{"id":40,"date":"2012-08-01T20:12:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T00:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/?p=40"},"modified":"2012-08-01T20:12:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-02T00:12:30","slug":"college-dis-orientation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/?p=40","title":{"rendered":"College Dis-orientation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Why Parents Need Freshman Orientation More Than Freshmen – National – The Atlantic Wire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that time of year, summer\u2019s moving to a close and many of you will be dropping your kids off at university for the first time. Having had three children go through a variety of college experiences (one is still there), I was amused to read the linked article sent by my friend Phyllis on how parents are more in need of freshman orientation than their children are\u2026<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it; dropping your child off at college is stressful.\u00a0 It starts with not being able to fit all the \u201cnecessary\u201d stuff into the car, continues with meeting the roommate (and praying he or she isn\u2019t a Megadeath groupie), a likely trip to Wal-Mart for something needed, and finishes with a tearful goodbye (on the parents side).<\/p>\n

The article, Why Parents Need Freshman Orientation More Than Freshmen<\/a><\/em> by Alexander Abad-Santos<\/strong> from theAtlanticwire.com<\/a> talks about the struggles today\u2019s helicopter parents have dropping off the kids they\u2019ve coddled since birth.\u00a0 The recommendation is to attend the Parent Orientation sessions offered by 90% of today\u2019s colleges. It\u2019s a great look at how those 18 year-old Kobe Beef\u2019s (urban legend, but you get my point) you\u2019ve raised might actually gain some muscle tone going to Freshman English in the building across campus a couple of days a week. They\u2019ll have to learn to do laundry, find the cafeteria and get their own food and OMG – wake up at 8am!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s our own fault you know. Most of us with college-aged children grew up in the 60\u2019s. It was an era where most had fathers and\/or mothers who ruled the house with an iron hand. Remember these phrases? – \u201cSpeak when you are spoken to,\u201d \u201cPlease and thank you,\u201d \u201cSit still,\u201d \u201cKiss your grandmother,\u201d \u201cClean your room or you can\u2019t go to the movies.\u201d \u201cWhen I was your age\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Not anymore. As parents today, we\u2019ve secured the rebellion of our own childhood treatment by smothering our kids and waiting on them like visiting dignitaries who don\u2019t speak our language. Wait on them hand and foot? Yes! Punish them? God, no\u2026Chances are the first spanking your child might get is during their fraternity or sorority pledging! \u00a0Yeah life\u2019s pretty good these days for kids heading off to school. Not so in my day – while my wife\u2019s mother vacuumed her college dorm room before unpacking (an early helicopter mom), my mother waved goodbye from our driveway freshman year and actually made it to campus the first time for my graduation four years later.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no expert on child-rearing by any means, but the reality is that the best thing to happen to your child might be to leave home for college. Not just the curriculum, it\u2019s the having to \u201clive on one\u2019s own\u201d that provides the real education. College gives you the opportunity to begin to make decisions for yourself. Your child learns to interact with others, problem solve, budget their time, stay up all night, and drink some of the cheapest beer available. Sure, sometimes they\u2019ll call home for advice in the early days, but for the most part you hope they make choices on their own and deal with the consequences.\u00a0 Even colleges think your kids are so independent that they send the college invoices directly to the students today. Hey, that\u2019s not a bad thing; I know it stressed mine out to read the big number on the bottom!<\/p>\n

So, fine; help \u2018em unpack, feed \u2018em a farewell lunch; but then get in the car, drive off and let them be\u2026you\u2019ll be surprised how well they might turn out.\u00a0 And, finally take the “Freshman Orientation for Parents\u201d course if the college offers it <\/span>– because, as theAtlanticwire.com<\/a> article says \u2013 \u201c\u2026would you like your offspring to come back home and eat pizzas on your couch all day? No? Well, how do those orientation programs sound now?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Parents Need Freshman Orientation More Than Freshmen – National – The Atlantic Wire. It\u2019s that time of year, summer\u2019s moving to a close and many of you will be dropping your kids off at university for the first time. Having had three children go through a variety of college experiences (one is still there), I was amused to read… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,18,12,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Clfm-E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}