How to Connect with Your College Student
Whatsoever Series:
Students are about to travel home for Winter Break. Parents, there are a number of things you can do to be supportive of how much they’ve grown up while they have been away and be able to connect in new ways during the coming break. If you aren’t sure where to start, here are a few encouragements that may help you do it well!
Acknowledge the real possibility that being in each other’s space again may feel a little bumpy.
It has a lot to do with expectations, both yours and theirs! Don’t fall back into the “old” routine of making all the plans and then delivering the agenda as an expectation. Open it up for their input.
Christmas traditions and a multitude of other activities may be on their list of things to do before getting back to campus for the next semester. “Things” could involve satisfying a CSER project over break, or working a job in order to help with the cost of college, or maybe, just maybe, the first “thing” on the list is sleeping for three days straight!
Ask them what they want to accomplish while they are home, and then follow it up by asking how you can best help them do it.
Be mindful of their growing autonomy.
Your students have been making all sorts of decisions every day without your input, and they’ve survived (and thrived). During the same time, you have also experienced autonomy separate of them by creating a routine that doesn’t include them. It isn’t “either or.” It’s actually a “both and.”
Consider that you both could benefit from a bit of space (call it grace) as you all acclimate to being “in” each other’s space again.
Celebrate.
The child that you sent to college is walking through your door with thousands of decisions made this semester. They have studied God’s word, been exposed to its truth, prayed through numerous situations, and pressed into a variety of challenges. You have an opportunity to celebrate all that they are in the Lord, and any and everything they have learned along the way. It may be a time for you also to share what you’ve learned while they have been away.
We shouldn’t ever be too old to learn and grow in our personal walk with Jesus.
Rejoice, and remember your spiritual armor.
For our first-time college students especially, the first semester is particularly difficult. It is an observed phenomenon in every freshman class. So, if the grades you hoped they would receive aren’t the ones that you see, still find ways to rejoice. Rejoice in everything and give thanks in all circumstances (I Thessalonians 5:16-18). Otherwise, this season for your family is ripe with opportunities for the devil to poke and prod at your family dynamics.
Take stock of your armor (Ephesians 6)! Any chinks in it could be the first aim that the devil takes to use as a wedge in your family’s relationships.
And, again I say rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” ~ Philippians 4:4-9
Meet the Author
Tamatha Anthony
Assistant Director
