Category — Reviews and Reading Lists

From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone.  Please check out our Reviews and Reading Lists category for lists and additional reviews.

Don’t Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money by Helen E. Johnson and Christine Schelhas-Miller lives up to its subtitle: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years.  This book offers wonderful, helpful advice in an easy to read and entertaining fashion.  The opening chapter, From Supervisor to Consultant, lays the foundation for the understanding that the parental role during the college years is a shift from what has come before.  We especially like the emphasis and background on important communication skills that will help parents make the shift.

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From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone.  Please check out our Reviews and Reading Lists category in the right hand column for lists and additional reviews.

The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up by Barbara K Hofer and Abigail Sullivan Moore should be required reading for any parent sending his or her child away to college. The authors perceptively hold a mirror up to allow parents to see themselves and understand why we feel the need to be so involved in and connected to our children’s lives.

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Congratulations!  Your college student is about to graduate, or perhaps has graduated from college.  He is ready to take on the world!  But, perhaps, he may not be as ready as he thinks for “real life” after college. He’ll still need you for advice, of course, but he may also need some guidance for other sources as he navigates his new life.

Your student may have a job and be out on his own.  He may have moved on to graduate school.  He may be returning to your nest for a while.  Current research and theory suggest that students who graduate from college are part of that group now being identified as “emerging adults” – certainly not children or adolescents, but yet not quite adults yet.

This post contains a list of books that may be useful to your student as he enters this new phase of his life.  A book or two might make a great graduation gift, or summer beach reading.  We are not necessarily endorsing these books, but we’d like to help you find material available.  Your graduate won’t necessarily want to read them all, but you might look for some titles and approaches that seem appropriate for your graduate’s needs

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From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone.  Please check out the Reviews and Reading Lists category for lists and additional reviews.

The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College is a must-read for any parent whose son or daughter is in the process of applying to college.  It is not a how-to book with secrets to getting admitted, but it is a book which tells the real stories of students and admissions officers as they take the journey of putting together a college freshman class.

The Gatekeepers grew out of a newspaper series.  Specifically, it tells the story of one admissions officer and the high school seniors whose cases he and his colleagues considered that year.  The story begins in the homes and classrooms of the applicants as they work with their guidance counselors and parents in their junior year.  The narrative then travels behind the closed doors of the admissions office, as well as the officers’ homes as the applications are debated.  It continues to follow the story as the applicants receive their responses and make their decisions.

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From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. (Check out our Reading Lists here, here, or here.)

Launching: Parenting to College & Beyond (Order directly from Amazon
) is a brief, 50+ page handbook that should prove helpful for parents of teens and for those about to send a student off to college.  The book is divided into two sections.  The first section deals with the transition into adulthood and should be helpful to parents as they try to understand their child.  The second section of the book deals with the parents’ transition to a new role as they deal with their changing child.

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Congratulations!  Your college student is about to graduate, or perhaps has graduated from college.  He is ready to take on the world!  But, as we all know, that doesn’t mean that your job is done.  You’ve done your work as a college parent, but now a different, and in some ways even more delicate form of parenting begins.  Your student may have a job and be out on his own.  He may have moved on to graduate school.  He may be returning to your nest for a while.  Current research and theory suggest that students who graduate from college are part of that group now being identified as “emerging adults” – certainly not children or adolescents, but yet not quite adults yet.  As a parent of an emerging adult, you now have a new role.

This post includes a list of nine books which may be of interest to parents of college graduates.  The list is not exhaustive, there are certainly even more resources available, but this list should give parents a good start on material to support them through this interesting time.  All of the books have different styles and approaches, so it is important to find the books which resonate for you.

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From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered a list of recommended reading, and then added another list, and there is something for everyone.

This review looks at College Survival Tips for Parents by Ceil Hall.  The book is a companion piece for the author’s book, College Survival Tips, which is geared to students.  The subtitle for this book is Fostering Growth and Independence in Your Kids.

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From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone.  See our three lists of books here, here, and here.

Emerging Adulthood by Jeffrey Arnett is slightly different from many of the other books we recommend for college parent reading.  This book was not written specifically for college parents, but is of value and interest to parents, students, and college faculty and administrators alike. Dr Arnett, a researcher at Clark University, has focused his research on adolescents and young adults.  His research has led him to propose a new phase of development for this age group – what he calls “Emerging Adulthood”.

According to Arnett, the years between approximately 18 to 25 mark a unique phase of development, as long or longer than any other stage of development in childhood or adolescence.  He advocates recognizing this phase as a distinct period.  Arnett recognizes that college students today often define criteria for adulthood differently than their parents’ generation did.  For today’s students the psychological markers of accepting responsibility for one’s actions, making independent decisions, and becoming financially independent become more important criteria than the sociological markers of finishing their education, entering the workforce, marrying or parenting.

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There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. (Check out all three of our lists of sources: Recommended Reading, More Recommended Reading, and Still More Recommended Reading.)

From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.

In this review, we look at Parenting College Freshmen: Consulting For Adulthood by Linda L. Bips, with her daughters Jessica and Kristina Wallitsch.  This volume provides a good, basic overview of many areas of interest to college parents.  Daughters Jessica and Kristina add their perspective as students to the topics discussed by their mother.

Although Parenting College Freshmen: Consulting for Adulthood was published in 2003, the basic information it provides to college parents remains current and important.  We like Bips’ metaphor of the college student as a young colt who remains close to the barn but then gradually explores the expanding corral and “challenges” ever expanding fences while still returning occasionally to the safety of home.  The image captures the “work” of the college student to explore and expand her world.

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There is a wealth of literature available to help parents cope with the transition to college and the changes that occur throughout the college years.  We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. (Check out all three of our lists of sources: Recommended Reading, More Recommended Reading, and Still More Recommended Reading.)

From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.  This review considers The Praeger Handbook for College Parents by Helen W. Akinc.  This book serves well as a handbook of information about how college works and can be a wonderful resource for familiarizing parents with the college experience.

Perhaps two of the greatest strengths of The Praeger Handbook for College Parents are the wealth of knowledge shared regarding college policies, procedures and rationales, and its focus on the college experience as a time of learning rather than simply career preparation.

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