College Parent Central Podcast
You don’t stop parenting the day you drop your student off to college on Move-in Day. Your role simply changes. (Actually, it’s not simple at all, but it changes.) You’re a parent for life. Join Lynn Abrahams and Vicki Nelson, higher education professionals and former college parents, as they explore the topics that can help you be a more effective and supportive parent to your college bound student. Whether you already have a child in college, college is still a year or more away, or your student is about to step out, start now to gather the information that empowers you to be an effective college success coach to your student.
College Parent Central Podcast
#138 - Encore Episode - College Roommates: Navigating This Complex Relationship
The topic of college roommates looms large for many students and parents. It is common for students to feel anxious as many anticipate sharing a living space with a stranger for the first time. But with careful preparation, attention to communication, and an openness to new experiences, students can create a positive relationship with their roommate. In this episode, Vicki and Lynn discuss the important skills required and lessons learned from the work of building this important relationship.
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Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. Whether your child is just beginning the college admission process or is already in college, this podcast is for you. You'll find food for thought and information about college and about navigating that delicate balance of guidance, involvement and knowing when to get out of the way.
Speaker 2:Join your hosts Vicki Nelson and I am a professor of communication and former director of academic advising, and I am here with my colleague, my name is Lynn Abrahams and I am a learning disability specialist at a small liberal arts college.
Speaker 2:And we are both parents of students who have come and gone through the college system, so we have experience both as professionals and as parents, and it's the merging of those two things that we bring to this podcast.
Speaker 2:And today we'd like to talk a little bit about something that is of great concern to many students and to their parents, and that is the idea of roommates and living together with another individual. In this small space as we are recording this particular podcast, what's going to happen in the fall is still very much up in the air. We don't know what to expect. We are in the middle of this COVID-19 pandemic and many schools are trying to decide what is going to happen in the fall. Actually, we're recording this a little bit ahead of when you may be hearing it, so by the time this podcast comes out, you may already know that school is going to be happening as usual in the fall or that school will be online. But whatever happens whether it is this fall or it is some later fall or it is in the spring the issue of roommates looms large for many students and for their parents.
Speaker 3:You know, vicki, I also think this is an important topic whether students are going to be on campus or not in the fall, because this is part of what development looks like in the college years. You know, college is not just about academics. It's about students learning how to live in the world, learning how to live with other people, and the roommate situation is only a piece of that, and that will be happening no matter what. You know whether students are on campus or not. This is a really important part of the college.
Speaker 2:You know years, ability and more to do with life getting in the way and figuring out how to manage everything, from managing their time to managing their emotions, to dealing with a roommate, absolutely. So. It is a big issue that lays the foundation for so much of what else is going to happen.
Speaker 2:So the first thing, that a lot of students and their parents and because this is something that we all worry about I remember when my daughters and I have the girls, you have the boys, but I remember when my daughters all went to college, you know, very anxious to find out who their roommate was going to be and how that was going to find out who their roommate was going to be and how that was going. So the first issue that comes up is that idea of a roommate match who is going to be the roommate? And many students, I think, have a somewhat idealized vision of their roommate relationship. It may be a little bit the way many of us felt prior to getting married, that we had this idealized vision of what married life was going to be like and sometimes found out it took more work than we realized. So students aren't sure what to expect.
Speaker 2:It's exciting I think many are very much looking forward to this roommate relationship but it also is terrifying at the same time, and especially because so many of the students going to college today have probably never shared a room with another person, or a bathroom in some cases and remembering that it's not only me not having shared the room, but the person my roommate may not ever have shared a room either. Even if I have, they may not, and especially when that room that we're sharing is not only our bedroom but also our living room and sometimes our kitchen and our family room or recreation room where we watch TV and movies, and our life really centers around this room, even if there are lounges and other places. So it's a big deal, and it starts with who is that person going to be?
