Source: Marjorie Savage -You're on your own: mentoring your child during the college years
Week 1
Students establish routines as a way to adapt to change. Social acceptance is usually their first priority. Students react strongly to disappointments or problems. This may be the first time they have had to identify problems and find solutions entirely on their own. They will complain, but they usually manage to adjust. Every accomplishment feels like a significant victory.
Advice for families: talk to your student at least once during the first week; enjoy the excitement and acknowledge the disappointments.
Week 2
Students may go overboard with new freedoms. They figure out that attendance is not taken in classes, and they decide not to go. They realize they have two hours between their lecture and their lab, and they spend the time with friends in a coffee shop. They see other students decorating their rooms, and they spend a small fortune on posters and pillows.
Advice for families: Listen to clues that your student might be making poor decisions. Affirm the good choices and talk about priorities.
Week 3
A mix of comfort and uneasiness confuses students. They have established a routine, and they no longer feel "new." They become extremely close to friends they have just met. They can't believe they've only known these people a couple of weeks. On the other hand, students are frustrated that there is obviously so much they don't know yet about college. They think that everyone is looking at them and thinking, "Obviously clueless. Must be a freshman."
Advice for families: Tell your student you believe in them.
Week 4
Students who have not yet gone home begin to want a weekend away from college. The intensity of it all has become exhausting, and they're worn out. They begin to see things from a slightly different perspective-the outgoing friend they met the first week of school starts to seem a bit shallow; the quiet, cynical person next door might not be so bad after all; and they get tired of roommates. They long for a little quiet time.
Advice for families: Listen to complaints, but don't try to fix things. Suggest that, rather than come home for the weekend, your student can stay at school and spend some extra time sleeping and studying over the weekend. The standard recommendation is that students should stay at school until fall break.
Week 5-6
Students begin to react to disillusionment. College turns out not to be everything they had imagined, and they have to admit that some of their initial social choices were poor. Typically, students either confront their challenges and make improvements, or they confirm their original patterns. Students will continue to cycle through frustration and action throughout the first semester, deciding to drop bad habits or bad friends or concluding that "since this is what college is, maybe I'm not cut out for it."
Advice for families: Talk with your student about the good decisions you have seen them make during the first few weeks of school. Let them know there is still time to make improvements.
