https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/social-lights/201608/college-parents-101#=
This article was shared by another parent on our college listserv . It offers some great topics to discuss with your Collegebound children.
I can’t believe parents aren’t already discussing these topics-some of them need to happen in elementary school, not when they’re going off to college.
The article did not suggest that it was the first time these topics have been addressed @MotherOfDragons . Never hurts to revisit important topics.
As unbelievable as this may sound, there are a lot of parents who have not had indepth conversations and/or any conversations with their kids regarding these topics.
If kids are doing well in their classes and involved in activities some parents believe their success in one area means they just pick up on the topics covered in the article. Unfortunately, parents who make this assumption go through serious agony throughout their child’s four years of college…if their child makes it through.
Many kids believe they are invincible. Some truly believe that “that will never happen to me”…until it does.
I tell my sweet girl that once she makes a choice to do something…she can’t take it back. Yes, we all make mistakes and we are not the sum of those mistakes BUT mistakes have consequences.
yeah, sure. Those going off to college teens are really going to sit down and “discuss” things with parents, especially the topics mentioned. I do not think they want parents to know their feelings and, as above, the parents should have discussed, oops, talked about them (discussion involves two sided conversations, teens not likely to divulge anything to parents I suspect), them long ago if they expected to be listened to.
@wis75 My kids, both during their teen and now in their college years, feel perfectly comfortable discussing such issues with their father and me. I don’t think its that unusual and strange. Maybe it is, but it works fine in our family. We’re not one to have many taboos.
Wow, speak for yourself @wis75 ! These topics have been discussed-as in a two-sided, actual discussion between me and all three of my kids as they grew up. And while I’m under no illusions that all three shared everything all the time, it was certainly more than me talking at them while they hid their feelings. In fact, I suspect it’s those kids who end up making the mistakes the article warns about-kids without the ability to talk WITH their parents.
IMHO, this is not about your child divulging things they’ve done or mistakes they’ve made. It is about parents actually allowing themselves to discuss these topics with their kids.
The attitude that “my child is never gonna talk to me about these topics” is an all to common reason (and excuse) why parents don’t even broach these subjects.
Please don’t let that be a reason to avoid these topics. Even if you start the conversation with “Listen, I want to talk with you about several things…I’m not asking you to tell me anything…just listen because I want you to know how I feel about these topics and I want you to know that I love you enough to have these discussions with you”.
So many parents think that kids will figure these things out on their own. As @sseamom said, I am not under any illusions that my sweet girl shares all with me but here’s what I know…I have done my job as a parent and discussed, in detail, with her all of these topics. I make no assumptions that she is perfect and won’t make mistakes but at least she knows that regardless of those mistakes I love her unconditionally.
Further, when you address these topics with kids it gives you an opportunity to share with them your missteps (because we have all done things we wish we never did and suffered the consequences). I have no problem what so ever in humbling myself for the sake of my child.
Make a choice to be proactive rather than be placed in a reactive position of " Didn’t you know what would happen when you choose to do that?!?" All to often that reaction leads kids to believe they can’t recover from a mistake and they choose the ultimate.
I believe for the most part that kids are fairly astute at knowing whether parents are approachable and willing to discuss difficult topics as opposed to which parents will just “talk” at them. I don’t for a second believe that teens don’t want their parents to know what their feelings are. And as I said upthread , the article in no way suggests that this should be the first time these subjects are addressed. Most people do not have a " one and done " philosophy when discussing important , even somewhat difficult , subjects with their children. Communication and discussion is a two way street . One has to be as open to receiving information as they are to give it.
That hours long drive to school (even just for tours) is a great time to talk about many such topics. A plus is that no eye contact is required.
@carolinamom2boys
“I believe for the most part that kids are fairly astute at knowing whether parents are approachable and willing to discuss difficult topics as opposed to which parents will just “talk” at them.”
You comment above is right on point. I think I mentioned in a different thread how my sweet girl has called me as she’s heading home from school (or when she’s gotten home) each day since the 2nd grade. This was born out of the fact that my hubby was a stay at home dad (so he was always with her) but I had long workdays which sometimes ended after she was fast asleep. She’d say “Hi Mommy!” I’d say “How was your day sugarplum”. She’d respond “My day was good, my day was good”. Then she’d launch off into telling me about her day to include what she learned in each class and what she had for lunch.
