Academics: Coaching Your Student to Succeed
Parents can play an important role in coaching their student through the rigorous academic aspects of college. The Parent Program recently asked university staff for do’s and don’ts when it comes to parents helping students make the most of courses and major areas of study. Here is what we learned.
“The main role of a parent is to encourage students to find what they love to do, discover what they are good at, seek help from campus sources, and continue to work hard,” says Wren Singer, director of UW– Madison’s Center for the First-Year Experience. Parents should not be involved in course selection, and should not take the time to learn major and degree requirements. To allow students to evolve into independent, responsible adults, Singer urges parents to let students take the lead and make their own decisions about academic matters.
Parents should encourage their student to meet with academic, career, and faculty advisors regularly to ensure proper preparation for major selection, career planning, and graduation. “Students can best prepare for advising appointments by arriving with all necessary documents and a list of questions. This way, your student will get more out of each advising experience,” says Steve Schroeder, assistant dean at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Advisors assist students by helping them to consider all possibilities prior to making their own decisions. “Remember, advisors don’t tell students what to do; instead, they serve as guides and sounding boards to help students discover things for themselves,” says Singer.
Parents should not call advisors in place of their student, Schroeder recommends. Instead, he says, encourage your student to take the initiative to make the appointment. “After the advising appointment, your student can share the key take-aways from the meeting with you. This way you are still in the loop as a coach,” says Schroeder.
Along with seeking out advisors, encourage your student to be proactive and establish strong connections with faculty, staff, and administration. These individuals can serve as role models and help guide your student’s development. “Seeking help from multiple sources is important, because no single source knows everything, and some issues are truly a matter of opinion,” Singer says. “Students need to learn to seek out multiple viewpoints and integrate them into coherent plans that match what they want for themselves.”
Students studying in the student lounge of the Entrepreneurial Residential Learning Community (ERLC) located on the second floor of Sellery Hall. Photo: University Communications
To help your student form effective study habits, encourage him or her to try different strategies for studying, including different places, tutors, and study groups. ”What worked in high school is not likely to work in college,” says Singer.
Parents should be prepared for natural bumps along the academic road and should not panic if something doesn’t go well. “Bumps in the road can be valuable learning experiences and are rarely complete life derailments,“ says Singer.
Rob Sepich, student relations manager at University Health Services, urges parents to encourage their student to break intense study times into small blocks of no more than an hour or two at a time. “This permits more opportunities to recall the material, because we do best with the first and the last things we study during any period,” he says.
Along those same lines, Sepich recommends that parents discourage all-nighters. “Using the time to sleep rather than study helps students recall the material far better than cramming,” he says.
If your student is trying hard in a course, yet still having academic difficulty, encourage him or her to investigate why. Christopher Lee, assistant dean of the College of Letters & Science, says, “Their usual response is to study more, but I can say with confidence that students who go into a test feeling well-prepared and come out thinking they did well — yet get poor results — are probably not going to fix the problem by studying more. Students should consider whether they are studying the right things, whether the test itself is the problem, or whether anxiety plays a role. They should learn from the test about what went wrong. Professors, teaching assistants, and advisors can help with this.”
Finally, encourage your student to take his or her time in college. Schroeder says, “Don’t pressure your student to rush through college in three years if it would be inhibiting exploration or growth. Encourage your student to maximize the experience and to take courses that really interest him or her.”
Schroeder also recommends that parents don’t assume that staying in college for more than four years is a red flag to employers. Doing so will allow for more time to participate in internships and leadership activities.
“Remember, once students graduate, what they’ve taken as credits or courses — or earned as grades — won’t matter as much as what they’ve experienced while doing activities, projects, internships, study abroad, research, and service,” says Lee.
Words of Wisdom from Parents
Recently, we asked parents to share some advice with
other parents based on their own experiences. Here is a
sample of the responses. For a complete list, go to the
Parent Program Web site and click on “survey results.”
- Do give your student space, but let him or her know that you’re around to talk when he or she needs to.
- Don’t solve all of the problems or make all of the decisions for your student.
- Do encourage your student to try many different things and get involved. Your student will never again have affordable access to so many opportunities.
- Don’t let your own likes or dislikes influence your student’s classes and career choices.
- Do tell your student to pursue majors based on what he or she wants to be, rather than what he or she wants to do.
- Don’t get upset when your student changes his or her major — and know that it may be changed again.
- Do let your student experience college — the good or the bad, it is all a stepping stone in life.
- Don’t criticize your student when you don’t approve of some of the things that he or she is trying. Remember that it is all a learning experience.
- Do ask about class performance and encourage the use of all resources available to ensure success.
- Don’t pick classes for your student.
- Do encourage your student to give a roommate a semester to get used to the living situation. Living together takes patience and tolerance.
- Don’t make housing decisions before the end of the first semester.
- Do text or e-mail your student if that is his or her preferred method of communication.
- Don’t call your student too much or on weekend nights if he or she would rather you not do so.