And Then They Go...

And the Complaints Start Rolling In  

      When our sons and daughters are at college there is plenty to worry and wonder about.  Our curiosity and concern is usually fueled by the highs and lows expressed in conversations and brief messages that seem to pop up during the opening weeks of the semester.  

The early-in-the-semester calls about "the food is good" morph into "there's nothing to eat!"  The roommate who initially seemed cool becomes a nightmare to live with, and excitement about seeing friends and maybe even taking a particular course slowly dwindles.  Add in a couple of pop quizzes, a paper to write, and five hundred pages to read and most students begin to find plenty to complain about.  

So what does it mean when your son or daughter complains and what can you do to effectively respond?   Read the complete article to learn effective strategies to limit complaining. 

College students are spending more and more time engaging in social media and on-line games, isolating themselves from peers at college and keeping them from involvement in on-campus activities. So if your son or daughter shares that he or she feels lonely or alone, you might first wonder if he or she is spending too much time attached to technology or what I recently heard called a     "Personal Isolation Device".  

If you suspect this might be a contributing factor to your student's sense of loneliness or delayed feelings of being connected to his or her college, consider prompting your student to attend campus events.  You might use the college's website to look at the event calendar and say something like, "I noticed there is a comedian on Friday - who do you think might want to go see him?"   You could also learn about whether your student is doing things with others by listening for when he or she says "we" -- as in "We went to a movie last night" or "A bunch of us went to breakfast."  

Telling your student to try to get out more will likely have little impact, but drawing attention to opportunities to participate in activities that you know are of interest to your student, and then sharing encouragement to join others, might begin to shift a pattern of isolation.  The more the semester progresses, the harder it can be to enter existing peer groups. 

Did You Know?   Most Likely Types of Crises

How Prepared Are America's Colleges and Universities for Major Crises? 

Assessing the State of Crisis Management

by 

Ian I. Mitroff, Michael A. Diamond, and C. Murat Alpaslan

January/February 2006 issue of Change magazine

 The Most Likely Types of Crises 

1. Serious outbreaks of illness/disease
2. Major food tampering
3. Employee sabotage
4. Fires, explosions, and chemical spills
5. Environmental disasters
6. Significant drops in revenues
7. Natural disasters
8. Loss of confidential/sensitive information or records
9. Major lawsuits
10. Terrorist attacks
11. Damage to institutional reputation
12. Ethical breaches by administrators/faculty/trustees
13. Major crimes
14. Athletic scandals