This post is from Grown and Flown.
by Anne Vilen
Dear Readers, I am just like you—a proud, tired, and often worried parent of two kids teetering on the brink of adulthood.
My daughter just graduated from a highly selective liberal arts college. She once told me, “I am majoring in my own sanity.” And over her undergraduate years, she studied through bouts of severe anxiety, producing a thesis that earned her high honors in disability studies and her first professional job.
My son, still giddy from his senior prom, is newly enrolled at a large state university that gave him a great scholarship. After months of supporting him through college applications, exhaustive campus visits, and dozens of inscrutable forms, I can finally sit back and watch him fly, right?
Not quite. Along with his extra-long sheets, his skateboard, and his computer, I need to help him pack the social and emotional tools that will help him thrive on campus.
I am not a therapist or physician, but with a family history of depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, I know neither of my kids is out of the woods yet. Before he goes to college, before your child leaves, too, it’s time to talk frankly and proactively about mental health in college.
Dawn Rendell, assistant dean of students for the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University says, “Kids need to know that college is going to be overwhelming for everyone at some point. The worst thing is when your child calls out of the blue and they’re crying over the phone and you don’t have the answer.”
She recommends that parents share the facts about mental health with students ahead of time, engage in a dialogue, and explore the college’s resources together so that both know who to contact if a crisis comes calling.
The facts about mental health in college
The first message parents need to give students is that stress and mental illness often show up first at college, when students are grappling with their first prolonged stretch of real independence.
- According to a 2018 report from the American College Health Association, more than 60 percent of college students said they had experienced “overwhelming anxiety” in the past year. Over 40 percent said they felt so depressed they had difficulty functioning.
- In a study of more than 67,000 college students, more than 20% said they experienced stressful events in the past year that were strongly associated with mental health problems, including harming themselves and suicidal thoughts or attempts.
- Suicide is the second leading cause of death in this age group.
- Of all lifetime mental illness, 50% begin by age 14, and 75% by age 24.
