Countdown to College
PARENTS have an important role as educators and sources of support in the college application process. So much of what will happen during the course of senior year will depend in part on the relationship between parents and their son or daughter. Some parents may have to learn to put confidence in their children?s ability to make decisions, because young adults want respect for their choices. Choosing a college is a highly personal matter. The process requires self-evaluation, which can affect self-esteem.
Moods shift quickly. One minute your senior may appear overly confident, sure he/she will be admitted everywhere; the next shy and reticence, a hostile reminder of the terrible two?s. On one day the student prepares to leave home and be more independent and the next day he/she wants nothing more than to be hugged and given direction. It is a difficult time for parents to know when to be around and when not to be, when to speak and when to listen. Parents are often confused by the changes in their son?s/daughter?s behavior during the college application process. When in doubt, be around and listen!
TALKING IT OUT
The only antidote to constant misunderstanding during this time is open and active dialogue ? between parents and children ? and among parents, children and the professional lending support. To most teenagers the world seems full of possibilities. They believe that they can make anything happen and the chance to compete is equated with the right to win. Our society has taught them that little can be learned from failure. For many, the college application process introduces the realization that life is not always fair.
The college application process is highly charged with personal and emotional considerations that often have little to do with the issue of getting into college or with which college you attend. The process becomes the focus on which a whole range of emotional and family concerns come to bear. Getting into college is, among other things, about leaving home and preparing to enter the world beyond. It is about saying good-bye to childhood and looking ahead but casting frequent glances over the shoulder. It is, in the short, a time of conflicted feelings. Yet it is an exciting time of self-discovery and new beginnings for the whole family. We all grow and change as part of a family when one of our members leave. Talk about the feelings you are experiencing with one another and with school or outside counselors. The first step to understanding feelings is acknowledging them. If family dinner on a regular basis is not a tradition at your house, senior year is the time to introduce it. This is not the time for college talk; in fact, mention application deadlines at your own risk! Family dinners provide a time to share stories of the day and memories, to remind ourselves that we are and remain a family despite differences of opinion.
Chances are it may not be a smooth year. It is too easy to confuse our own needs and dreams with those of our child. As parents we need to be careful not to over-identify with your child?s senior year upswings and downswings. They do need, however, to know that we take seriously what they are going through. Our role is to help them get through it with their self-esteem intact. We need to resist speaking in terms of admissions statistics and help our children to leave illusions behind only as they also learn about their own individualism. At the heart of the admissions process stand people, not numbers.
OPEN MINDS
Parents need to keep an open mind about college possibilities for their son or daughter. They should consider colleges they don?t already know about and take the time to update their knowledge of colleges. Avoid being interested in only big-name schools for your own ego. Concentrating on prestigious colleges is unfair to the student who simply does not have the credentials to attend or even the desire. Support your child?s choices. If a family has planned carefully, there should be no college on the list that you would not accept as your child?s school. Some choices may well be preferred, but each should have its merits. In April, when decisions are announced, help your son or daughter to feel pleased and accomplished by praising his or her acceptances, not conveying disappointment that the big ones got away. Parents who are very vocal about how disappointed they feel are undermining any feelings of success their child might have.
It is the candidate?s credentials, after all, that have been evaluated. Take satisfaction in your son?s or daughter?s getting into a college where he or she is likely to do well, grow intellectually and socially and prepare for a career. If conversation among yourselves breaks down at this point, as if often does, visit with your student's college advisor and get the view point of an objective third party.
going to college