Category — Tips for Parents of College Students

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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As you pack the car and then move your college student into his dorm room or apartment, you may wish that he had less “stuff”.  Interestingly, when it comes time to move your student out of his dorm room or apartment, the “stuff” seems to have multiplied.  So why, then, might we suggest that you should teach your student to be more of a packrat and hold on to more things?  We are not suggesting that your student needs to hold on to everything.  Much of what your student accumulates during his college years can easily go by the wayside.  However, there are a few things that your student should be sure to save – at least until he has his diploma in hand.

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One of the exciting, and sometimes terrifying, aspects of the college experience is living with a roommate for the first time.  Most soon-to-be college students are anxious about beginning their residence hall experience.  Some students have thought carefully about what the experience may be like, and others may have an extremely idealized vision of living with a new roommate.  As a college parent, there are a few things that you might do to help your student prepare for this new experience.  This may provide a wonderful opportunity for some conversation with your student as you give her some things to think about and possibly help her explore her thoughts and expectations.

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It is inevitable that sometime during the four years that your student is at college he will get hurt or sick.  Colleges have health centers to care for students who are injured or sick, and the local emergency room is available for more serious crises.  However, there will be many times through the college years when your student may just need a bit of help for minor injuries or ailments.  A good first aid kit never substitutes for a sympathetic parent, but when your student is on his own, he will be grateful if he has the necessary tools to help himself.

Put together a first aid kit to send to college with your student.  Of course, you hope she’ll never need it, but she will, and when she does, she’ll appreciate that you planned ahead.  Here are a few things to include in your student’s kit.

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For many college students and their parents, the finish line is in sight.  Commencement is just around the corner.  Students have worked hard to reach this final moment.  Parents have been patient (most of the time), have supported, have worried, have encouraged (or downright scolded), have paid tuition again and again, and have possibly had moments when they wondered if this time would ever come.

But the season of Commencement is finally here, with all of the ceremony and pomp and circumstance that accompany it.  Most college students have experienced a high school graduation, which may or may not have been as formal as college Commencement.  Some students, and their parents, may be wondering what to expect, and what the experience will be like.

The format of commencement may vary according to the nature of the school, the size of the class, the weather, the location, or the particular traditions of the institution.  However, many factors may be similar no matter where the ceremony occurs.  Commencement is seen as the capstone experience of the student’s academic career.  It is a dignified, formal occasion and marks the formal action of conferring and receiving academic degrees.  Degrees are conferred on the candidates by the presiding officer (usually the college president) after they have been recommended or presented by another official (often a dean or provost).

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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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If it is spring semester, spring break is on the minds of most students – and many of their parents.  Students have been hard at work since the fall, many have had a winter break at home with their families, and many students look forward to that mid-point of spring semester when they can let off steam.  Sending your student off to college as a first-year student was a sometimes frightening “letting go” experience for many parents.  One of the next major steps of independence for many students may be heading off on a trip for spring break.

Not all students travel for spring break.  The reality is that many of those students who do head for the typical spring break destinations receive a lot of publicity, but these students represent only a portion of the number of college students in the country.  Many students cannot afford expensive spring break trips.  Many students head home for some quality down time with family, or extra study time. Some students spend break working to increase income.   Increasingly, many students opt to spend an alternative spring break traveling and doing community service work.  More and more colleges are offering organized alternatives to their students.  College athletes may travel with a team.  Some students spend the break doing internships.  And some students choose to travel – but not to prime student destinations.

If your student is coming home for break, remember that, just like winter break, your student probably needs some down time.  That may mean that she may spend much of the week sleeping, doing laundry, eating, catching up on TV, and possibly sleeping some more.  This is a vacation for your student.  She has likely just finished midterm exams, and she knows that she has a lot of work ahead of her when she returns to school.  Be patient with her student hours, her apparent lack of motivation, and her need for sleep.

