Top 7 Books for First-Time College Parents
After dropping their young adult off to college, parents hypothetically have more time on your hands. I’m recommending a few books for parents of newly launched college students to read. These books will bring relief during a time of sadness, humor in a time of navigating potentially uncharted communication waters, and a calm with the impending storms. Statistically speaking, college students will struggle. What we don’t talk about is that parents struggle too. Hopefully these books will help any parent who is starting a new chapter in their own life!
Generation Z Goes to College – The first book published about Generation Z in college. Although it is targeting those who may work in higher education to better understand this generation of students, it’s also a valuable resource to parents in understanding how their young adult may be seeing themselves as they experience college. Knowing the traumas they’ve endured during their lifetime will impact their success in college.
How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success – This book does not have to be for parents of college students only. In fact, this book may be more appropriate to pick up for parents of high school students. Regardless, this book really allows the parents to understand how their parenting does impact their kid’s ability to be resilience, interdependent, and their own adult.
Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the College Years (6th Edition). Know that although this book was first written in 2009 when it was Boomer’s sending off Millenials to college, it’s edited to reflect college students of today! Letting go can be harder than ever thought imaginable. If a parent is close to their young adult, the idea of letting go is like shattering a heart. Take some time to read this as it will help ease the pain of the separation.
Release My Grip: Hope for a Parent’s Heart as Kids Leave the Nest and Learn to Fly – Grieving the loss of a child who has now left the nest is a very real thing. And we don’t talk about it enough. This book will help ease that sadness! Lean into it, it’s real. You will be proud of yourself in knowing you did the best you could with the time you had with them before they went off to college!
The Campus Cure: A Parent’s Guide to Mental Health and Wellness for College Students. This book is the most comprehensive and easy to navigate guide’s a college parent can access! With a generation of college students enrolling on campus with significant pre-existing mental health, this book is a must-read! Dr. Morris breaks down that college student’s may experience pressures, problems, and crisis. This is the parent how-to in supporting your young adult when, not if, they encounter a struggle within one of those categories.
The Naked Roommate: For Parent’s Only: Calling, Not Calling, Roommates, Relationships, Friends, Finances, and Everything Else That Really Matters when your Child Goes to College – A fascinating book filled with tips for every step in this process from navigating emotions the summer before, what to expect on move-in day, how to handle the “I’m homesick” phone call, and everything in between and after. For the parent that overthinks often with what to do/don’t do with your young adult and wants to be as prepared as possible for “what’s to come,” then this is a great book for them!
The Stressed Years of their Lives: Helping Your Kid Survive and Thrive During Their College Years. This book is also very insightful on what Generation Z is dealing with in college. There is no generation like them, and the price for perfectionism is suffocating our young people on campus. This book brings to light background information on this generation, and how parents (and professionals) can support these young people when they’re supposed to be having the “time of their lives.”
Bonus book (not yet released) which I know will also be an important read is Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults. Once this book is released, it's bound to be another solid resource for parents who are trying to grasp this phase in their young adult's life.
Seven is my lucky number. So I’m offering these top seven [with the bonus 8th!] as a tribute to good fortune these will brings the parents that read them, and their students in college. Take everything with a grain of salt, as everyone's story and path is very different from the next. Most importantly, use this as a therapeutic tool for education around what's normal, how parents can take care of themselves and their young adult, and what to expect while their young adult is away. Happy reading!
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
