The majority of children grow up seeing parents as role models, thus parental engagement is a key determinent in the positive development of children both mentally and in terms of behavior. However, talking about higher education systems among international universities, 18 year olds are expected to be highly responsible as they will be starting a new chapter of academic life outside their home country and in other words, away from their parents. Thus there should be a limit in the parent engagement during this matriculation and college preparation journey.
While parents must be aware of the fact that they should be great supporters for their children during this stressful time of the university application cycle, they also need to know that their role should not include doing tasks or other duties for the students. Students must be treated as young adults, and should be made aware that this is a very significant part of their life that is done once but the qualifications and other soft skills that are gained during this time will always stay still. These soft skills include responsibility awareness, decision making, problem solving, communication and the list can even include note taking skills which even include following the deadlines, respecting the office hours and other meeting schedules of the counselor&/ teachers.
The process of getting ready for international university applications is all about team work and everyone has an important role in this team, however the team captain is always the student. There is a great similie that I always tell my students and their parents usually in the beginning of the college preparation process when I start my counselling work; ‘if you consider this process as a road trip to another country, the student should be in the driver’s seat, the counselor should be in the passenger seat next to the driver, and the parents are in the back seat’. Why? Because after this road trip ends, meaning after the student is accepted and eventually matriculated in an international university, then everyone in the passenger seat will get off the car, and the driver will move on as ‘solo’ from there on for most expectedly three to four years. That is when the university life starts where there should be huge responsibility in both academics and life in general.
Imagine the parents in the back seat, talking to the student in the driver’s seat continuously thoughout the road trip. Do you think that the driver would be able to focus on driving properly when everyone in the back of the car are telling him/her what to do, how to do, where to make a right or left..etc? My response is ‘I do not think so’.
Thus, in order to avoid any possible accidents, parents should be good listeners when needed, but the do-ers must always be the students starting from the beginning of this college preparation period until the matriculation finalizes. Students should be in control of their school related tasks, homeworks, projects, exam weeks and other academic details and this habit should start in high school times in order to continue in an international university environment where academics will always be very important to continue.
I was an international student myself and I went to college in 2002 from Istanbul to the United States (this was before facebook was founded), and my parents have never been involved in any of my school related activities. The only day they visited my school was the day of my graduation. Talking from my personal experience, this really helped me because I learned how to be a problem-solver and a decision-maker already before I started my higher education in the USA. Again, back to what I tried to underline in the very beginning, this awareness of responsibility starts at a very early age of a child because best practice of a perfect communication strategy between students and parents actually starts when the child is growing up, then throughout the K-12 education system. A parent’s role is essential in international student matriculation but it should include collaboration with the professionals in the counselling department and at school along with the student who actually has the leading role in this application cycle.
Image by Freepik
