Overwhelmed
5-Year Member
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2018
- Messages
- 354
My 17 year old son has never been 46 years old but I have been 17. How much input should a parent have in their child's final college decision?
My 17 year old son has never been 46 years old but I have been 17. How much input should a parent have in their child's final college decision?
My approach: You can tell your kid what to think about, but you can’t tell them what to think. In other words, help them parse the criteria, but let them make the final decision. (Of course, certain issues such as affordability may trump all, in which case I believe it’s ok to pull rank — or let your kid offer up a solution.)
(Not saying this is your situation, but...a leading reason [the leading reason?] that mids/cadets leave in plebe year is because they didn’t want to be there in the first place. It was Mom’s or Dad’s decision, not theirs.)
My 17 year old son has never been 46 years old but I have been 17. How much input should a parent have in their child's final college decision?
My 17 year old son has never been 46 years old but I have been 17. How much input should a parent have in their child's final college decision?
Interesting thread, and timeless.
Though this was many years ago, my parents did a great job of setting realistic expectations for me with what they would be able to contribute, starting at about 6th grade, with age-appropriate discussions. Over the course of those regular and gradually more complex discussions, they taught me how to estimate costs, including travel and all the other ancillary costs to attending college. We boiled it down to a few scenarios:
- live at home, work, attend local community college, then 4-year state college, with some help from them
- attend state college with some help from them
- work hard, get scholarships from every possible source, save money from own summer jobs, and out-of-state well-regarded private and public colleges could be attained
They created a range of options, ensured I understood what they could contribute and how my own actions could expand the possibilities. They included me in their Sunday afternoon family bill-paying discussions and family money chats, invaluable lessons. I understood they were not buying me a car from the get-go, but they helped me understand how I could do that on my own.
My dad also taught me to change the oil on a car, change tires, start a manual shift car in 2nd, service a gas lawn mower, do basic carpentry and household repairs. Mom never lost a penny from her checkbook and kept impeccable accounts, and had a flair for math, and could beat Marie Kondo in a one-round bout.
When we went to look at colleges, they used open-ended questions to help me evaluate and think through the tangible and intangible aspects of each college, and to see how it might fit me.
Their eventual contribution to my college education was buying a meal plan and the student health plan each year, and help with the gas money for the long drives home at holidays.
The older I get, the more I realize how many valuable lessons they taught me, and I wish they were still around so I could tell them.
How funny! Our son bought his first car this past summer -- an old mustang stick. He didn't know how to drive it, but thought he should with the added benefit that probably no one would be borrowing it. He and his dad got some great bonding time and had a lot of fun together with those lessons. Hubby commented that it was probably the last time he'd be able to teach kiddo anything useful.We taught both of our kids how to drive a manual transmission. This came in handy for our daughter when she enlisted. She purchased an old Jeep Wrangler with a manual transmission. She never had to worry about anyone in the barracks asking to borrow her car once they found out it was a standard.
My 17 year old son has never been 46 years old but I have been 17. How much input should a parent have in their child's final college decision?
My 17 year old son has never been 46 years old but I have been 17. How much input should a parent have in their child's final college decision?
I think we (meaning all humans on earth with kids) can agree that our children would have wonderful lives if only they'd let their parents make all their decisions for them.
The idea of arranged marriages, which I once derided as backward, doesn't seem so terrible anymore.