Seven Conversations to Have With Your College Sophomore — Part 2

May 20, 2013 by Vicki Nelson

This is the second of two posts about working with your sophomore student. Be sure to see our previous post with the first three conversations with your college sophomore.

As parents, we worry about our high school senior’s transition to college. We know that there is work to be done during the summer before that freshman year. We’ve suggested some important conversations — and then even more conversations — for you to have with your student during that summer before college.

As your student moves past the first, transitional year, it may be important to talk with him about what to expect during that potential sophomore slump. Knowing that the second year of college may be significantly different and preparing for some changes will arm your student and possibly prevent some difficult times. This is a good time to have some specific conversations with your student now that he has some perspective on college life and studies. We’d like to suggest seven possible topics. Of course, not all topics are appropriate for everyone. Our last post considered three topics you and your student might discuss. Here are four more.

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Seven Conversations to Have With Your College Sophomore – Part 1

March 18, 2017May 14, 2013 by Vicki Nelson

As parents, we worry about our high school senior’s transition to college. We know that this is a big step and we hope that our student is prepared. We know that there is work to be done during the summer before that freshman year. We’ve written earlier posts about some important conversations — and then even more conversations — for you to have with your student during that summer before college.

But even after your student has made those important first transitions to college, there are more changes ahead. Each year of college brings its own phase of development, and the phenomenon of the ”sophomore slump” is very real for many students. Parents may be less comfortable with knowing what conversations they should be having with their student who may be moving on to the second year of college, but the work isn’t done.

Ten Ways to Use Your College Student’s Campus Mailbox

March 4, 2021April 4, 2013 by Vicki Nelson

The number of ways in which we can communicate with our college students continues to increase almost daily. You may use one method almost exclusively, or you may use several methods to keep in touch. These days, most of our connections seem to be electronic. We may communicate via cell phone, text messages, e-mail, Facebook, Skype, Google hangouts, Google chats, Facetime or any number of other interesting methods. It’s important to stay in touch (although it’s easy to overdo it).

In the rush of the newest electronic forms of communication, one often overlooked and forgotten form of connection is good, old fashioned, snail mail. Even with the advent of technology as a means of connection, most college students are still assigned a physical mailbox on campus. The ritual of checking the mailbox is still a common one for most students. No matter what means of communication you use most often, consider using this mailbox to reach out to your student.

You don’t need to sit down and write a long, newsy letter to your student (although most students wouldn’t object to receiving one). There are some simple ways to brighten your student’s day through mailbox contents. Of course, there is the obvious practice of sending a full-blown care package to your student. Students love receiving care packages. You can contract a service to send a package, or you can put together a fun care package yourself.

Is Your College Senior Suffering from Senioritis? 13 Reasons Why It May Not Be What You Think

January 19, 2018March 21, 2013 by Vicki Nelson

This is the first of two posts about the senioritis sometimes experienced by college seniors. In this post we look at some of the roots or causes of your student’s feelings. In our next post, we’ll consider what this senioritis may look like and how you, as a parent, might help your student cope.

We hear a lot about senioritis and high school seniors. It’s that apathy and lack of motivation that hits in the latter part of their senior year when they’ve been accepted to college and they let their guard down and struggle to keep their grades up and stay focused on school. Severe senioritis in that last year of high school could even result in having a college rescind a student’s admission, so it can be a serious ailment.

We hear less about senioritis during the last year of college, but it exists. Often, it looks much like high school senioritis. Your student has been in school now for sixteen or more years, and he is tired of being a student, loses focus and motivation, skips classes, does poorly on assignments, and generally appears unengaged.

Three Essential Elements of College Parental Support

May 4, 2020January 28, 2013 by Vicki Nelson

As college parents, we want to support our college students. However, defining that support is sometimes more difficult than it seems. Each school is different. Each parent is different. Each student is different and may take a different path. Some students need more support than others at different times during their college career. As a parent, how do you know how best to help your student?

You will, of course, need to find your own way, but there are three essential elements that might provide the foundation of any plan to help your student. Start with these. Think about what they look like for you — and for your family. Then let your plan build from there.

Insist on honesty

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you expect your college student to share every detail of their daily life with you. There are probably some things you’d rather not know. It does mean, however, that you expect your student to be honest — about the reality of their progress in all of its potentially ugly details. If they’re failing a class, they need to let you know. If they are on probation, they need to tell you. If they’ve gotten into some kind of trouble, they need to share that with you. If their credit card is maxed out, they might ask for advice about how to deal with it.

