5 Steps to Prepare Your College Student For the Real World



You are in the home stretch... your child is in college. Officially, there are not many more years of "under the roof" parenting left. They will always want your advice -whether they will admit it or not. Here are some tips to help you give your child some last minute guidance and pointers that will hopefully help them when they are out of college and in the real world.

Step 1 - Tough love (or at least tougher love)
Let them start taking more responsibility for their actions/decisions and the consequences that go along with them. This is going to cause you some pain as a parent, but keep your eyes on the long term prize. They will appreciate you later in life for being tough now.

Step 2 - Money management
As they get further into their college years, you might want to think about giving them their money allotment (money for food, allowance, supplies and the like) in a single lump sum at the beginning of the semester instead of giving it to them monthly, weekly or on demand. You will have to implement #1 in this list for this to be effective. The first semester will be the hardest (again see #1). They might have to do without some of the things that they deem necessities when they choose to spend their money elsewhere. This is not to say be so strict with bailing them out that it interferes with their education, but just enough to make them sweat and learn about responsibly managing their money. Remember, it is better now for them to do without going out as much as they like instead of having to do without their car when they can't make the payments.

Step 3 - Networking
Although they have been doing it for most of their lives with friends and friends of friends, try and impress on them the importance of their network of friends and associates. Whether it is finding a job, a date or a place to live, their contacts will be more important as soon as they graduate. Encourage them to be very conscious and deliberate with figuring out their network (friend contacts, work contacts, friends from the activities). Although it might have been your enemy while they were younger Facebook is very helpful with viewing and establishing their network. Especially helpful is the "Friend Wheel" Facebook application. This visually displays the relationships between all of their Facebook friends. Very cool, you should check it out also.

Step 4 - Work Ethic
Remind them of the basics like the importance of a good work ethic, keeping true to themselves and generally being the best person that they can be. Granted that they are going to change some as circumstances in their lives change, but there some core things that need to stay rather constant for them and they will be a better person for it.

Step 5 - Choices
Lastly (this sounds kind of fatherly, but what the heck, I am one), impress on them the importance of choosing the right people, places and things. Choosing right on these will generally make their lives better and more stable.