<p>^In no way am I defending the college’s non-reaction to Kdos’s son decline, but this is an ongoing issue once kids turn 18 years old. It leaves us a bit powerless. With Hippo laws now calling everything “private” and permission needed to discuss medical concerns, well, sometimes those with a mental illness don’t get the help they need.</p>
<p>What could the RA or teachers do, even if they perceived a problem? They can not call the parents. Geez, parents don’t even get the tuition bill or the grades, the student gets them. What if the parents didn’t care or have the resources to help? It might even become the school’s responsibility. To this point, public elementary schools are very reluctant to suggest a child needs an evaluation, for these same reasons. They suggest something, they pay for it.</p>
<p>I would second the recommendation of the book “The Center Cannot Hold.” It is an account of one brilliant woman’s struggle with schizophrenia. She finished college (where her illness manifested), and somehow got through a fellowship in England and law school at Yale. She was in and out of hospitals (during law school) and was very, very ill. It took her a very long time to accept the place of medication in her life. I have heard her speak at a workshop for mental health professionals and my husband had her as a professor when he was in law school. She chose to go public with her story in hopes of lessening the stigma against mental illness and in hopes that her story would help others. She has an amazing ability to communicate the experience of schizophrenia and I hope that her story will give you some hope. Also, as some have said, NAMI is a great resource. I am so sorry that your son has taken ill. It is heartbreaking.</p>
<p>I read this post and my heart goes out to you. With a close family member (in my immediate family) suffering from mental illness, I’ll keep a watch out for friends when I go out to college. Also, knowing a girl at Cornell whose roommate ended up committing suicide, I am painfully aware of the primary effects of mental illness. I’ll keep your family and your son in my thoughts.</p>
<p>EDIT: Said roommate actually attempted hanging herself. It just happened in such close proximity to the suicides at Cornell that I must have made an error in my thinking. That girl is seeking help and is doing fine to my knowledge, but it was an unexpected, and devastating, surprise to find out that a friend from high school could develop mental illness and decline so rapidly.</p>
<p>Maybe one thing we can do is teach our kids that if they see a friend who is clearly in trouble, they can do something. Regardless of whether or not a school can do anything, students can. I think I will have a talk with my own college student when he comes home about how to recognize that someone is in real trouble and what to do if it seems serious. When I was in college, a friend came by my room and wrote a note and then tossed it in my trash can. My roommate told me and I retrieved it – it was a suicide note. I told an adult outside the school who contacted her family and the family brought her home and got her help. Our kids can tell us if they think someone is in trouble and, hopefully, we can offer some advice and assistance if it comes to that. In this day and age, any student (or parent) can probably figure out how to contact a friends’ parents. I know it opens a Pandora’s box, but sometimes it’s very obvious that a kid needs help and an earlier intervention can make a difference.</p>
<p>This is very sad. I had not thought about the confidentiality issue or the possible liability issue to the school if they had done something but I still think there must have been a way for someone to send an alarm.</p>
<p>My kid’s school called us when the kid got drunk one night and ratted the kid out. I did actually ask the dean about the privacy laws and was told that in some cases the school can divulge information if the safety of the student is in question.</p>
<p>That is interesting. As a mental health professional, I can divulge information if I believe someone is suicidal. It’s hard to imagine that schools can’t take some steps, including the steps to try to get someone placed on a 72 hour hold, if they believe students are a danger to themselves or gravely disabled.</p>
<p>As a former student and staff member at my alma mater, I can say that we were not once discouraged from talking with the parents for reasons of student privacy. </p>
<p>However, talking with the parents just wouldn’t have made sense. The student lived two doors down from you and might not be handling college well. How would talking with family that is 600 miles away help the student? We (as staff members) had resources that we could suggest to the student or encourage them to get out and do something. We had networks and connections and could offer them ideas on how to make the most of college. </p>
<p>Parents located far away weren’t seen as people that could help students get involved, find activities for the student, suggest to the student that they seek help, or anything like that. We, living a couple doors down from the student, had a lot of opportunity to offer ideas and suggestions.</p>
<p>When students were sucidial, I am pretty sure that the “in case of emergency” contact was notified because that action would make sense.</p>
<p>FERPA does not prevent school administrators from contacting parents when they think a student maybe in danger, and that includes alcohol and drug usage under 21. In the case of mental illness, a school definitely has the right to disclose the condition to a student’s parents.
