Starting college can be tough, leaving your high school, hometown, friends, a place where you were comfortable. But really who has a bigger issue with separation anxiety, you or your parents? This really could go both ways, as a new student entering college we face many challenges but for parents its hard letting their babies grow up.
A survey was given to college students and in 2008 17% of college students thought of dropping out due to financial problems and 27% stressed over finincial issues. In 2009 another survey was taken and out of the 2,240 undergraduate students 85% said that they experience some kind of stress on a daily basis. Leaving home and have to live on your own is hard and does cause a lot of stress. We have school, finances, and many other things ut when we were at home our parents took care of everything, we didn't have to pay bills, they helped with school work, cooked.
When looking up this topic I found a lot of articles about separation anxiety in parents. Parents are having to adjust to "the empty nest", to being out of the loop and not as involved in their kids lives as the were before. In one article it talked about frases parents use such as "it is so quiet around here" but really in those words are a sense of loss. It is also hard for parents to want to relinquish control and let their children go, they have to let them make mistakes and not be there every second to help them through every problem. Many schools now are trying to offer a 2 or 3 day parent orientaion to help them let go of their children and make them comfortable with the new situation. At our school during orientaion the parents go to a "letting go" seminar, which my mother said "was the absolute worst thing, it was aweful, they told us not to call our kids or to go home and sit in your rooms". 
I would have to say that although it maybe hard on the parent, it is harder on the child. After all, the child is the one that has to get used to a new environment and new people. Can you safely say that living on a college campus is better for a child, in the whole growing up process? or is it just a distraction from our school work? I say distraction because when a child has separation anxiety, they are depressed and can't really concentrate on school work. Does college really teach us independence because our parents aren't around? or is it just making us want to go home because we can't deal with doing things for ourselves? According to an article on CBSNews.com it states "parents whose kids are having separation anxiety not call their children all the time, which reminds them that they're away and not at home". Do you really think this is an good idea, being that usually a parent doesn't go a day without speaking to their child? Doing this might be to hard for a parent, I would suggest that they call once a day.
ReplyDeleteI found this article to be very interesting because I myself, have felt this "separation anxiety". Yet, I have learned to cope. The title make's me want to read the article, and it was exactly what I expected it to be.
Personally, I think the separation to college is harder on a parent. After all, after you have cared for a child for eighteen long years and to see them move on and grow up so fast could be a wake up call. Most parents are not prepared for the separation anxiety because it is often camouflaged by excitement, so it catches them by surprise. According to an article by NYU Child Study Center, the main challenges for a parent are feeling a void, feeling left out, and relinquishing control Because parents typically go through 'empty nest' syndrome they have more time on there hands to have anxiety and miss the student. As opposed to the student who is adjusting to the rigorous new school work and college life. As a student, I feel I had more distractions to keep my mind off of missing home.
ReplyDeleteBy looking at the blog title I am hoping to learn what separation anxiety is and if it is harder on some people more than others. Overall, I think the blog post has many valid points - Separation anxiety is hard on parents and college students, money issues are a factor in students dropping out of college, and more than 85% of college students say they deal with stress everyday, which is a fact that really caught my attention because high stress levels aren't healthy; It is over three-fourths of college students with daily stress. What I really didn't understand in the post was why you were not satisfied with the results of your "letting go" seminar because you did not explain why you thought it was a bad idea. The title really didn't explain the blog post because it didn't answer the questions that the title was asking. The opening does make readers want to continue. The blog does fulfill its promise of what the readers where told to expect besides the fact that the author did not pick one side of the arguement, so there are not facts or evidence for the topic answer. The picture does add to the writer's arguement because it shows a mother and a child having a "moment" before departure. The arguement was easy flowing and there were little to no gaps in the reasoning process. I think that separation anxiety is harder on parents, especially single parents of an only child like me.
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