Speaker 3:So the way it usually works is there are two different ways it happens. One is that students will choose a roommate and another is that they are randomly put in a roommate situation. So I just want to. I think we should talk a little bit about both of these. When students choose their own roommate, it may be that they have a friend from high school who they know is going to the same college. It might be that they meet somebody during a summer orientation, or they might meet somebody on Facebook and click. I know at our college we don't usually allow a matching like that unless both students request it.
Speaker 2:Right, that's probably fairly common. I think, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So you know, that way. You know, we know that both students want it. You know one thing, you know sometimes those are situations that work out really well and sometimes, sometimes, it's actually better not to have best friends, be such close friends with your roommate. So you know, I've seen all kinds of situations and some work and some don't. But when you choose, it can sometimes be great because you're similar, or you might assume you're similar when you're not, and it could possibly run into some trouble.
Speaker 2:I know I have some very good friends, people I would consider my best friends, that I wouldn't want to live with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is true, it's a different thing my friends and somebody that I'm going to be sharing a room with or an apartment with, or something like that. I have different needs from both of those, so thinking about that, but I think it really is a temptation for students to say I know you, we went to the same high school, let's be roommates, because it gives you some certainty of knowing who that person is going to be Right. Yeah, and there's a lot. There is a lot that happens, I think, on Facebook and online. I know that a lot of schools establish a Facebook page for incoming students, which is wonderful. It's a way to get to meet some other people who are going to be in your classes and get to know, and people ask questions and people share information. And again, it's a temptation to just quickly grab someone that you've met there Could work out wonderfully or not. So, being careful it's not to say don't choose a roommate Right, but do be careful.
Speaker 3:I've seen this rhythm that's happened many times where students go through some kind of shift by mid-first semester where, all of a sudden, the people that felt safe may not be the people they really want to spend their time with. So there's usually some changes that occur.
Speaker 2:Right and that happens with friends, friendships as well as roommate things and then realizing at that point too that your roommate doesn't need to be your best friend, your roommate just needs to be someone that you can live with. Yeah, so choosing can be good or not. But then the other method is what they sort of call the random method. But it really isn't random method. But it really isn't random. Random just means you wait and see who the college is going to assign to you to be a roommate, and it is possible at some schools that it is truly random, that they just take all the names of everybody coming in and throw them in a big pot and pick out pears. But I think that is much less often the case these days. But allowing the college to make your roommate assignment is the second way to go, and I think what happens at so many schools is students will receive some kind of lifestyle questionnaire that they're asked to fill out, and it is the information in that questionnaire that colleges use to match roommates, and sometimes it's done by computer. Certainly at larger schools that would probably be the only way they could do it, or at some smaller schools it is still done very hands-on and looking and matching qualities and lifestyle qualities, which is the important thing. Those questionnaires might include a lot of different questions, things like do you like to get up early in the morning or are you an early bird or a night owl? In that way, are you neat or are you sloppy? Are you a smoker? Do you sleep with a window open or do you like the window closed? Do you study with music on or do you need absolute silence? What are your party habits? Some of those kinds of questions.
Speaker 2:And I think two things are really important if students get this kind of questionnaire and they're sitting down to answer this questionnaire. And the first thing is that students need to be absolutely honest. I think often students are so much in the mode of applying to colleges and saying the things that are going to shine a good light on them that there might be the temptation well, I don't want to say I'm sloppy, I should say I'm neat and I should say I study all the time and that I get up early in the morning and that I'm a go-getter and all. But if that's not true, it's really important that they answer those questions honestly, because that's the basis on which the roommate match is going to be made, that it not be being aspirational. You know I aspire to be an early riser. I've had that aspiration forever. You know I'm going to get up at five in the morning and exercise and go for a run before my family gets up. I've never done it. So really answering honestly.
