Calling All Prophets

So many parents I talk to are over managing their son's or daughter's life. They feel incredibly lucky, proud, and relieved, to have gotten their child through high school graduation, so when the first year of college comes around, they are just as ready to be free from micro-managing their kid's life as their college-bound young adult is to embrace the liberating freedoms of adulthood.

Everyone enters into the first semester with high expectations for independence. There are casual reminders to "go to class," "study hard," and "get help if you need it," but the general atmosphere is one of cautious hope. After the first and perhaps second round of tests don't go as well as most students anticipate, senses are suddenly heightened. Probing inquiries begin. "Do you go to class?" "Well, how many alarms do you set?" "What time do you go to bed?" "What do your notes look like?" "Do you sit up front?" "Is he a hard grader?" "She doesn't accept late assignments, like at all?" Parents know all of the right questions to ask AND in general, they know the right remedies, too, but most of the advice being offered falls on deaf ears.

With a few months of independent living and cognitive growth and development behind them, students are firmly established in the stage of young adulthood characterized by identity formation, and that rarely relies on the opinions of parents/significant adults. The prophetic parental wisdom that may have once at least gotten a nod from a teen is quickly rejected altogether by a young adult. It makes sense, you know; if the primary task is a new identity as a separate person in all of its forms (physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, etc.), then the prophets of the "old" identity simple won't speak to the emerging one.

I like to use a Christian reference here. In the New Testament, Jesus told his disciples, and I am paraphrasing, that they can't be prophets in their own land. In fact, prophets are often considered annoying and inconvenient by their own people. Your son or daughter simply won't hear from you the message you are trying to instill, which is that this higher education business is expensive, time-sensitive, and incredibly important to determining the trajectory of their lives. You are blowing the horn of preparedness, and it sounds a lot like, "Did you turn in your paper on time?"

Think of it as garbled language; the recipient of your message, no matter how vital it is, simply can't understand it. The good news (no pun intended) is that if a trusted adult who forges a new relationship with the young adult and is seen as just different enough and representative of the "new culture" in which the student is in, then the message has a shot. In other words, your message; different prophet. This is the where the critical role of faculty members, student affairs professionals, and academic coaches come in. If I can help deliver your prophetic message about the life-changing benefits of hard work and persistence in college, then I am happy to strap my sandals on and start spreading the word.