<p>If your D called , and said she was feeling " anxious and trapped " would you call someone at the school , or tell her to deal with it on her own ? She is 19 , and generally mature about most things . Her grades are good . I did call , and I told my D that I made a call . I thought she would be angry with me , but she said it was OK . My H feels I should have kept encouraging her to do it , but she didn't and I was concerned . Just wondering how other parents would deal with this situation . She has a meeting later this week .</p>
<p>If your mother’s intuition kicked in and you felt the need to help your daughter, then it is OK. If you had not, and there was a poor outcome, you would not be able to forgive yourself. If your daughter called you, she may have been reaching out for help. Seems likely since she was not phased by your contacting the school on her behalf. </p>
<p>Don’t feel bad, despite the number of responses that will tell you they would not have called.</p>
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<p>there’s your answer.</p>
<p>who CARES what anyone else would do. There are times I would call and times I wouldn’t call. (I’ve never called) But, it would be based on my “feeling” about the situation, not the type of facts you can put in a message board.</p>
<p>x-posted with vlines.</p>
<p>I think the call was OK, provided that the student was reasonable otherwise. I fielded a number of 1:30 AM calls from DD with complaints about life. I usually listened for ten minutes, then told her to get a good night’s sleep. She always felt better in the morning.</p>
<p>Agree — your intuition kicked in, and you followed it, as you should have. Be glad you did. How wonderful that your D is going to get some help. And it does not matter who called - what matters is that what you did got her to where she needs to be. I hope it all goes well.</p>
<p>Clearly your daughter must have signed some privacy release form giving you permission to speak to someone there. Otherwise, they might have listened but not for long.</p>
<p>It sounds like your DAUGHTER was OK with you making the call and truthfully that is all that matters.</p>
<p>My D’s school has an online form for parents to send “I am concerned about a student”. The form goes to the Dean of Students and they will contact you and the student for more information and assistance.</p>
<p>For the record on the forum…I was NOT criticizing Fauxmaven’s decision to call the school. Calling was fine…and that her daughter was OK with it was the icing on the cake.</p>
<p>Some students would NOT have been OK with this sort of call.</p>
<p>Personally if/when I had concerns about my kids, I would have made a call too.</p>
<p>I would have worked through…the
“what has you feeling trapped/anxious” feelings etc with my student…to some extent before placing a call. And if I felt that another conversation face to face with someone there would be of benefit, would have made the call as well.</p>
<p>Your student is a soph? There is the sophmore slump which is normal and a lot of university deans and professionals help them walk through those things. She has an appt so thats a good thing.</p>
<p>Good job!</p>
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I don’t think that’s the way it works. I think they’ll listen, they just won’t tell you what action they’ve taken if the release isn’t signed. We asked our son’s college about releases and they said they don’t do blanket release forms.</p>
<p>As to the OP’s question - I don’t know if I would have called or not - it would depend on my judgement of that particular situation. Tone of voice, past history etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know what I would have done. It would depend on how my D sounded, the reasons she gave me for feeling the way she did, etc. However, based on your D’s reaction (that it was OK you called), I definitely think you did the right thing.</p>
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<p>Yeah its always been my understanding that the issue of confidentiality is one way: they may not be able to tell you anything, but they can definitely listen to information you want to provide. </p>
<p>Agree with others- it entirely depends on things we aren’t privvy to about what we would do in your shoes. I’m guessing that for me, if it was ongoing and I had already been trying to get her to seek help, I would step in at some point. But again I’m sure there are so many other factors that would play a role as well.</p>
<p>I’m doing a bit of experiment with my freshman students this year. I’m asking them to contact me via email for a large host of reasons (when normally I would only expect it for the class content). I realized that we are at a large school with tons of resources, but kids this age (especially the large number that are international) may not know how to, nor be willing to take the initiative to access the resources they need (or at least not soon enough). They’ve come to know me fairly well as a person, so I’m asking them to contact me (and in turn I can direct them very specifically to the particular resources they need on campus). Kids run into barriers, hurdles, emotions that sink them sometimes. And while there may be very many fantastic lifelines and support out there, if they don’t take that one important action at the right time to use that support, it can make such a huge difference. </p>
<p>Anyways the only point of all that was to suggest that you did as a parent what I’m trying to do as a professor. I think any adult not in the situation the student finds themselves in can be an important connector. I actually don’t see it an enabling, but rather a tiny ‘nudge’ moving them toward self-help and self-sufficiency.</p>