When you first start out preparing yourself for college life you think everything is going to be as easy as can be. You are headed for the adult world and you are more than ready. No more curfews, no more parents questioning everything you do. You are free! When you do need that parent support, or funding, you just need to pick up the phone and home. How can anything about this be bad?
Most college freshman think that going away to school is just going to be one big party after another. The only worry is about who is going to attend and where you are going to have it. If you are the parent of a soon to be college freshman you have probably seen this attitude that comes with the journey they are about to embark upon and if you are the student then you probably are just worried about how to finance your back to school fun-fund.
When the freshman first arrives at college they are excited and find that stopping what they are doing to call home every now and then can be a real hassle. Then about a month or so into it they realize that they are being to miss home, and miss the security that their parents have provided for them their whole life. These freshmen now call home more often and find themselves wanting to go back to their rooms so that they can make these phone calls. They call home about issues with their schedule, a class that is too hard or maybe a roommate that they are unable to get alone with. The co-dependent parents will tell their children what to do and even encourage them to come back home, where as other parents will encourage their college freshman to work through the issues they are having and try to prepare them for the adult world. These parents let their child know that they are always there to listen and help out, but life is never as simple as one thinks and you have to work at things.
One of the biggest issues that college freshman have to address is finding balance. Some will successfully balance their time to include plenty of time for school, work, and friends and others will go to one extreme or the other. While it may seem desirable to become engrossed in one's studies in the long run this can actually be detrimental to the student as well, because it will cause burnout which can send a student packing just as quickly as one that is partying too much.
Most students, however, will be able to find the balance they need by the time they come home for Thanksgiving. For the few that so not, they end up taking the rest of the year off and then registering at a local or community college close to home so that they are able to get the structure they require. Either way, in a few years, your college freshman will be entering the adult world- Whether they like it or not!
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