I’m not an expert and I believe laws might vary a bit by state but I am pretty confident that the parents of college students will never be notified when their student is seeking medical or mental health care unless there is a safety issue with the student.
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Neighbor of mine had a kid who played hockey (club level) in college, and they didn’t find out until AFTER the fact that the kid had been sent to the ER and had surgery… not that the kid didn’t want to inform them. But he was 21 years old; in the hubbub of his injury he got separated from his phone; by the time he was medicated he hadn’t thought to ask a teammate to call his mom; etc. So even if your kid WANTS to keep you in the loop medically- unless the kid is proactive about it, you likely won’t find out…
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Because at age 18 they are considered adults, and their mommies and daddies don’t have to know stuff.
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It’s kind of funny - back when I was in college we always had a piece of paper or a whiteboard with important phone numbers on it by the phone. It was the ‘in case of emergency, call our boyfriend and parents’ list, and had there been an emergency one of the roommates would have called. With info on cell phones, it’s actually harder for friends to do that. It would feel weird to ask kid’s roommate, friend, or significant other to put my number in their cell, but otherwise they won’t know how to get in touch.
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My daughter and her friends did share their parents’ numbers with each other in case of emergencies. We also made sure she completed a health care power of attorney before she left for school.
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Yes, we have all the forms filled out too but the problem is that if you don’t know your student is having an issue, you don’t know you need to be giving the forms to anyone. Like if your student is at the hospital and no one tells you, you can’t send the forms there so you can get information.
Freshmen year we exchanged numbers with the roommate’s parents and roommate at move in. But after that we sort of dropped the ball and didn’t have good contact information for her roommates. We would have been able to reach each other in roundabout ways when needed, but it wouldn’t have been easy. I like that her bf can contact us now if needed.
This situation came up recently on our school’s parent Facebook page when a child had a medical issue and the parents were far away and were struggling to get information. But there was also a situation a year or so ago when a student was hospitalized for mental health issues and a parent was notified and the student was really upset. It’s a complicated situation.
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It’s important to know that once your offspring is a legal adult, parents are just another adult as far as the law is concerned. Without healthcare power of attorney, you have no input or information. We had friends whose son was in a coma after a head injury, and they had to get a court order to be part of decisions once he regained consciousness (but not cognitive operancy)
We had healthcare POA for both our adult kids , still have it for the unmarried one.
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It’s such a relief to have guardianship of our adult son. They have to tell to us and I sign all required paperwork.
Our neighbors ended up dealing with the aftermath (helping with insurance claims etc) when their D’s roommate was taken to the ER for alcohol poisoning and didn’t want to tell her parents…it made parents weekend quite awkward…
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Absolutely. We have that in place too.
My kids are older now. But in the college days it was interesting to hear about the over-18 privacy laws but know that most kids were still on parents healthcare policy and would eventually see all the healthcare bills anyways. And of course be responsible for any expenses not covered.
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I actually made a small Discord instance with my S22 and his roommate – mostly for “bills paid” conversations about the apartment, but also to make sure that his roommate had at least 1 place to access me, even if one or the other of us somehow changed phone numbers, in case of emergency. Not that I told the roommate this explicitly, but it’d be a “oh, wait, I should call his mom, oh, how… wait Discord!” kind of moment.
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I don’t hear “therapy talk” from my D1 and she’s a clinical psychologist!
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Unless she were to share about herself, she might think of anything else as unethical.
I’m not really referring to her diagnosing of others or revealing private information, just as a general response to the OP w/regard to using terminology in our lives and interactions or in every day conversation.
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Uh - got it.
Yes, that is true with mine as well.
(The only very occasional “shop talk” was, when I had brought up certain symptoms in hopes to learn about “the science” behind it - but that too is then about brain physiology background, and not about therapy.)
I thought of this thread when my daughter called to explain why she wouldn’t be going to our Christmas Eve service with us. “I feel like I couldn’t be present the rest of the weekend if I went,” “I’m processing a lot of stuff,” blah, blah, blah. Yeah, great. To say I feel no interest in getting ready for her visit tomorrow is a gross understatement. 
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The only phrase that sometimes slips out of my mouth is “I am sorry you feel that way”.
On the receiving end, it’s kinda annoying to hear “are you analyzing me now?” Usual response is that the meter isn’t running 
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I sometimes find myself using Love and Logic (parenting books / classes) phrases with an elderly friend tends to rant. “Probably so….”
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This hits close to home because my younger college student actually is in therapy to deal with the trauma of a college shooting last year. She tried to ignore it, but this semester it reared its ugly head after a confrontation in her apartment parking garage. That stress and trauma manifested itself emotionally as well as physically, in the form of hives. It has led to a diagnosis that makes sense and she continues to talk to her therapist about ways to work through different challenges at school (excellent student, but there are still some issues on campus for her). Thankfully it does not involve her family, and she is a happy little clam on break now with us. Trauma is not always dramatic, nor visible, nor does it always make sense. I would have said “oh, she was not affected by the shooting” until she was. She would agree she thought she worked through things, until she realized she just stuffed it down. I gladly pay my insurance co-pay for her therapy bills because they are helping her to be a better version of herself. Just because we didn’t have the benefit of therapy doesn’t mean it’s not appropriate in a lot of circumstances. Heck, I often think I should seek out therapy to deal with the trauma of losing my sister. Yes, siblings die but the way this happened was awful and tragic, and affects me every day. See what I mean about it being different for different people? I will get off my soapbox now.
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