Is College Supposed To Be Just One Big Party?

Dear Dr. LeCrone:

Our son is starting college in the fall in a location several hours from our home. He has been a mediocre student, primarily because he has not applied himself in academic endeavors. He excels in social pursuits and makes friends easily.

My wife and I agree that he will have no difficulty with the more hedonistic aspects of college life, but our agreement ends there.
She has told him that he should enjoy himself and not feel pressure to focus on his grades, and if he finds the first year too stressful, he can return home and contemplate a different direction in his life

I totally disagree with her advice. I feel that he is going to waste a year of his life and a lot of our money having a good time, and then he will inevitability move back home when his grades make him scholastically ineligible to return to college.

Furthermore, I think that she is offering him a golden parachute to become a freeloader at our home after his year of fun and frivolity.
I love my son but feel that he is immature, undisciplined and in need of some tough love. He needs to start college with the understanding that he is there to get an education and not just to have fun. If he doesn’t live up to minimal academic standards then he should be expected to seek other alternatives, which do not include returning home to live.

Do you think I am being too harsh and unrealistic?

-A reader in Indiana

Dear reader:

What I think is that you and your wife need to work on closing the philosophical gap between you over your son’s future. Professional counseling may be needed to help the two of you present a loving, supportive, clear and unified set of expectations and consequences to your son before his leaving for college.

It is also imperative that you stick together on these things and not send him the message that he can manipulate one of you against the other. It may also be advisable to seek out the names of professional counselors in the college or community where your son will be in attendance in the event he has problems.

Good luck to all three of you at this important crossroad in your lives.