Academically Dismissed from College? Ten Steps to Move On

December 17, 2019January 7, 2013 by Vicki Nelson

This is the third of three posts on College Parent Central considering the realities of academic dismissal from college. Our first post, What To Do If Your Student is Academically Dismissed from College, has been visited most often and received more comments than any other post on this site over the past several years. We followed with our last post, Academically Dismissed from College? Time for a Reset, in which we discussed some of the causes and emotions surrounding dismissal.

In this post, we look at potential next steps for parents and students to work together to come to terms with the situation. Of course, just as the causes for a student’s dismissal are unique and personal, so are next steps. However, we’d like to suggest a path that might help you and your student move ahead.

The Advantages of a Phone Conversation With Your College Student

October 17, 2019November 21, 2012 by Vicki Nelson

According to a study conducted by researchers at Ball State University, 99.8% of college students own cell phones and the number of smartphones is increasing. That’s a lot of phones. But the majority of students use their phones, not for phone calls, but for text messaging. 94% of students say they text every day while only 73% say they make phone calls every day. According to another study, conducted by the Pew Foundation, 18-29 years olds text an average of 109.5 times per day, or more than 3200 texts per month. But college students are not entirely alone. The use of text messaging among 45-54 year olds has increased by 75% and 31% of adults prefer texts to phone calls.

So cell phones are everywhere — and they are being used for texting more than for phone calls. Texting certainly has many advantages in many situations. Texting is quick — no need for niceties, texting can be thoughtful because there is time to think and edit before replying, texting is practical and transactional, texting can wait for a convenient time and doesn’t interrupt anyone unless that person chooses to read it.

So why, then, should you bother to call your college student?

One Question You Should Be Asking Your College Student at Mid-Semester

October 13, 2022October 7, 2012 by Vicki Nelson

There are a lot of things you may want to talk to your college student about at about mid-semester. Of course, you may have been hearing lots of news and updates from your student all along. Students and their parents are more connected today than ever before. But as mid-semester time comes and goes, there are some touchpoints that you and your student might benefit from covering.

If your student is feeling stressed about midterm exams, you might give some reassurance. Once exams are over, you might help your student make sense of his midterm grades. There are some general questions you can be asking your student to help him think about whether some changes are needed to make the second half of the semester more successful.

The Summer Before College: A Time for Conversations, Decisions, Questions and Skills

March 17, 2017July 9, 2012 by Vicki Nelson

It is the summer before your student heads off for freshman year of college. The applications were done months ago, the long wait for acceptance is over, the final decision made, the deposit paid. You know this is an important time, but beyond all of the shopping for extra-long sheets and storage containers and writing that tuition check, you feel there is something you should be doing, but you’re not sure what. Your student is busy saying the long goodbye to high school friends, connecting with new friends on Facebook, and conspicuously not packing yet, but you’re at a loss.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. You’ve been focused for so long on this moment, and yet it’s not clear what you need to be doing. Perhaps it’s not so much what you are doing as the importance of your job of talking to your student to help him make some important summer decisions. There are a lot of topics to be covered, but hopefully, these are continuations of conversations you’ve already started.

The Summer Before College: How Eight Questions Can Help Your Student Reflect — and Help You Know Your Student Better

July 8, 2019June 13, 2012 by Vicki Nelson

The summer before your student heads off to college is an interesting, exciting, and stressful time — both for your soon-to-be college student and for you. It is a time of beginnings and endings, of leavings and goodbyes, of new adventures, of things to do, people to see, decisions to be made, and time to be spent dreaming and reflecting. It all adds up to a good bit of tension and stress.

For many college students and their families, the stress comes, in part, from the unknown — or from the imagined. As parents, we wonder what our students are thinking and planning. Students may wonder what lies ahead, but not be sure what kinds of things they need to be thinking about — or how to plan. We’ve written an earlier post about students’ goals and action plans which may help give some students direction.

Sometimes it’s all about asking the right questions. We’d like to suggest eight possible questions for parents to ask their college bound students over the course of the summer. We have some additional, more practically oriented questions in earlier posts, but these questions are more reflective. Of course, we don’t recommend that you sit your student down and hit him with a barrage of questions. And most parents may not want or need to ask all of these questions. But consider weaving some of these into your summer conversations as a way to help your student reflect on some key issues, think about how to be in control of his college experience, and as a vehicle for you to get to know your student in a new way.