Toward College Success:

As you try to answer that question, authors Carol Jones and Pat Wilkins-Wells caution that there are many students who start college without the necessary skills to maneuver through the vast new social, academic, and financial experiences that they will encounter.

The authors point out that while some experiences must be lived firsthand, the basic equipment to navigate through this often-overwhelming period of youth must be provided beforehand—in high school, or even earlier. Parents should do all they can to prepare students to manage their time and priorities, to know when and how to ask for help, to handle conflicts maturely, and to live on a budget.

After all, if new college students must learn basic life lessons while also learning to adapt to a new, more rigorous learning environment, they will be starting out with a significant deficit.

Toward College Success asks parents what they are doing now—while their teenagers are still living with them—to develop their students into resilient, confident, self-sufficient young adults.

Jones and Wilkins-Wells even point out what many parents think of as an unthinkable option: that their teenagers might not be ready for college straight out of high school, or ever. But, as they illustrate, there are often advantages to waiting, and there are, in fact, viable alternatives to college— just in case your teenager is not ready, willing, or able.