over facing conflicts at home with family, making the transition back to living at home.
Patience and understanding on the part of the family at home can go a long way in empowering first-year students to ride these tides of the academic year.
Coping Strategies and “Food for Thought”
1. Recognize that feelings of ambivalence about your child’s leaving home are normal.
For most families, this step can seem like a dramatic separation of parent and child, although it is usually the separation of adult from almost-adult. It is normal, too, to look forward to the relative peace and quiet of having your active older adolescent out of the house and having the place to yourself, or being able to spend time with your younger children.
2. Allow yourself to feel whatever emotions come up.
While your child is getting ready to go to college, there is little benefit in pretending that you don’t feel sad, guilty, relieved, apprehensive, or whatever feelings you do have. You probably aren’t fooling anyone by trying to hide your reactions; a healthier approach is to talk about them with your family, friends, clergy, or whoever is a source of support for you.
3. Make “overall wellness” a goal for yourself.
Especially during stressful times, it helps to get enough sleep, eat healthful meals regularly, and get adequate exercise. Spending some recharging time doing the things that you especially like is another step toward wellness. If you are feeling good, you are more likely to have the energy to be a good role model and help your child adjust.
4. Remember that, for your child, going to college is a tremendously important developmental step toward full adulthood.
It represents the culmination of the teaching and learning of 18 years or so, much of it geared toward helping your child assume a productive place in the world. This is the time when your hard work will show itself in the form of a framework that your freshman will use in beginning to make independent choices. Many parents find that it helps to focus on the fact that providing your child with this opportunity is a priceless gift. Be proud of yourself!
5. Find a new creative outlet for yourself.
Especially parents whose last child or only child has moved away to college find that taking on new challenges is an excellent way to manage and channel energy and feelings. Have you ever wanted to write a book? Learn to fly-fish? Make a quilt? Volunteer in your community? Assume a new project or responsibility at work? Travel? Get your own bicycle and ride all over town? Make a list of all the things you intended to do while your child was growing up, but never had the time to do. Now is your chance!
What Can I Do to Help My Child from a Distance?
Of course, you are still a parent to your almost-adult, and he or she does still need your support and guidance during the college years. Here are some ways you can express your caring and enhance your child’s college experience.
Stay in touch!
Even though your almost-adult is experimenting with independent choices, he/she still needs to know that you’re there and available to talk over normal events and difficult issues. Make arrangements to write, e-mail, or call your child on a regular basis.
Allow space for your child to set the agenda for some of your conversations.
If he or she needs help or support, the subject is more likely to come up if you aren’t inquiring pointedly about what time he or she came in last night.
Be realistic with your college student about financial matters.
Most students come to college with a fairly detailed plan about how tuition, room, board, fees, and books will be paid for, and what the family’s expectations are about spending money. Being specific at the outset may help avoid misunderstandings later.
Be realistic as well about academic achievement and grades.
Most colleges attract bright students from all over the world, and not every freshman who excelled academically in high school will be a straight-A student. Developing or refining the capacity to work independently and consistently and to demonstrate mastery can be more important than grades, as long as the student meets the basic academic requirements set out by the college. Again, these are choices that each individual student makes, though certainly it is appropriate to help your child set his or her own long-term goals.
If your child does experience difficulties, encourage him/her to take advantage of the wealth of resources available for students.
Most colleges offer many sources of help. For academic issues, talking with the professor, teaching assistant, or academic adviser is probably the first step, but on most campuses, a host of other student assistance resources are available ranging from tutorial services to personal counseling.
Freshman’s First Trip Home: Parents and Kids Must Find New Ways to Relate
(By Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D., New York Times)
When Ben Abella, a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, returned to Chicago for a few days, he said something that stopped his mother cold. “My son started calling his dormitory ‘home’” said his mother, Mary Ann Abella. “And if that doesn’t wound you as a parent …”
For most college freshmen, the first extended trip home occurs over the Thanksgiving Break. In many families, it marks the beginning of a new relationship between parents and children that takes a while to sort out.
“When that youngster walks back in the house, the parents see a 17-year-old high school senior,” said Dr. Paul Burgett, vice president and chief student affairs officer of the University of Rochester. “Although the child looks the same as when he left, he’s begun to think of the campus as home and to carve out a life for himself.”
