Is Your Student Ready to Take Control?
As college parents, we need to assume a new role and step into the background of our student’s college experience. However, this only works if your student is ready to take control. One of our tasks as parent is to help our student get ready for college. This means more than helping to pack the boxes and making trips to the home store for dorm furnishings. College readiness requires academic readiness, but also “life” readiness. Your student needs to be ready to take control when the time comes.
Preparing for college begins long before the summer before your student heads off. For many students, this is a time of great emotional swings. One moment she is excited and can’t wait to get started, and another moment she is terrified. For many students, the terror comes, consciously or unconsciously, because life may feel out of control. They are not sure where they will live, who their roommate will be, what classes will be like, who their friends will be, or how they will spend their time.
Of course, it is impossible to control everything, but the more that your student can anticipate what is to come, the more comfortable he will be. Here are a few areas you might help your student consider as he prepares for his new experiences in the fall.
Academic – Help your student anticipate some of the differences between high school and college. Help her think about how and how much she plans to study and what she may do if she needs help. Help her think about how to talk to a professor, how to send an appropriate, professional e-mail, or how to work with others on group projects.
Social – Talk frankly with your student about the tough subjects of drinking, drugs and sex. They are a reality of college life for many students and having some strategies will help. Help your student think about ideas for making friends. Give your student some suggestions and strategies for preventing and negotiating potential conflicts with a roommate.
Emotional – Prepare your student for the potential dips in the college experience. While most of college is a great experience for most students, there will be inevitable times when things do not go well. Help your student think about how he will handle these times – and to know that they will pass eventually.
Financial – Help your student get ready to handle his finances. Make sure he understands how to budget, how to use a credit card responsibly, how to balance a checkbook, etc. Keeping track and feeling in control of your expenses is an area that many college students wish they knew more about – and many wish they had learned more from their parents.
Physical – Help your student think about getting enough sleep, eating a reasonable diet, getting exercise, and maintaining healthy habits. If he takes medication, make sure he knows how to monitor it and how to have a prescription refilled.
Not every student will need or want to talk to you about all of these areas. Many students may already be well prepared in many of these areas. However, anything that you can do to help your student feel that he will be in control when he heads to college will be important.