Speaker 2:And the second thing is that parents need to stay out of this process. The second thing is that parents need to stay out of this process. Parents need to not fill out the questionnaire for their student of what they hope their student is going to be, and parents need to not ask to see the questionnaire before they send it, because the student needs to be able to answer honestly and not answer some things because they know their parent is going to look at it. So if you're going to allow the college to make the match and they've sent some sort of questionnaire, do it honestly. Parents stay out of it and just ask you know, have you done this thing? You ought to send it in and go from there.
Speaker 3:So, Vicki, not to get off track here, but have you ever seen have you ever seen? There's an old, old, old movie Harold and Maude. I don't know if you've ever seen it.
Speaker 2:I remember it. I mean, I remember having seen it, but I don't remember Really old.
Speaker 3:But there is a scene where the son gets the questionnaire from a college and the mom is filling it out and asking him questions and asking him to answer them while she checks it and then all of a sudden it shifts to her answering every single question. It is hilarious. It is a really funny scene. We'll have to go back and find out.
Speaker 2:Of course you know we're dating ourselves by saying that I know, I know, remember this movie, but that's exactly the issue.
Speaker 2:It really needs to be the student and this may be one of. Will we know? I know that you know. When I do some work in the summer, or when I was in the advising office, which was very busy all summer long, we would get lots of questions from students. Do you know when they're going to tell us? Do you know when we're going to get our roommate assignments? And I think it's often not until at least mid-July and sometimes even later in July.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's later than you usually want.
Speaker 2:Yes, later than you would like, because they're very anxious, because this is a big deal. But the college wants to wait until they've gotten these forms from everyone, because if they start doing it too early, there's no such thing as a perfect roommate, but that perfect roommate may just not have submitted the form yet. So they really need to wait until they get all of this information from most of the students coming in and then do it. So it's probably going to be July or late July before here late July, before here.
Speaker 3:So I would suggest that during the summer is before this happens is a really good time to have some conversations with your students about how to prepare for this situation, and it's really good to talk through what it may be like to have a roommate. One of the things you mention a lot is not only thinking about the worst roommate in the world that you're going to have to live with, but thinking about how you can be a good roommate. But thinking about how you can be a good roommate, you know not just how the other person will be a terrible roommate not all that assumption but how you can be a good roommate.
Speaker 2:And it's good to have conversations, you know, in the summer. Yeah, what does a good roommate look?
Speaker 3:like, look like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and how does that behave? Because it is true that students often assume one extreme or the other. Either it's going to be this idealized, perfect, we're going to be best friends and we're going to get along all the time, or I'm going to have the roommate from hell. It's going to be just awful. I know it's going to be terrible and not thinking about, I don't want to be that roommate, I want to be the good roommate.
Speaker 3:Right. So thinking about this in terms of, you know, thinking about it realistically, no relationship is perfect. There will be some conflict in every relationship. There will be some conflict in every relationship, there will be some difficult moments. But to even think through and do some role playing, what would you do in this situation? What would you do in this situation? So the summer before is just a perfect time to do some of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and really talking to your student too, about being open and willing to expand your horizons a little bit, that you don't have to have a roommate.
Speaker 2:That's a lot like you.
Speaker 2:Having someone who's very different is again part of the college experience of exposing yourselves to new things and learning about that.
Speaker 2:And and deciding on what are your non-negotiables, what are the things that this is the bottom line for me. I'm willing to give in, I'm willing to compromise, I'm willing to adjust, I'm willing to be flexible about a lot of things, but are there and the fewer the better, because if you have a list of 20 non-negotiables, that's going to be hard for anyone to live up to. But are there one or two things that you just say this is really important for me, and whether that's I absolutely know I can't, absolutely no, I can't study if there is a TV on in the room or I. You know, my non-negotiable is I don't want my roommate's girlfriend or boyfriend sleeping overnight in our room, yep, or whatever. So really thinking ahead of time so that that can be addressed perhaps a little bit, and thinking about how to bring things up Parents can talk to students about. Well, how are you going to bring it up? How are you going to talk to your roommate if there's an issue? So thinking a little bit about how to make it work.
