Coping with Your Child Leaving Home to Study

Every parent who has been through it will know that you as a parent are filled with mixed emotions of pride, fear, protectiveness, and more fear! Breaking away is often harder on the parents than it is for the child who is off to big adventures while parents are left with an empty and suddenly quiet room in the house. There are some things that parents can do to make the transition easier, and to ensure that their child will be ok.

Embrace the change in the relationship from adult/child to adult/adult. Acknowledge that this is their journey and that they will make some mistakes and occasionally miss a meal or a deadline and they will get through it. These experiences really are character building and will grow your child as a person. If you have equipped them with a resilient character and solid values they will make mostly the right choices and they will survive the occasional bad one.

Be proud of yourself for growing this young person into a tertiary student and trust in the morals and manners you have taught them. These will see them through and this young student is a credit to your great parenting.

Related Links and Resources

• For College Freshmen, Leaving Home May Bring Mixed Emotions
• Helping your child adjust to college life – uiowa.edu
• Making the Transition to College: A Guide for Parents – aboutourkids.org

Recommended Books

• Letting Go (Fifth Edition): A Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years
• Barbara & Susan’s Guide to the Empty Nest: Discovering New Purpose, Passion….
• When Your Kid Goes to College; A Parent’s Survival Guide
• She’s Leaving Home: Letting Go As Daughter Goes To College