Winter break is a great time to reconnect with your college-age children. While they might rather go out with their friends than spend hours at home with their family, this vacation is longer than others during the school year so you’re sure to find time to catch up — including discussing their educational and career goals.

Do you have a college student who will be home for an extended winter break this year?
Are your teenagers in need of spending money but don’t have time for a job during the school year? While seasonal retail jobs are often a great option, there are also a few ways for teens and young adults to hang out a shingle and earn extra cash over the winter break.

Whether you realize it or not, your life and routine have changed with a child away. Their routine has changed too. It is likely that these routines will clash.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, all of our children, my husband and I lived under the same, familiar roof. As we knew they must (and leaving me with conflicted feelings of sadness for myself and excitement for my children), they have begun to forge their own adult paths, one leaping off the branch enthusiastically, another requiring a bit of a nudge, and a third still in high school but clearly exerting ever-increasing degrees of autonomy.

As a college parent, you want to support your college student in any way that you can. You talk on the phone, you send mail and care packages (students love to find something in their mailbox), and you listen when they share joys or worries; but there is a limit to what you can do. In your attempts to help your student find their increasing independence and sense of responsibility, you need to help your student find and use appropriate on-campus support systems.