U

University

Leaving home for the first time and going off to university is an enormous step towards adulthood and independence for many teenagers. It also has a huge impact on family members left behind at home. Good preparation beforehand can help ease the move to university life.

Students - start to discuss courses choices early. Check that the A ‘levels you are undertaking match the specific course requirements. Search the UCAS website and look at universities which provide the course you wish to do. Obtain prospectuses for the universities which attract you. Compare the differences in the course structures between the universities and, most importantly, try to attend as many open days as you can. Open days offer valuable insight into the university. You can get a ‘feel’ for the place and whether, or not, you wish to spend the next three to four years of your life there! Open days also provide valuable information on UCAS applications, finance planning and what they specifically like to see in your personal statement. All sorts of hints and tips can be picked up. Open days require a great deal of sacrifice on a parent’s part: early morning starts, trekking across the other side of the country, giving up your weekend off and being thoroughly exhausted at the end of it are what, as a parent, you can expect. The sacrifice will be well worth it and invaluable to your son or daughter. Start the UCAS application early; ideally start to plan your personal statement in the summer holidays prior to commencing year thirteen. Have it proof read by your teachers or anyone familiar with the UCAS application system. Try to get as much work experience relevant to the course you wish to do as you can. Finally, work hard to achieve the grades you need for the course you wish to do and listen to the advice of those whose counsel you trust. This kind of preparation will help to avoid those last minute panics!

Parents - you can help by teaching your children the practicalities of everyday living, from simple realisations that the dustbin doesn’t put itself out to be emptied, or that clothes don’t put themselves in the machine to be washed! A student who can cook five simple meals won’t become bored with’ beans on toast’ and will be popular with their flatmates! Learning how to manage household chores early on in life will teach a child responsibility and help ease their transfer to university and ultimately, being responsible for themselves. Start a’ Uni’ list of practical items required. Bear in mind that some of these items are expensive; a computer, printer, mobile phone etc. Look at funding schemes available, or charities that may help in supplying some items. The university itself may be able to help. Start saving early, it is a huge financial commitment to send a child to university. Encourage your child to manage their own budget, perhaps by organizing paid part-time or holiday work. Teaching a child to manage their money will be worth its weight in gold. So many students run into financial trouble because they spend their loan as soon as they get it and then realise that there are still three weeks of the month left. There are always going to be those who are more careful than others but setting good practices early will reap its rewards later. Look at the different student bank accounts available. All offer different incentives and different interest rates. Don’t forget to read the small print and don’t allow yourself to be pressurised into signing up there and then. Take the information away and compare it with other accounts and then decide which best suits you. Allowing a year out to work and save some money may prove beneficial by improving their financial position and in gaining life/work experience.

Going to university is going to produce a whole range of feelings and introduce a completely new world and reality than the one used to up until now. Initial feelings of excitement, nervousness, enthusiasm and elation may give way to feelings of home-sickness, tension, and, as the demands of the course increase, pressure and even depression. You may feel daunted by your lecturer’s expectations and your flatmates habits may not be all you desired. People’s standards and values differ. University is certainly going to open your eyes to the activity and behaviour of other human beings. Keep in sight the reason you are at university in the first place, i.e. to graduate with a degree in your chosen course. Balance work time and leisure activities. Get involved with clubs/societies which appeal to you but don’t let these take precedence over course work. Try to make good relationships with others on your course who have the same goals, standards and values as yourself. Seek the advice and counsel of those whom you can trust and who have your best interests at heart.

Communication is vital. Although contact from the student may be regular at first, it can also become increasingly irregular as the student finds their feet and becomes more independent. At times the communication may feel very one-sided to the parent. Regular contact though, will be appreciated, if not always at the time. Years later your off-spring may thank you for your persistence! Maintaining regular contact and being available twenty-four hours a day can be a life-line to a person who is really struggling or facing difficult issues. For a young person to know that they are loved and accepted just as they are at home can make all the difference between giving up altogether, or persevering towards their goal.

Sending a child off to university for the first time is going to be emotionally demanding. That little boy or girl who you once wheeled along in the buggy is now grown up and going out into the world on their own. No longer will the parent be able to protect them from the world and all its challenges. No longer will you be able to fight their battles for them and, where once a cuddle and a sticking plaster was enough to ‘make it better’, they may now receive ‘wounds’ that run deeper and require different treatment. Home life will inevitably never be the same again. An empty space at the table, an empty bed, no arguments, squabbles with siblings, excited laughter, chit-chat. No need to provide a taxi-service anymore, for that child at least, no more parents’ evenings, no waiting up until they come home safe and sound and are tucked into bed. Adjusting to life without a member of the family who has been around for the last eighteen years, at least, is going to be a huge challenge. Mums, particularly, can find it hard to adjust to the change in their role within the family. They may find freedom to explore areas they wouldn’t previously have considered; a new job, voluntary work a hobby etc. Other family members need to be sensitive and supportive to the changes mum now faces in her role. The following extract is of a mum describing her feelings when her daughter left for university:

When my daughter left home it felt as though one of my arms had been severed. Although she may not have been around all the time, you get this very empty feeling. I was devastated when she went. The house was so empty. I know you have to let go, but when you are used to doing so much for them for so many years you are confronted with a new learning curve.

