From a father and educator’s perspective, Leonard Stanley is here to give you some advice – whether it’s questions about school, your teenager, family life, expat life or if you just need a dad’s point of view. In Advice from Dad, he answers your tough questions and gets a parent’s perspective.
Dear Leonard,
How do I prepare my child for university life?
As spring is firmly upon us and summer quickly approaches, so is graduation season. Graduations are always special, but perhaps none are more significant than the day your kids leave high school. It is not only a time of transition from one academic phase to another but it is regarded as the transition from childhood to adulthood. With that being said, it seems every year I am confronted with this same question.
Parents are nervous and teens are excited, however, I think that one emotion they both share is uncertainty. Teenagers are unsure what to expect and parents worry about whether they have done enough to adequately prepare their children to enter the world by themselves.
So, how do you prepare your child to enter the world alone? I would say focus on the major things first. This includes information such as how to be safe in your new environment. Knowing where the nearest police stations and hospitals are in case of emergencies is very useful information. Once you are sure they are safe then you can move on to discussing expectations.
University life is full of temptations so you should be sure to address them directly. Make it a point to discuss drinking and alcohol; you want to be firm and honest while remaining realistic. Stress the importance of balance and time management. Let them know that you understand college is a time to have fun and enjoy life but that they are also there to study and get a degree. Additionally, do not be afraid to have an honest conversation about sex and how it is important to make good decisions that will keep them safe and healthy. After that, you can move on to the more mundane topics such as preparing your own meals, doing laundry, and maintaining a clean living space.
Your goal as a parent has been to raise an independent, self-sufficient, responsible young adult who is capable of managing their time by balancing work and play and this is where it all comes together.
Furthermore, when discussing the issue of going away to university who better to talk to than the students themselves? Every year I have students return to Shanghai with stories of how they are adjusting to their new environment and in my experience some of the best advice about how to prepare for this transition are from the students themselves. The most common theme among them is how to adapt to the people in a new environment. More often than not they are moving to a less diverse and multicultural environment compared to Shanghai, where people do not share the same open-minded, tolerant, and global perspective that they encounter in their familiar, yet atypical, international school setting. I have even had the occasional student go as far as to say that the international school setting may have done a poor job in preparing them socially for the outside world because it is too friendly, accommodating and tolerant. They find small town mindsets baffling and find it difficult to comprehend how people can hate one another for superficial differences. I mention this example because no matter what you do, there will be circumstances that you are unable to plan for.
So in summation, there is no surefire way to prepare children for what they are about to experience. You have to trust that what you have done so far in all of your years of parenting leading up to this point have been sufficient to prepare your child for university and the real world beyond that. Ultimately when it comes down to it, I am not sure if there is a blueprint for exactly what to tell them. How do you prepare another human being to live his/her life? What advice can you really offer besides be careful and do your best to make wise decisions because ultimately that is what it boils down to.
Leonard Stanley was born and raised in Washington D.C., and has lived in Shanghai since 2009 with his wife and two young children Kyle (12) and Christopher (8). Leonard teaches Theory of Knowledge as well as Language & Literature at the Western International School of Shanghai.
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