Therapy in Chester, NJ
It is exciting and comforting for college students to return home for the summer. Classes are over, and you have three months to enjoy spending time with your friends that you haven’t seen much of all year. Odds are, your parents will help you out with laundry, grocery shopping, and if you’re lucky, you might get some extra funds out of them too. Parents are often equally as happy to have their college kids come home for longer than a weekend, itching to feel close and involved in their lives again.
But here is the harsh truth…nothing worth having comes easy. When college kids come home, they expect to have the same lifestyle, independence, and privileges that they’ve had all year at school. No curfew, a fridge stocked with beer, go out all night and sleep all day, do the dishes only when you get desperate, take weekend trips to visit friends without asking permission.
And parents are expecting to get their sons and daughters back exactly how they were the day they dropped them off for college. They anticipate that the same rules as before college or last summer would still be in effect. Ask permission, help clean up around the house, be home by 1 AM, no overnight guests of the opposite sex.
For the college kids and the parents, the return home for the summer might be a difficult transition as you both need to adjust or readjust to the circumstances. Even if partying isn’t your style at school, it is still frustrating to come home and have your parents ask you all of the details of your plans or for them to give you constant reminders to take out the trash, eat healthier, or get a job. Oftentimes normal parenting is now interpreted as nagging, suffocating, and treating you like a child.
So how can you make this transition into summer go more smoothly? Communicate, communicate, communicate! Discuss the elephant in the room and set boundaries that are mutually agreed upon.
For example, while at college there is no one enforcing a curfew, so returning home to a strict 1 AM curfew will be a battle for everyone involved.
Parents, understand that your kids have become more independent (and hopefully mature) and it is important for you to validate and trust them.
College kids, understand that it may be disrespectful to come home and wake the family at 4 AM. Find a compromise… for e.g. be home by midnight during the week and 2 AM on weekends, but allow for flexibility for special events. Also, please have the courtesy to call if you're going to be late. Parents still worry about you no matter how old you are and how much they trust you!
The key in reestablishing boundaries is mutual respect and flexibility. Take the time to listen to one another’s perspectives, and find a common ground where everyone feels comfortable. A strict curfew might suggest that you don’t trust your college kid enough to make their own decisions, and college kids only settling for no curfew at all suggests that you might not be mature enough to understand that there is a time and place for everything. Meeting in the middle suggests that you all respect one another’s position, and will create a general guideline.
While this is just one specific example, the underlying message is what is important. When college kids come home for the summer, the fact is that they lose independence. College kids don’t want to come home to answer to their parents again, and parents don’t want their kids to have too much independence, especially not in front of their faces. The truth is that the basic parent-child relationship will remain regardless of age and living situation, but everyone involved has to allow this relationship to bend and grow with life. Talk openly and maturely, respect one another’s opinions, find a compromise for your new boundaries, but still remain to understand and allow for flexibility.
When your college kid comes home for the summer, this is your opportunity to establish a "new normal" for your relationship that will last as long as they are young adults living in your home. When they move out, you will again have to redefine boundaries and your relationship…but that’s a discussion for another day!
If you could use help with parenting your college kid this summer or redefining your parent-child relationship, I am here to help!
Contact
Risa Simpson-Davis, LCSW
732-742-0329