Going to university is both a challenge for those going and those left behind. Siblings will also have to adjust to life without a brother or sister at home. Dynamics within the family will change. Younger siblings may miss not having their older sibling to talk to, play with, squabble with and share the burden of chores with! And when a more independent sibling returns home for the holidays, family members may find themselves faced with a rather more assertive, confident, self-assured young adult who feels they are far too superior to participate in old family customs. Wisdom needs to prevail. A tactful and kindly reminder may be required, that it is here at home where the skills learned to tackle the world were first attained!

W

From a reader:

Wrapped in Cotton Wool

“Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
Proverbs 22: 6

Babies look so small, so fragile, so vulnerable, it’s a parent’s natural instinct to want to nurture them and keep them safe from the big world outside. But babies grow and soon develop into children who become very curious about their surroundings. Any parent of any toddler learns to become adept at answering numerous questions on a daily basis starting with, “why?” “how?” “when”? To a young child the world is a big, exciting place that appears to be one endless fun park. Water, fire, animals, cars, anything bright or noisy seems to attract a child faster than a pin to a magnet. Warnings such as, ‘don’t go too near the edge,’ ‘don’t go too far,’ ‘don’t touch,’ seem but hindrances to a child eager to explore and try out this fascinating world around them. They are unable to comprehend the danger necessitating the warnings.Their inexperience makes them by definition vulnerable to the world around them.

From day one this vulnerability of their off-spring poses many dilemmas for a parent. On the one hand we need to keep our children safe while on the other we need to allow our children to explore their world so that they learn to understand it and eventually cope with living in it as an adult. We need to achieve a balance between being too over-protective and not allowing our children to develop a real understanding of how the world works while also allowing them to venture out on their own, make their own mistakes, and being there for advice and support. The need to reduce our children’s naivety of the world around them almost appears contradictory to the image of childhood innocence and vulnerability. But if we are to teach them to live and cope in the ‘grown-up’ world then we need to introduce it to them in a safe and controlled way.

Whilst being vulnerable on the one hand, most children are also quite resilient. A situation that we as adults might find quite difficult, a child will often weather with innocent ‘matter of factness’. Children also learn, a lot earlier than we  normally like to admit, how to manipulate a situation for their own benefit. A baby soon learns to cry to attract a parent’s attention; likewise a toddler will ‘test the boundaries’ to see just how far their parents will let them go, or how many times they need to repeat a behaviour before their parent will, eventually, give in to them. Like it or not we cannot keep our children ‘wrapped in cotton wool’ for ever, they will find out about the world whether we as parents wish them to or not. Playgrounds are wonderful places for unleashing all those secrets you weren’t quite prepared yet to tell your child; the ‘where babies come from’ discussion you hadn’t quite anticipated yet, the ‘Santa Claus doesn’t exist debate’ and the ‘what happens when you die?’ enquiries that the whole class discussed when Harry’s pet hamster sadly departed from this world. So just how do we as parents prepare our children for their first few steps into the big wide world? Below are only a few suggestions which I have found useful with my own children and is in no way an exhaustive list or doctrine of rules to be followed. Each child is different and each family situation varies from one to another, parents usually adopt ways and customs which fit in with their own family circumstances.

From day one perhaps try to introduce a child to their surroundings and the wider world about them. Take them out for walks in the pram; show them the world around them, point things out to them as you go along; buildings and different structures, people, animals, plants, trees, noises, smells etc. As the child grows use pictures in books of things you saw that day as a discussion point. Talk about anything and everything that went on during the day, things that made them excited, scared, happy or sad. As the child grows older talk to them about school and family matters, any concerns they may have. Encourage them to talk about how a situation made them ‘feel’ and how they ‘feel’ now. Bedtime can often be a good time for a child to open up and discuss concerns and/or fears they may have. Look at news topics together and discuss what is going on in the wider world. What does the child think/feel about this? What would they do if they were there or if it happened to them etc? Try to develop a relationship with your child where they feel they can talk about anything and everything without being judged and where they feel their opinion is valued. Set standards and values so they understand what appropriate behaviour is and what is not. Try to develop an atmosphere of trust, especially as a child develops into teenage years. They need to know that what they discuss with mum and dad won’t be shared with other family members. Uncle George discussing your first ‘crush’ makes for highly embarrassing after dinner talk.

At the end of the day we have to let our children go. We have to let them try out the world for themselves, even if it is not what our choice would be for them. I would rather my son didn’t take an interest in rugby. My own experience of rugby is the mountain of broken collar bones and misshapen noses I encountered as a nurse in A&E. But I know that I will be causing more harm to my son by not letting him play rugby, because of my own fears, than any broken collar bone or nose ever will. I would rather my teenage daughters didn’t want to go into the city but I also know that by keeping them at home I wouldn’t be preparing them for city life, should they choose to live there as adults. As parents we can warn our growing children of the dangers and pitfalls of the world in which we live, but teenagers are not dissimilar to inquisitive young toddlers in that the world is an intriguing, exciting and enticing place to be. Having done our best we have to open the door and let them go. All we can do is trust the Lord to keep them safe and help them to remember, somewhere deep inside, all those discussions we had, the advice we gave and the standards we set.