How to Connect with Your Parents During Break
Written by Tamatha Anthony, Assistant Director, Parent and Family Connections
Students, as you prepare to travel home for Winter Break, there are a few things you can do to help your parents connect with you. 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 “old” routines. You’ve grown and you are still growing into the adult version of yourself that God has in mind for you. So, be the kind of person that you hope to be. Respond to questions with patience and kindness (tap into all of your Galatians 5:22-23 Fruit of the Spirit). This may be the first time your parents have experienced a child coming home from college. If it’s new for you, it’s likely new for them, too.
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.
Be mindful that they may feel a need to catch up.
You have been making all sorts of decisions every day without their input, and you have survived (and thrived). During the same time, your family has experienced autonomy separate of you by creating a routine that doesn’t include you. It isn’t “either or.” It’s actually a “both and.”
Christmas traditions and a multitude of other activities may be on their list of things to do. “Things” could involve making up for “lost” time. Consider that they may have struggled with not having the regular interactions you once had or with the emptiness of the house.
Ask them if there’s one activity or conversation or prayer to be a part of while you are home, and then follow it up by asking how you can best help them do it.
Celebrate.
The child you were when you started at college is walking through the door with thousands of decisions made this semester. You 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 give witness to all that you are in the Lord, and any and everything you have learned along the way. It may be a time for you also to ask what your parents discovered while you have been away.
None of us should ever be too old to learn and grow in our personal walk with Jesus.
Remember your spiritual armor. Guard it.
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 to receive aren’t the ones that you see, still find ways to rejoice. If your family dynamics are not healthy, be as kind as you are able to do in the Lord, be safe, and stay connected to God’s truth. For all students, rejoice in everything and give thanks in all circumstances (I Thessalonians 5:16-18) because the time during break is a season ripe with opportunities for the devil to poke and prod at your family dynamics.
