The Launching Years by Laura Kastner

Author:Laura Kastner [Kastner, Laura S. Ph.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-43436-4
Publisher: Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2002-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

ALTHOUGH PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN ARE GOING THROUGH LAUNCHING TOGETHER, THERE MAY NOT BE A MEETING OF THE MINDS. PARENTS TEND TO FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE OF WHAT LAUNCHING MEANS AND ENTAILS, WHILE FRESHMEN WORRY ABOUT MORE CONCRETE CONCERNS AT COLLEGE.

Generally speaking, parents tend to confront their child’s leave-taking with more awareness and multidimensional thinking about its significance—the end of my active child-rearing years, my own aging, my changing relationship with my child. Children are feeling a lot, too, but their anxiety and anticipation are often more personally targeted at their next step and their freefloating fear of the unknown: Will I like my roommate? Will I make friends? Will the courses be too hard? Compared to parents, teens usually prefer to mark their launching by something that reflects their tastes, something smaller rather than larger, something contained rather than consuming.

As for the specifics, one family’s feast is another’s famine. Even a plan that sounds wonderful and wholesome, like a family hike just prior to leaving, isn’t going to work for everyone. One father and son I was counseling, for example, had raw unresolved feelings between them. Had they engaged in an activity providing a great deal of one-on-one time together, too many hot emotions might have spewed out right before the big exit. (Was the divorce fair to Mom? How come Dad spends so much time on his young children and won’t contribute more to college?) Everyone will handle leave-taking better if there’s peace and kindness instead of clashing. For this dad and son, it was better to plug the dike and know they’re going to deal with their issues down the road. What they did was simply go out for pizza and a movie together, and it was perfect for them.

Even though this experience involves the whole family, take care not to place rigid expectations on other family members, and stay sensitive to others’ personal styles for coping with change. A common misconception, for example, is for parents to expect siblings of the freshman to have feelings that the siblings may not have. The cursory “see ya” may be as worked up as the brother or sister happens to be at that moment.

Whatever leads up to it, there’s a heightened consciousness to the moment of farewell. Once you hug your child good-bye and walk away, do you turn around one last time? One mom described to me how she and her daughter each turned around simultaneously and exchanged a reassuring smile and a wave, creating a moment to treasure. Another mom, upon turning around, saw only fright in her daughter’s eyes and had to carry around a freeze-frame of that image in her mind.

How rapidly a freshman adjusts to college life depends on many factors, ranging from global issues—their personality, personal strengths, and general resiliency—to specifics such as the college-student match, class selection, and who the roommate turns out to be. Homesickness, which strikes almost all freshmen, typically abates as students become more involved in rewarding academic, social, or athletic activities.

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