Apodaca: Students aren’t only ones who have to adjust when going back to school
It’s back-to-the-old-grind time for the nation’s 55 million elementary and secondary school kids and 20.2 million college students.
And for all those students, there are probably at least as many moms and dads who also experience a transition when a new school year starts. At the risk of gross oversimplification, I’d argue that at this time of year there are basically two kinds of parents.
The first group consists of those who love their little darlings to pieces but are ecstatic that the summer break is over and their households will return to a school-year routine. The other type undergoes a mild form of mourning. They find it hard to let go of the extra time they’ve had with their kids during the less-structured summer days, and feel an emptiness that they struggle to fill.
But when it’s time to send kids off to college, I suspect that nearly all of us fall into the latter category. No matter how challenging the teen years have been, or how grateful a parent might feel that their child’s post-high school plans are at last in place, most of us are unable to avoid becoming emotional puddles at this stage.
In the past several months I’ve been approached by many parents who are experiencing the college send-off for the first time or will face it soon. I recognize the half-crazed look in their eyes that comes from wading through a process that feels a bit like navigating through a swamp in the dark.
These parents often look at me hopefully, possibly figuring since I’ve been through it twice already, and because I pour my heart out on parenting issues each week in these pages, that I have some insider’s knowledge to share.
Boy are they disappointed when they realize that in spite of my pontificating I still don’t have a clue how to find the edge of that swamp and drag myself onto firmer ground.
I consult the lists of tips that proliferate this time of year, the ones meant to guide parents trying to help their newbie college students make a successful transition. I recently reviewed the advice page offered by my younger son’s university, despite the fact that he’s entering his third year, and I’m pretty sure that by now he’s got the college experience pretty wired.
But the reality is that every kid is different. The right answers for some won’t fit for others.
A certain number of new collegians, for instance, will be homesick, and parents must help them work through these feelings. Others will be like my sons, who nearly smacked their dorm room doors in my face in their haste to get me gone. I’m trying to interpret such behavior as a sign that my terrific parenting led to my boys’ healthy desire to sleep late and party all night without me lurking about.
Some parents have told me they’re worried that their prospective college students haven’t decided what to study yet, which sounds pretty normal to me compared with those kids who have been on a set career track since pre-school. It’s hard for parents to live with the uncertainty, particularly when they’re footing the tuition bill. But only they know when it’s the right time to push and when it’s better to back off and give kids space to find their way.
The point is that a list of 10 generic suggestions on a college website will only take parents so far when it comes to knowing when to intervene and when to wait and see if all the lectures and laundry lessons over the course of their children’s lives have given those kids the necessary tools to figure stuff out on their own. And it’s easy to miss the one piece of advice — more a prediction, really —that relates to every student, no matter where they go, what they do, and how seamless the transition to college appears: Mistakes will be made.
Cell phones will be lost, laptops will be stolen (“Didn’t I tell you to lock it away when you’re not using it?”), hearts will be broken, classes will be missed and majors will sometimes change. My many lessons on the correct way to do laundry didn’t stop one son from turning a white load pink because of a stray red shirt made with cheap, bleed-able dye, and it didn’t keep the other from stuffing his still-wet clothes into a duffel bag for a trip home.
I was amused by one column I read recently by a parent who recommended preparing some profound parting words for the big goodbye moment when dropping off college kids. I found the idea a bit hilarious that kids would be willing or able to absorb the wisdom of the ages at a time when they’re probably more worried about whether they’ll get along with their roommates.
I saw my younger son off at John Wayne Airport a week ago with far less ambitious advice: Don’t forget your upcoming study-abroad checklist. Get a flu shot. Let me know if your new bed is delivered on time. And please, just once, actually make your bed.
Two days later he texted me a photo of his new bed, all made up. It was a tiny step through the swamp, but I’ll take it.
PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.