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When your child leaves home for college, you worry about losing contact.  She will be living at college, and perhaps not returning home for several weeks or months, so you worry.  However, with some effort on your part, your communication with your student may become even more meaningful than when she was home.

This post is the third in a series of five posts that may give you food for thought about how you communicate with your college student. We’re posting one of these articles each week for five weeks.  Some of our suggestions may be common sense reminders, and some may be new ideas for you.  Obviously, communication skills are interrelated, so please consider all of these suggestions together.  Our first post concerned how you listen to your student, our second looked at nonverbal communication.  In this post we discuss how to check perceptions to make sure you understand what your student is really saying.  In our final two posts we’ll look at how to ask helpful questions, and how to frame some of your messages so your student may be willing to listen.  We hope that thinking about how you listen and talk to your student may help you to keep all of your communication doors wide open.

You listen carefully to your student and you consider the nonverbal signals so that you can read between the lines.  You know you’re getting the message.  Maybe.  No matter how much care you take to try to get the message correctly, you may be wrong.  One technique that can help to improve your communication with your college student is called perception checking.  It is simply making sure that what you think you heard is accurate.  Don’t assume that your understanding is correct.

The goal of perception checking is that both you and your student have a shared understanding, that both you and your student know that you are working together to understand each other.  This cooperative approach helps you to clarify what you’ve heard, but not put your student on the spot.  It shows your respect for your student because you don’t assume that you can read his mind, and it shows that you recognize that your perspective may be different from your student’s.

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When your child leaves home for college, you worry about losing contact.  She will be living at college, and perhaps not returning home for several weeks or months, so you worry.  However, with some effort on your part, your communication with your student may become even more meaningful than when she was home.

This post is the second in a series of five posts that may give you food for thought about how you communicate with your college student. We’re posting one of these articles each week for five weeks.  Some of our suggestions may be common sense reminders, and some may be new ideas for you.  Obviously, communication skills are interrelated, so please consider all of these suggestions together.  Our first post concerned how you listen to your student.  In this post we’ll consider nonverbal communication and the signals that you send and interpret. In future posts we discuss how to check perceptions to make sure you understand what your student is really saying, how to ask helpful questions, and how to frame some of your messages so your student may be willing to listen.  We hope that thinking about how you listen and talk to your student may help you to keep all of your communication doors wide open.

Most of us think of nonverbal communication as body language, and it is.  However, there are more facets to nonverbal communication than many of us might imagine, even though we use these aspects of communication daily to help us understand people. So, as we discuss nonverbal communication, let’s begin by broadening our definition.  Nonverbal communication is anything that helps to get a message from one person to another without using the meaning of the words.  With this definition, nonverbal communication includes not only body language, but also tone of voice, appearance, timing, facial expressions, and even the atmosphere in which we choose to have a conversation.

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When your child leaves home to head for college, you worry about losing contact with her.  If she will be living at college, and perhaps not returning home for several weeks or months, you worry.  However, it is possible that, with some effort on your part, your communication may become even more meaningful.

This post is the first in a series of five posts that may give you food for thought about how you communicate with your college student. We’re posting one of these articles each week over the next five weeks.  Some of our suggestions may be common sense reminders, and some may be new ideas for you.  Obviously, communication skills are interrelated, so consider all of these suggestions together.  This first post concerns how you listen to your student.  In future posts we’ll consider nonverbal communication and the signals that you send, how to check perceptions to make sure you understand what your student is really saying, how to ask helpful questions, and how to frame some of your messages so your student may be willing to listen.  We hope that thinking about how you listen and talk to your student may help you to keep all of your communication doors wide open.

Listening matters!

Listening may be one of the most important, and undervalued, communication skills that we use.  Unfortunately, many of us believe that listening is passive and that if we’re not talking, we’re not really communicating.  Listening well is difficult, and doing it well takes practice. Listening well will help you understand your student better and will also model listening skills for your student.  Hopefully, he’ll also learn how to listen to you. We’d like to offer eight suggestions that may help you listen more carefully to what your college student has to tell you.

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