Second Thoughts on College Education
Parents generally expect their children to look forward to college as a way to get away from home and experience life on their own. This is not always the exact case, but many teenagers want to have the experience of moving on to college.
Some see it as a necessary step in becoming mature and progressing to the next point in their lives. If for some reason your child is not among that group, it can have a negative effect on how he or she performs academically.
It is difficult to understand how children will develop because they are all so different. Experiencing new things is very attractive to young people. However, this type character does not always dictate how children will feel about similar opportunities.
You may anticipate that your child won’t want to fly from the nest when first given the chance. Whatever you expect, it is impossible to accurately predict how the course of events will take place.
How Far Away from Home?
Parents often want their children to attend the same university they went to themselves, but the distance that school is away from home might be a major factor.
If a young adult wants to attend school away from home, they might not want to be a long distance away. Studies indicate that a large majority of college students attend schools within a hundred miles of home.
The reason why some students don’t make it at the next level is because they are too far removed from everything familiar to them. The fear of that happening is often in the back of a student’s mind causing doubts about college.
Some students want something so much they will go anywhere to achieve it. They may even want to travel to another country. Then again, there are those who want to venture away from home, but in small steps so they can come home on weekends and not feel distanced and isolated. Just knowing home is within driving distance is comforting to some kids.
The Best Plan for Motivation
The truth is no parent can predict how their teenager will feel about college location. The best thing you can do is to encourage learning at the level your child is at the present time and always be positive about the future college experience.
Even if you are not sure that a particular college is right for your student, carefully choose the comments you make that can be interpreted to disfavor college in general. Then work with your student through the situation as more facts begin to present themselves.
