Study Abroad Advisor

Parents as Partners

Experienced Advisers Maintain Ongoing Dialogue

By Jack Henderson

Parents who are well informed are generally supportive of study abroad and find it easier to "let go" of their son or daughter. For this reason, experienced advisers have learned to maintain an on-going dialogue with parents at all stages of the study abroad process. At the very least, the study abroad professional should be aware of parents' concerns and anticipate their need for information.

Parents' concerns change during the course of their child's study-abroad experience. Issues that came up during the initial planning, program selection, and application process are different from those which occur when the student is accepted and thoughts turn to predeparture preparation. Once the student is abroad, parents have quite different concerns. Finally come the reentry issues, some of which I discussed in an earlier column. To provide a continuing level of reassurance, the adviser must be proactive and identify the most basic parental concerns at each stage of the process.

Initial Concerns

In the initial exploration phase parents worry about issues such as: Is this the right thing for my son or daughter? Why does the home institution think it's a good idea? What's it going to cost me? Will financial aid apply? Should it be for a summer, semester, or year? Is my child prepared (especially for language-based programs)? How much credit will she get? Can she still graduate on schedule?

Since most parents have already gone through a period of apprehension and questioning when their child applied to college, referring back to that experience is a good starting point.

Parents sometimes need to be told that qualities like self-confidence and independence acquired through study abroad are an important preparation for the future. Internships abroad often are a head start in the search for future employment.

At Dickinson College, we try to be available to parents early on (www.dickinson.edu/parents/guide/abroad.html). We encourage students to send copies of our office handouts to their parents. During Parents' Weekend, early in the fall semester, we arrange an open house in the study-abroad office as an opportunity for students, particularly sophomores, to bring their parents to "the experts" to quell their anxieties and get answers to their questions. Students are told to encourage their parents to telephone us if they need further information. Marilyn Hubbard at Gettysburg College has instituted a very successful Parents' Weekend program that matches parents whose students are applying to go abroad with parents of returned students.

We mail copies of orientation handbooks prepared for students directly to parents, inviting them to contact us for further information as needed. Other study abroad offices prepare special mailings for parents, welcoming their son or daughter into the program, introducing the office staff (and setting the limits of what they are expected to do), and outlining the goals and expectations of the overseas experience. St. Olaf and other institutions provide booklets, packets of information, or other country-specific handouts. Some programs combine one or more of the above with a predeparture workshop for parents, often at the airport just prior to departure.

Parents' Greatest Concerns

Parents are concerned about details of costs, finances, billing, aspects of academic performance and credit transfer; overseas calendar (including vacations that might be the best time for a parental visit); and forms (liability waiver and insurance).

"Nuts and bolts" issues include 1) documents needed (birth certificate, passport, visa, medical records, insurance coverage, international student I.D.), 2) money matters (traveler's checks, credit cards, transfer of funds, personal spending money, power of attorney, emergency money, income tax filing), 3) health and medical issues (physical examination, required immunizations and tests, chronic health problems, on-site medical facilities, and other provisions for health care), 4) what to take and what to leave at home, airplane luggage allowances, and other means of shipping personal gear, 5) program-sponsored and independent travel (when, where, how, cost, rail passes), 6) gifts to take, 7) insurance coverage--health and accident, medical emergency insurance, payment of bills and claims.

The list goes on and on. Even though it's unrealistic to expect to address all parental concerns, parents need to know whom to contact for further information.

Safety Issues

Over the years I have found that safety issues are often of primary concern to parents. They worry especially about airport safety and arrival arrangements (how will my child get from the plane to the residence?). It's important to review personal safety in the host country--where the students will live, how they will commute, safety during independent travel, etc. We combine an overall handout on "Traveling Safely" with specific country information available from the Centers for Disease Control and from the State Department country profiles, consular information sheets, and travel advisories. Other study abroad offices gives parents and students instructions on how to access CDC and State Department information directly, including the Citizens' Hotline in the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs.

In addition to address and telephone numbers, parents now request fax numbers and e-mail addresses which they can use when their child is abroad. As advisers, we sometimes need to remind parents that they can have too much contact with their child. An important part of the student's experience abroad is the opportunity to focus fully on the host site, without having parents--or close friends--establish a kind of invisible thread that constantly tugs the student's attention back home.

Site Information

Parents appreciate receiving information on the country and specific location of the student's study site, particularly when it is not in Western Europe. Many parents' view of the world is shaped in part by oversimplified information provided by the media. These perceptions need to be balanced. Predeparture is also a good time to discuss the nature of a study abroad experience, introducing the notion of culture shock and indicating the kinds of cross-cultural adjustments that students will be making. Every Dickinson student heading overseas receives a copy of L. Robert Kohl's Survival Kit for Overseas Living; we suggest to parents that they read it as well.

Parents can profit from the experiences of parents of pervious students--I give parents of students going to Cameroon a letter written by the mother of a former program participant. In it, she talks eloquently about her own fears and apprehensions in advance of her daughter's departure and relates how, one by one, each was turned around as her daughter's experience unfolded.

Finally, parents of minority students and of students with disabilities frequently have a very high level of concern. In some cases, they may be embarrassed to ask what they think will sound like silly or trivial questions. These include matters such as host country attitudes toward American minorities, host family acceptance of differences, adjustment issues, practical concerns--how to get one's hair done or where to locate American regional food for a student who becomes homesick. The parent-to-parent network or a parent-to-parent newsletter can offer help and guidance that may have more credence than that of the study-abroad adviser.

Cultural Adjustment

After the student has arrived abroad, parents' questions take a new direction--and sometimes begin to sound like complaints. Students in the middle of cultural adjustment are quick to communicate all their woes to their parents (often while reporting the good experiences to their friends). And parents are naturally quick to communicate to the adviser "problems" of all kinds. The adviser--at home, as well as the one at the host institution--needs to be a good listener when parents call. Although they may appear to have one specific concern, that may very well not be the main reason for the call. Frequently parents do not understand the legal implications of student privacy issues and are frustrated--and angry--when there is information which an adviser cannot provide to parents unless the student authorizes its release.

Reentry

After a student returns from study abroad, parents often are unprepared for the many changes that their student has undergone and the adjustment cycle that frequently accompanies reentry. Information for parents--and students--as well as strategies to help them prepare to cope with the readjustment process are contained in my earlier article on reentry (September/October 1994 issue).

JACK HENDERSON is Director of Off-Campus Studies at Dickinson College.