Noteworthy Articles about Teens and College

Every year the New York Times puts out a call for college essays from high school seniors.  This year's is a great collection; perhaps show your middle schooler or young high school student for inspiration.  I think the first writer in the series - Eric Ngugi Muthondu - is going to be a great writer someday.
On yet another serious note, a series , 45 stories of Sex and Consent on Campus, is eye-opening reading. Again, maybe another article use to talk to your teen about sex and consent.


One of the best:

Does “I don’t want to have sex right now” mean “I don’t want to be turned on right now”? Maybe it means different things in different situations. Sometimes it means, “I’m not in the mood,” and sometimes it means, “We don’t have time for this.” Sometimes it’s, “I just want to snuggle.” There’s a fine line between what is sexy and what is sleazy, between what is seductive and what is coercive. She tells me that in the moment it felt good. But later she was mad at herself for not sticking to her earlier decision. That she enjoyed herself and that she is angry and she doesn’t know if I did anything wrong either.

Something she said to me that morning: “I like having your hands on me.”

She placed her trust in me, in my hands. Her expectation is that my hands provide comfort and pleasure, but more than anything, respect. It took work to earn this trust, but this trust can easily be lost. Without communication, your touch can become foreign, unwelcome or harmful. Even after a year together.

Recognize this trust placed in your touch. Don’t lose it.
Ben, Ohio

Someone raised this young man right.

And last, a sad story about a college suicide that raises questions about what parents can be told.  You may be paying the bills but you have no rights to any information about your student.  Did you know that?

Every year, parents send their children to college, trusting that they will be well, or that word will come if they are not. Ms. Burton had lived every parent’s nightmare: a child flunking out, sinking into despair, his parents the last to know. Her discovery set off a wave of pain and soul-searching but also a campaign to strip away some of the veils of confidentiality that colleges say protect the privacy and autonomy of students who are learning to be adults.

Professors at Hamilton College, in upstate New York, had expressed concerns about Mr. Burton for much of the fall term and knew he was in deep distress, according to a report on his death that was shown to The New York Times. More than a month before his death, his adviser, Maurice Isserman, wrote the academic dean the strongest of many warnings: “Obviously what’s happening here is a complete crash and burn. I don’t know what the procedures/rules are for contacting parents but if this was my kid, I’d want to know.”

As colleges contend with how involved to be in students’ lives, parents, too, often struggle with their responsibility to recognize when their children need help. Some Hamilton administrators said that they did not want to encourage helicopter parenting, and that parents were sometimes part of the problem.

“There’s a concern that if the school has too low a threshold for contacting family or suggesting a student take a leave of absence, it will actually discourage kids from coming forward for help,” said Dr. Victor Schwartz, the chief medical officer at the Jed Foundation, an advocacy group for student mental health. “So you’re basically walking a tightrope.”

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death, after accidents, for college-age adults in the United States. The number of college students seeking treatment for anxiety and depression has risen sharply over the past few years, and schools have in turn stepped up their efforts in mental health research and intervention. Even so, families have continued to put pressure on them to take greater responsibility for students’ well-being.

In a case that was closely watched across the country, Massachusetts’s highest court ruled on Monday that M.I.T. could not be held responsible for the 2009 suicide of a graduate student. But the court ruled that a university might be liable under limited circumstances, such as when a student expressly tells college staff members of plans to commit suicide. 

 However, the article does offer some ways in:

College officials say they are constrained by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or Ferpa, a federal law governing student privacy, in reaching out to parents. A Hamilton official cited it at a recent student assembly meeting, when students asked about the Burtons’ contention that they had not been told of their son’s troubles. The law views students as adults and bars parents from even the most basic student records, like a transcript, without their child’s consent.

There are exceptions:

• Colleges can release any student record to parents if the student signs a consent, 

• if the college knows that a parent claims the child as a dependent on tax forms, 

• or in a health or safety emergency.

 Even so, federal law allows colleges to use their discretion. They are allowed, but not required, to release the records or let a family member know if a student is suicidal.