Parent Power

What you need to know to talk to your college-age student and why you still matter.

Making friends, staying healthy, drugs, drinking and sex are topics Donald Misch tackles every day as assistant vice chancellor for health and wellness and Wardenburg Health Center director. Misch shares advice with parents on how to assist their children in navigating the sometimes choppy waters of college.

Why do parents still matter to their college-aged students?

It’s developmentally appropriate and healthy that college-aged students should pay more attention to their peers. But that doesn’t mean parents aren’t important.

You’re still no less than number two. Surveys show parents are the number one source for important information for their kids. Second, a new study of college freshmen shows that those who spent more than 30 minutes talking with their parents on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday consumed 20 percent fewer drinks on those days and were 32 percent less likely to engage in heavy drinking.

And with all the things we [administrators] can do to students — put them on probation, give them community service — the worst thing we can do in their eyes is call their parents.

What are the most important things parents can do to help their students while they’re attending college?

As kids get older, you have to treat them differently. Be flexible and adjust your tactics. Know when you need to step in and help and when not to.

Support your son or daughter to be who he or she wants to be and not who others want them to be. Parents should tell their kids not to panic if they don’t find friends early on at college.

Encourage them to take risks, but not inappropriate risks, or risks I call seriously future-foreclosing risks. Failure is a crucial learning experience.

Promote academic and pro-social involvement and engagement that are good for the community and for your child like community service and sports — they’ve been shown to be protective factors against alcohol and drug use.

Talk specifically about alcohol, drugs, sex and sexual assault. Share your expectations and values as a family and re-emphasize long-term goals versus short-term gratification. Not that they shouldn’t have fun, but they should remember what’s important to them and where they want to go.

How can parents know if they’re being too overprotective versus supportive and helpful?

Attend to your child’s responses. If he or she is giving you a “what?” response or refusing to talk to you, your child may be expressing appropriate autonomy.

Check it out with your spouse or friends who have kids in college. Tell your son or daughter you care and you’re just trying to do the right thing. It shows you’re trying to respect their autonomy and growth, but it also reinforces you’re the parent.

What advice do you have for parents who are having trouble letting go of their child?

Get a life. But seriously, I know it sounds bad, but you need to move on with your life. It’s a new phase of life for you, too. Have faith in your child and demonstrate that faith.

If you never have faith in your children’s ability to do things and always micromanage them, then by-golly they won’t be able to handle things and you’ll continue to have to micromanage. Give them room to fail but not fail miserably. You might say to them, “You know, that worked out badly, but it was a very interesting learning experience.”

Anything else you care to add in regards to parental involvement?

One of the last parts of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex. What this means is that — please don’t take this the wrong way — the odds are that your 18-year-old isn’t playing with a full deck.

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for thinking, judgment, decision making and impulse control. When they do something that leaves you breathless and you ask them what they were thinking, they may say they weren’t thinking. It turns out they may be literally correct.