You sniffle watching your kid pack some meaningful childhood belongings as you both move into the next full-blown chapter of your lives. You load the car, and you help carry things into the dorm. You stock their little fridge, and watch them set up their dorm room. Maybe slip them a few twenties, turn around, and walk away from your soon-to-be anointed “adult” college kid.
You call a couple of times; they come home occasionally. You welcome them back into the fold at Thanksgiving break, treating them like warriors coming off the academic battlefield. The first semester’s prognosis is stable, and all four mental, emotional, behavioral, and academic tires seem to be on the road. So you think.
Life roars toward Christmas, and calls become fewer, knowing they are studying feverishly. The first semester is over, it’s time to celebrate the holiday and review the first semester, and plan for the next.
Upon my son’s return, I asked him and his good friend, Tommy, what they had learned this past semester that will make the next easier to navigate. Tommy said, “I learned that if you are late to class, still go in, because someone will usually come in later.“ Turning to my son I asked, “What about you?” He said, “I learned that if you don’t go to class, then you probably won’t do very well on the tests.” I wondered exactly what he meant, so I inquired further. He repeated himself: “Well, if you don’t go to class, you probably won’t do very well on the tests…” I asked him which class he was referring to specifically. My son said “all of them.”
Some kids can’t hide their social anxieties, panic, and depression, which becomes very clear through phone calls, texts, and continually coming home during the semester. Others just wait for their folks to be blindsided when they receive an expulsion letter. College is a very pivotal time, a crossroads in a young adult’s life. In high school, some kids are headed toward stardom, some would probably do okay, and some had no business ever setting foot on a college campus…yet.
This can be the first time they have failed at anything. How you, as parents, handle their failure can have lasting effects on the rest of their lives. The shock, disapproval, and anger stemming from the faces of their most important source of sustenance, for some, is unbearable.
Sadly, I worked with a girl who left high school a star. At Christmas break, before we could talk, the expulsion letter arrived home. She committed suicide. I know more than a few kids who fell into a deep depression, sequestering themselves away in their dorm rooms because learning and socializing weren’t working. I also worked with many kids who did nothing but socialize.
The fear of not knowing what to do next, and the stark awareness that they “really fucked up” is traumatic, whether they show it or not.
They need to talk and deconstruct what happened. We don’t want this experience to become their identity, because how they feel about themselves privately will be their road map through life. And at this time, we know they don’t feel very good about themselves.
I want to know what happened. Were they too drunk, too high, did they play too much Xbox, were they too scared, too overwhelmed, too serious, not serious enough, lonely, homesick, disconnected, too connected, rejected, experimenting sexually… afraid to make eye contact? Were they unable to concentrate? Did they have a nightmare roommate, traumatizing sexual experiences, religious flogging, was there no one to hold their hand, make their breakfast and fold their clothes? It’s hard to learn how to win when you don’t understand why you’re losing.
Self-regulation is not learned in one fell swoop. It’s usually through mistakes and failures. I was shocked when I realized that the college professor expected me to read all the chapters, which cut deeply into my “lounging around” time.
Demanding they get a job or pay you back every penny isn’t always the best approach. Nor is coddling them. We need to be solution-oriented, not problem-bound. Reality-based approaches are, well, based on reality. Some of us need two or three chances or opportunities before we right the ship.
I told my son that I was committed to helping him succeed and that he needed to find a community college, no less than 100 miles from home. And this all had to be done within the next few weeks. I would help him every way I could, but he was going to have to fix the fractures himself.
After a successful semester in nowhere-Ville, he transferred to another university, did well, then joined the Air Force.
He now has his M.B.A. and is serving in Turkey as a Sgt. where just received an Outstanding Achievement Award.