Speaker 3:So thinking a little bit about how to make it work. Yeah, I do remember working with a student. This was a couple years ago. And she got into some trouble because she and her roommates were really loud at night. And when I was asking her how it happened, how did she find out that she was getting in trouble? She did tell me that she could hear her next door neighbor through the wall. It's a very thin small wall.
Speaker 2:It must have been.
Speaker 3:But she heard her roommate calling her mother in the middle of the night, saying my roommates are being too loud. So so the next door neighbor didn't even come up to her and say you're being too loud. She called her mom. And that really struck me because it made me realize how inexperienced many of our students are in dealing with a problem, and the first urge might be to call parents, to call their parents. But you know, it's really good to think through how they would approach a student and say something that's very common, which is could you just tone it down a little at night? You know, be a little, you know less loud.
Speaker 2:And what a good opportunity for the parent on the other end of that phone call from the student to say, okay, you know, now it's time for me to be able to do a little coaching and say to my student okay, have you tried going over and nicely knocking on the door and saying I'm trying to study, it's really hard and it's late, Could we, you know, not going and being irate, but you know, or have you tried if the next step, if you've tried that the next step, might be going to your resident assistant and asking for some help there? What have you tried? Here are some ideas, Rather than the parent buying into the student's concern and saying, okay, I'm going to call Res Life and we're going to get you moved and all of that. So it's a perfect opportunity to help students. I think you are absolutely right, though Students have great difficulty bringing the topic up or confronting something, consulting with someone, Don't even want to think about it as confronting. But how to talk to each other about a problem like that?
Speaker 3:And this is a good opportunity for parents to support their students without jumping in and fixing it Right, Because it really doesn't help in the long run. Teach our students how to cope with conflict. If we call residence life, I mean it did Right we call residence life.
Speaker 2:I mean so, hopefully, one of the things that's happened in July, when students find out who their roommate is, is that they have then contacted each other and had some opportunity to talk on the phone or to FaceTime or to email or to text or whatever it is that students are currently doing these days to be in touch with each other and do some, you know, getting to know each other and deciding perhaps you bring the fridge and I'll bring, you know, the TV, or you know doing some of that so that they've established a relationship a little bit over the summer. But then it all really begins on move-in day.
Speaker 3:So move-in day is a really interesting day. It's usually a hard day for both parents and students, but I do think move-in day is a good time to set the tone of the new relationship which is really between the two students who are moving in two or three or however many. So I do think it's important you know that, if your kids are the first kids there, to maybe wait until the roommate comes before you choose your bed and dress or set up the room, because it is something that the roommates need to do together. Yeah, and I think as parents, again, our role is to support and be on the side, to coach.
Speaker 3:And so we might want to just sort of gently remind students that I know that I know you and I, vicki, have talked about some of the things that we need to do as parents.
Speaker 2:I think move-in day is going to be its own podcast. We have plenty to talk about on move-in day.
Speaker 3:I think it's a hard way. I really do so. I do think it's a good time for parents to step out, though, and to go for a walk while your kids are, while the new students are, are figuring out the room and how they're going to set things up.
Speaker 2:I do know I have to say I had to make the bed for so did I, so did I and I told, and I also told them how to arrange their room, which I subsequently learned they completely undid the minute I was out the gate, so it really didn't matter. But that's another thing. But maybe if you take half an hour and go for a little walk and go get a cup of coffee and maybe even invite the roommate's parents to come with you so that they can get out too, and it gives you a chance to get to know your child's roommate's parents a little bit, but also give the kids a little bit of time on their own. And then the real work of establishing the relationship.
Speaker 2:You know, once the parents leave at the end of moving day, the real work happens and you know, sometimes, I think, there's either a honeymoon or not period. That happens Either everything is perfect with roommates as you're settling in or things feel off right away and recognizing that that's not normal. Yet you have no routine, yet You're not going to classes, yet You're really just getting to know the other person. And it's going to take time and it's going to take work. And I think the work of making relationship work is something that students often underestimate.
