Providing Social-Emotional Support to Our College Children
Many students struggle at various times during their college years with academic challenges and try to determine the next steps in their career paths. They may be burned out, overwhelmed, or confused about their academic progress. When they question their next steps, they may ask their parents for added support or guidance. Here at 10 tips for providing our young adults with the social-emotional support they so desperately need:
- Listen attentively and without judgement.
- Make sure our kids hear our support.
- Refocus the goal of what they are trying to achieve in college and in their career paths.
- Reteach our children not to fear challenges.
- Reassure them that “failure is the sweet smell of success” per Roberta DePorter, co-founder of the SuperCamp program.
- Urge them to lighten their college course load.
- Support their participation in extra-curricular activities.
- Encourage travel and new experiences with different types of people.
- Provide them more space and allow them to grow.
- Give them permission to slow down their career paths and timeline to graduate from college.
As we watch our children overcome life’s many challenges with thoughtful and creative resiliency, we can cheer them on to new levels of growth and achievement. The journey to becoming happy and successful adults is filled with many opportunities to grow and prosper in spite of life’s difficulties.
Much Success!
Yvette
Copyright © 2019 by GenParenting
Yvette King-Berg, is the Executive Director of Youth Policy Institute’s Charter Schools. She was the former California Charter Schools Association Vice-President of School Development and Outreach-Southern California. Ms. King-Berg has over thirty years of experience working with teachers, students, parents, and organizations in a variety of positions including Director, Assistant Director, Curriculum Advisor, Bilingual, and Title 1 Coordinators, classroom teacher (K-12) in Pasadena and LAUSD. She has been married for twenty-three years, and is the proud mother of her son, EJ, who attends UC Berkeley.