Reply to Help with freshman mood swings.

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Help with freshman mood swings."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP, ignore the posters who tell you to suck this up. There is a brigade of posters on here who seem to think there is a badge of honor for college kids and parents who never talk to each other. 
Your child is reaching out to you. It's really hard as a parent to get those phone calls.  We had a few early on this year from our second kid who is a freshman.

This child was similar---honestly all throughout senior year and then into college.  What helped was therapy but mainly medication. In her case zoloft and birth control. She needed the hormonal and mood regulation and I can say that 3 months into this regimen is like a new kid. The mood swings and inner voice of anxiety is turned off.  She's now just living her life and has made a fantastic circle of friends in what a difficult situation (large state school, arrived knowing no one, etc). 
I would also remain completely neutral and upbeat when talking to her (by no means should she see you worry). It's probably reasonable to drop the therapist a line, maybe prefacing by saying "I know you can't reply to me due to HIPPA and I say this in confidence to you--please do not tell my child that I reached out."

I will also say that in my experience that some college students definitely use parents as their emotional dump.  I have 2 of them and we have had conversations with both that are "the world is ending today" only to follow back with the kid in a few days to find that everything is totally ok and they've moved on. I definitely think that if you slip up and show that you're emotionally invested in the situation then they are more likely to come back to you again with the issue or the next issue.
  
My way of now handling things on the very rare occasion that I get a call like that:-- Kid: "the world is ending today, this is the worst thing ever"....etc etc for 10 minutes.  Parent: "what did you have for lunch today? Did you get a Halloween costume yet?"
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics