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New research finds that family support matters, even for college kids. University of Michigan investigators discovered that when college students feel isolated and disconnected, support from family members can keep them from harming themselves during difficult times,

"Parents can serve as a first-line of defense in efforts to prevent or reduce the risk of suicide in students," said Dr. Edward Chang, the study's lead author and a professor of psychology and social work.

The study, found in the Family Journal, consisted of 456 Hungarian college students whose ages ranged from 18 to 35. Among its co-authors was Dr. Tamás Martos, senior research fellow at the University of Szeged in Hungary.

Respondents rated the frequency of feeling isolated and the extent of family support. To assess for suicide risk, respondents indicated if they felt depressed or had suicidal thoughts during the past 12 months.

Investigators discovered that when lonely students had high family support, they had fewer depressive symptoms compared to those with lower family support, the study found.

The same results were found for those who thought about suicide-that family support provided a small but significant improvement from following through on self-harm.

According to the researchers, the findings suggest new strategies to reduce heightened suicide risk in college students.

For instance, parents might be trained to look for and identify early signs of risks, such as social isolation. Families must also get counselors involved to create more positive environments for students that may be at risk for suicide.

Chang said the key is that as children grow up and out of the house, it's important for parents to remain invested in the health of their child.

"Going away to college does not mean that young emerging adults have sufficiently established a strong social support network or cultivated the sort of coping strategies to deal with their new roles as college students," he said.

"Parents represent a child's foundation for support and growth."

And since parents and college students often are out of daily physical interactions, both parties would likely benefit from routinely letting each other know that they remain on their minds, he said.

Source: University of Michigan/EurekAlert

Family Support Reduces College Students' Loneliness, Risk of Suicide

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Family Support Reduces College Students' Loneliness, Risk of Suicide

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New research finds that family support matters, even for college kids. University of Michigan investigators discovered that when college students feel isolated and disconnected, support from family members can keep them from harming themselves during difficult times, "Parents can serve as a first-line of defense in efforts to prevent or reduce the risk of suicide in students," said Dr. Edward Chang, the study's lead author and a professor of psychology and social work.

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Going to College when you have Family Responsibilities

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Recommended products and resources may contain affiliate links. We may earn a small commission when purchasing products from links in content (at no additional cost to you) at sites like Amazon.

College is a huge responsibility and a lot of work. For some students, college is an additional responsibility as they may have family to tend to at home. It is hard to attend classes, study and be active on campus when you have children and/or a spouse that requires your attention as well. There are ways to add college into your daily juggles. No longer do you have to put college off because of family.

Online Classes

The most common type of classes for many with families are online classes. These are classes that are taught primarily on the web. Students can log on and complete coursework, forum discussions and other class tasks at their leisure. These classes have their advantages and disadvantages and do require more discipline as in some cases you are teaching yourself the coursework. You really can't let the work pile up as it's easy to fall behind.

Weekend School

Some students work full time jobs in addition to having a family. Some colleges will offer weekend school, where you attend classes on Saturdays and/or Sundays for a few hours. This is perfect for students who can't make the commitment to come to campus during the week.

On-Campus Daycare

Some colleges have on-campus daycare facilities available for students with young children. This way students can attend classes during the traditional times and bring their children with them to campus. The rates for childcare are usually reduced so that they are affordable to students.

Other Tips

Organize your Time. With so many responsibilities, it is best to be organized so that nothing slips through the cracks. Develop a routine and keep track of all appointments, classes, and homework assignments.

Don't Overwhelm Yourself. It can be tempting to try to rush and complete your degree faster, however, it can be stressful if you take on too many classes in addition to your responsibilities at home. Your grades can suffer or even worse your family. Make sure to balance your attention among all your responsibilities.

Family First. Family always comes first so if you see that your family life is suffering because of your schooling, then maybe you should cut back on a class or two or try and study when everyone is in bed rather than when you could be spending time with family. Your classes should be a part of your life but they should not take away time from your family.

It is extremely hard trying to complete a degree and still handle family responsibilities. Sometimes it comes down to taking a final or going to your child's soccer game. Try to avoid situations like these in advance by planning your college classes around your family duties. This way your family will not feel like they are being neglected and your grades will not suffer. Completing your degree is a very rewarding experience, but not at the expense of your family responsibilities.

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Going to College when you have Family Responsibilities

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Going to College when you have Family Responsibilities Affiliate Disclosure Recommended products and resources may contain affiliate links. We may earn a small commission when purchasing products from links in content (at no additional cost to you) at sites like Amazon. College is a huge responsibility and a lot of work.

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College is challenging. Parenting is challenging. Those who succeed at doing both at the same time tend to have help from strong family and friend support networks. Research now available highlights the role of social support and stress in the physical health of college students who are also parents.

Nearly 5 million undergraduate students are also parents in the United States. Of those student parents, only 26 percent earn their degree within six years. Many of the others leave university for lower paying jobs. Some reasons for leaving college early include not having a strong enough support system including friends and family that can pitch in and help when the student parent needs to stay late on campus or when a child is sick. Others cannot overcome the financial burden of paying for college while raising a child. Many student parents work extra jobs when they are not in class to make ends meet. Many suffer from significant stress that is compounded by juggling two major life transitions at once: becoming a college student and becoming a new parent.

