Parenting College Students and Young Adult Kids: Practical Tips From a Mom Who’s Messed It Up
Last Sunday, I was wiping down the kitchen counter after my 20-year-old daughter Lila’s weekend visit when I saw it: her faded gray hoodie, crumpled on the seat of the kitchen chair, the one she’s had since high school cross country. Two hours later, when I was halfway through my grocery run, my phone pinged: “Forgot my hoodie. Can you send it?”
I thought of my friend Sarah, who pulled me aside after book club last week asking for advice. Her 19-year-old son just started his first semester of college, and she’s exhausted. She stays up half the night refreshing his student portal, answering 3 a.m. texts about lost ID cards and registration holds, and everyone gives her conflicting advice. “One person says I’m ruining him if I do anything for him, another says I should be there no matter what,” she said, twisting a napkin into a tight ball around her cold latte. “I have no idea what’s right anymore.”
I get it. I’ve been that confused, frazzled mom. Lila’s first semester, I dropped everything three times in the first two months to run something out to her campus, 45 minutes from our house. When she got a flat tire in the rain and called crying that she’d miss her paper deadline, I jumped in my car before she finished talking. When she slept through her first midterm, I emailed her professor to excuse her absence before she even asked me to. I researched major requirements, set up an advisor meeting, and reminded her three times to show up. She still didn’t go.
Then came the call that changed how I do this. She’d failed her first chem test, the one she needed to keep her pre-med track GPA, and she was crying and mad on the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me I shouldn’t take this class this semester? This is your fault.”
That line hit me hard. I’d been fixing all her problems to soothe my own anxiety. I hated seeing her stressed, hated seeing her mess up, so I stepped in to make it go away fast. But that meant she never got to practice sorting through problems on her own. I wasn’t doing her any favors. I was just making myself feel better.
Over the last two years, I’ve worked out a few small, concrete things that work for us, things I shared with Sarah that don’t involve vague advice like “give them space” or “be supportive.”
The first thing I do is, when they come to me with a small problem, I lay out two clear options and let them pick. When Lila asked me to send her forgotten hoodie, I didn’t just order a label and ship it that night like I would have freshman year. I texted back: “I’m driving past campus to my doctor’s appointment tomorrow, so I can drop it at the mail room for free, or you can buy an $8 priority label on USPS.com and I’ll drop it in the mailbox today. Which works for you?” It took me two extra minutes, and it let her decide what matters more: saving $8 or getting her hoodie two days earlier. She picked the label, got it two days later, and that was that. No extra work for me, and a tiny bit of practice making a choice for herself.
The second rule I have is: I don’t contact any of their people—professors, advisors, bosses, housing managers—unless they write the first draft of the message. If they want my help editing, I’ll do that. But it has to come from them. When Lila asked me to write an email asking for a paper extension last semester, I told her that rule. She wrote the first draft, I fixed a couple awkward sentences, she sent it from her school email, and she got the extension. When Sarah told me her son wanted her to email his professor to request a make-up midterm after he had flu, she told him the same thing. He wrote the email, sent it, got the make-up, and told Sarah it felt way better than having mom do it for him.
The third thing I remind myself of is: I only step in to fix it myself if it’s a safety or mental health crisis. Last semester, Lila’s seasonal depression got so bad she could barely get out of bed, and the campus counseling center had a six-week wait. I didn’t make her hunt for an off-campus provider alone. I searched sliding scale options while we talked on the phone, helped her fill out intake forms, drove her to the first appointment, and paid the copay. That’s not enabling. That’s stepping in when they can’t carry it alone.
I keep a crumpled sticky note on my fridge that says “Not my problem.” It sounds harsh, but it’s just a three-second reminder to pause before I jump in. Some days I still forget, some days I still jump in when I shouldn’t. Last month, Lila forgot to pay her credit card bill and got a $25 late fee. I didn’t pay it for her, and she didn’t ask me to. She just grumbled and paid it, and set up auto-pay the next day.
It’s all still a work in progress. Lila still forgets things, still calls me to rant for 20 minutes when she fights with her roommate, still has messy semesters where things don’t go according to plan. I still get that urge to fix every little thing to make the stress go away. But these small rules have made both of us less tired, and they’ve given Lila space to figure out how to handle life when I’m not right there to pick up the pieces. I don’t have all the answers, but this works for us, so far.
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