Hi, Carolyn: My grandson doesn’t want to go to college, but my daughter has pushed so hard that he finally gave in. But he’s unhappy about it. He also has to leave his best friend and girlfriend of many years to go to the college in another state, which is adding a lot of stress.
I told him to follow his heart and I would support whatever he chooses. Now my daughter is telling me not to undermine his success. I know that depression is a serious issue with many college students, and I don’t want him to become depressed.
I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and suggestions. — Grandparent
Grandparent: I won’t pretend to love the idea of his mom pushing him “so hard that he finally gave in.”
But your putting yourself in the middle of a parent-child issue when you’re not the parent isn’t the remedy I have in mind, either.
You know it’s a not-your-business issue, I hope, without my saying so. What you may not realize is that it’s a timing issue, too:
Now that the decision is made and your grandson is going, you want him to succeed, yes? Yet urging him to “follow his heart” when things get tough, and he wants to quit on himself and go home to his besties, will only undermine his resolve when he needs it most.
Because college involves change on so many levels — all new people, tougher academics, assigned roommates, unsupervised-time management, constant temptations — the first-term adjustment is hard even for the kids who want to be there 100 percent.
Assuming the window was ever open for you to argue against his going to college (again, debatable), it closed the minute he said yes to it. That’s when it became the job of everyone who loves him to back the decision he made, however he got there.
Even if your grandson makes a reasoned decision someday to live his adult life back in his hometown, with his best friend and his girlfriend at his side, he will be a more confident and resilient adult for having forced himself out of his comfort zone — not just for a few homesick, conflicted weeks, but long enough and successfully enough to prove to himself he could do it.
I suspect you’ll find out that’s why your daughter pushed so hard, when you reopen the topic to apologize for meddling.
Interfering with that process, of his testing his own limits, is the risk I’d be most concerned about. Yes, depression is a significant problem on campuses. It’s also a problem for people who don’t challenge themselves, try new things, face their fears. It’s a problem for people who pass up college (or service, training, travel) to stay nestled in their friend circle, only to have it move away or break apart.
Point being: We can all cherry-pick our arguments to support what we believe. If we want to help the people we love, though, then we need to get over ourselves and our preconceived notions and concentrate on believing in them, in their ability to deliver on whatever they ask of themselves, regardless of how they came to their decision or how awful an idea we’re privately certain it is.
This includes reassuring them that any challenges they ultimately don’t rise to were still worth taking on, just because they thought they were. Even a disastrous choice is more admirable than joining the told-you-so chorus that greets the conquered when they slink home.
Not that I think you’ll do this, necessarily — it’s just something to file away in case the impulse strikes.
