The Changing Relationship with Your Student

The Challenges of Parenting your College Student in the Digital Age

College life today is remarkably different from what it was when you were young. When you deliver your child to college, you will encounter a wired campus; online registration and course offerings; gender-integrated residence halls (sometimes with gender-integrated bathrooms and often with in-house technical support); dining halls that are open continuously twelve to fifteen hours a day and cater to special diets; orientation, and special programs for parents throughout the year; and an exceptionally diverse group of students toting smartphones and laptop computers.

Moreover, when you return home, you will have the capacity for continuous connection to your son or daughter, thanks to cell phones, e-mail, Skype, texting, and Twitter. Now that you can easily communicate with your child all day, every day, it’s more important than ever that you consider how this involvement might affect your child’s progress toward independence.

The college years represent a unique phase in human development; this is the time when your child needs to explore and master the challenges of life without your constant engagement and reassurance. While this is rarely a smooth journey, it is a critical period in which you, too, can learn to shift your approach and become a trusted guide and consultant as your child navigates the path to independent adulthood.

This may be a particularly difficult shift because your generation (whether you are a baby boomer or a Gen Xer) has been more involved in your children’s education and development than any generation in American history. You have been dubbed “helicopter parents” and have been scrutinized in the popular press for the zeal with which you have nurtured your children from infancy to emerging adulthood. You likely enjoy a close relationship with your son or daughter, and your child no doubt admires you, relies on you, and wants to stay connected.

One of the most difficult parts of being the parent of a college student is observing from afar as your child makes the often-bumpy transition from dependence to independence. After years of being a responsible, caring, and “in-control” parent, this change can be frightening, rewarding, and nerve-wracking—sometimes all in the same week!

As your child heads to college, you may wonder: What does it mean to be the parent of a legally adult college student today? What is my role now?

Let’s face it: once your child has gone to college, you have very little control. The college or university will treat your child as a legal adult, even though you know your child is far from independent. While you are no longer in a position to regulate, supervise, or direct your child’s life, you do have a unique opportunity to influence your child’s decisions and behavior. Your child will experiment with taking on fully adult responsibilities and privileges. What better time for you, too, to try out new ways of relating to and communicating with your child?

The healthiest adult-to-adult relationships I’ve seen in families with grown children develop when the parents begin to adopt a consulting/coaching role during the college years. One wise new college parent told me, “I realize now that my job is to shift from being a supervisor to being a consultant.”
The word consultant comes from the Latin word consultare, which means “to discuss.” While you have no doubt played many roles—caregiver, teacher, nurturer, adviser, provider, rule setter and enforcer, disciplinarian, and counselor—in raising your child to this stage of development, the college years present unique challenges.

While it is true that you will always be your child’s parent, now is the time to add a new dimension to your parenting. Your role now is to become a trusted consultant—listening, reflecting, empathizing, advising and supporting—as your child begins to encounter adult responsibilities and choices.

Here are some questions to reflect on as you contemplate parenting a college student:

• What capabilities do I want my student to have when they receive their diploma and begin their first job?
• Does my son or daughter really need my help to solve this problem or do I just need to be needed? If so, what need am I getting met by keeping my son or daughter dependent on me?
• What message am I conveying to my child by “taking on” and trying to fix all of his or her problems? (Hint: You’re essentially telling them that you don’t feel they are capable of handling their own life.)
• At what age do I see my son or daughter able to make decisions independently and in what ways can I support that process now?

Throughout the next few years, you will be laying the groundwork for a new kind of relationship with your child.  This grand personal odyssey called the college years will be an adventure for you as well. 

As you begin this journey, I hope you will take pride in the fact that you’ve been a great parent and have instilled sound values in your son or daughter you will freely give your child the priceless gift of confidence in his or her ability to meet the challenges of college life and you will reflect on how you can best influence and support your child in the quest for fully independent adulthood in the years to come. 

Excerpted from the Revised and Updated Edition of Don’t Tell Me What To Do, Just Send Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) by Helen E. Johnson and Christine Schelhas-Miller