Drs. Eve Gerrard and Ron Roberts found that some student parents question why they are putting themselves and their families through this stress and whether a college degree is really worth it. Since being a student parent often means not doing either role to the best of their abilities, some student parents wonder whether the sacrifices they are making to their education and their children will pay off in the end.

As communication scientists, we recognize the importance of a strong social support network in handling and overcoming challenges in any life stage, but especially when attending college while raising young children. Social network members like family, friends, and others who care can offer instrumental support like parenting advice or study tips. They can also offer tangible support like tuition money or a place to stay. When people receive enough good support, they are better off physically, mentally, and socially.

In a recent study from the Family Communication and Relationships Lab published in Health Communication, my colleague, Dr. Kristina Scharp, and I set out to discover how the costs of seeking support influence the health of undergraduate student parents. Costs of seeking support can be both intrapersonal and interpersonal and occur when people feel stigmatized or distressed about asking for help. It is easy to imagine a new parent who wants to appear confident and like they have they have everything under control may not want to ask for help. Having to ask for help may be intrapersonally costly if it lowers the person's self-esteem or makes them worry about their ability to solve problems. Interpersonal support costs happen when the person thinks they will looks weak or incompetent to others, or they worry about how others will react to their request for help. For example, if new parents believe they should be able to handle the stress of a new baby and should naturally know how to be "good parents," they may fear that others will look down on them for needing help. We found that the higher the costs student parents reported they felt, the worse their physical health. Student parents who perceived high costs to seeking support had more headaches, slept less, and exercised less than parents who reported lower costs.

Second, we wanted to understand how the amount of support a student parent desired influenced his/her physical health. People differ in how much support they want from their networks. Here we examined a type of support that relies on communication: social presence support. Social presence support captures the amount of support a person believes they have available to them. When a sibling tells a new parent "I am here for you if you need anything," they are providing social presence support. Social presence support is about knowing support is available if needed, not about how much is actually given. Social presence was not directly associated with poor physical health in our study, but it was linked to parenting stress suggesting that desiring more social presence support than a student parent is getting contributes to higher parenting stress.

Finally, we tested whether college-based stress and parenting-based stress negatively influenced the physical health of student parents. Like we expected, the student parents in our study who experienced high levels of parenting and academic stress had worse health outcomes. For example, these parents were sleeping and exercising less than their peers who did not experience such high stress.

The major takeaway from our study is that friends and family can make a significant difference in the lives of college students who are also parents. Student parents who feel supported and are not afraid to ask for help are less stressed and in better physical health. Friends and family can remind student parents often that they are there for them and that it is normal to not have everything under control and figured out all the time. Friends and family can explicitly say that the student parent is not expected to be a perfect parent or raise his/her children on her/his own. As the saying goes, it takes a village. This is especially true when raising a child and earning a college degree.

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The Challenges of Parenting While in College

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College is hard. Parenting is hard. Doing both at the same time could be bad for your health. New research links social support and health for undergraduate student parents.

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Listen to this story on the Educate podcast. Subscribe now:

At the age of 21, Robyn Young was in and out of jobs, living on friends' couches, and struggling to take care of her daughter.

"I recognized that education was a way out," she says.

Young enrolled in college, but she couldn't keep up with the child care bill. So she dropped out.

According to a report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), the number of single mothers in college more than doubled between 2000 and 2012, to nearly 2.1 million students.

"There are more single mothers than there used to be," says Barbara Gault, vice president and executive director at IWPR. "Another reason is that for-profit colleges have aggressively recruited single mothers to attend their programs."

Only 28 percent of single mothers who start college complete degrees, and there has been no systematic effort to address the obstacles they face. The Trump administration wants to cut a federal aid program that provides money for campus-based child care programs, the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program ( CCAMPIS).

"Average childcare costs a little under $10,000 a year," says Meredith Kolodner, a reporter for The Hechinger Report who wrote about single mothers and college completion. "For most people, that's more than their rent."

Single moms face other challenges, such as student financial aid programs that can make them ineligible for food stamps and affordable housing. More than 60 percent of single mothers in college live at or below the federal poverty level.

Some states are trying to help.

Maine, for example, offers a scholarship that includes a stipend for child care and transportation. That's what got Robyn Young back into college.

"I remember crying," she says. "I was so happy that I would be able to go back to school."

In 2017, Young finally got a bachelor's degree 17 years after she first attempted college. She recently wrote about how states and colleges could help more women like her.

On the podcast this week, we talk about the challenges facing single moms in college, and how helping them finish may increase the likelihood that their kids will complete college, too.
Educate is a collaboration with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization that focuses on inequality and innovation in education.

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Nearly 1 in 5 female college students are single moms

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Listen to this story on the Educate podcast. Subscribe now: At the age of 21, Robyn Young was in and out of jobs, living on friends' couches, and struggling to take care of her daughter. "I recognized that education was a way out," she says.

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What's it like working full time, going to school full time and having children??

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What's it like working full time, going to school full time and having children??

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>Jurassic park
>The titanic sinking
>Swimming with sharks