Speaker 3:I think some schools will suggest that students set up a contract with their new roommate, and I think it's actually a really good idea even if the school doesn't suggest that to come up with some kind of contract, general, you know, not too specific, but just some of the general rules, like a few of those non-negotiables. The important thing is to start a conversation about what is this going to be like, what are we going to do if we don't get along, you know. Start a conversation, yeah, about what is this going to be like, what are we going to do if we don't get along. What you know, you know. Start a conversation yeah, very, very.
Speaker 2:Who's going to take out the trash? Who's going to um, you know to do, how often are we going to clean the room? Uh, you know, you're just going to keep your mess on your side and I'll keep my neat on my side, or or whatever, but if you have and yeah, the conversation is really the important thing- and to put a sort of a positive twist on it too, to to just to begin this new relationship with some humor and some like.
Speaker 3:Here we are in this together. Uh, we still have a positive approach. Is is good and and it's as parents, it's our job to remind our kids to do that. They are really nervous about this. Yeah, this roommate situation is really stressful for them, or for many of our students, and so it's up to us to kind of help, you know, help steer it towards some kind of positive. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that can happen on move-in day, but also in those phone calls that are going to happen over the next few days and weeks and just sort of checking in how are things going with your roommate? And are you doing all of those good communication skills I mean, we come back down to conversation so much of the time Are you really consciously thinking about using some of those skills and I know I'm a communication professor so I keep coming back to this, but it really is so vitally important Are you really listening when your roommate is telling you something or asking you something and not assuming that you know what it is that they're going to say? And are you being direct? Sometimes students work to go around the real issue when really what you need to say is really what you're thinking. Are you communicating directly and early and often and keeping those and honestly not leaving a little nasty note on their computer or not posting something on Facebook that they're going to see? But if you're having an issue, just get it out there and really talk about it, thinking about the tone in which you do it and trying to find ways that you can work together to see if you can find a solution. And working that way and thinking about compromise and collaboration, and I want to talk a little more about that in a little bit, but you know really thinking about the skills.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I do think the bottom line is you know, no matter what's going on between roommates, there has to be a general level of respect for each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, because you're both in this together, so no matter what's going on, whether it's really positive or or possibly not, yeah, and, and you can have an argument, but still respect the other person that you're arguing with, right.
Speaker 3:And you know I mean conflict isn't all bad. You know there will be some conflict and the important thing to know is that there are resources out there to help. You know there are people to go to to talk to. You know resident assistants are other students who are trained to work with students around these kind of issues. They're resident directors. There are. You know there are resources. You know good communication is not is not automatically easy. It takes some hard work and it may take a little. Take a little extra support and good things can come out of it.
Speaker 2:It can, it can I, you know, I think we we work so hard to protect our students and to smooth the path for them.
Speaker 2:Those are the lawnmower parents, all these labels that get applied to us to make it a little easier for them, and sometimes it's just going to be hard work, but that good things come out of that hard work.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think there are a number of lessons and we wanted to talk a little bit about the kinds of lessons, and the first you know I'll bang my drum again is the lessons about communication that they learn.
Speaker 2:They learn how to talk about their problems, they learn how to talk things out. These are all skills that they're going to use all the way through their lives. They learn how to listen better if they're working on it, and how to talk in a way that other people will listen to you, if you're thinking about listening skills, how to communicate productively so that you know how to say this is what we have to accomplish and we can talk about that. And how to problem solve and think critically, which is all part of communication. How to state clearly and objectively what you need and what your bottom line is and also just thinking about how to how to create a positive communication climate, how to talk about things in a way that is generally positive, even when their problems are negative things, so that students can come away with a lot of life lessons just about communication.
Speaker 3:I think students come away with a lot of life lessons in terms of values, learning about what is important to them. Sometimes you don't know, until you're in a situation like that, what really matters, what really does matter. I think it's incredibly important to learn about other people's values. Other people may come from different worlds and have different values than you have. That is so important to learn to be able to step inside someone else's shoes and see the world a little bit from their viewpoint.
