Off to College

It’s a jittery time for students and parents: when the child heads off to college for the first time. The potential pitfalls are numerous. So how do you help your teen navigate these new waters? As corny and trite as it might sound, communication is the key here: what parents say, how they say it, and what they don’t say will help their child get off on the right foot at the university level, and not fall trap to problems like eating disorders, drug abuse and binge drinking. Alexander Danielides, a college senior at Duke University, recalls the the exciting and confusing times of freshman year. “I think definitely at the beginning, especially the first month of school it is crazy, every night you are going out.” “It can be a highly susceptible time for kids going off to college because often times in high school there is a comfort level there, there they found their niche. That sense of belonging are wiped clean. This is the time for mental health issues and especially eating disorders with young woman,” says Dr. Farhan Matin, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital. There is no question, for problems such as eating disorders, alcoholism, and drug abuse, including the latest--prescription drug abuse--there is a genetic, biological component. Some kids, quite simply, are more susceptible than others. However, all kids are at risk, and one key is a good line of communication with the parents. “In many cases there is nothing really anyone to do to fully prevent these things from happening, however having a good healthy relationship with the parents. That is something I can’t stress enough,” says Dr. Matin. Still, though, peer pressure can be a powerful negative force among new, uncertain college freshmen.