The Parent-Child Relationship in the College Years
Many parents stay enmeshed in their children’s emotional life in college, for better or worse.
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There’s a moment, toward the end of a parent’s trip to drop their child off at college, when it feels like the world is changing. Many describe the joy and loss that mingle in those five minutes walking back to the car. But some parents stay quite enmeshed in their child’s emotional life long after they leave campus. My colleague Faith Hill reported earlier this summer on the new age of endless parenting, and how parents stay in much closer touch with their college-age children than they did a few decades prior.
Before they say goodbye to their kids, many parents will give parting advice. But “usually,” Ezekiel J. Emmanuel wrote this week, that advice “will be wrong.” “When it comes to their children, parents are innately conservative,” Emmanuel writes. “They want them to be successful and to lead fulfilled and happy lives. To many parents, that means counseling them to pursue what seem like paths to guaranteed success.” But that conservatism doesn’t help students get the most out of their college experience, Emmanuel argues.
Today’s newsletter explores how the parent-child relationship changes during the college years, and how to help guide students through all that college brings.
On College
The Worst Advice Parents Can Give First-Year Students
By Ezekiel J. Emanuel
Today’s college students will have ample time to figure out their careers. Before that, encourage them to take risks.
What the Freshman Class Needs to Read
By Niall Ferguson and Jacob Howland
It is no small part of a liberal education to show students the broad range of meaningful lives they might aspire to lead.
What I Learned About Life at My 30th College Reunion
By Deborah Copaken
“Every classmate who became a teacher or doctor seemed happy,” and 29 other lessons from seeing my Harvard class of 1988 all grown up
Still Curious?
- How college changes the parent-child relationship: The distance can actually strengthen the bond, Alia Wong wrote in 2019.
- The new age of endless parenting: More grown kids are in near-constant contact with their family. Some people call this a failure to launch—but there’s another way to look at it, Faith Hill writes.
Other Diversions
- Marijuana is too strong now.
- The growing gender divide, three minutes at a time
- The words people write on their skin
P.S.
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— Isabel
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