How College Changes the Parent-Child Relationship

College is a formative time, not only for students’ minds but for their life skills as well. For the hundreds of thousands of undergrads in the United States who enroll as teens, college may mark the first time they have to manage their own schedules and master a laundry routine.

College is also a formative time for students’ relationship with their parents. Many undergrads, especially those who live on campus, are caught in a sort of limbo between dependence and independence, making their own rules and schedules but relying on their parents to help them navigate financial-aid applications and health insurance. Students may have to do their own grocery shopping, but there’s a good chance their parents are still footing the bill; they may live in a is still likely their parents’ house, a place to which they return on breaks and during the summer. And this limbo, it turns out, may spur a healthy evolution in students’ relationship with their parents.