New experiences hit you full-force in your first year of college. You are exposed to so many different opportunities, whether they be good or bad. Most teenagers have a rebellious streak at some point in high school.
It’s hard to rebel with new resources for parents, such as Life360, or, when I was in high school, Apple ID. I still found my way around it though. I’m thankful I did.
I may have done some stupid and dangerous things in high school, but I don’t regret it. I hate to put my parents on the spot, but they, for the most part, trusted me. The exposure I got in high school prevented me from wasting my time in college.
I had a friend in high school whose parents never let them have their phone with them at night until the week before we graduated. I can tell you that it didn’t stop them from using their iPad and laptop all night. The only thing it stopped was their socialization and communication.
As soon as they got to college, they were experimenting with substances. I get it, it’s college. It’s one thing to smoke and drink, it’s another thing entirely to do it just because you want to catch up to a crowd that’s been doing it for years.
I’m not advocating for giving your child substances, but also don’t freak out if they’re exposed to them. Educate them. It could stop them from consuming something laced or spiked because they didn’t know how to turn something down.
I’m so grateful that my parents weren’t breathing down my neck in high school when it came to my social life. They had my location, for safety reasons, and they checked it. They would ask where I was going and how long I was going to be gone, and other responsible parents would ask their kids questions. But, I was cheer captain, I volunteered in my fire department as a cadet, a teaching assistant for multiple classes and played softball. As long as my grades and extracurriculars were fine, I was being respectful and I came home uninjured, they weren’t too worried.
There was no reason to be. Yeah, I’ll admit I was doing things that were frowned upon, but my parents also taught me enough about spatial awareness to know if I was in a safe environment or not. Anything I did in high school, I did in a place that I was comfortable in. They trusted me enough to know that if my gut was telling me something was wrong, I would call.
If you don’t trust your child to come to you if something happens, that’s more often than not, not on them. It’s on you for not giving them the space to feel comfortable.
Now that I’ve been in college for a couple of years, I’m still seeing parents smother their children. My parents have my location, but because I don’t care that they do, they aren’t checking it. I’ve seen parents spam their adult children’s phones because they want to know what they’re doing. They’ll make their child give them access to Quinnipiac accounts. That’s too much.
Arguably the worst though is the in-between when parents are obsessive when their kid is in high school, and then completely detached when they get into college. Yes, you legally become an adult when you’re 18, but mentally there should be a transition period.
You can’t just expect your child to magically gain good decision-making skills the day they turn 18. You need to have them grow into those skills long before then, so they’re ready when the time comes.
If your child is in middle school, start prepping them for the freedom you should give them in high school. Then, when they get to high school, you can relax because you trust your children.
When they’re in college, they should be focused on important things. You won’t have to worry as much because you know they aren’t experimenting with anything dangerous far away from you, as opposed to when they were just across town in high school.
It’s not the end of the world if they get into trouble. Even if they’re doing something they’re not supposed to, you can know that they can get into a little bit of trouble, and learn from mistakes before it gets out of hand and goes too far.
