<p>@Niquii77 Haha I hear ya. Are you in Texas or California?</p>
<p>@Pepper03 Yes I am still reading. It is nice to get different viewpoints on topics that all fall under the umbrella of choosing a college.</p>
<p>@giterdone I recently finalized my list of college with my parents (my mother made me give a power point presentation!). </p>
<p>They gave me no geographic barriers and I didn’t expect any.My sister on the other hand cannot go any father than three hours. The farthest school for me is about 2000 mi and the closest is 4 hours. this is in part to the fact that The closest schools did not have my major so I was forced to look elsewhere. I am (and so is my father) the kind that you drop in the deep end. He just want to make sure that I’m in a safe area. My mother however, is the type to make sure that there are safe landings and wants me to be close so that I don’t have an excuse to not come home. </p>
<p>I feel as if distance is more dependent on maturity level than parenting techniques. </p>
<p>Why the different standard for you and your sister? Are you male or female? I’m wondering if it’s really a maturity thing, or if it’s more of a gender thing… or perhaps your sister has some special circumstances like medical needs that are being considered?</p>
<p>@giterdone I recently finalized my list of college with my parents (my mother made me give a power point presentation!). </p>
<p>They gave me no geographic barriers and I didn’t expect any. The farthest school for me is about 2000 mi and the closest is 4 hours. this is in part to the fact that The closest schools (within 2 hrs) did not have my major so I was forced to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>I am (and so is my father) the kind that you drop in the deep end. My mother and sister prefers to give safe landings. </p>
<p>(for example)
If your child is about to place their hand on a hot stove:</p>
<p>My father: Will tell the child that the stove is hot once ( and ONLY once) If the child chooses to place their hand on it and get burned then my father will leave to get medicine and some bandages.the child knew that the oven was hot and touched it anyway. they will reap the consequences and probably not touch a hot stove again. </p>
<p>My mother: Will warn the child multiple times not to touch the stove and will eventually go and turn the stove off in order to prevent the child from getting burned. the child knew that the oven was hot and was prevented from getting burned by my mother turning off the oven. </p>
<p>I feel as if the farthest a student can go for college is more dependent on the kid’s personality than parenting technique.</p>
<p>I received no barriers in what type of university to choose. If I find myself in a bad situation, my parents will warn me about the bad outcome. If I go against what they say and get burned, then they will get me the help I need. </p>
<p>My sister can only go as far as 3 hours away. She needs to be removed from the situation in order to prevent a bad outcome. '</p>
<p>In the end ,however, the child ends up safe. </p>
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<p>Perhaps distance from home is a proxy for how much of an overprotective helicopter parent the female college student’s parents are (at least with respect to that student)? The overprotective helicopter parents may be limiting the student’s growth toward an independent identity. This may be intentional in some cases where the parents are very socially conservative with respect to gender roles – such parents are unlikely to be willing to let their daughter go to school far from home.</p>
<p>Hmmm, the story by @GoldenState2015 versus the sister seems to fit here…</p>
<p>@Goldenstate2015 said;
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<p>75-80% of the population of most any state flagship University and state college system is made up of instate kids. “Instate” by definition for most of America means they are less than a handful of hours from home. Maybe you think that makes them less mature? but I guaranty you…you’ll be working for one of 'em some day! :D</p>
<p>You want to go 2000, or 7000 miles from home like @Americanhopee does? Or send your kids off to the school of hard knocks like @fretfulmother endorses? GREAT! :-bd But that doesn’t make you or them any more mature than the next kid or any more likely to meet your definition of “successful” :-@ </p>
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<p>It has more to do with desire and values (of the kid and the family), money and circumstance than anything else. I supposed you could label “desire” as part of a kids personality. But that desire would be to just get away vs. seeking independence as distance has nothing to do with it. </p>
<p>@giterdone - what exactly did you interpret as “send your kids off to the school of hard knocks” in my post? </p>
<p>^ how 'bout when you typed this;</p>
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<p>Sorry if I mistook that. But it reads like the school of hard knocks (aka trial and error) to me.</p>
<p>or this;</p>
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<p>“In real life I am constantly amazed at the number of college Freshman who I hear about who have never made their own dentist appointment; never called the 800 number for their bank when there was a funky service charge which didn’t belong there; never filled out a medical history at CVS in order to get a flu shot; don’t know that a doctor’s office will fax/email a prescription to a pharmacy 50 miles away if you need a refill and can’t get to the doctor’s office (or don’t need to), have never called the DMV when their driver’s license got mangled and they needed a replacement, and have never done a load of laundry or bought a tube of toothpaste or sewed a button back on a shirt.”</p>
<p>Heck, my husband has never done some of those things, lol, so they are hardly a barometer for adulthood.</p>
<p>Even if a college freshman has never done ANY of those things, it’s not like they are difficult life skills to grasp, and they don’t require practice. When my kids are on their own I am certain they will be able to pick up a phone and ask for a dentist appointment or grab a tube of toothpaste at the store even if I don’t “train” them in high school. </p>
<p>My parents were really overprotective and I remember having to call Triple A for a flat tire my SENIOR YEAR IN COLLEGE and finding it very stressful! I remember looking for an apartment in grad school and finding it stressful. I had never taken my car to get the oil changed by myself, made my own dentist appointments, etc. I do remember being very stressed out when I got sick my freshman year in college and I had to figure out how to navigate the university health system. </p>
