If Your Kid is about to Start College, You Should Buy these Two Books Now
If your son or daughter is getting ready for freshman year of college, we have two book recommendations for you. One is for your kid, the other is for you – because both first-year college students and their parents have a lot of adjusting to do.
Book for College Freshman:
The Naked Roommate and 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College by Harlan Cohen (Sourcebooks, 2017)
This anxiety-busting book could be just the thing that your soon-to-be college freshman needs to read right now. In a positive and humorous way, the author tackles lots of issues that first-year students need to navigate in college. Some of the topics are non-life-threatening (finding friends, doing the laundry, finding food); others are moderately threatening (drinking, having sex, navigating gay life on campus); and others are just plain threatening (becoming depressed, getting sexually assaulted, using drugs, getting pregnant). But because the author treats all those issues in a uniform way, often with checklists, the student comes away with a confident feeling that he or she can handle whatever lies ahead.
Book for Parents of Freshman:
The Naked Roommate For Parents Only: Calling, Not Calling, Roommates, Relationships, Friends, Finances, and Everything Else That Really Matters when Your Child Goes to College by Harlan Cohen (Sourcebooks, 2012)
All parents can be grateful that Harlan Cohen remembered to write a book for them – one that offers advice on navigating both the emotional and practical challenges of sending a kid off to college. With the same kind of humor that he used in his book for students, Cohen tackles practical issues (helping your child pack, allowing enough autonomy during moving-in day, budgeting), special topics (community colleges, helping your kid get through homesickness) and personal issues (deciding how much to call, coming to terms with a child’s new sexual activity). Rather than holding parents’ hands, Cohen focuses on keeping a kid happy during the transition period to college, which is the right approach.
Buy a Printed Book or a Kindle Edition
The good news is that both these books are available as Kindle editions. That’s right, you and your kid can be reading them only a few minutes after you finish reading this blog post. If you are anxious about what is about to happen after college starts, help is at hand.
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