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Robyn Kozierok wrote:
| In article ,
| illecebra wrote:
|
|It really kind of scares me that you are worried about what someone
|might say to your *college-age* "child". If they can't make their own,
|adult decisions by that age, how are they going to survive???
|
|Why should the primary concern for living conditions be what the parents
|are comfortable with. Hello! They aren't kids any more at that age,
|they are (or should be) adults. If my son hasn't matured enough by age
|17 or 18 to decide whether to live in a dorm or a normal rental
|property, I will have failed as a parent.
|
| IME, most college students gain that type of maturity during college,
| but not before, due to lack of real "living on one's own" experience.

That in itself, is a problem, IMHO. College is the first time that many
young adults live away from parents or guardians. However, it shouldn't
be the first time that they've taken responsibility for themselves,
decided if and when to go out, who to go out with, how to spend their
money, etc. The ones who come in having never made these decisions for
themselves already have the odds against them when they start college.

| And, as much as I hope my son is making the "right" decisions for himself
| by 17, I don't plan to stop guiding him toward the decisions that I
| feel will keep him safe.

I'm all for guiding. However, I took exception with what I saw as an
implied statement that the parents' comfort with a student's living
arrangements were more important than how the student feels about it.

| Children mature at different rates, and just as they are ready to read,
| or to ride a bike, or to stay overnight at a friend's house, etc. at
| different ages, so too are they ready to "make adult decisions" at
| different ages, in many case *not* before they start college. Many
| young adults at that stage still need guidance from their parents, dorm
| advisors, etc.

"Make adult decisions" is a pretty broad area... but I think that you
might agree with me if I make myself more clear (then again, maybe not).

When a student goes off to college, he/she chooses what he/she will eat,
and when, how much to study, whether to attend class or not, when to
shower, whether to go out, whom to go out with and where, etc. The
parents really don't have a lot of control. If giving (hopefully sound)
advice isn't hands-on enough for some parents, then they are pretty much
left with guilt trips and threats to "pull the plug" as their only options.

Guidance and advice are great. My parents gave me some good advice when
I started college. They also gave me some really bad advice that I'm
glad I didn't follow. A lot fell somewhere in the middle. I'm grown up
with a family of my own and I _still_ call my parents for advice on
occassion.

However, in many ways I also differ from them in how I feel I should run
my life. That has been true since my early teen years. For a while, I
felt guilty that I was letting them help me pay for school and not
living exactly as they wanted. However, in the end, we are different
people and they didn't always understand what was best for me.

| Some of my boys will probably be making excellent decisions at that
| age, but I suspect at least one may still need a lot of guidance. I
| wouldn't consider this a failure as a parent any more than I'd consider
| another parent a failure if their child didn't read by age 5, for
| example. I'd consider it a parenting failure if I knew my child was
| not ready to make good decisions when he started college, but left him
| to sink or swim on his own, just because others think a child "should"
| be ready to make all his decisions on his own at that age.

I didn't mean that he should be able to make all of his decisions
without any guidance. People at any age may need guidance. If a person
about to live on his or her own in a college setting can't survive
without having his/her decisions made for him/her, he/she is in big trouble.

Being "less than thrilled" with what someone suggests to your child
implies to me that you don't think that a 17 or 18yo person should be
exposed to ideas that their parents disagree with. That, to me, is
excessively controlling. Also, whether parents like it or not, college
students are exposed to all sorts of people and media, and if they can't
filter out the good from the bad on their own, they won't survive very well.

| I'm sure if my kids attend colleges that don't require dorm living for
| freshmen, they will be aware of that. I'm not trying to hide facts
| from them. But I read your comment as a "challenge" to these kids to
| assert their independence and forge out on their own, ready or not,
| which I considered to be inappropriate.
|
| --Robyn

No, I don't think that all dorm situations are bad for everyone. I do
think that the student should be the one to determine what situations
are right for them. Too many parents try to hold on to control too
long, and really hurt their (now adult) children. There's a difference
between being there for your child, and pressuring him/her to conform to
your wishes regardless of their own.

I'm really confused at this point as to which one you are advocating.

Susan
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