Supporting Your Student

Resolutions for 2015 for College Parents (and Almost College Parents)

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Each year at College Parent Central we focus on some resolutions for the New Year.  We know it’s often hard (if not impossible) to keep our resolutions, but focusing on some goals for the new year is a good exercise.  It helps us think about where we’ve been and where we’re going.

If you’re a college parent (or almost a college parent), focusing on where you’re going in the next few years may be a combination of the unknown, the scary, the exciting, and just simply the adventure.  We hope that you and your student find joy and meaning in that adventure.

We’ve offered some resolutions over the past few years and we think they are still worth considering (especially if you’re new to this college parent world).  Check out our earlier New Year resolutions at the end of this post.

For 2015, we’d like to offer 8 resolutions for parents – whether you are college parents now or still high school parents just beginning the college journey.  Like so many resolutions, these may be tough, but we hope you’ll come back to the list throughout the year and see how you’re doing.

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When Disappointment Comes for Your Student

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Your student will experience disappointment. It is inevitable. There are the little disappointments that occur all through childhood, of course, but then there are bigger disappointments.  It may be failure to make the team or get the part in the play, a grade that is less than desired, loss of a scholarship, college rejection or deferral, or low GPA.  It might happen in high school or it might happen during college.

However, the important question is not whether your student will experience disappointment (they will) or even when, but what will you and your student do when the inevitable happens?

Your student may look to you, even without realizing that they are doing so, to model how they should handle this disappointment.  Whether it is an admission rejection or academic probation, it is important to see this as an opportunity to model your attitude and behavior for your student.  How you respond may affect how they react to the situation.  Remember when your student was little and fell down?  Often, the first thing they did was look to you. If you smiled and laughed, they often got up and were fine.  If you were alarmed and fearful, tears came.

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How Can Parents Help College Students as the Semester Ends?

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The end of the semester is almost here and your college student may be feeling stressed.  You wish you could help.  Or perhaps it’s nearing the end of the semester and your college student is just a bit too relaxed about the urgency of the work that still needs to be done.  You wish you could light a little fire under them.

In either of these cases, as a college parent, you may wonder what you can do to help your student cope with all that the end of a semester involves.  The truth is that you are limited in what you can do to help — but that doesn’t mean that you can’t help in several important ways.

Once again — brush up those listening skills

There are many important points in our students’ lives when our listening skills may be the most important tool that we have in our toolkit.  The end of the semester may be one of them.  You may hear more from your student at this point, especially if they are feeling stressed.  Then again, you may not hear as much from your student — either because they are too busy to talk or write or because they are stressed and don’t want or know how to share those feelings.

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The Culture Shock of Adjusting to College

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Adjusting to college life is often harder than most first year students and their parents anticipate.  Students know that life at college is going to be different, and they are excited, and perhaps a bit anxious, about starting their adventure.  But it’s difficult to anticipate how different life may be when you don’t exactly know what to expect.  College is, for many students, a foreign culture.

Most students don’t equate entering college to entering a different culture.  When we talk about culture, we often refer to those things that we do and accept without really thinking about them: our way of life.  We have expectations, values, ways of talking, eating, behaving, relating to each other, and even thinking — but we don’t give these things any conscious thought most of the time.  When your student heads to college, they may need to think consciously about how they manage much of their daily life.  They need to adjust — and that adjustment will come gradually.

Making the cultural adjustment

Most students make the adjustment to college life eventually.  However, each student may adjust according to a different timetable.  Some students may find that the adjustment comes fairly easily — they hardly realize that it is happening.  Other students find the process difficult, slow, and even painful at times.  However, the stages of cultural adjustment are similar for most everyone.  If you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time in a foreign country, you may have experienced these phases yourself.

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Shaking Up the Nest: When Your College Student Comes Home for Break

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Your student has been away at school for several weeks or months and it’s finally time for them to return home for a holiday break. You’re excited to see them and can’t wait to catch up on their life at college. You’ve planned favorite meals and anticipate finally spending some quality time with your student. You’ve survived the empty nest, but you’re looking forward to filling it up again — at least for a little while.

What you may not realize, however, is how much you’ve adjusted to that empty nest. It seemed so quiet and empty in those first days after you dropped your student off at school. But now you’ve had time to get used to the quiet — and you may not even realize it. You’ve adjusted to fewer dirty dishes, less laundry, and turning out the lights when you go to bed because no one else is coming home later.

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Are You College Parent, Social Media Savvy? Beyond Admissions and Beyond Hovering

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girl holding cell phone

We live in the age of social media. According to some studies done by the Pew research organization, 73% of online adults use a social networking site of some kind and 42% use multiple sites. Every platform available, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram has shown increases in uses in the last year. We consume, we share, we connect.

Colleges know the importance of our online lives and use the web heavily in their admissions process. They reach out to both students and parents through avenues from websites to social media platforms to chat rooms. According to research conducted by Noel Levitz, the higher education consulting firm, some 45% of parents have looked at college websites on their mobile devices. Colleges have established profiles and pages and feeds and boards on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn. More than 200 colleges have LinkedIn profiles and many others have statistics listed. Clearly, both students and parents are using social media as one method of finding the right college.

But perhaps your student has now not only found a college, but headed off to college. Are you ready to turn off social media? Probably not. Of course, you can continue to use social media platforms to keep track of what your student is doing. Much has been written about parents and their teens/young adults and use of social media. Should you friend your student on Facebook, follow his Twitter feed, connect on LinkedIn, and follow his Instagram account? That is a very personal decision and one which you and your student should discuss. It may be comforting to you and comfortable to your student, or it may feel intrusive, discomforting and TMI (too much information). Have that conversation with your student.

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You Can Influence Your College Student’s Classroom Success

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Success in college means many things to many people. For some, it means a 4.0 GPA, for others it means landing the perfect job at graduation or being accepted to graduate school, for still others it may mean opportunities such as studying abroad and completing internships, and for still others, success may mean having a good time or finding a husband or wife.

However broadly you and your student define college success, it almost always includes at least some amount of success in the classroom. In spite of the importance of networking, social life, athletics, leadership, broad experiences, friendships, or job opportunities, the college experience centers around the classroom. And success in the classroom is important.

As a college parent, you hope for academic success, but there is little you can do to influence it. Your student’s success will depend on many factors, but they are, and should be, generally out of your control. In your role as sideline coach, you can cheer your student on — and occasionally give some advice — but the task of learning how to learn belongs to your student.

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Are You Sending a Shy Student to College?

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As parents, we’re all at least a little nervous as we send our student off to college for the first time. And students are nervous, too, even if they don’t admit it. But if the student we’re about to send off is shy, we may have more than the usual concerns. Will my student make friends? Will my student participate in class? Will my student communicate with her professors? Will my student get involved?

If you have a shy student, chances are that these are not new concerns. You’ve lived with these issues before, but they are magnified as you contemplate sending your student off to be on their own at college. You’re not going to change your student’s personality, and you’re not going to be there to help directly, but you might help them think about feelings and suggest a few things that might help.

Shy or introvert?

One place to start may be for you and your student to think about the difference between being shy and being introverted. Many people consider these the same thing, and they are often related, but they are not the same.

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Three Steps to Take If Your College Student Is Forced to Change Major

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Statistics tell us that as many as 75% of college students will change their major during college. Some 10% of students may change their major as many as four times. That is a lot of shifting. However, when we think about students changing their major, we usually think about students changing their mind, discovering a new passion, finding a new field or career interest. What the statistics do not tell us is how many students may change their major — not through their choice: they are not opting out, the choice is being made for them.

Some majors at some colleges and universities have entrance requirements. Other majors have minimum GPA requirements in order to remain in that major. A student who has not done well in one or more courses required for a particular major may be blocked from the major, denied admission to the major, or dismissed from the major. Many departments institute these requirements because they know, from years of experience, that students who fall below these standards will ultimately not succeed. From the college’s viewpoint this makes sense for your student. However, you, and your student, wonder — what happens now? It can be a heartbreaking, and perhaps frightening, situation.

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Do You Have a Super Senior? Making the Most of the Fifth Year of College

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To every parent their student is a ”super” kid, whether a senior or not.  But the term ”Super Senior” is not necessarily the term that parents hope to hear when referring to their college students.

What is a Super Senior?

Super Senior is the term sometimes used to refer to a student who is a college senior in the fifth, or sixth, year of college.  They have already been a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior — and are now a Super Senior — or fifth (or sixth) year college student. One study has suggested that only approximately 39% of students graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years.  The Department of Education actually calculates a six year graduation rate, which comes closer to 59%.

So the term Super Senior is becoming increasingly common. But whether the numbers are accurate or not, or whether five or even six years is becoming the national average for completing a degree, if your student will be spending a fifth year in college, both you and your student should discuss the situation.

 

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