Helpful Hints for Parents
It may not always be easy to talk with your teen. But it's important that you support your teen throughout their college planning- help them organize the process, meet deadlines, and talk with the right people. Here are a few tips to consider:
- Be receptive to and listen when your teen wants to discuss career and/or college plans.
- Have your teen explore career and college options and collect as much information as possible.
- Encourage them to capture their ideas on paper. One idea is to create a scrapbook of their plans for career and college.
- Be aware of various deadlines for applications to colleges and financial aid. Put them on a calendar that both you and your teen can look at.
- Suggest that your teen meet with a school counselor at least once a year, beginning in the 10th grade, to learn more about college and career planning.
- Be supportive of your teen, and meet with their counselor if you sense that he or she needs additional help.
- Encourage your teen by helping them see the connection between college and career. Emphasize the importance of selecting a major that helps them prepare for a career.
- If your teen is undecided about a career direction, do not try to fix it. Let them look into all the possibilities.
The Jackson Legacy Program is a Program of
Just for Parents
For teens, going off to college represents a huge change in their lives. But this change can affect parents and guardians just as much. While you are certainly proud and excited about their accomplishments, there can also be a growing feeling of loss and separation.
Dealing with Separation
Dealing with these mixed emotions can be difficult, but it’s a normal feeling. Here are some ways to help deal with the new situation.
Stay Connected
There can be some truth to "absence makes the heart grow fonder" but parents or guardians may worry that "out of sight means out of mind." So you and your student need to determine ways to stay involved in each other's lives and remember to say and do the little things that matter. Cards sent home, care packages sent to school, pictures of events that were missed and email and phone calls do provide a way to stay connected and involved.
Adjust to a new relationship
As you play a new role in your teen’s life, try to adjust to the new adult-to-adult aspect of the parent-child relationship. Children always need parents, but the relationship may become more peer-like.
Expect ups and downs
One minute college students are models of independence, the next they call home in tears. This back and forth is natural and expected, as both students and parents become more comfortable and confident in the ability of students to handle situations on their own.
Redirect your time and energy to new activities
With your parenting time now free time, taking stock of personal interests and assets will reveal areas of your life that may have been neglected. It can be time to develop, reawaken, and pursue old and new hobbies, leisure activities or careers.
Allow for mistakes
You should encourage and accept the child's ability to make independent decisions. Both the college student and the parents must realize mistakes will be made along the way - it's called life. Learning from mistakes is just another type of learning.
Guide rather than pressure
Communicating educational goals and expectations should be done in a manner respectful of your student's own style and interests. College students need to pursue their own passions. Although parental input can be useful, children should not be expected to live out their parents' dreams.