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WORDS TO THE WISE: ADVICE TO PARENTS AND COLLEGE STUDENTSSept. 25, 2000EDITOR'S NOTE: Special Education News presents the second in a series of articles by guest columnist Jill Allen. A recent graduate of Hamilton College in New York, Allen made her debut on this news site in July, discussing the challenges of establishing a personal care assistant network. She graduated from Hamilton in May with a degree in English Literature and is pursuing a career as a disability awareness activist. In my previous column about personal care assistants, I stressed the importance of open communication with one's helpers. Similarly, communication between parents and their disabled children also plays a crucial role in the student's successful adjustment to college life. While I grappled with my PCA fiasco, I phoned my parents several times a week to sob my heart out because I needed an emotional outlet. During that hellish first semester, my mother even drove out twice to spend the weekend with me. Together, we brainstormed ways for me to recruit student PCAs. My parents also helped by calling the home health agency to complain about its service. Though their contact with the agency didn't improve things, it felt good to have them on my side. Students should maintain contact with their parents while at school and never underestimate their guardians' potential to get things moving. Sometimes, institutions respond quickly to the ones footing the bills. Parents ought to be prepared to advocate for their children should the need arise. While collaboration between parents and students can head off problems at college, students should not expect the same level of parental involvement they received while at home. Going away to college requires disabled students to develop self-advocacy skills. In public schools, it is the institution's responsibility to set up necessary accommodations for students. Like public schools, colleges are required to offer accommodations; however, in college, disabled students must identify their needs before their schools will adapt. Students should request accommodations from their schools with clarity, politeness and persistence. Students, if you don't get results the first time, voice your concerns again. Although guardians can, and should speak up, for their children in emergencies, parents should let the disabled students assert themselves whenever possible so the students learn how to fend for themselves. Encouraging disabled students to assert themselves represents a step in the arduous process of letting go. Parents and students alike must realize that having a child go away to school is an important step toward the child's independence. Parents need to balance their respect for their children's desire to strike out on their own with their parental desire to offer them support and encouragement. Students need to recognize that the transition from high school to college is just as trying for their parents as it is for them and acknowledge that their guardians are struggling to redefine their parental roles. Both parties must be prepared for drastic changes in their relationship to one another. Once I established my personal care system, my contact with my parents became less and less frequent. I wasn't having constant problems and, therefore, felt no need to contact them regularly. After discussing this further, we came to the realization that, as a result of what happened my first semester at college, I had become used to contacting my parents when I was in a quandary. Although my life settled down with the advent of my personal care network, I still associated contacting my parents with the misery of first semester. So my parents learned to accept my sporadic contact as an expression of my independence and a sign that I was flourishing. We talked out our problems bit by bit, and by the time graduation came around, my parents and I felt comfortable with our new rapport. Write to Jill Allen at allenjillm@hotmail.com.8 |