Speaker 2:And the ongoing lesson is not just realizing and understanding that others have perhaps significantly different values, but how do you live with someone who has different values? Can you still manage to get along and live together?
Speaker 3:And creatively solve problems, so that's incredibly, incredibly important. And then there are all the lessons about negotiating how to negotiate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that overlaps with the communication skills, but it really is its own sort of category that there is a lot of negotiation that goes into living together and what do you need and what do I need and how can we get there? You know how to be flexible and not deliver things in ultimatums. Either you do this or but those things never work. So finding out ways to be flexible and finding out ways to respond to someone else who may be inflexible it's hard if you're working hard to do these things and you get the sense that the other person isn't. So how to plan a conversation, how to approach a problem together and to find multiple solutions, and then how to close the discussion when you've come to a conclusion or you can't, and how do you move on and how to have the kind of patience you know. As I was thinking about this and I was thinking about the ways students need to learn to work with each other, two things came to mind for me. One is um, the book that it was very popular a number of years ago. Um called getting to yes. Um by roger fisher and william uri, or yuri um. It's getting to yes, negotiating agreement without giving in, and um great book. We'll link to it in the show notes.
Speaker 2:But you know they really had some basic principles that apply, and it applies whether you're one country negotiating with another country or you're one roommate negotiating with another roommate and you know just very quickly and generally. You know. Principle number one was separate the people from the problem. What's the issue, and not say you're the problem, but there is this issue. The problem is the mess in this room. It's not you're a slob and that's the problem. But we have a problem and can we figure it out? Problem and can we figure it out? And then, focusing on what they say is focusing on interests, not positions, trying to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Why is this a problem?
Speaker 2:What's the why behind the way they're behaving or what they're asking, if you're trying to come to a conclusion and how to invent options for mutual gain, how to collaborate and how to find the win-win, which is sort of a specialized thing. It's the other thing I wanted to talk about a little bit. But their fourth step is insist on objective criteria, which is basically staying on topic. If we're talking about this problem, that's what we need to talk about and we need to not get off topic and we need to not get into something that was a problem last week or something. This is the problem we're talking about right now. And the fifth one that they talk about is what they call is know your BATNA, and that's B-A-T-N-A and it's an interesting term and it's what is the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. So, essentially, if we can't work this out, what's the alternative? What are the alternatives? And sometimes that's the incentive to make it work. The alternative is not necessarily that the first alternative is you would need to move out or I need to move out. What's the best alternative? Maybe the next alternative is we need to go talk to the RA, the resident assistant, or we need to make a contract or something. But if we can't work it out, what's going to happen? And maybe that will help us come to that. So there's a lot. If anybody is interested in doing a little more reading and thinking about it, maybe talking to your student about it the book Getting to, yes, I think has some interesting things. And the last thing and I promise then I'll take my communication professor hat off is talking a little bit about compromise and collaboration, because we teach this in some of our communication classes. We've all been taught and I know I was and I know I taught my kids that the best solution is to find a compromise. Right, you both want to play with this same toy. Okay, we need to compromise. We're going to set a timer. Susie gets to play with it for five minutes and then the timer will ring. And Johnny gets to play with it for five minutes and then the timer will ring and Susie gets it. And that works. It stops the fighting. But it's kind of a lose-lose because you each now only get five minutes with the toy instead of being able to play with it all the time. And so compromise is good. It's not a bad thing, but it's not necessarily the best. Better would be collaboration, and so that would be okay. You both want to have the same toy we could. The lose, lose, lose is I take the toy away and put it in the closet. Nobody gets to play with it. Next step better is we set the timer. You get it five minutes and they get it five minutes. But can we and it takes hard work and it takes communication, all the things we've been talking about Can we all sit down and begin to think about? Is there a game that you could play with the toy together? That's collaborating. So now it's a win-win because you get 10 minutes. You both get 10 minutes with the toy.
