Don’t Freak Out if You Have One of These 5 Conversations With Your College Student
This post is from Grown and Flown.
byMarybeth Bock | Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Your student has just started (or is about to start) college. You are excited. You are anxious. You may be a little sad.
You may think that once you’ve survived drop-off day, the worst is over, and your near-panic attacks will begin to fade away. If your student is still living at home while attending college, you still might encounter a version of these conversations.
Five classic college freshmen calls
I do not relish being the bearer of bad news, but I want you to be prepared for what probably lies ahead. Here’s just a little heads up so that you can mentally arm yourself for a call home that’ll likely sound like one of these.
“I hate my roommate!”
There are many variations on this singular theme, but your student will probably have just had it one day. Their roommate, who seemed great at first, has now played their Jekyll and Hyde card and is suddenly suuuuperrrr annoying because of (spin the wheel): surprise overnight guests, excessive partying or sleeping, weird habits, being a slob, using your student’s stuff or sneaking their food.
What to advise: Communicate with the roommate first, calmly and maturely. If there’s no improvement, talk to your resident advisor next. Their job is to help mediate conflicts just like these.
What to avoid: Immediately calling the Housing Department and demanding a roommate switch. Don’t be that family.
“Uhh…I just failed my midterm.”
For many students and their families, this one is a doozy. They may have entered college having never received less than a B in their entire educational lives. And a midterm failure is simply college’s not-so-charming way of saying, “Welcome to the real world.”
What to advise: Go to the professor’s office during hours. Find a tutor. Join or form a study group. Assure them the sun will rise tomorrow, and that one failed test does not equal academic doom. (I promise they’ll get over it, and you will too.)
What to avoid: Calling the professor horrible names and/or emailing said professor or department chairperson and asking for a review of their exam grading. Again, DO NOT be that family.
“Should I go to the ER?”
Similar to the roommate criticism call, the variations on this theme are plentiful. Possibilities include: Fever, extreme fatigue, potential sprain or fracture of a bone, strange rash, excessive vomiting — you get the picture, it’s not your first sickness rodeo. But, if your student is away from home, it’ll seem more perilous because of the distance. Try not to panic.
What to advise: A trip to Student Health and/or some online research from a REPUTABLE source. Of course, anything life-threatening warrants a trip to the E.R., and it’s almost certain that they or someone they are with will know that.
The 1 am-5 am (depending on time zones) pocket dial call.
Your phone will ring in the dark of the night. You will see your student’s name appear. You will pick up and hear all static-y rumbling and dubious, garbled noises. You will immediately imagine the worst. After getting no response, you hang up and call back and get no answer. You try not to panic.
What to advise: Remind yourself that real life is not a Taken movie, and there’s a 99.9% chance your student (or someone or something else) has accidentally hit the Call button on their phone. They are completely fine and enjoying life, and you need just to take a few deep breaths and try to go back to sleep. (Easier said than done, I can personally attest to this. BTW, my daughter was fine and just on a crowded, early morning bus. Thanks for the cardiac stress test, though!)
For your student's safety, tough, and even at the risk of appearing over-protective, it's not a bad idea to share locations with each other on an app like Find My Friends, and save the phone numbers of a couple of your student's friends. It's always good to have a backup for getting in touch and knowing their location, just for peace of mind.
“I’m so homesick.”
Depending on your student’s temperament and stoicism, the sound of this call can span the emotional spectrum from outright tears and pleas to come home for the weekend to excessive complaints about gross food, dirty bathrooms, hard classes, feelings of solitude, all the way on down to just a rather astounding urge to talk to you for 90 minutes about Everything in Life. Even if your student is living at home, they could be "homesick" for how things were before they started college, or just need to vent.
What to advise: After empathetic listening and acknowledgment that the first few months can be problematic for almost everyone, you can gently and compassionately offer a few suggestions and then remind your student that they are brave, strong, and fiercely loved. Resist the urge to jump in your car and bring them home for a night or two.
For new college families, the most important thing to remember is that your student should be advocating for themselves in any of these situations unless it’s a truly dangerous medical emergency. Talk to your student about problem-solving using the proper “Chain of Command,” starting with the lowest level in a line of authority, regarding any issue relating to campus life.
Calls home that seem like a CRISIS! in the heat of the moment, rarely feel that way just 24 hours later. When a student is highly stressed, they often forget about the abundant resources around them.
It’s your job to remind them about helpful things like talking to a friend, attending office hours, campus mental and physical health services, and sticking things out through uncomfortable feelings.
Do your best to nix the negative feedback and help them focus on how to move forward maturely.
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