Communicating With Your College Student: Are You Sure You Understand?

When your child leaves home for college, you worry about losing contact.  They 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 they were home.

This article is the third in a series of five that may give you food for thought about how you communicate with your college student.   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 article concerned how you listen to your student, our second looked at nonverbal communication.  In this article we discuss how to check perceptions to make sure you understand what your student is really saying.  In our final two articles 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 their mind, and it shows that you recognize that your perspective may be different from your student’s.

Read more


New Year’s Resolutions for High School Parents and Their College Bound Students

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.

Read more


Communicating With Your College Student: Are You Reading Between the Lines?

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.

Read more


New Year’s Resolutions for College Parents — and Their College Students

New Year is often the time for new beginnings.  Fortunately, for college students, the new year also often brings a new semester with its fresh start as well.  We offer here 10 New Year’s resolutions for college parents and 10 resolutions for you to pass on to your college student.  Enjoy your fresh start — and make this a great year for you and your college student!

Read more


Help! My College Student Wants to Drop Out of College!

As a parent of a college student, you may be taken completely by surprise when your student comes home to announce that they want to drop out of college.  Or it is possible that you have seen this coming for a few weeks or even months.  Either way, it may be difficult to believe or accept.  So much effort and emotional energy went into the choice of college and the admissions process, that it doesn’t seem possible that your student could want to quit now.  The reality is that, according to ACT (American College Testing) nearly 25% of students leave college before finishing their sophomore year.

Breathe!

So what should you, as a college parent, do if your student announces that they are ready to quit?  First of all, take a deep breath.  This was probably not an easy decision for your student and it was probably difficult for them to come to talk to you.  Your student will be watching carefully for your response.  This may be one of those opportunities in your student’s life when you can strengthen or weaken your communication and relationship with them.  If necessary, ask for time to absorb the news before you talk.  ”This is an important decision and it’s taking me by surprise.  Can you give me some time to think about this and can we talk tomorrow?”  Don’t say anything right now that you may regret later or that will close a door.

Read more


Communicating With Your College Student: Are You Listening?

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.

Read more


Helping Your College Student ”Supersize” Their College Experiences

Is your college student taking full advantage of their opportunities in college?  As with so many things during the college years, students struggle to find balance in many areas of their lives.  They face many challenges, opportunities, and growing responsibilities.  College experiences come in many forms, and your student needs to determine how to negotiate these experiences.  In several areas, students may need help in discovering how to find the ”extra value”.

Academics

The Norm:

Students come to college expecting a new level of schoolwork.  Most rise to the challenge of different types of classes and increased homework.  They know that they are required to spend more time outside of class doing schoolwork.  They know that their thinking may be challenged on a new level.  Many students do the work required and gain tremendous knowledge from their classes.

Read more


Need to Talk To Your College Student? Choose Your Time and Place Carefully

We’ve emphasized in many of our articles the importance of good communication with your college student.  We think this is such an important topic that we’re planning a series of posts in the next few weeks with some communication suggestions.  In the meantime, thinking not only about how you communicate, but also when and where you communicate may be helpful — especially if your student may be headed home for a break.  You might enhance your chances of a good conversation — or doom it — simply by choosing your time and place carefully.  Of course, there’s no exact answer for everyone.  Knowing your student, and thinking about your family dynamic makes all of the difference.  But here’s some food for thought.

Read more


Ten Parental Habits That Can Negatively Affect Your College Student

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 their years in college.  However, there are some things that parents do, often for what seem like good reasons, that may have unintentional negative effects for their student.

If you’re brave enough, 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 them, and 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.

Read more


What to Expect from Your College Student’s First Semester Grades

Many college parents wait expectantly, hopefully, and sometimes fearfully for those first semester college grades as a measure of how their student is doing in college.  Although many students may have a better inkling of what to expect when the grades arrive, they, too, wait anxiously to hear the final verdict.  For many students, and their parents, those first semester grades may not be what they expected.

It is important that both college parents and their college students keep first semester grades in perspective.  For many students, these grades may be all that they hoped for.  However, if your student’s grades are lower than anticipated, there are several factors to consider.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that you student is incapable of college work, or that they have been slacking off all semester.  Grades are important, but the first semester of college involves both tremendous transition and, for some students, a ”reality check” about college in general.

Read more


Log In

or

Log In to Favorite articles and Post listings

Enter College Name to See Local Results

Log In

Contact Us

Forgot your password?

Your new password has been sent to your email!

Logout Successful!

Find Your School

You just missed it! This listing has been filled.

Post your own housing listing on Uloop and have students reach out to you!

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
Please enter First Name Please enter Last Name Please enter Phone
Please enter Email
Please enter Message

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

Please enter Email

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Success, your registration has been submitted

An email has been sent to you with a link to verify your registration
Image not available.
By clicking Get Started or Sign In you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service