Breaking Up With Your College-Bound Teen

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As fall approaches, many teens will be leaving home for their first year at college with families entering into a final transition zone, which is challenging for both parents and teens.

This time of uncertainty, change, and pending separation, can trigger a loss of perspective and perceived finality with exaggerated stakes. When this happens, parents can forget that their teens are not a finished product but, rather, a work in progress, making this time more loaded and fraught with projected meaning.

Jacob, an 18-year-old, is a bright, funny, well-liked kid. He has been an “underachiever” with a common, but paradoxical, blend of high intellect but limited, basic life skills.

All the emotions your teen is feeling.

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As college draws near, Jacob, who is close to his parents, has become conspicuously angry, especially at his mom, alternating between yelling at her and ignoring her. In family therapy, he has been uncharacteristically irritable and disinterested, looking at his phone during conversations.

Jacob feels secretly bad and guilty. He told the family therapist that he didn’t know what was wrong with him: Why he was being mean to his parents for no reason and acting as if he didn’t care.

Jacob’s Mom’s Struggle

Jacob has good parents. His mom generally understands him, is non-judgmental, and is an excellent advocate. In this context though, she has become impatient, critical, and angry with him.

She voiced resentment that her son didn’t want to keep her company when she did chores or errands and complained to him that she felt taken for granted. When Jacob did help, she insisted he should not just help, but he should want to help and keep her company.

Exasperated, Jacob’s mom exclaimed that she “just can’t take it anymore,” reacting to years of tireless effort helping Jacob learn basic routines. Here she seemed curiously oblivious to the fact that he would be leaving home imminently.

Understanding Common Psychological Dynamics

Jacob feels tremendous pressure to suddenly be grown up and have it all together, a feeling that is exacerbated by his mom’s anxious overtures. Jacob feels mad and conflicted about his need for his mom, though he is also genuinely upset with her for not backing off.

In addition, the more she tells him what to do and what he needs to learn, the more he protests, forced into defending himself with a facade of self-sufficiency and bravado.

This dynamic erodes Jacob’s tenuous confidence, activating his own long-standing fear of failure and, ironically, preventing him from taking responsibility for himself.

Anger and Distance as a Defense

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Jacob is trying to separate emotionally from his mom. His prickly attitude towards her is adaptive, in the service of trying to separate emotionally. Being angry and irritable keeps her at a distance and is more tolerable than feeling sad and scared, making it easier to say goodbye.

When the therapist suggested this to him, Jacob said jokingly, “Yeah, maybe we should have a big fight right before I go."

When a Parent’s Insecurity is Triggered

Jacob’s mom: The transition before kids first leave home for college can trigger parents’ insecurity and need for validation and reassurance.

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Here, Jacob’s mom’s “helping” was a way to manage her own anxiety. She took his limitations as a reflection on her as a parent and, catastrophizing about his future, felt like a failure.

Ironically, though she wanted him to be independent, she continued to do things for him that he found difficult—rescuing him from facing his limitations, rather than allowing him to experience them in a context of safety and providing a climate that would foster emotion regulation, resilience and self-awareness.

Taking Kid’s Rejection at Face Value

Jacob’s dad: It’s easy for a parent to misinterpret a teen’s behavior and erroneously conclude that seeming disinterested or ignoring a parent means it doesn’t matter to them whether the parent is present or not.

Here, Jacob’s dad took his son's seeming lack of interest in him at face value. Though generally engaged with him, he pulled away and became preoccupied with work, not realizing that Jacob would have been receptive to a confident overture from his dad to do something fun. In fact, Jacob needed his dad more than ever at this time, for support and to buffer the intensity between him and his mom.

Why Teens Need Their Parents Before Leaving for School

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Emotional security as psychological scaffolding: The challenge for parents is not whether, but how, to help teens before they leave for college. Teens rely on parents for emotional regulation, security, support, and guidance (Morris et al., 2017; Silvers, A. 2021). And they need parents as much as ever during this trying time.

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5 Life Lessons for My Son Before He Leaves for College

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Emotional security, transmitted through the parent’s affective state, installs psychological scaffolding. Parents can best help prepare teens to leave home by providing a backdrop of emotional security, though managing their own feelings and the emotional climate of the relationship with their teens.

This role is always important, but is foundational during both the toddler years, as well as adolescence, developmental periods when children are experimenting with autonomy and independence (Andreadakis, E et al., 2018).

Though it goes against most parents’ instincts, parents can help prepare their teens not by teaching or fixing them but by being quiet, but available and responsive, present in the background, in sync with the child’s need for independence or support.

Emotional security is not transmitted by reassuring children that you love them, clinging, or being solicitous. Rather development of independence in children is associated with a parent’s ability to provide a protective, but not fearful, over-protective, or obtrusive presence.

Parents Provide Needed Scaffolding

Parents facilitate the development of a sense of security by providing scaffolding, an important but invisible function. At times this involves being a quiet, but available presence in the background, following the child’s lead, in sync with their need for independence or support.

Emotional security is transmitted not by reassuring children that you love them, clinging, or being solicitous. Alternatively, the development of self-confidence and independence in children is associated with a parent's ability to provide a protective, but not fearful, over-protective, or obtrusive presence.

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How Parents Can Have a Positive Impact: Practical Guidance

• Find the courage to allow teens to be more responsible for themselves during this time including in areas where they have difficulty.
• Schedule mutually enjoyable activities.
• When having strong reactions, ask yourself if you are responding to your own needs and feelings. Try to manage your moods without involving your teen.
• Be available but not imposing.
• Recognize that teens are doing their best to manage by saying goodbye. Have faith that they love you and don’t make them have to prove it. When saying goodbye, remind them that you know they love you (alleviating their guilt) and that, although you will miss them, you are happy for them and will be fine.
• Think about and plan for this next phase of life and how to fill the void in satisfying ways.
• When teens behave in ways that provoke anger, try not to engage. Tell them that sometimes being mad can make it easier to say goodbye and that you are not taking it personally.
• Remind yourself of the ways you have been a good parent and what you value and love about your teen.
• Open up a conversation while engaging in an activity with your teen. For help, read my posts: How to Influence Teens Who Cover Up and 5 Common Mistakes When Engaging Someone Who Won't Talk.
• Plan the trip to college together, giving them control over the day. Figure out together how to make that day go smoothly. Ask them what they want you to do and not do. Say your goodbyes beforehand (not on the day of) including telling them the things you want to say even if over text. Or write a letter that you give to them beforehand.
• Remind yourself that this is not “game over.” When teens are off at college, parents continue to provide an essential function, and the built-in separation provides needed autonomy, mitigating control struggles, and bringing relief for both parent and teen, often freeing up the relationship.