<p>I don’t want my kids to have to experience all of that stress on top of starting college. I would rather prepare them gradually. At this point, my two high school students make their own dental appointments, get their cars fixed themselves, found their own afterschool jobs, navigate the grade issues themselves, and I think it has prepared them well for college. Hopefully their transition will be easier than mine was. (I also think I had a really hard time negotiating with roommates in college because I had never been asked to do any of these adult-like activities which involved being assertive before. My freshman year was really rough in that regard!)</p>
<p>And if your husband doesn’t know how to manage his own life skills, then you’re babying him too!</p>
<p>Agreed @Momzie - and not only that, everyone who wants to overprotect their children should be aware that it’s one thing if you don’t think it will hamper their independence (we can agree to disagree). It’s another thing entirely to foist that child on roommates, significant others, friends, teachers, colleagues - who expects the world to be tailored personally with little effort.</p>
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<p>Seems like they also forgot to show you how to change the flat tire yourself when you first got your driver’s license.</p>
<p>@planner03 That’s comforting! </p>
<p>Many parents focus on what kids DO that makes them independent, but what about how they HANDLE things…how they REACT to things. There HAS to be some emotional maturity that is valued by some!</p>
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Why change it when someone can do it for you? ;)</p>
<p>@Momzie looking for an apartment, having your car break down and being sick and alone are all natural stressors and have little to do with any kind of “preparation.”</p>
<p>It takes ZERO skill and preparation to make a dentist apt or throw in a load of wash or to buy a tube of toothpaste. If my kids need to be “trained” for such things I think they have much bigger issues. It was a joke about my husband. Thanks for the marriage advice.</p>
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<p>It can take longer to wait for the roadside assistance than to change the flat tire yourself.</p>
<p>Many of our children are exposed to new situations in college, and it is not necessarily because they have been overprotected. </p>
<p>Some have never been seriously ill or needed more than a routine check-up or dental cleaning. Others are confronted with a mentally ill or substance abusing roommate (several of these stories have emerged on this board), the possibility of sexual assault, theft of costly belongings, rejection by a social group, and more. Some have never been on an airplane before, while others have traveled the world with their families. </p>
<p>Students come from all sorts of backgrounds. An urban student who has just learned how to drive is likely going to be calling AAA for the first time in college, while a suburban or rural student might need to learn how to figure out how to work public transportation and avoid areas that are not safe. (Actually, in my book these are rather trivial examples, but still…)</p>
<p>Then there is the need for academic guidance amidst a wealth of possibilities and choices.</p>
<p>Sorry, but if I saw my pre-med child trying to take organic chemistry in an overloaded semester and falling behind, I would hope that someone would have the sense to suggest dropping a class and seeking out tutoring before they found themselves behind in all of their classes, with failing grades (good-bye medical school or self-confidence) or, worse, physically or mentally ill. I would hope that they were not told that this “proved” they were not smart enough to major in the sciences or become a physician, when peers with better advising were taking a more realistic course schedule.</p>
<p>And this is just one example - many students seriously wonder at some point if they have set their goals realistically, and I would by no means lose respect for a student who needs help to evaluate this. Others need help with time management for the very first time at some point in their college career. That is why I suggested that sometimes the strongest swimmers are the ones who drown. I myself would not lose respect for a student who arrived in college without ever having had to discuss a grade with a teacher or wonder if they would benefit from a tutor, and who needed some initial guidance in seeking help. </p>
<p>Also, sometimes a “rescue” can consist of a timely diagnosis of ADHD, an ASD, or an LD, or a trip to student health to check for depression. </p>
<p>Does anybody have any resources that they have found particularly helpful for preparing kids for college? I just bought my son a book on Amazon called something like “10 things every employer wants you to learn at college” and another one that offers advice on succeeding in college written by a Duke University professor. I keep worrying that there is some process or procedure or something that later I will think “I can’t believe we forgot to teach him what to do in this situation”. War stories would be appreciated here too.</p>
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Fortunately, people run a cost-benefit analysis when things like this happen to them. </p>
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Yes, yes. Well, yes, to the majority of your post. :)</p>
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Google or those around him will be his best friend in situations like that. </p>
<p>A lot of the kids in our area also don’t tend to go very far away from home. I was talking to one mom recently who told me that when her son got sick at college she went to the drugstore to buy him cough syrup and then drove to his college (two hours away) to bring it to him. What I took from that story is that it might not be a bad idea to send your kid to college with some cough syrup – but it does show that people have very different ideas of what is appropriate and what kids should be able to do for themselves or by themselves at different ages. And while I don’t think you necessarily need to “practice” buying your own cough syrup before you go to college, my son did mention being very surprised that you have to show ID and fill out a form now to buy certain kinds of cough medicine. He had left his driver’s license in the car and needed to run back out to the parking lot to get it when the woman behind the desk demanded to see it before selling him the cough syrup.</p>