Reply to Monitoring College Freshman Assignments/Grades

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Monitoring College Freshman Assignments/Grades"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DD has some mental health issues and is at a top school, where freshman year has been very tough. Missed doctor appointments, forgetting to get refills on an SSRI which caused awful withdrawal, and then literally sleeping through a required professor meeting last week. It has NOT been easy to sit around and watch it happen among many other lapses. That said, she has paid the price for these issues and i'm crossing fingers that she will not let it happen again. At some point, I can't be the one monitoring her schedule. I get it OP its hard when you're kid is in a bad place mentally and you want to support them so only you knows how to do that but in most cases, its a must do to let them take responsibility for their actions, good or bad. [/quote]

Such is life.  You get it, PP.

Also, if the kid is not neurotypical, you might want to keep the closer to home, at least at first. [/quote]

As a prof and a parent, I think I would encourage doing some light monitoring Freshman year, esp. in the fall and with mental health issues in the mix.  But really for nearly everyone. It's a massively abrupt life change to be on your own for the first time with a whole different approach to course scheduling/assignments--even students that were independent throughout HS falter.  I wouldn't micromanage assignments, but I would check the mid-term reports.  This basically tells you if your kid is making satisfactory progress in all their classes.  So C or higher at the midterm is listed satisfactory, lower is not.   If your kid has any unsatisfactories at that point, step it up a bit--tell them to use the study center resources at the university, professor office hours, and lightly nag a bit--what do you have due, when are you doing it?    Then during winter break if things didn't go well in the fall ask them to map out how they are going to stay on top of things, what they are going to do when they get in over their heads, how they will course correct.  Then let them on their own again, but check the mid-year reports.   This time though just remind them of the plan they made.  
This little bit of intervention doesn't prevent them from growing up, but it may help lessen the chance they spiral out before they do.

[/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