Supporting Your Student

The Final Decision: Why Your High School Senior May Be Stuck

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It’s all good.  Your high school student applied to multiple colleges — and they’ve been accepted to all of them.  You’ve made it through the harrowing admissions process.

But wait, the process isn’t quite over yet.  You and your student have survived the agonizing wait, but now the ball is back in your student’s court.  They need to make a decision — in just a few short weeks they will need to decide which college to attend.  This sounds like an ideal dilemma, but put the emphasis on dilemma.

For some soon-to-be college students the decision is easy.  They have had a clear favorite from the beginning and there is no hesitation.  For many more students, however, the decision may not be as clear.  There are many factors to weigh, options to consider.  For many high school students, this is not only a big decision; this may be the first major life decision that they have had to make.  To many students, this decision may be overwhelming and paralyzing.

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Why Your High School Senior Is So Stressed Right Now

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There may be times for many of us throughout this college admissions process when we don’t think we’ll all survive.  Parents are anxious, students are stressed and sometimes downright sullen, and admissions personnel are overwhelmed.  It seems as though the stress has increased in recent years — especially for high school students.  We’ve created an achievement culture where students begin earlier and earlier to plan for, and work toward, college admission.  Is it any wonder that everyone is feeling out of control by the second half of senior year?

For high school students especially, the tension and stress at this time of year may often feel overwhelming.  But, although the stress of waiting to hear about getting in to college is very real, it is not the only factor creating the anxiety at this time of year.  Here are six factors that may be affecting your student’s feelings.

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Conversations With Your College Student: What’s Your Listening Position?

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There are many kinds of conversations that you need to have with your college student.  Some conversations come easily, and at other times it’s a struggle to get your student to make time and/or to participate in the conversation.  Some students share readily and others seem to resist our attempts to communicate.

Are you listening?

One of the first questions we, as parents, need to ask ourselves is how much we are actually listening to our students?  Do we see these important conversations as simply opportunities to give our opinion?  Is our definition of a ”conversation” too one-sided?  We may ask for reactions or opinions, or for students to share information, but do we actually listen to what they say?  If we aren’t listening, are we surprised that they are less willing to share?

We’ve written some earlier posts about the importance of listening to your college student, and about some good habits to develop as a listener.  If you want to hear more from your student, these earlier posts may help you get started.

OK, you’re listening, but how?

What we’d like to consider in this post is not whether you are listening, or even whether you are listening well, but how you listen.  What’s your listening position?  What’s your attitude as you listen?  Not all conversations call for the same type of listening.  We actually need to listen differently depending on the subject or the situation.

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Helping Your College Student Evaluate the Past Semester

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Most college students get a ”restart” at least twice a year.  (If students have shorter terms such as trimesters or quarters, then they get even more.)  Each new semester brings a kind of New Year experience.  It is a chance to reflect on the past and look ahead with new goals and visions for the future.  (We hesitate to call them resolutions because we know how seldom we keep those resolutions.)

As we approach the beginning of a calendar year and also a semester, this is a good time for your student to reflect on the semester that has just passed.  This is especially important if you have a new college student and this was her first semester.  That first semester is an important learning time (in so many more ways than just academics) but the learning is most meaningful if your student takes time to reflect.

We’d like to offer some questions to share with your student.  These are important ways to look back and consider the past semester — an essential step before looking ahead and thinking about how to make the new semester even better.  Suggest that your student think about some of these questions — but don’t expect him to answer them for you.  While he might want to share some experiences and reflections with you, it is most important that he be completely honest with himself.  If he feels the need to filter any answers for your benefit, it may not be as helpful.

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College Parents: Hold That Advice!

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Your student is home from college for a break.  It is your chance to catch up and touch bases about the semester.  Perhaps it hasn’t gone as well as everyone had hoped.  Perhaps your student is concerned about choosing or changing a major.  Perhaps their social life isn’t what they had hoped — or perhaps there is too much social life.  Whatever the issue might be, as college parents, we feel that we this is our chance — and probably our responsibility — to share important advice with our student.

But wait!  That might not be what your student needs most from you right now.

What your student might need most — at least for a while — is for you to be a sounding board.

Serving as a Sounding Board

One definition of a sounding board is a thin partition behind a podium to reflect the speaker’s sound out to the audience.  It is actually sometimes called a ”tester.”  Of course, another definition is a person who listens to someone to allow the speaker to try out or rehearse an idea in order to explore it more fully, evaluate it or to measure its acceptability.

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The College Student — Grandparent Connection

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Grandparents are everywhere!  According to U.S. Census information, more than one in every four adults in the United States is a grandparent.  Most of those grandparents are Baby Boomers in the 45 to 64 year age range.  That means that most college students in the United States are likely to have at least one grandparent in their life.  The trends indicate that this number will continue to grow over at least the next decade and that American grandparents will be playing a central role in the lives of their grandchildren and their adult children.

The MetLife Report on American Grandparents is based on a nationwide survey of adults aged 45 or more who have grandchildren under the age of 25.  This survey highlights some information about today’s grandparents and at least some of the connections that they have with their college aged grandchildren.

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Service and Therapy Animals on College Campuses

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If your college student relies on a service animal for assistance with a disability, the prospect of going to college, especially if it involves living on campus, comes with extra complexities.  Your student may be concerned about whether their service animal will be able to live in the residence hall with them.

Fortunately, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, your student should have no problem bringing a service animal to college. Many colleges and universities are experiencing a rise in requests to bring service animals to campus. The law defines a service animal as any dog (or other animal) that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.  The tasks that the animal performs must be related to the student’s disability, and can include a wide variety of services, such as assisting the blind, alerting individuals who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, or retrieving items. Service animals may also perform tasks such as recognizing and assisting during seizures.

Service animals do not necessarily need certification, although your student may need a letter from a doctor stating the need for the animal.  According to the American with Disabilities Act, the school may ask whether the animal is required because of a disability and what service the animal performs. Service animals must be harnessed, leashed, tethered or under strict control or the school may request that they be removed.

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8 Summer Reading Recommendations for College Parents

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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.

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Seven Conversations to Have With Your College Sophomore — Part 2

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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

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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.

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