Category — Your College Parent Role

Being a college parent is hard work.  Sometimes it is difficult work because of the amount of things that you need to do and because you need to be very involved.  But sometimes, being a college parent is hard work because of what you need not to do.  Sometimes the hard work is standing back and allowing your student to take control of the experience.

But just because you need to stand back and let your student be in the driver’s seat, doesn’t mean that you, as a college parent, are not involved.  Although you may be on the sidelines of this experience, you can still be present, needed, and very much part of the fabric of the experience.  The involvement may, however, be more subtle (and therefore, in some ways more difficult) than you anticipated.

We’d like to suggest five important jobs for college parents.  You may not do all jobs equally well.  You may not need to tackle some jobs as much as others.  You may need to experiment and practice some skills before you become proficient at them.  But we’d like to suggest that you have five important tasks as a college parent.

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College Parent Central celebrated its first birthday on April 1, 2010.  We’ve reached a milestone.  Launching on April Fool’s Day in 2009 seemed somehow appropriate since we were not sure what to expect.  We’re pleased to know that, in the past year, so many people have found the information here at College Parent Central helpful.

We believed a year ago, and we continue to believe even more firmly today, that parents have an important place in the college experience of their sons and daughters, but that many parents may need to learn how to be most helpful.  We believe that the more that parents understand about the college experience the more supportive they can be.

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The wait is over.  The envelope may be fat, or thin, or the news may have come via e-mail.  However it has arrived, your high school student has received word from his chosen colleges about whether he has been accepted, waitlisted, or rejected.  It is a defining moment for most students.

This may also be a defining moment for you as a parent as well.  You will need to think about how you react to any news, and how you support your student no matter what that news may be.  Your responses will help set the tone for your student.  Your reactions will send important messages to your student.  If the news is good, you’ll want to celebrate with him.  If the news is not what he had hoped for, you’ll need to help your student deal with his disappointment.  (Read our previous post on helping your student deal with disappointment.)

Giving thought in advance to how you will respond may help you to be prepared for any eventuality.  Here are ten suggestions of things to consider as you, as a parent, confront the college acceptance – or rejection letters.

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If the college acceptance letters have just begun to come in, congratulations!  You are now officially a college parent.  You are excited for your student, and possibly a bit overwhelmed for yourself.  You’re not sure what you should be thinking about, or doing, or how to help your student prepare for the next phase.

Here at College Parent Central we believe that the more information you have, the better you will be able to support your college student as he navigates his new experiences.  But the problem with lots of information is that it can feel overwhelming.  Here are a few posts that we think might be a good starting point.  You’ll want to read more specific information later, but if you’re a new college parent, these posts should help you think about your new role and help you get started on your journey.   Congratulations!

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The college application process consumes much of a high school student’s junior and senior years.  Your student has been focused on the application process through SAT prep time, tests, possible AP courses, college visits, deciding where to apply, filling out applications, writing admissions essays, requesting recommendation letters, applying for scholarships.  It’s been overwhelming and all-consuming.  As a parent, you’ve been more or less involved in the process – perhaps keeping track of important dates, planning and driving to college visits, helping with decisions and applications, and dealing with financial matters.

But now it is mid senior year.  The applications have been sent.  The FAFSA and other financial applications have been filed.  Unless your student was one of the lucky students who was admitted through early action or early decision, there is nothing left for you, and your student, to do but wait.  It’s a difficult time.  You’ve both been so busy and focused for so long that it is difficult – perhaps almost impossible – to stop doing.

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New Year’s is often a time of new beginnings.  For parents of high school students who may be headed off to college in the fall, this year will bring significant changes.  You may, or may not, be prepared for those changes, but you know that they are still several months away.  We’d like to offer some New Year’s resolutions to help you, and your college bound high school student, begin to prepare now.  We hope that you find them helpful – and that you pass some of these on to your student.

