Posts from — September 2009

Many students have difficulty adjusting to college during those first few weeks of September.  This is especially true for college freshmen, but may be true for upperclassmen as well.  Those first few weeks back at school, away from home and family, require some shifting of thinking and habits.  Students miss home and family – and often the family pet as well.

 In September 2004, Kathy Bradley, Director of Health and Counseling Center and Associate Dean of College Life at Susquehanna University began a program called Dog Days which is now nationally recognized and duplicated at several colleges around the country.  Bradley’s program, which was designed to help freshmen with the adjustment to college by giving students an increased sense of familiarity and belonging, was modeled after programs using animal assisted group therapy.

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Your college student may have been an outstanding scholar in high school, or he may have struggled throughout his academic career.  His patterns of being a student have been set for years.  However, college provides a new academic start for students.  Students who breezed through high school may find themselves challenged for the first time.  Students who found themselves labeled as poor students in high school may find that the fresh start gives them new energy and perspective on their studies.

 Whether your student is encountering academic difficulty for the first time in college, or has fought this battle before, you may receive the phone call in which your student worries about her grades, complains about the amount and difficulty of the work, is aggravated at the professor, and is generally discouraged.  Academics in college are very different than in high school and they often require a new approach.

 What is a parent to do?  First of all, listen.  Let your student vent.  Sometimes, that may be all that is necessary.  But second, ask some questions to help your student try to figure out what he can do to make things better.  Help him think about taking action.  Here are twelve questions that you might ask your struggling student to help him think through the issue.

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Now that your college student has most likely headed off to school, you may be wondering what, as an official college parent, you should be doing.  In the midst of all of the preparations that took place last spring and summer, you knew that you had the opportunity of being active and helpful.  Now that your student is gone, you may be finding it difficult to stay productively involved without “hovering”.

It is true that once your student heads to college your role changes, but you still have an important place in the college transition process – and the transition continues for a while.  We’ve done a roundup of posts that may be especially helpful to you during the month of September as both you, and your college student, settle into your new roles.  If you haven’t already done so, you might also want to review our roundup of posts of interest for August.  Take some time to read and review these posts and you will be well-armed for the month ahead.

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