The Role of Communication/Education Coaching
in Helping Families Make the Most of College

These days, the cost of higher education is soaring higher and higher indeed. Just to get into a good college, increasingly large numbers of students are relying on SAT and Achievement Test preparatory courses at considerable expense. Many families take the additional step of hiring a consultant to help their child put together the strongest possible college application packet.And before the application stage, substantial investments are also frequently made in athletics coaches, music teachers, educational camps and programs outside of school, and a host of other opportunities aimed at developing the interests and talents of their maturing children. Thus, in addition to the obvious emotional investment families have in seeing their young adults find their way happily into the world, there is also an astounding financial investment as well.

In offering communication facilitation and education coaching services to families with young adults in the midst of their transition to independence, Family Tree Mediation seeks to help young adults and the families who support them to make the most of the opportunity of college and to begin their adult life well equipped to navigate their own pursuit of happiness through whatever challenges may come.

Here’s why communication/education coaching for the whole family during a young adult’s transition to independence is worth your consideration.

When Recent Graduates Return to Live at Home

Amid hard economic times, the skyrocketing burdens of college loans, and an inaccessible housing market, there is a growing trend increasingly reported in the news of adult children moving back in with their parents following graduation from college. No doubt for many parents and many young adult children, this new living dynamic is stressful and even painful.

We have all grown up with an expectation of increasing prosperity from generation to generation and for many moving out on one’s own is an important symbol signifying that that expectation of prosperity is on its way to being fulfilled. The symbolic disappointment of that expectation inspires all kinds of different emotional responses from both parents and young adult children.

In addition to the emotions that attend a graduate’s moving back in with his or her parents are a host of practical issues relating to any household. How do the housing costs get covered? How does the home get cleaned? What impact do visitors have on the other members of the household? How do people communicate about important household needs? How much privacy do household members get? The list of such questions that may come up is a long one.

Often attending the practical aspects of these questions is a diverse range of value judgments, personal experiences, relationship histories, and awkwardness before uncharted territory that together result in very different perceptions on any given issue.

With all of these factors at play at once, it’s understandable if the peace and contentment of home has been shaken.