I say all of this because as the years have gone by these conversations have evolved to include issues she’s encountered with teacher and/or classmates (which allows an opportunity for her to ask for advice and/or me to gently provide advice in handling the issues), her concerns about a particular grade/assignment (which allows an opportunity for me to encourage her), what classes she likes more than other (which has allowed for discussions regarding what she wanted to study in college and why and (to my surprise) a young man she liked and why she liked him.
My hubby and I are from two different generations (16 years a part) and he has said to me on several occasions that overhearing her talk with me in the car/at home has allowed him to more easily broach subjects like “how boys are” and “boys in college” (from a father and man’s point of view).
Could we have accepted a one word response of “fine” or “good” in response to “How was your day sugarplum?” Yes, but I doubt we would be at this point in our relation with our sweet girl. Does this mean that she shares all? No, but she has come to learn that “communication and discussion is a two way street”.
The many hours and days of searching and touring colleges is the ideal format for these type of discussions. How often do you have your teenager held hostage for hours at a time?
My husband likes to tell the story of how he and his dad road tripped for 12 hours a day over the course of a week to go look at different colleges. They never spoke a word to each other on the drive. It wasn’t a silence filled with animosity-it was a silence that came from lack of communication skills (and lack of desire to speak about uncomfortable topics).
My argument would be that waiting until they are this old to have meaningful conversations with them may be too late. I have been making my kids squirm with over-intense conversations since they were little (because I also never had those conversations with my parents and I NEEDED them). Now the three of us are good at having very intense, very honest, very squirm-worthy discussions if we need to.
It takes a while to get there, though. I don’t think you can just drop truth bombs on them the entire drive up to college and expect to be able to develop a new layer of dialogue with them.
It takes years of uncomfortable “no, we’re going to have this discussion” and getting through those discussions successfully to reach that level.
Just my 2c…
@MotherOfDragons I don’t think anyone has suggested waiting to bring these topics up until right before going to college. In fact many posters have said that they have had ongoing communication with their children about these topics. They are saying that they should be addressed and revisited prior to going to college.
It would be nice for someone to have posted what the 6 topics were early in the thread versus making us all go look! Just saying.
^^I see your point.
Maybe the article should be re-titled “Six Things Parents Must Discuss With Their College-Bound Kids WAY Before College.” 
I’d also argue that there’s no time like the present. If some of these conversations haven’t happened yet, now is the time. And now is also a good time to apologize for not starting the conversation sooner, or for sending the wrong message in the past. We can’t go back in time and start these conversations sooner, but we can can start them now.
I particularly liked the last couple of points about building a support system.
I’m actually thankful that our daughter, about to go off to college, started therapy over a year ago. She has worked out a lot of her issues surrounding her ill brother, and she is communicating with us much better. DH and I met with her and her therapist last night and had a very honest discussion (I have to admit, it was good hearing from the counselor that D has stayed away from substances and sex!).
D said it’s interesting. When she was falling apart last year, her friends were soaring. Now that D is stable, several of them are falling apart. Our biggest job with D now is teaching her that while she can be there for her friends, she can’t put pressure on herself to rescue them.
I did not read an article and my kid has been out of college for awhile.
However, I would like to share one side that has been overlooked by me (maybe not expressed strongly enough?). I overestimated my D’s ability to assess her health related situation at the proper maturity level. It has happened 2 times and the second one was even after she graduated from college.
What I mean is that kids need to assess if the trip to the Emergency room is absolute necessity. Yes, they seem to think that they are invincible and the life threatening condition is nothing to them. Thank goodness, mine at least called me and complained about her condition. I told her to find a ride to go to Emergency immediately and I kept calling until she did so. She was dehydrated due to stomach condition caused by reaction to some antibiotics. If not helped, this condition can be fatal. She was put on IV both times and I hope she learned her lesson.
Tell kids to go to Emergency when it is needed. I do not know if this being covered in the OP’s article.
Frankly, I do not remember discussing much of anything else except of keeping focus on one big reason why she is at the college and not somewhere else.
I’m actually glad that D went to a MS/HS in a neighboring district and I had to drop her off and pick her up every day. It wasn’t far-just a 15-minute drive, but we had some wonderful conversations during those times. Sometimes they were about serious things, other times not so much. We covered a lot of important topics over the years. During tour trips or even drop-off trips you do get large blocks of time to talk. Reminding them of the important things you’ve already covered won’t hurt.