What do parents wear to college orientation? What questions should parents ask at freshman orientation? Do parents even come to orientation?

Whether this child is your first college student or your third, freshman orientation can be an overwhelming experience for you and your high school graduate. 

As you approach orientation, you may know the general things you should be doing: attend orientation, ask questions about finances and campus safety, and more. However, you may know less about what you should not do. Below are three freshman orientation don’ts for college parents.

Don’t bombard Q&A time with personal questions.

You need to ask questions at freshman orientation. Your job, as the parent, is to ask about the details your high school graduate would not think of or be aware of. However, sometimes your questions can become too specific for general sessions.

You’ve most likely been in a meeting in which someone asked too personal of questions--questions which only really apply to one or two individuals. Rather than providing helpful insights, these questions typically cause frustration to the general group.

Before interrupting the flow of the orientation, carefully craft your questions so that they can be helpful to the majority of the group. You certainly don’t want to derail or distract from the orientation process. Consider asking these questions one-on-one to a first year advisor at the end of the day.

Don’t ask questions your freshman can ask.

A fellow professor and academic advisor relayed this common experience with me. During orientation, he shared that parents often asking him questions about their child’s future academic schedule. Rather than addressing the parent, this advisor would direct his questions and answers to the student. Why? This is their academic experience, and they need to feel ownership of their college experience.

As much as possible possible, refrain from asking questions your child has the ability and knowledge to ask. You may want to help your soon-to-be college freshman, but advocating on her behalf often hurts her more than helps her. How so? Inadvertently, this your questions send a signal to your child: she doesn’t really make the decisions and doesn’t really have ownership over her college experience either.

Be careful that you enable and even empower your child to speak on her own behalf. Refuse to allow her to “hide” behind you, and encourage her to ask questions. (If this is your expectation, communicate that you expect this of her beforehand.)

Don’t force social interactions on your freshman.

You may mean well. As much as you want your child to start making friends, forcing her to interact with peers likely won’t go over well.

Rather than forcing your child to “go over there and meet some people,” encourage her to meet at least two or three other incoming freshmen throughout the day. If your child is more shy, meeting new people will be a challenge. However, your high school graduate can at least interact with and meet a few new people. 

At some point during orientation (usually at the end), your freshman may have the opportunity to split off from you and meet other students. While she may want to skip out, don’t allow her to bale on the social parts.

This social parts of freshman orientation are important, however uncomfortable the awkward interactions make her feel. Starting the process of making college home during orientation is better than waiting until arriving on campus in the fall.

Freshman orientation can be an exciting and informative experience, but it’s less about finding the answer to every question and more about preparing for the next stage of life. Make the most of orientation by refraining from asking too specific of questions, taking over the discussion, and forcing unnatural interactions between your child her peers.