By Kerri Kreh Reda, M.P.H.
Like me, you might be preparing to send your oldest child to college next fall. As I navigate my way through my daughter’s senior year, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve prepared her well for life at college. Surely there are nuggets of information I have failed to share with her over the years that she will need to know. So, I began doing what most parents do when they need advice, I asked other parents who have already been down this road. Specifically, I asked about what skills or information teens need before going to college. It seems as though most answers fell into the following three categories:
Independent living skills/self care:
- How to do laundry, clean, and cook
- How to protect oneself (personal safety, safe sex, getting enough sleep)
- How to make their own doctor appointments and how to pay for them (make sure they have all the cards –insurance, dental, flexible spending – they will need before they go)
Management of:
- Money
- Time
- Stress
- Things (organizational skills)
Social/emotional health:
- How to make new friends
- How to live with a roommate (for some this may be a new experience)
- How to deal with failure/stress (failure may be new to some, so encourage your child to utilize the psychological services on campus)
- Family communication (how often? when? how?) Be careful not to rely solely on texting. It is important to hear their voice or see their face once in a while to determine how things are really going. It is difficult to read emotions through texts!
There may be other “nuggets” they need, but these are a good start. At the very least, they should encourage some conversations. Your teen probably has many questions about leaving home for the first time, so now is a good time to start talking if you haven’t done so already.
Best of luck to both you and your college bound teen – it is an exciting time!
Resource: School Success: The College Transition University of Minnesota Extension
http://www.extension.umn.edu/family/school-success/families/making-school-transitions-positive/the-college-transition/
Kerri Kreh Reda, M.P.H., is a Human Development Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County’s Family Health and Wellness Program. She can be reached at 631-727-7850 ext. 330 or at kkr5@cornell.edu.