Those feelings of independence are punctuated by a combination of rebelliousness and regression that parents may find confusing. The returning children bristle when their parents ask what time they’ll be home at night, and they are apt to seek opportunities to enlighten family members on politics and economics. On Friday night they may discuss the strategic lessons to be learned from the Peloponnesian War. Yet on Saturday morning they may spend hours staring at cartoons on television.
Freshmen may revel in their new-found independence, insisting on retaining the social freedoms they enjoy at school. Their lives have changed. They are now adults. But if their old bedroom, that most tangible link to their childhood, has been converted to other uses or, worse yet, given to a younger sibling, they are outraged.
Parents can begin to understand the cause of these mixed messages by recognizing that, for many children, the first few weeks of college are as terrifying as they are exhilarating. “Most of the students coming home will be shell-shocked from their first round of serious academic challenges,” said Dr. Harry E. Kisker, vice provost and dean of students at Washington University. The problem is especially acute, he says, among bright students who were able to coast in high school. “They have to show their parents that they’re working and struggling,” he said. “Complaining about how much work they have to do, how far behind they are, how bad the food is – all this is a way of communicating to their parents that they have risen to the occasion and that mom and dad are getting their money’s worth.”
Much more of the child’s life is now hidden from the parents. They pump their children for information about their new friends, their courses, their exams. The responses are often halfhearted or evasive. “When Ben came home we hung on every word he said,” Abella said. “But that isn’t what he wants. He wants to know that his place in the family has remained intact.”
“Don’t freak out,” advised Dr. Harry E. Kisker of Washington University in St. Louis, when asked how parents should deal with the changes in college freshmen coming home for the first time. “While it looks like things are pretty chaotic, it’s a necessary disorganization,” he continued. “It’s letting go of things that they grew up with. Even though you may be horrified by your child’s new looks and beliefs, realize that he’s basically the same person.”
Freshman year of college is a time to test limits, often through rebellion against the student’s own past. College administrators say students often reject family traditions, like attending church services. Staid Republican families are greeted by daughters who espouse Marxist doctrine. Parents with left-wing politics cringe when their son describes the social benefits of joining the Young Republican Club. “Don’t retreat from what you believe,” Kisker said. “By disagreeing with them you’re reassuring them that there is this corner of stability in their lives and that you haven’t changed your fundamental values.”
“It’s very easy to correct your child’s naïve ideas on adult issues,” said Dr. Paul J. Burgett of the University of Rochester. “They’re not fluent yet. It’s so important not to hurt them, because of their clumsiness, and not to be defensive about their attempts at independence.”
It’s also important not to be overly concerned with a freshman’s complaints about the stresses of college. Parents who have spent years helping their children overcome difficulties find it especially hard to listen to complaints without intervening.
Acknowledge the difficulty of these struggles. Simply allowing students to ventilate their emotions is often the best help you can offer.
“The kids need to feel that their parents are still there,” Kisker said. “They need to know that their parents still have confidence in them and their ability to handle things on their own.”
For Parents: Alcohol and the College Experience
(Svendsen, Roger, and Griffin)
What parents say has a substantial effect on the choices their children make about the use and non-use of alcohol. Dr. Peter Benson, of Search Institute, reports in The Troubled Journey that one of the most significant influences on alcohol use among young people is the degree to which they think their parents will be upset if they use alcohol. Those who feel their parents will be very upset are much more likely to abstain or use very infrequently.
Choices about using or abstaining from alcohol based on a clear set of guidelines will enhance health and reduce the risk of experiencing the wide range of alcohol-related problems that some college students have experienced.
The following guidelines from Alcohol Use by College Students: A Guide for Parents are suggested to help you talk with your son or daughter about the use and non-use of alcohol.
1. To use or not use alcohol is a personal choice. Despite the perception on many campuses that drinking is the norm, no one should feel pressured to drink or uneasy or embarrassed because of a personal choice to abstain. Most people will choose to use alcohol safely, moderately, and appropriately. Others will simply have no desire to experience the effects of alcohol. Some students with a family history of chemical dependency or alcoholism may choose not to risk any use of alcohol. The bottom line is that no one should feel that he/she has to drink to be accepted.
