5 Tips for Parenting a College-Aged Child Who Is Struggling

When does it get easier to be a parent? In the early days of parenting, it's often called "being in the trenches." Late nights with burps and dirty diapers, you are sleep-deprived, deeply in love, but also filled with new worries. Is she eating enough? Is he meeting his developmental milestones? How will I ever let this baby go when my parental leave is over? And then suddenly, there you are, packing the minivan and preparing to send him or her off to college. Parenting a college-aged child can be a different sort of "trench." As you drive away from campus, you might be filled with similar worries as when your child was an infant: "Is she eating enough?" "Will he succeed in his major?" "How can I let this child go into the world without me right by his side?"

As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who works with emerging adults and their parents, here are five tips to keep in mind for the struggles that can present themselves in the transition to adulthood.

This motto isn't just for turbulent airplane travel. A key part of being a source of support for someone else is making sure we're sufficiently caring for ourselves. As a new parent, the pediatrician checks in on mom and dad during well-baby appointments, assessing for signs of stress, depression, and anxiety that are common in parents during the newborn period. There's no such medical surveillance for parents sending their kids off to college, and it can be just as tumultuous, especially when a young adult is having trouble with the transition to adulthood. Parents may lose sleep worrying, may not attend to their own self-care, and can isolate themselves from important connections. Knowing when to pause and reflect on our own needs is an important skill, both to re-center and restore ourselves as a model for our emerging adults.

The task of parenting involves continuing to face new and evolving challenges. As mentioned, it's important to recognize that this time of transition isn't just one for your child. Psychoanalysts Jack and Kerry Novick, in their book Working with Parents Makes Therapy Work, highlight that "development is not a force confined to childhood, ending in adolescence... it continues throughout the life cycle."

There are parallel developmental tasks for parents in step with the developmental milestones of their children. Parental development involves the gradual relinquishing of control, from parental authority to supporting the child's growing independence. It starts from the point of a child's total dependency, moves to allowing yourself to be a "secure base" for their initial explorations of the world, and eventually arrives at letting go and becoming a source of consultation. This parental developmental milestone becomes especially confusing when a young adult struggles with the transition to adulthood, because the impulse as a parent is to step in and "fix it."

This tip builds on the first two. In the transition to adulthood, parents come face-to-face with the real limits of their ability to control their children's behavior and protect them from the challenges they face. The truth is that a parent can't and shouldn't "fix" the trouble, but that doesn't mean they're unable to do anything. Being alongside a young adult who is struggling can be a helpless feeling, but staying present, available, and non-controlling is itself a form of support. Parents need to trust that growth can come from challenges and that lessons are learned from the struggles one solves oneself. Believing in the child's capabilities without swooping in to solve their problems builds competency and personal authority.

We hope our children will weather the challenges they face in the transition to adulthood, but there may be times ahead that signal your child needs more support than friends and family alone can provide. Parents may have all sorts of feelings when trying to help a child who's struggling: guilt, worry about whether their child will fall behind, uncertainty about whether time off is the right call. Children also benefit from having a reflective space that belongs just to them, separate from their parents, to sort out how they feel. Connecting the child to additional mental health support can help navigate these challenges. Stressors surrounding the college transition are so prevalent that many colleges have developed internal resources and referral options ready for matriculating students, either in supporting ongoing college attendance or if the student needs a leave of absence. 

Mental health treatment can sometimes focus on just the individual who's struggling. It can be confusing to know what to do, especially when your child is the one in distress. When do you step in, when do you let them find their own way, and where's the middle ground?

Often there's more to the story, and more resources available, when family members are involved in treatment. Treatment has two aims working side by side: restoring the child to a path of positive development, and restoring the parent-child relationship as a lifelong positive resource for both.

Working with a parenting coach or engaging in family work can help parents transform guilty feelings into "useable concern," helplessness into competence, and despair into hopefulness, by making the parent an ally in their child's steps toward treatment.

Within the Austen Riggs Online IOP, we partner with college counseling centers to support students who struggle, often adding parents as important resources in weathering this challenging time period.

To learn more about the Austen Riggs Online IOP for emerging adults in MA and VT, or to speak with our team about whether it might be right for you or someone you care about, contact us via phone, fax, or email.

Start by caring for yourself first, since supporting a struggling young adult is easier when you're not running on empty. From there, focus on finding the balance between staying supportively present and recognizing the limits of your control. If your child's struggles continue, consider bringing in outside support, such as a therapist or a parent coach.

Parenting a young adult involves a gradual shift from parental authority to supporting independence, moving from being a "secure base" during a child's early explorations to eventually becoming a source of consultation. This is a developmental task for parents, not just for the child.

When a young adult's struggles appear to go beyond what friends and family can address, it may be time to consider additional support, such as a therapist, psychiatrist, or parent coach, and, when appropriate, family-based treatment.

"Useable concern" describes the shift from feeling guilty or helpless as a parent to becoming an active ally in your child's treatment and steps toward recovery. Parent coaching and family work can help support this shift.

Erin Seery, MD, is a psychiatrist in the Online Intensive Outpatient Program for College Students and Emerging Adults at the Austen Riggs Center, serving patients in Massachusetts and Vermont. She is board-certified in psychiatry, completed a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), and completed an advanced fellowship in psychoanalytic studies at Austen Riggs. She is currently an associate professor and associate program director at MUSC.