Seventeen years ago I returned home from a trip – my first time away from him overnight. I went into his room and looked into his crib. He had three curls that hadn’t been there when I left three days before. He still has some curls and I notice that I can still see a little of my baby in his resting face. This summer he looks broader in the shoulders and he’s carrying himself just a little bit differently. Perhaps it’s confidence, but I think it may be more that he is developing a different sense of himself as an independent person. I’m tickled to see this in him and I know that he’s still very much in the process of becoming an adult.

Last week I suggested that you speak about how you’ll communicate with each other when your student is at St. Olaf. I mentioned having a plan so that nobody gets stressed by a change in patterns of communicating, but there’s more to it – something really important. And it’s time to make this explicit to your student.

You are a primary relationship for your student, as are any siblings and even grandparents. It’s time for your student, the one who is in the process of becoming an adult, to begin to understand that these relationships must be retained and that they must actively invest in these primary relationships. It’s common for the adult in the relationship to initiate contacts and to actively maintain the family relationships as the child responds. And it’s fairly easy to believe that we’re fully in relationship when we live together or very near to each other. When they live away from home, they have to be conscious of these primary relationships and they must become more active in initiating contact with each of these primary relationships. It’s a fundamental piece of being relational.

This is the final email from me in this summer series. We’re going to take a break as you make final preparations for bringing your student to the college. Enjoy these next couple of weeks with your student. Stacey Longwich and I will check back in with you in September.

Roz Eaton
Dean of Students