Abstract
AS AN ADMINISTRATOR of a program intended to help retain students at Syracuse University, I found myself in an ironic position this past August. I was presenting a workshop to parents of incoming first-year students about what they could expect from their sons and daughters during the first semester of college. It was ironic because within days of that workshop, I was making the trek from Syracuse to southern New York to drop my own daughter at a small private school and sitting through the same presentation that I had just given.
I vividly remember move-in day. My intent was to progress through it in steps, to slowly let go of my grip on our daughter through a series of events: driving in, unpacking the car, organizing the room, having lunch, going to orientation, having some time to process what we were all feeling, having dinner, and so on. The school, however, had other things in mind and had strategically scheduled events that had nothing to do with my needs. The staff was working from a strategic plan that had as its goal getting the students connected and kicking out the parents. I'm laughing as I write this because we do that at my university, too. I had been a member of the inflicting team, but until that August day, I did not appreciate what the process was like from the receiving end.
My husband helped to extract me from my daughter's residence hall room at 6:00 P.M. She was heading to a new student bonding experience, and I was putting one foot in front of the other toward the car. I did make it out of her eyesight before the overwhelming sense of loss hit me. I called it “transition” when I spoke to the parents at my institution. I think I also said that it was a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. Next year, I'll call it what it is—hard.
I was pleasantly surprised over the course of the next few days when she would call and sound like she was having a great time. Her tone was light, classes were good, and her roommates were wonderful. Quite honestly, she seemed to be making the transition beautifully. I found myself slogging through it day by day for those first couple of weeks.
Sometime just prior to her leaving for college, I had set myself up with an instant messaging account. When my daughter had quickly countered my initiative with a statement that I interpreted as “I'll get in touch with you if I need you, Mom,” I told her flat out that this was fulfilling my need, not hers.
I had always perceived my child as pretty comfortable in her own skin. She had come from a small suburban school district, had been a part of several championship athletic teams, was well-liked and respected, and seemed ready to seize what college had to offer her. She had a strong set of values and ideals that didn't seem to waver much, and she didn't seem afraid of asserting herself.
Her college criteria had included being far enough away from home so that she couldn't come home on weekends but close enough so that we could get to her within a half-day's drive if necessary. She wanted a small college that excelled in her intended major, and she required an environment that provided more diversity than she had experienced in high school. We were sure that this college fit the bill.
AS THE FIRST WEEK turned into week three and then week five of that first semester, I began to notice that she was connecting with us more often. I had been good and wasn't initiating the connections, trying to give her some space. I had even asked at one point whether we could talk for real one time a week and had gotten a very quick “yes” in response. That was my first indicator that something had shifted.
What became interesting to observe was her devel-opment as she navigated a system that was unfamiliar. I also had to monitor myself. I'm her mom, and although I have brought up my children to be self-sufficient, the instincts of momhood do not come unfastened without deliberate attention. So, when the tearful phone call came in which she said, “I want to come home,” I retreated quickly to administrator mode. I had talked many a parent through tough times with their kids. I was talking to myself now.
After careful poking and prodding, I learned that nothing major was wrong. Her roommates were still wonderful, her classes were fine, and no one had hurt her. She was, however, missing her family, her house, the dogs that drove her crazy, and the comfort level that had been hers for eighteen years. She was homesick. Ah, I knew how to deal with this.
Underneath the homesickness, however, was a thread of discontent with the school itself. She seemed to be growing weary of the smallness that had been endearing to her at first. “Everybody knows everything about everybody,” she stated. It reminded her of her high school. Drama was high (she was in an all-female first-year student residence hall, so I guess we should have seen that one coming), and although she was fine with three of her suite-mates, the fourth was making her living space difficult to negotiate at times.
Then came the topper. Everybody went home on the weekends. I found this one hard to grapple with because when we had sat through the interview and tour a year earlier, this phenomenon had been overtly addressed and denied. The dean of students had said that something like 80 percent or better stay at the school on the weekends. We put our faith in that statement, and it was a very large portion of the decision-making process. I have since wondered how many small schools make a point of their weekend residential statistics. This would become one of many discussions over the next several weeks about the fit of this college to her expectations as well as her desires for what she wanted out of a college experience.
As our conversations continued, the transfer talk began in earnest. Now, you have to understand, I work with a lot of first-year students who don't seem to be getting connected and whose first inclination is to retreat to something familiar: home. I always listen carefully to these students or better yet, observe, in order to see what is poking at their core. I wasn't hearing the familiar clues from my daughter. She wasn't saying “Come get me now.” She wasn't saying “I don't like it here” and basing that comment on the people surrounding her. She had a core group of friends, she was on the college soccer team, and she did not seem to be struggling with the connection aspect. Her message to me was consistent. The school is a commuter school, it is too small, there is too much drama, and this is not how I see myself experiencing this part of my life.
