healthy you
i
FAMILY MATTERS
him —but then back off, says John
Sargent, professor of psychiatry and
pediatrics at Baylor College of
M edicine in Houston.
“It’s not your k id ’s job to make
you feel better. It’s his jo b to leave
w ithout hom esickness and do w ell
in school,” says Sargent. Instead of
lam enting that departure, spend the
sum m er productively. Make sure
your teen knows how to do laundry,
cook, and pay b ills. V is it cam pus and
learn the location of the counseling
center, health care c lin ic , and local
stores. T a lk about expectations—
yours and hers. A re you footing the
b ill, or do you expect her to w ork?
Do you have expectations for grades,
behavior (sex, drugs, and drinking),
and keeping in touch?
Sargent, whose three ch ild ren
attend colleges hundreds of m iles
away, rem inds parents that they do
have some power. If your ch ild says,
“Don’t bother com ing up for parents’
weekend,” he suggests, respond by
saying, “Too bad. I want to see you.”
And you can set a m inim um require-
ment for keeping in touch. Sargent’s
AND garden:
kids know they have to call h im every
week. “T h e y get used to it,” he says.
Parents and teens should spend
tim e together on the u n iversity’s
Web site, learning about clubs,
m entoring program s, and m ajors,
says Shadick. T h a t’s an easy w ay to
talk, too—about how they’ll manage
th e ir tim e and what classes or
activities they’re interested in.
D ebi Yohn, a Los Angeles psychol-
ogist, encourages incom ing fresh-
men to talk w ith an older student
about w hat to expect. M any colleges
can arrange that introduction. Yohn
also recom m ends taking a com m u-
nity college course the sum m er
before college, to get into the
studying groove w h ile s till in the
com fort of home.
“Most universities accept those
courses for credit and they can take a
lighter load some other time,” says
Yohn. “It’s productive too. T h e y’re
not ju st hanging out.”
E A S Y FO R EVER YO N E
It’s essential to ease the transition
for the w hole fam ily—not ju st the
departing teen. Younger siblings
often have a hard tim e when typ ical
fam ily cacophony settles into quiet.
M oschel Kadokura’s younger son
m isses his three sisters te rrib ly when
they leave for school from the fam ily
home in Cupertino, C alifo rn ia.
“T h e y come home, the house is full
of a ctiv ity Then they go away, and he
feels very sad,” says M oschel, who
asked her older ch ild ren to carve out
special tim e for their brother.
For everyone involved, know ing
exactly how long you’ll be apart can
make saying goodbye easier. Th at
helped E ric Papp when h is Tam pa-
based parents pointed out that he
w ouldn’t be at Notre Dam e forever.
“M y parents said, ‘You’ll be back
in eight or nine w eeks—fall break,
Christm as break, spring break,’ ” he
says. “So I broke it up into sections. It
was a m ental thing.” (®
STAY CONNECTED
■ IN TER N ET
PHONE
Web phones
make it easy—
and cheap—to
chat through
your computer.
Services such as
Vonage have a range of
plans and options to explore.
Vonage subscribers can use a USB
plug-in phone (rg /if) to connect
from almost anywhere. Plans start
at $
14.99
Per month;
vonage.com .
■ W EB CAM Many PCs
come with cameras built in,
but they’re also easy
enough to add on.
We liked the ease
of the LifeCam NX-
3000
camera that
plugs into any USB
port and clips easily
to most any laptop.
Optimized to work with
Windows Live Messenger.
$60
from Microsoft;
m k m s o ftc o m /h a r d w a r e .
■ CR EA TIVE CD S
Digital images
make it easy to
create CD scrap-
books. Or add sound
instead: For his son,
Justin, Dion Mclnnis
burned personally
meaningful songs
onto a CD such as
“Father and Son” by
Cat Stevens, “ Child’s
Song” by Tom Rush, and
<fWith Arms Wide Open” by
Creed. Sites such as
R hapsody.com
and
iTU nes.com
offer inexpensive
access to thousands of songs.
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