A friend recently confided that she and her husband were planning to get a divorce after their youngest child left for college. While I understood and empathized with her decision, I couldn’t agree with her timing, knowing what I know as a psychologist and educator; initiating a divorce at this time in family life often has a significant and negative affect on a child’s adjustment to college life. Academic failure, depression, or acting out as a college freshman is sometimes the expression of a child’s unconscious need to reconstitute the family as it was when he left home. This attempt at “rehomeostasis” or stabilizing the family system may make an adolescent feel the need to return home and fill the void left by his leaving. Yet in none of the three college orientation programs my friend has attended as each of her older kids matriculated at different colleges was this well-known research cited as a strong factor in the adjustment to college.
I’m not saying it might have changed my friend’s mind about the timing of her divorce, but it would be useful to have known, as it might be if colleges were truly intent on including programming specifically for parents during at least part of their orientation programs. , which are widely seen by universities as central in student retention as well as adjustment.
College orientation programs are as different and unique as colleges themselves. In a survey of the various offerings, efforts to include parents range from a brief welcoming reception at which information about university policies and resources is provided to more extensive efforts to program to parents’ as well as students’ needs. While understanding how to recognize and respond to the developmental changes that will occur in their children is usually addressed, only a few orientation programs make any serious effort to help parents understand and recognize the parallel developmental changes in themselves that are catalyzed by launching a child into college.
A good orientation program gives a chance to discuss issues in letting go, even if it’s just a 15 minute Q&A with a college counselor following a lecture, video, or staged vignette, which is common on many campuses. An even better one helps parents focus on adjustment and change in their own lives as well as strategies for planning for separation when college begins. Some colleges offer parents themselves as a resource for learning through interacting with each other; while they can read or be told about the letting-go process by the institution, parents place more credibility and learn better from their own peer group.
The best college orientation programs have a dual focus; challenging parents to confront issues and focus on their own growth and learning as well as helping them understand the changes their kids are going through and how best to support them during this new stage of life. Recent research findings make a compelling case for colleges and universities to develop parent programming during orientation and beyond that’s predicated on keeping family members attached in a renegotiated relationship rather than just teaching them how to let go.
The goals of a truly parent and family-inclusive college orientation should be supporting parents at a time when they have an acute need for it; helping parents recognize changes taking place in their children’s lives, their own development and the family system; providing an adaptive, bilateral model of the separation process as it applies to parents as well as their young adults; assisting parents in fostering their own development; and conveying the college’s concern for parents. (If you’re an educator interested in more info on how to include these components in your orientation program, contact me and ask about “It’s Your Transition, Too.”
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I totally agree with you that universities should also have a counseling program for parents so that they will know how to cope up with separation once their children leaves home. This program will help the students as well as their parents tremendously.
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