When Parents Get Overly Involved....

2prepMom
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 17:07:11 +0000

D had the same problem her first year - her roomate’s parents were in a time zone that allowed them to conveniently call either during study hours or even later at night. This was a problem despite D using noise cancelling head phones, and attempts to ignore. Roomate was not in a culturally acceptable position to tell her parents not to call then. Calls were very prolonged, and every night.

We encouraged D to ask advisor for ideas, and they had a meeting to discuss. Roomate was told by advisor that administration had to tell her parents what were acceptable hours to call… not during study hours or middle of the night.

Roomate was also thankful, because the long calls disrupting study and sleep had resulted in D grades first term …prompting even more calls.

It all worked out. This is a very common issue, especially for international students dealing with different time zones.