2. Alcohol use is not essential for enjoying social events. The real value of parties and other social activities is being with friends and taking time out from the pressure of school and work. Drinking alcohol should not be seen as a necessary component for having fun and being with friends.
3. Know when to abstain from alcohol: when under the legal drinking age; when operating equipment, cars, boats, firearms, etc.; when studying or working; when taking certain medications; when recovering from chemical dependency; in any other situations which present specific risks and times when alcohol use should be avoided.
4. Drinking that leads to impairment or intoxication is unhealthy and risky. Getting drunk is not a condition to be admired, laughed at, or taken lightly. Rude, destructive, or just plain foolish behavior triggered by alcohol is socially unacceptable. It may also indicate an alcohol abuse problem. Drinking games often result in drunkenness and can present serious risks for those involved.
5. Know your personal limits of moderation, and stick to them. Each person who chooses to drink should know his/her personal limit of moderation and set the limit before drinking. Alcohol effects can be greater than expected when a person is tired, stressed out, angry, or dealing with another strong emotion. It can also have more impact depending upon body size, chemistry, genetics, and sex – females are affected more than males. Examples: “I only drink on weekends, and I always stop at three beers.” “I like to feel in control, so I just don”t drink.”
6. Avoid situations where someone else’s alcohol or other drug use may put you at risk. Recognize high-risk sexual situations: alcohol is the number one factor in date rape. Don’t ride with an impaired or intoxicated driver. Exercise caution in unfamiliar environments. As parents, you can send a clear message to your college-age children that they can choose not to drink, and if they choose to use alcohol they should do it moderately, legally, and appropriately.
“15 Items I Wish I Could Discuss With the Families of All Students”
By Michael J. Kiphart, Ph.D. (former Associate Provost for Academic Services)
1. If you were puzzled by [your children] in high school, you will certainly be confused by them when they are in college; if you were not puzzled by [your children] in high school, you are in for a real experience while they are in college.
2. Be prepared for differences in your relationships with your students.
3. Home visits will be very different than when the student lived at home.
4. Learn to let go. They are making their own way and will make mistakes.
5. Learn to listen to [your children]. Try to understand their point of view even if it changes back and forth right before your very eyes.
6. Talk to and with [your children], not at them. Afford [your children] the same respect that you expect and require from them.
7. When [your children] call home unexpectedly and in a panic, don’t panic yourself. Give it a day and call back.
8. If there are problems at home, assure [your children] it is not their fault, or assure them that their being away did not contribute to the problems. Keep [your children] informed of happenings on the home front.
9. Try not to press [your children] about what they are going to do after college or with the rest of their life during their first year or two.
10. Please understand that college is not vocational/technical training. We have a strong commitment to the liberal arts and their educational value.
11. Keep in touch, write [your children] a letter or send them a funny card when they least expect it or for no reason at all. E-mail, if you have it, is wonderful.
12. If you intend to visit campus, let them know you are coming. Surprises can work both ways, and usually not for the better.
13. If you have questions, need information, or are confused, call us and let us help you get the information you are seeking. Refer your student to the staff and resources at the college.
14. Working together, student, family, parents, faculty, and college staff, we can achieve and accomplish the most out of a college education for everyone involved.
15. The Family Rights to Privacy Act (FERPA) and its impact.
Additional Resources
Don’t Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years by Helen E. Johnson, et al. (Paperback)
Letting Go: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years, Fourth Edition by Karen Levin Coburn (Author), Madge Lawrence Treeger (Author) (Paperback)
When Your Kid Goes to College; A Parent’s Survival Guide by Carol Barkin (Author) (Paperback)
Almost Grown: Launching Your Child from High School to College by Patricia Pasick (Paperback)
Empty Nest, Full Heart : The Journey from Home to College by Andrea Van Steenhouse, Johanna Parker
Doors Open From Both Sides by Steffany Bane, Margo E. Bane Woodacre
The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior to College Life by Laura Kastner, Jennifer Fugett Wyatt
Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Today’s College Experience by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger. Adler & Adler Publishers
