Quote:
Originally Posted by King of New York
Perhaps this will help a bit...
I'll be doing freshman advising tomorrow, and I'm teaching a lot of freshmen this year--it's about my 23rd or so year of college teaching. During the first few weeks here, the freshmen will be very green: uncertain, a bit confused, a bit homesick. But the transformation that they undergo during the first semester always amazes me. The same freshmen who, back in August, couldn't figure out very much on their own, by December will be confident, capable, and savvy, well on their way to full adulthood. As much as it hurts to let them go (and I'll be sending my own kids off to school soon enough), know that they will almost certainly benefit from the experience--and you'll have a new and great relationship with them as self-sufficient (eventually) adults.
And schools are doing a much better job these days of helping students adjust to life away from home.
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Going back a bit with this post but it got me thinking with some of the recent posts. It seems like with social media and texting college kids are communicating a lot more with their parents than they used to - every day even. My impression is that that's a big change from the past, though, I think I was a huge outlier in the other direction. In the 90s, I talked to my parents maybe two or three times between late August drop-off and Thanksgiving.
I probably could have used more parental guidance and a closer relationship with my parents. But part of it was that my parents were really old, had 3 kids before me, and maybe had an old-fashion view on things. I figure there has to be pros and cons to both approaches though. The greater emphasis on helping students adjust to life away from home sounds good on the one hand, but can't that also be counterproductive and have the exact opposite effect? Not at all saying I know any better, like I said, I think I would have been better off with more attentive parents, it's just really interesting to see those changes over the last few decades.