Providing Support

Watching your child move away from home for the first time can fill you with loss, anxiety and sometimes even relief! It can be a difficult balance between supporting and encouraging your child on the road to independence, and continuing to take control. Your child is now expected to behave like an adult and to assume adult levels of responsibility and deal with their own problems. Your child will also be expected to have the necessary skills to study and live independently alongside people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

As a parent it can be heartbreaking if your child is unhappy. However the vast majority of students settle in very well, make new friends and adapt quickly.

What can be difficult is knowing when to allow them the space to resolve their own difficulties and knowing when to ‘step-in’ and help them out. Before your child leaves for University it may be worth going through some of the areas below and discussing what level of support you want to offer and how they should deal with any problems they are having either with settling in or dealing with their accommodation provider.

The first few weeks can be critical and it is not unusual to have a phone call from a child in tears because it has all become a bit overwhelming. Freshers weeks can be demanding and the pressure to take part in daily (and night time) activities, the lack of sleep, the lack of a healthy meal and the apparent new freedom can eventually take its toll. The good news is that after some initial tears, most students settle into a routine and learn many new essential life skills. You should be aware that as a parent you will get the full force of any misery which may not be as long lived in your child’s mind as it is in yours. As a parent, it’s more important to support and offer advice during this process than it is to remove a child from a situation may not allow them to learn the skills needed for similar situations in the future.

We have detailed some common areas of concern below and have made suggestions about what support you can offer preferably before they start University or College. Whilst some of this may seem obvious we are providing this information because it covers the areas where we see most students and their parents in difficulty.