Your Students as a Resource
In this Issue: a reflection on why it is important to encourage your students to problem-solve at college and how you can help them grow needed independence skills
I am on PTO still, and we will be dark Monday for Memorial Day, so this is a pre-post
As we frequently share in the Daily Deac, there are so many resources on campus to help your students. We have a great big list here. But there is one resource that is in many ways the most important (and sometimes overlooked): our students themselves.
Our students are smart and resourceful. They come to college as capable people, and they will leave as even more capable. But to become more capable, they have to do some work 🙂
One of the tough-but-critical lessons of college is figuring out how to do things for yourself. Problem-solving is a skill they will need for the rest of their lives.
If your student comes to you with tasks they need to complete, questions or problems or frustrations, help them learn to do for themselves. Although it might be easy for you to tell them the best way to proceed (talk to your professor! go get a tutor! look at this web site where I searched and found the answer! etc.), that doesn’t help them learn new skills. Instead, help your Deacs grow by asking some probing questions:
That sounds like a tough situation. What have you thought about doing?
What offices on campus might you go to look for help?
Who have you talked to about this?
What have you found out on your own via searching the web site?
What options have you been considering?
etc. etc. etc.
When you put the ball back into their court, you are helping your student develop self-advocacy and problem-solving skills. You are also sending the message that you trust your student to make wise decisions. (Bonus: you trusting them helps build their self-confidence!)
After your student has decided on their course of action, let your student do the leg work themself. If that means making a phone call, sending an email, going to an office to talk to an administrator, etc., have your student do it. Not you. Even if you have all the time in the world and could easily handle the situation on your own, resist that temptation.
If your student gripes to you about everything they have to do (and it sounds like they want you to step in), understand your student might just be venting to get it out of their system. That does not mean it has to be a call to action for you.
Should your student directly ask you to help fix the problem – or even just hint about how pressed for time they are: I have tests, I am busy, I am stressed, it’s raining and that office is across campus, I need to study for this test – hold your ground and don’t try to fix it yourself. When your student leaves WF for good, they are going to have to manage multiple priorities and deadlines and petty tasks. I like to give the example of one day your student will be grown up and have a job, maybe a house and a family. If they have to make a big presentation at work today, and their toddler threw up after breakfast and the air conditioning went out, they are going to have to figure out how to manage those multiple crises at once. The earlier your student can learn to multitask and manage details, the better.
So you can say instead “You sound like you have a lot on your plate, but I know you can handle it.” And then try to put it out of your mind and let your student do the work.
What your student learns from problem-solving on their own will matter more in the long term than a quick solution from home. Maturity is built through doing things ourselves. This is one of those moments where we as parents and family members should play the long game 🙂