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As college parents we want the best for our college students.  Many college parents have spent years planning for and working toward their student’s college experience.  They would never intentionally do anything to harm their student’s chances of making the most of his years in college.  However, there are some things that parents do, often unintentionally, that may have negative effects for their student.

Check this list below and consider whether or not you may be guilty of any of these habits.  Certainly, no parents are guilty of all of these habits.  Many parents may not be guilty of any of these habits.  Unfortunately, all are actions that some parents take at one time or another.  The list may seem harsh, but it gives us all pause, and food for thought.

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No one likes to make mistakes. We know we may not be perfect, but we try not to make too many mistakes – especially what we might consider “stupid mistakes”.  College students don’t like to make mistakes either, but they will probably make some – perhaps many – mistakes throughout their college career.  It is difficult, as a parent, to watch your college student make what you might consider avoidable mistakes.  The problem may not be the mistakes themselves, but the attitude that both parents and students have toward their mistakes.

Making mistakes is a way of learning.  We may make mistakes when we try new things, or stretch our limits.  Others may have made the same mistake before us, but we may need to make the mistake ourselves in order to learn from it. It doesn’t matter what others have told us, we need to have the experience ourselves.  College is, in many ways, practice for life.  College students may stumble and fall at times – sometimes in small ways and sometimes in more serious ways – but, hopefully, they will learn from their mistakes and become wiser.  As college parents, we can help our students make sense of these experiences.

This post is not about specific mistakes that students make in college, but rather it is about how parents can help college students accept their mistakes as a valuable part of their college experience and learn from them.  Sometimes the mistakes that students make in college may be very serious, and have serious consequences.  It is important that parents consider carefully when to intervene. (Hint: it may not be as soon as we think.) Parents need to continue to find the balance between letting go and allowing their student to make a mistake and bear the consequences, and intervening when the student’s health or safety may be at stake.

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Things happen.  As college students work at their increasing independence and responsibility, as they learn that some of the choices that they are making are good choices and others are not, as they strive to find balance, as they struggle to accept consequences for their actions, things happen.  Some of these things are good things, affirming that your student is growing and maturing and making wise decisions.  Some of these things are not as positive, and some may have serious consequences.  Some students have poor or even failing grades, some face college judicial or even legal consequences, some face health issues, some face social problems, some face serious money issues,  and some simply feel that they’ve made all of the wrong choices at this point in their life.

Whatever may be happening for your college student, it may be magnified at the midpoint in a semester.  The reality of midterm grades may be a wake-up call.  The urgency of the remaining few weeks may hit.  The immediacy of a break or holiday at home with family may dawn.  The tensions are increasing as the semester progresses.

No matter what your college student may be experiencing or feeling right now, the second thing that many students worry about may be “How will I tell my parents?”  As parents, we like to think that our college students can talk to us about whatever may be bothering them.  However, for many students, concern about family reactions to college difficulties may be adding to an already difficult time.  This may be especially true for families that are, or have been, close.  Our college students don’t want to disappoint us.  They don’t want to let us down.  They don’t want to fail at their new found independence.

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This is the third of three posts that consider the concept of college helicopter parents.  The concept is certainly not new, but it warrants continual examination – and sometimes redefinition.  In our first post, we looked at the definition of helicopter parents, as well as some of the motivation behind parental hovering.  In our second post, we examined who helicopter parents are and how they operate, and in this post, we consider the consequences of helicoptering and suggest some possible ways in which parents might hover productively.

 Helicopter parents, (those parents who hover closely over their children, ready to swoop in at a moment’s notice to rescue the student or attack the enemy) have caused colleges to express concern about parental involvement in college students’ lives.  Many colleges clearly send messages to parents to “back off” or “stay away”.  In most instances, it doesn’t work.  Parents continue to be closely involved in their students’ lives because they feel that they are needed to help the student be successful.  Many parents may not fully understand the consequences of excessive involvement or hovering.

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