Category — Communicating With Your College Student

The holidays are coming and college students are heading home for break.  The holidays are busy times, and students probably have plans to spend time catching up with friends and perhaps working to earn some extra cash.  However, this may also be an ideal opportunity to spend some time catching up with your student and hearing more about how the college experience is going.

Your college student may have a lot he needs or wants to share with you.  Of course, he may not want to talk about his semester, and you may need to do some encouraging.  But he may have things he’d like to share – good or bad.  There are a few things that you can do to make it easier for your student to share his experiences, and also some things you can do to make sure that you are really hearing what he wants or needs you to hear.

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We hear a lot these days about helicopter parents, and we hear a lot about the growing amount of communication between college parents and their college students.  This growing communication takes many forms – and is generally two-way communication. Parents aren’t the only ones doing the calling. Parents and their college students are often encouraged to limit their communication to enable college students to separate, make transitions, and become independent.

But what if too much communication with your college student isn’t your problem?  What if all communication with your college student feels one-way?  You call, text, e-mail – and you get no response.  Your student doesn’t pick up your calls or return messages or e-mails.  You may be frustrated, worried, or just plain angry.  It may help if you give some thought to why your student may not be communicating much, as well as what you can do, and shouldn’t do, to help increase the chances that your student will communicate more.

 In our last post, we considered some of the reasons why your student may not be contacting you as much as you think that he should.  In this post, we’ll look at some suggestions for improving the amount and quality of contact with your student.

What not to do when your student doesn’t call

You never hear from your college student – or at least it seems that way to you.  You’re upset, worried, and possibly angry.  You feel you need to take some action.  There are a few things we’d suggest that you avoid as you consider what to do.

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We hear a lot these days about helicopter parents, and we hear a lot about the growing amount of communication between college parents and their college students.  This growing communication takes many forms – and is generally two-way communication. Parents aren’t the only ones doing the calling. Parents and their college students are often encouraged to limit their communication to enable college students to separate, make transitions, and become independent.

But what if too much communication with your college student isn’t your problem?  What if all communication with your college student feels one-way?  You call, text, e-mail – and you get no response.  Your student doesn’t pick up your calls or return messages or e-mails.  You may be frustrated, worried, or just plain angry.  It may help if you give some thought to why your student may not be communicating much, as well as what you can do, and shouldn’t do, to help increase the chances that your student will communicate more.

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You have a new college student headed to school for the first time in late August or September.  You may be feeling relieved that the college search and application process is over, but also a bit anxious about what may lie ahead.  Your student is busily connecting with new friends on Facebook and saying goodbye to old friends at home.  In between, your student may be shopping for cool dorm room furnishings and possibly even reading an assigned summer book.

You may wonder what you should or could be doing this summer to stay involved, while letting your student take the lead for the college process.  Here is a short list to get you started.  Spend some time this summer getting familiar with your student’s school, and also having some important conversations with your student.  Let your student take the lead, but be armed with some information and ideas just in case you’re needed.

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Your college student will probably run the gamut of emotions during her time in college.  She may even run through many emotions in a single day.  As a college parent, you may hear about your student’s highs and lows, or you may be unaware of some of the dips and turns.  It is possible that you may feel that your student needs help coping, and you may find yourself offering advice or recommending that he get some help from someone such as a counselor. For most students, however, handling emotional swings becomes part of the college experience.

How well your student handles his emotions may be one indicator, however, of his potential success in college.  Some research in Emotional Intelligence suggests that students who recognize and manage their moods, feelings and attitudes well may do better academically.  The more closely your student is in touch with his emotions, the better he may do.

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Obviously, grades are a big part of the college experience.  Students attend college for many reasons, but classroom experiences, and the grades that go along with those experiences, are an important measure of college outcomes.  Some students seem to care more than others about their grades, but all college students know that they matter.  Families, too, differ in how they view college grades.  Some parents are anxious to hear about every test or paper; others may not be interested in grades as long as they are passable.

Starting a conversation with your son or daughter about grades may be completely natural for some parents and more awkward for others.  But talking to your student about his grades is important.  Don’t take them for granted or assume that all is well if you don’t hear anything.  Remember that in college, grades go to the student rather than parents.  Your student has ultimate responsibility for his grades, but it is reasonable for you to ask to talk about them.  This is especially important if your college student is a new college student in his first or second semester.  Help him consider what his grades may mean and what he can learn from them.

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Before your college student headed off to school, you may have had some good conversations about both her expectations and your expectations, and about both of your hopes – for grades, for money management, for behavior, or for other things important to both of you.  At the midpoint in the semester, or just a little past that point, both you and your student may be reevaluating how things are going.  Your student has settled in, more or less, has made some friends, has developed habits of behavior, and has likely received some midterm grades or indications of academic progress.

This is a good time to revisit some of your earlier conversations about hopes, dreams, and expectations.  Your college student has weathered tremendous transitions during the past few weeks.  He has had to adjust academically and socially, and he has had to create a place for himself in his new world.  You may have had lots of communication with your student in the past few weeks, and you may know exactly how things are going, or you may be wondering how the adjustment process has gone.  This is a good time to check in again with your student.

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In our last post, we discussed some of the signs that parents might see or hear that may suggest that their college student is struggling at school.  As we suggested in that post, parents need to keep perspective and remember that college students are generally resilient and will adjust and bounce back.  However, sometimes problems may persist.  Parents find it difficult to know that their student may be having difficulty and do nothing.

If you’ve sensed that your student is struggling with her college experience – either academically or otherwise – here are a few suggestions of things you might consider.

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The summer before your student heads to college is a busy time.  There may be an orientation for your student, and for you.  There are things to buy for the new dorm room.  Your student may be contacting her roommate.  There are doctor and dentist appointments to make, forms to complete, financing to finalize.  Your student may or may not be busy packing, and you may be busy worrying about why she’s not packing yet.  And through it all, your student is busy trying to say goodbye to friends, and you are trying to come to terms with the fact that she’ll be gone.

Amid all of the flurry of preparations for leaving, there are some important decisions that you and your college student should make to anticipate potential issues later on.  If you spend some time this summer agreeing on these points, you won’t be taken by surprise when inevitable situations arise later.  You’ll know that you and your student are “on the same page”, and you may prevent difficulties later.  Here are eight things to discuss with your student before she leaves.

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If you have read several of our posts here at College Parent Central, you’ve certainly seen by now that we feel that good communication is one of the important keys to many college students’ success.  That good communication must take place between the student and the college, between the parents and the college, but most importantly between the parents and the student.  Good communication is transactional and involves both talking and listening.

Because we feel that good communication is so important, we have several posts about improving or maximizing communication. There are some ways in which we can all improve our skills. We recommend that you take some time to read some of the following posts and think about both your own communication skills and those of your college student.  Is there room for improvement?

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