Communicating With Your College Student: Is the Climate Right?

June 23, 2012January 12, 2010 by Vicki Nelson

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 is the fifth and final post in a series 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 post concerned how you listen to your student, our second looked at nonverbal communication, our third discussed perception checking, and our fourth applied some interviewing principles. In this post we consider 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.

Communication with your college student is important. You work hard at it. You provide opportunities, listen to your student, try to be aware of what is being said between the lines, you ask the right questions, and yet you sometimes may feel as though your student becomes defensive or reluctant to tell you about his thoughts and feelings. Yes, it is possible that your student just may not want, or be able, to talk to you right now. But it is also possible that you might be able to do more to create a supportive and open climate that will encourage your student to share her feelings. Communication researcher Jack Gibb has suggested six areas in which we sometimes create a defensive communication climate rather than the supportive one that we desire. We’d like to share some of these potential pitfalls and offer some suggestions for you to increase your positive communication.

9 Ways to Help Your College Student Get a Fresh Start for Second Semester

January 2, 2018January 10, 2010 by Vicki Nelson

Your student’s return to college for a second semester is a very different from heading off to college last fall. Students heading back to school for their second semester bring their wisdom and their mistakes, their college knowledge and their new life experiences with them. For some students, the anticipation and worry may not be as high as first semester. For other students, who may not have had the best first semester, their concerns are significant and real. But all students should recognize that the start of the second semester of college is another new beginning. Parents can help their college students prepare for their second semester by helping them think about it and plan a few goals before they return to school. Share some of these ideas with your student and ask what might help.

Communicating With Your College Student: Six Principles to Help You Make the Most of Opportunities

November 27, 2020January 6, 2010 by Vicki Nelson

When your child leaves home for college, you may 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 post is the fourth in a series of five posts that may give you food for thought about how you communicate with your college student. Some of our suggestions are 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, and our third discussed perception checking. In this post we consider how to ask the most helpful questions and how to apply some interviewing principles (yes, interviewing). In our final post we’ll look at how to frame some of your messages so your student may be more 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.

A conversation is not an interview, and we don’t like conversations that begin to feel like interviews — or worse, interrogations. However, those of us who have experienced well conducted interviews know that a good interview can feel like friendly conversation — and can elicit extremely helpful information. Thinking about, and applying, a few basic principles of good interviewing may help you make your conversations with your student more productive.

We don’t want to suggest that you should strategize every exchange with your student — that’s obviously not the kind of communication that you want. However, these principles may be most helpful when you need to have a serious or directed conversation with your student.

How Parents Can Help Their College Student in Difficulty

December 28, 2017January 3, 2010 by Vicki Nelson

When your college student began college you both had high hopes and expectations. You knew that there would be challenges ahead, but you both did everything that you could to prepare. Now your student seems to be struggling and having difficulty at college. You may be feeling helpless and concerned for her. Perhaps she hasn’t applied herself to studying, or perhaps she doesn’t understand what is required to succeed in college, or perhaps she has worked hard but is still unable to accomplish what she needs to do.

Whatever the reasons may be, your college student is now struggling and you want to know what you can do to help. Obviously, every situation is different and every family dynamic is different, but here are some posts that may help you as you try to decide how you can help support your student as he works to improve his situation.

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

December 22, 2021December 29, 2009 by Vicki Nelson

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.

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

January 13, 2019December 27, 2009 by Vicki Nelson

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.

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

December 31, 2017December 22, 2009 by Vicki Nelson

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.

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

March 17, 2017December 20, 2009 by Vicki Nelson

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!

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

November 25, 2019December 17, 2009 by Vicki Nelson

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.

Communicating With Your College Student: Are You Listening?

December 31, 2017December 15, 2009 by Vicki Nelson

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.