Co-Curricular Adjustment

The out-of-class environment presents an array of opportunities and challenges perhaps even more important than the hours spent in the classroom. Educationally, this social-psychological mix is highly influential in fostering your student’s continued development into adulthood. Interpersonal maturity grows through interaction with people of different values, different attitudes, and different behavior codes. Vocational clarity develops with practical experience in new activities. Our recommendation for co-curricular involvement in the first year is for students to participate in at least one, but no more than three, extra activities or groups.

Your student will enter an environment composed of people from varied backgrounds who share a common intellectual promise and a history of distinguished educational attainment. Aside from these commonalities, little else is similar: each student comes to the University of Richmond with different expectations, different values, and different appraisals of what college is or should be. Each parent also has different expectations and concerns. Some parents who have not had the opportunity to attend college feel a sense of excitement while wondering how the University will affect their son or daughter. Those who have attended college may envision a revival of their own educational experience. All may feel a haunting sense of uneasiness, knowing that whatever the student’s experience turns out to be, it will have a profound effect on the direction of their life.

The first-year student must make immediate adjustments to many demands: living in a residence hall with an instant community; meeting lots of new people; finding places around the sprawling campus; seeing a myriad of strange faces; feeling harried, pressed, and lonesome. For many it is their first time sharing a room with someone else; stepping over someone else’s clothes or finding that one’s roommate wants to sleep with the light on or the stereo turned up high. If your student complains to you about roommate problems, you can be most helpful by encouraging her/him to have a conversation with the roommate about the situation. Negotiating a mutually agreeable arrangement takes effort, but helps develop valuable life skills.

The important thing to remember is that these collective stresses occur simultaneously with the academic pressures. University rules and regulations are very minimal. The reduction in limitations and the expansion of freedoms may be markedly different from the rules and regulations at home. Although students respond in a variety of ways, most find it a challenging adjustment to learn how to manage their time and living arrangements away from home.

Homesickness

Perhaps it is surprising how lonesome a first-year student can get despite being so busy and surrounded by peers. It sounds exciting, but it can be difficult for students to reach out to make friends and allow the time it takes to develop meaningful ties. When a situation is unfamiliar, a person naturally turns to what is comfortable for support. Strength of character, personality and gender have little to do with it. It is the normal feeling of not yet having a niche in the new environment. Seeking support and guidance is an effective coping strategy. If your student talks of homesickness, it is helpful to empathize and gently suggest taking initiative to become more involved with new people and activities. Communicating to your student that you believe in him or her can be very reassuring. Students may have a more difficult time adjusting to the separation if they had a very positive high school experience and have close friends and family at home. Maintaining these ties can be a bridge between the old and the new.

Your student is paying you a significant compliment when turning to you for emotional support. As you express confidence in your son or daughter, you may discover that you are supporting his or her journey toward increasing interdependence, rather than fostering dependency.

Sick of Home

There is another side to this coin: the “sick of home” syndrome. For some, this shows up during the first major vacation at home. You may sense a change in your student: a bit more aloof; bugged by little things; wandering in and out of the house at irregular times; snapping at you when you ask normal questions. You may also be baited with stinging bits of philosophy, often contrary to your personal beliefs. In general, your student may seem more self-focused or cocky and less considerate of your feelings.

The fact is that your student has had three or more months of considerable self-sufficiency while you may be interacting in the same way as before. It is important to keep in mind that within a few weeks your student has grown significantly toward maturity and greater independence, and relationships at home are fertile ground for testing out new ways of acting. The adjustment may be more difficult for you since you are not living with your student on a day-to-day basis. At times you may feel you don’t know your child any more. It is worth the effort, however, as a more mutual, adult relationship emerges between you.

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