Sometimes, coming up with just the right holiday gift for you college student may be difficult. You haven’t seen her in a while and you may not be as sure what she needs. Of course, you can almost never go wrong with a gift card, but if you’re looking for something a little more specific, we have a few suggestions. Use these ideas to get your own creativity started.
Gifts, Books, and Reviews
Book Review: The Accordion Family
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 created lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. See our Resources and Tools page for suggestions.
The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition by Katherine S. Newman is an important look at the trend toward a rising number of multigenerational families. Newman’s findings are based on extensive interviews with 300 people in six countries. Half of those interviewed were parents and half were adult children. Many of the interviewees were from the same families.
Book Review: Beyond Tuition – Career Coaching Your College Kid
Finding a job and a career after college is a concern for nearly every college student and every college parent. Beyond Tuition: Career Coaching Your College Kid by Sharon Gilbert, is a book designed to help alleviate parents’ fears by helping them understand the career development process.
The career development process, and career development offices, have changed in recent years. Students no longer visit the ”placement office” for the first time late in their senior year to perhaps polish up a resume and read the job board. Students are now encouraged to begin working with Career Offices early in their time in college. Gilbert’s book helps parents understand the importance of these early connections, and the more that parents understand, the more that they can guide their students.
Gilbert acknowledges that parent support is integral to a student’s success and works to equip parents to guide their child throughout the process.
Parenting College Students: Reading List #4
This post includes a list of twelve books of interest to parents of college students. We’ve previously published a list of fourteen titles, another list of twelve additional titles, and still another list of fourteen titles which you might want to check out. There are certainly even more resources available, but these lists should give parents a good start on more than enough material to support them through the college years. All of the books have different styles and approaches, so it is important to find the books which resonate for you.
We are not necessarily endorsing these books, but we’d like to help you find material available. You won’t want to read them all, but you might look for some titles and approaches that intrigue you.
Over the next few months, we will continue to review some of these books to provide a bit more guidance about their content and perspective. Check our ”Reviews” category to see what we’ve reviewed so far. Happy reading!
Book Review: Generation on a Tightrope
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 created lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. See our Resources and Tools page for suggestions.
Generation on a Tightrope: A Portrait of Today’s College Student by Arthur Levine and Diane R. Dean is not written specifically for college parents, however, if you want to read a book that will force you to look at your college-aged student differently; this is one of those books. The book is based on research conducted with 5,000 college students as well as student affairs staff members from 270 college campuses. It explores the similarities and differences between today’s generation and previous generations. The book begins by offering the opportunity for current parents to hold the mirror up to examine their own generation.
Generation on a Tightrope provides an eye-opening portrait not only of this generation of college students, but also of college parents. Chapters cover a view of the world in which current college students grew up, the academic attitudes of students, social life, parental involvement in these students’ lives, changing multicultural climate, politics, and the future.
Book Review: When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up?
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 created lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. See our Resources and Tools page for suggestions.
When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up?: Loving and Understanding Your Emerging Adult is, in some respects, a sequel to Dr. Arnett’s book, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties. This groundbreaking book describes the lives of our ”children” from late teens through the late twenties (later than many of us might have thought) as a unique time in their lives — more than adolescents yet not quite adults. It is a wonderful description of this stage of life and for many parents describes exactly the life and mental attitude of their children.
When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up? Picks up this story more specifically for parents. We especially like that this book addresses, in chapter two, parents’ development as well. We often focus so much on our children at this stage that we forget that we are experiencing a new phase of life as well. ”OK, now that you know your kids may not be fully grown up until about age 30, what about you? This is a book not just about your kids’ development, but about your development, too, as you enter a new stage of life.”
Book Review: College Success: Advice for Parents of High School and College Students
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 created lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. See our Resources and Tools page for suggestions.
College Success: Advice for Parents of High School and College Students by Bob Roth covers a lot of ground. We especially like the breadth of topics covered in this book as well as the explanation that college success begins early and is a developing process through both middle school and high school years. The author recognizes that academic success has its foundation in the readiness skills that begin early — and in the family setting.
8 Summer Reading Recommendations for College Parents
For many people, the pace of life in the summer slows a bit. There may be more time for some of the activities we can’t fit in during the year. For many, there may finally be more time for a good read — perhaps even beach reading! For college parents, or almost college parents, this may be an ideal time to do a little reading about what to expect when your student heads off. You know that your parenting job isn’t done — but it will definitely change. These titles will help you know what to expect.
We’ve published several reading lists of books for parents. (See the end of this post for links to those lists.) We recommend that you take time to browse the lists and find some titles that intrigue you. We’ve also published several reviews which might help you make some choices. The books are varied in information and approach and we’re sure you’ll find something helpful.
Book Review: Don’t Bite Your Tongue — How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with Your Adult Children
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 and beyond. We’ve offered some lists of recommended reading, and there is something for everyone. Check out our Resources and Tools page for suggestions.
From time to time, we like to review some of the books available for parents of college students.
In this review, we’ll take a look at Don’t Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with your Adult Children by Dr. Ruth Nemzoff.
Ten (More) Gifts for College Graduates
We’ve written an earlier post with twenty-five suggestions for gifts for your college grad. We think that list is quite comprehensive and even a bit creative. If you’re looking for ideas for graduation, don’t miss looking at that list. However, there are always more ideas that float to the surface. Here are a few more ideas to get you started.
As with our previous list of gift suggestions, as well as our annual holiday suggestions, we know how personal gifts should be. These gift suggestions are intended to be starting points for your own thinking. Some will be out of range for you financially and some will seem silly to you. Take them for what they are and add the spin of how well you know the personality, needs, and interests of your graduate.
Have fun imagining and growing your own ideas.