Speaker 2:And another way we describe it sometimes which I think helps some students understand the principle is somebody's got 100 oranges to sell, you want to buy those oranges and I want to buy those oranges. We could outbid each other, right, we see who can pay the most money and maybe you win. You're willing to pay more, you get all 100 oranges, I get nothing, I go away. Or maybe I win and you get nothing and you go away. That's not great. Or we can compromise. We split them. You get 50 oranges, I get 50 oranges. Okay, we both kind of win, but we both kind of lose because neither one of us got 100.
Speaker 2:Or we begin to talk to each other, we begin to work together, we begin to think about why do you want these oranges, why do I want these oranges? And we discover, through some hard work, that you make orange juice. You need these oranges because you want to squeeze them and you want orange juice. I, on the other hand, am making marmalade. I need the pulp and I need the rinds to make my marmalade. So we find out that we can probably, at a cheaper price, buy all 100 oranges. You can use them and then I can use them. That's collaboration and helping students understand that that's so much better than the half and half compromise If they can get there, but how much work it takes to get there.
Speaker 3:I really like the orange analogy.
Speaker 2:You just like marmalade, I know.
Speaker 3:I like food, but I also I do like it because it shows that if the two folks involved can actually listen to each other and appreciate what's going on for each other, then they can be creative in problem solving. And that's difficult to do. It is. It's hard work, but it's so incredibly important. So, again, I think these issues that come up around roommates really address some of what our students need to learn most during these years. Yes, they need to learn academically, they need to figure out their life goals, they need to figure out, you know, jobs and just their whole intellectual development. But that's only one piece. The other piece is working with each other, living with each other and listening and being and creatively solving problems together. So these roommate issues are huge and I think it's important to talk to your kids about this.
Speaker 2:And it feels so good when they do that, if they've put in the work and they've overcome an issue and they've found that they can live together, it's really important. And they don't have to be best friends, nope, they just need to be able to live together it's a working relationship, yeah, and then often go off and spend all of their free time with other people, and that's okay If they can establish a living relationship.
Speaker 3:And just a reminder to the parents who are listening to us that our role as parents is again on the sidelines, where our role is to coach, is to support, is to step back and maybe make some suggestions, not to fix it, um, but to step back and support our students in in learning these huge things, yeah, and and recognizing too and I don't want to end on a negative note, but sometimes students do need to change a roommate.
Speaker 2:There are times when, in spite of all of the things we've just talked about, they need to separate, and that might be part of the lesson learned too they need to separate, and that might be part of the lesson learned too, that sometimes that's a reality too, and you know students need to take care of themselves by changing roommates.
Speaker 3:That is part of could be a lesson learned too.
Speaker 2:But it's not a first resort Never If you've tried these other things. So the wonderful adventure begins and we all hope, hope, hope, that spring or whether it is the following fall Hopefully, the principles aren't going to change, no matter when it happens, and so we hope that some of this information is helpful to parents, and if you're thinking that you would like to hear more of the kinds of things we talk about, please subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you like to listen to podcasts we're out there on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher Overcast just about anywhere that you usually listen to podcasts Please find us and subscribe, and then you can get each podcast as we release it. And if you can think of others who might find these kinds of conversations helpful, the best thing you can do for us is to share it. Share the podcast with other people and let them start finding it, and you know, if you think it would be helpful and your child's college has a parent office, maybe make sure they know about this and they might like to share it with other parents as well.
Speaker 2:Visit the College Parent Central website for our show notes. You can find those at collegeparentcentralcom. Forward slash podcast and we will list the book we talked about today and sometimes some other links of things that might be helpful. Feel free to leave us a comment there. We'd love to hear your comments, or send us an email at podcast at collegeparentcentralcom. So we'd love to hear from you one way or another. Let us know what other topics you'd like to hear, and we hope you will join us next time. So until then, stay well.