Next Stop, College!

Annapurna Saripella

Aug 29 2022

<div style=' background:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;font-size:15px;font-family:Verdana;width:auto;padding:5px;max-height:100%;'><span><p>It’s August! The time when kids are off to college. Moments of happiness couple with pangs of separation as the young uns leave as teens and graduate as beautiful, mature adults ready to meet the world with confidence and enthusiasm.<br>The fun part: Shopping, more shopping, packing, planning with friends, excitement of being on your own<br>The hard part: Leaving home, stepping into the unknown, anxiety and apprehension about college life<br><br>A few suggestions to emotionally prepare your child for college:<br>1.Prepare your child for leaving home well before college. Assure him/her that you are just a phone call away.<br>2.Help build problem-solving capabilities. <br>A tough class, a difficult roommate, food situation, feeling confused and lost are real issues. <br>Help your child come up with 4-5 potential solutions and review with them.<br>Make them solution oriented.<br>3.Teach them to build healthy boundaries in relationships with friends, roommates, and classmates. <br>A healthy boundary is creating mutual respect for personal space, comfort levels and limits.<br>4.Recognize and regulate uncomfortable emotions. <br>It’s okay to feel lonely, anxious, afraid or angry. <br>Set up coping mechanisms to deal with these emotions: Talk to parents, exercise or walk around campus, write a journal, join a club with mutual interests, practice meditation or mindfulness.<br>5.Bolster confidence to stand up for themselves. <br>Teach your child to hold his/her ground. <br>He/she is not obliged to fit in with the crowd. <br>Teach them to say “no”.<br>6.Goal-setting is important. <br>Talk concrete goals for the academic year, not just about grades but about other aspects of college activities.<br>7.Inspire awe and fill their hearts with pride about their achievements. <br>Build admiration about the college as an entity bigger than himself/herself. <br>Awe helps young people accept that their problems are fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. <br>Help him/her put things in perspective by encouraging your child to know about great people and the hurdles they faced.<br>8.Finally, Let Go! <span></div>

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