Parent-Child Communication About Independence in College

ABSTRACT

One of the most formative aspects of college involves increasing independence from parents. Emerging adults may be forming ideas of what independence entails or how to discuss it, especially considering many parents still provide support in some form. Participants included 117 emerging adult college students who completed an online questionnaire. We categorized topics of recalled student-initiated conversations, responses to parents’ talk about independence, and potential reasons students had not initiated a conversation. Analyses revealed that emerging adults most frequently initiated conversations about setting expectations. In responding to parent-initiated conversations, they most frequently reported agreeing with or understanding parents, which may highlight opportunities for perspective sharing and empathic communication. If emerging adults had not initiated a conversation, it was most often because they did not see a need to do so, claiming they had already had a discussion with parents, did not want to alter the status quo, did not view themselves as independent, or because they were already independent. The theories of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 1998, 2000) and relational dialectics (Baxter, 1993, 2011) shed light on our findings. Results should provide families, universities, and family practitioners with areas for discussion in order to equip parents and emerging adults to more successfully navigate the college years when discussing independence.

KEYWORDS:

• College
• emerging adulthood
• independence
• parent–child communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).