<p>With all due respect, those who are living a couple of doors away from the student are usually only a couple of years older than the student. It’s one thing to help a kid make the most of college, it’s quite another to be able to tell when a kid is developing a mental illness.</p>
<p>Parents have known their kid for 18 years which gives them a point of reference to start with that RAs lack. An RA is responsible for a lot of students, while going to school and leading an active life whereas a parent has spent 18 years being responsible for just that kid (and maybe a few others) and so is much likelier to notice any subtle changes. A lot of it depends on the relationship between the parent and child. One of my kids did struggle the first semester of college. I was the one who got the upsetting phone calls, not the RA, because I had a longstanding relationship and I was the safe person. I was the one who could tell at Parents Weekend that something had changed. I knew it because I knew what this kid was like before college. In our case, it resolved fairly quickly, but my radar was way up. It’s true that in situations where kids don’t communicate with a parent, the parent is less likely to know. In addition, there is such a thing as life experience. When I read these threads, I’m impressed by how savvy the parents here are on mental health issues (I’m a mental health professional). They’ve clearly lived long enough to have learned a lot and to have some sense of what constitutes a problem. I’m betting that most of these parents didn’t know as much when they were in college. Yes, I’m thinking that parents really do know a few things that RAs don’t and maybe can’t.</p>
<p>Uh, my post was to explain in my opinion why parents weren’t contacted by the residence life staff more often. </p>
<p>It wasn’t to argue about whether parents should be involved in students education or whether they should talk to their kids.</p>
<p>As I said before, it wouldn’t have made sense to contact parents 600 miles away because the student didn’t shower regularly or didn’t make a lot of friends. It would have made sense when the student was sucidal or something was seriously wrong, in which case we did.</p>
<p>I think this information is interesting to parents.</p>
<p>There is a big difference between a student having adjustment problems to college and one developing a mental illness, whether bipolar or schizophrenia. If a student quits going to class, holes up in his room, stops bathing, socializing, I would think that a college would recognize that they are not in a position to help him and reach out to his parents. </p>
<p>My best friend became schizophrenic when we were both 20. I hadn’t seen him in a year and when he came to visit me, he seemed fine at first, then deteriorated before my eyes. I have never been so terrified in my life. The transformation was utterly shocking. </p>
<p>kdos, my heart goes out to you. I cannot imagine the heart break you must have to bear. I hope you can reach out to people in your community and get the support you deserve. Meanwhile, here on CC, know that we are here for you.</p>
<p>I’m very sorry to hear what happened to your son, and hope for the best for him and your family. Again, thanks for sharing.
As a junior high school student I already suffered from depression, and I took a semester off to put myself together again. From then on I was on medication. I was very lucky to have understanding parents and to maintain my sanity, and now I’m flying oversea to the US for college and a fresh new start of life. Several family members of mine have also developed some sort of mental disturbance, but all are doing fine now, with medication, and continue to function as active society members.
I just wanted you to know that there’s always hope, and there’s nothing that love and care cannot triumph, even though some people, like me, still keep a pessimistic outlook of life. Have faith.</p>
<p>Connie,
Thanks so much for sharing. I would encourage you to seek out & find a good physician/counselor you can use at your new college. My kids, who have ongoing chronic health problems were encouraged by their university to develop a relationship with docs connected with the university so they could have ongoing care as appropriate while they were attending their new campus. It was very comforting to all of us that they did that and I would encourage you to do the same.</p>
<p>The stresses of college, new environment, new people can cause increased issues that everyone has to deal with and having a strong support system including doc/counselor is really a good idea, especially since you’ll be so far from home. Meds may even need adjustment and changes.</p>
<p>Since college is a time of poor hygene, since college is a time when going to class is optional and some students miss huge amounts of class, and since some people normally hole up in their room, it’s unlikely that the emergency contact would be called for those reasons. It would take something more drastic like locking oneself up in a study room and refusing to come out to cause the college to contact the emergency contact person.</p>
<p>I’m offering this information not to debate whether that is right or wrong but provide perspective from the people at college. Again, parents aren’t normally looked to as the solution for students problems because they are located far away.</p>