Stay Connected to Your College Kid
by Elizabeth Foss in Family on Friday, October 02, 2009 6:00 AM
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Marybeth Hicks is the author of Bringing Up Geeks: How to Protect Your Kid’s Childhood in a Grow-Up-Too-Fast World
Raise a Homebody
Clearly, when GEEKS are old enough to leave home, they aren’t literally going to be homebodies any more. Our job as parents is to take home to them. Obviously, we send care packages. We include meaningful gifts that make them feel like the people at home are still holding them in our thoughts and prayers. Make them feel like the connection at home is strong and waiting for them.
And, when they come home from college, “make it clear that they need to carve out time for family. Don’t let them let family be second fiddle, because, really, they want home. They want to re-connect with family,” says Hicks.
When they are away, use technology to its fullest to stay in touch. Hicks offers the example of calling her daughter Katie one morning. As Katie left her room, she said into her cell phone, “Come with me, we’re walking to class.” And so, Hicks was drawn into the everyday of Katie’s life at school.
“Send a lot of texts. They live by their texting, so learn to be good at it.” Parents who are at work can watch for children to pop up online. Send instant messages while at the computer. Every once in awhile, remember to send a long, newsy e-mail with a lot of news from home. Really catch them up so they don’t feel disconnected. Keep them in the loop.
Even better, write an old-fashioned letter — something they can rip open with anticipation, hold in their hands, and read again and again. Time doesn’t stand still for families at home while kids are away at school. It’s up to the parents to be sure that children who are absent are held within the circle of the family and kept close to the family culture. That closeness requires careful nurturing.
Raise a Principled Kid
If a principled kid leaves home and goes to college, he will find the campus a veritable goldmine for living out principles. There are opportunities to truly express themselves for political and social justice, to serve, to lead, to be noisy gongs for the right things.
It’s true that their principles might not be the majority voice on most campuses, but college-age kids are generally idealistic enough to feel compelled to defend their principles with gusto. “While it can be an uncomfortable time to speak out on principle, inherently, they want to do that at this age,” Hicks notes. Help them to find venues for defending and propagating good principles, according to their own calling.
Raise a Faithful Kid
Hicks says that the first step in ensuring that a kid remains faithful in college is to visit campus ministry office together on the weekend when you move your child into the dorms. Go together. Meet the campus minister; strike up a relationship, get an e-mail address, stay in touch with that minister and don’t hesitate to ask them to minister to your child specifically.
Hicks notes that she’s not a helicopter parent. “While I wouldn’t ever call a professor, I can definitely call a campus minister and ask them to help if I’m concerned about the well-being of my child.” Campus ministers are only too glad to step in and make an extra effort to help a struggling GEEK.
Catherine Horan, a Fellowship of Catholic University Students minister at George Mason University in Fairfax, says that the ministers love to hear from parents, but that most parents don’t make that contact. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your job is finished when you pull away from campus. You can stay involved and continue to mentor and to shepherd without being intrusive or obnoxious. Horan notes the balance between staying connected and granting independence and encourages parents to work at finding and keeping that steadiness. When you do, it steadies your child.
Before leaving your child, make sure he has Mass and confession schedules and a strategy for getting there. Go together and visit the chapel. Pray with your child before you go.
It’s important to recognize that college is a time when young adults go their own way in their faith journey. They might stop going to Mass regularly. Hicks stresses that the best way to navigate this time is to keep the invitation open, not to bully a grown child into participating in the life of the Church. “The way to keep them in the faith is not to take an angry stand, but to keep inviting them.” We continue to share our faith at a more adult level through conversation.
Listen for references to Mass in the recounting of their days. If, over the course of several weekends, you don’t hear them mention going to Mass, and you think your child is falling away, it’s time for a face to face conversation.
Go visit. Have a gentle conversation about spiritual health and nurturing spirituality. Hicks gives us the words: “I can’t make you go, but I’m inviting you as a fellow member of the faith. I can show you why faith is so important — your problems will only get bigger as you get older. You’ll need faith more.”
Parents can look to God as the example. God only offers us a life in Christ; it is up to us to respond. Parents offer and young adults will respond. Sometimes, God has to keep His offer open for a long time before we travel the narrow path with Him. When it comes to our children, we need to persevere in kindness and gentleness. We need to keep offering, keep the faith conversation going and keep reminding them of God’s presence in daily life.
When a child shares a struggle on the phone, offer to pray with her. Send e-mail prayers. Let her hear you living your life of faith. Hicks sees a long-distance parent’s role as one of keeping God on their minds, not in a didactic way and not in a punitive way, but as an open invitation to a mature life of faith.
—Elizabeth Foss is author of Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home
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