I BEGAN TO THINK of her less as a first-year attrition statistic and more as a kid who was beginning the process of taking some pretty important steps toward a change that could prove to be a difficult transition. She, however, was unfazed by her decision that she needed to transfer, and she wanted to do it for the spring semester. She readily admitted that it would be hard to leave the friends she had made and the comfort level that she had already attained, but she said that this wasn't enough of a reason to keep her there. She felt strongly that she had made an error in picking a small school, she was angry that the school had misrepresented itself, and she wanted to rectify her situation before too much time had passed. It was hard to argue with her logic.
She spent the next four weeks gathering documents and formulating her thoughts for the college essay that she needed to write, again. At first, she had thought that maybe she could just use the one she had written to get into her present college, but she soon discovered that it didn't fit and that she really had more to say about the growth she had experienced in the year since that writing. This additional writing task in itself created more stress. I listened intently as she struggled to articulate her thoughts. What should she include? How could she strike a balance between writing an essay that would express how she had come to this decision and writing to leave an impression? Should she include her personal struggles ? How could she write this and attend to ber college work? Whom should she be talking to? What should she be asking? Phew! My question was “What happened to my confident kid?” Then it hit me. From a developmental standpoint, she was a young adult trying to navigate a decision that required older adult skills, and she was doing it without the physical presence of the older adults she'd been so accustomed to turning to. Sure, instant messaging was proving very helpful and the “in network” cell phone service was saving us from financial ruin, but that was proving to be no substitute for person-to-person contact and communication. It was, however, all we had.
Phone calls, e-mails, and instant messages; this is how she navigated the transfer application essay. I found myself pulling back and letting her struggle a bit. She wanted help with a beginning point; I didn't provide it but, rather, asked her what she had learned about herself in the last couple of months. She wanted to write the perfect essay; I told her there was no such thing and that she needed to let her readers know more about her through what she wrote. She needed ideas to write about. I challenged her to think about what was important to her now. She wanted to get it done, and I stated that this time it was more about the process of doing it than the completed package. Okay, it's definitely about both, but I needed to get her moving. I stated that she shouldn't look at this as a cram session but instead as an addition to her homework schedule for which she needed to deliberately plan. She wanted me to come down for a weekend to help her write it. I gently declined. She hated my vague answers and what she perceived as a lack of concrete help. The frustration and the pressure she was placing on herself began to increase. At one point, I encouraged her to write no more than one paragraph and then put it away for at least twenty-four hours. I suggested that she complete the application fill-in pieces, as that might provide a sense of accomplishment, and leave the essay for later. She had questions about which questions were mandatory to answer and which she could leave blank; I gave her the admissions phone number. She asked questions like “What do I say?” I'd answer, “What do you need to know?”The distance was actually making it easier for me to help her disentangle her thoughts and have her move one step at a time. It was also allowing me to objectively process for myself what needed to happen with her rather than subjectively helping her fix it.
This proved invaluable for both of us. When she called me one evening and said, “I sent my essay to you; could you proofread it?” I knew that what she had accomplished was much more than an essay for a college transfer application.
THE APPLICATION was sent about a month ago now, and the waiting is killing her. Truth be told, it's killing us both. If she gets in, we'll celebrate. She has registered for spring classes at her present college as a safety net, in case she doesn't. I hope her process will yield a good result, but she's done the best she can do. Doing her best was what she could control. The rest is outside of that, and should we have to work through the sting of rejection, I know it will be for a reason. As an administrator, I'm ready to process this. As a mom, I'll hug a disappointed kid who worked through a system on her own like an adult.
I have learned a great deal from this experience: (1) Transition to college is hard, for students, and for families. (2) The best-made decisions may need to be changed, depending on the circumstances and the details. (3) The “I want to come home” message needs to be poked and prodded; it may not be what it appears. Our first instinct to push our child or a student to stick it out may not, in fact, be in his or her best interest. (4) Allowing our children to grow by stepping out of the way is our job. (5) As we step out of the way, nudging (okay, pushing) our children to step onto the path is also our job. (6) We need to become aware of and manage our own sense of frustration so that we can better cope with our child's floundering. (7) As administrators and educators, we need to remember that many of the parents of our students are going through steps 1 through 6.