Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money

The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years

Letting Go

Authors: Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger

Publisher: Quill

Format: Paperback

Published Date: April 2003

MSRP: $14.95

Synopsis: This bestselling guide, read by hundreds of thousands of parents over the past decade, is now better than ever, newly revised and completely updated. Based on real-life experience and recommended by colleges and universities around the country, Letting Go offers compassionate, practical, and up-to-the-minute information to help parents with the emotional and social changes of the college years. When should parents encourage independence? When should they intervene? What issues of identity and intimacy await students? What are normal feelings of disorientation and loneliness for students-and for parents? What is different about today's college environment? What new concerns about safety, health and wellness, and stress will affect incoming classes? These important issues and more are addressed with wise advice and time-tested counsel in Letting Go -- a realistic and reassuring source for meeting the challenges ahead, from the senior year in high school through college graduation.

When Your Kid Goes to College

Author: Carol Barkin

Publisher: Harpercollins

Format: Paperback

Published Date: April 1999

MSRP: $13.95

Synopsis: "During the summer before he went to college, he was obnoxious; he said, 'There's a reason I'm acting this way; it will make it easier for you to have me leave.'" "When she was packing to leave, she was completely preoccupied with how many sheets and towels to take. I was thinking, 'My kid is leaving home forever, and life is taken up with minutiae.'" It's an emotional rollercoaster, a combination of missing him and feeling happy and excited for him." New Beginnings. You've taught them how to do their laundry, brought them a year's supply of toothpaste and shampoo, and lectured them on the do's and dont's of life beyond your home. The time has come for your student to leave for college -- but are you prepared to say goodbye? Written by a mother who survived the perils of packing her own child off to school, When Your Kid Goes to College provides supportive, reassuring, and helpful tips for handling this inevitable but difficult separation. Comprehensive and accessible, this practical guide includes info on: Teaching your student how to live on his own, from balancing a checkbook to dealing with a roomate. The difference between financial and emotioanl dependence -- and how to keep them separate. Helping your spouse, younger children, and even pets deal with the transition when your student leaves -- and when she returns. How to fill -- and even enjoy -- the hole that your student's absence leaves. Saying goodbye isn't the end of the world; it's the beginning of an exciting new one for your student-and you!

You're on Your Own but I'm Here If You Need Me

Author: Marjorie Savage

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Format: Paperback

Published Date: July 2003

MSRP: $14.95

Synopsis: Offers valuable guidelines on how parents can maintain essential communication and involvement with their college-age student, while respecting a student's need for independence, with helpful advice on when parental intervention is critical, how to know when to back off, how to handle financial and credit issues, and more.