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You are here: Parent Connections » Parent Topics » Being a Supportive Parent » Helping Your Student Deal with a Personal Emergency

Parent Topics

Helping Your Student Deal with a Personal Emergency

by JoJo
July 19, 2012

Sometime or other, every college student is likely to have a personal emergency that could impact their attendance or performance in classes. Typical examples include:

  • Death of a member of the family or close friend
  • A health issue requiring hospitalization
  • An injury restricting mobility or the ability to do academic work

Most universities have policies that support students through these tough times. Here’s what you should do when your student is confronted with an emergency:

  1. Have your student notify each of his/her teachers. Describe the emergency and ask for help. In most cases, your teachers will not count your student absent. They may be given extra time on assignments. Whether you can make up a scheduled test is more problematic. Some faculty are very strict about missing tests.
  2. Have your student notify his or her advisor or the campus student services office. In some cases, notes can be sent to teachers to let them know of the situation. While this may be redundant with step (1) above, such notice generally is more accepted than your student’s own notification.
  3. Have your student identify a classmate in each course to get notes and assignments from. While faculty will generally be sympathetic to an emergency, they expect the student to get caught up with his/her work.
  4. Have your student develop a specific plan to get caught up. Put the plan on paper and share it with your student’s teachers. This plan will help your student stay focused, but it will also make it more likely that their teachers will support them.
  5. If your student struggles with the emotional aftermath of the emergency, seek out help. Most campuses have grief counselors or others who can help them adjust.

The key to all of this is not to let one emergency lead to another: your student’s failure in college..

← Helping Your Student From a Distance
Helping Your Student in Deciding on Transferring Majors or College →

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  • My biggest problem before this semester is class attendance.  I have developed a reward system for myself to motivate me to go to class.  Each week that I go to every class, on that Friday, I go to the vintage video gram store and buy a game.  I really do enjoy collecting old video games so I have a strong motivation to attend class each day.  I have also improved on getting my homework finished earlier than the day before it is due.  I try very hard to get the homework that is assigned to me finished on the day it is assigned.  I use all of my time between classes to work on homework and study for tests now.  I still have a couple different things that I am working on still.  Note taking being one.  Whenever I am in class, I tend to listen to the teachers lecture more than taking on it because I am afraid of missing something important.  I have begun to record each lecture now and try to go back and make notes.  I also have problems studying at home because of television and games.  This is going away slowly though because I have developed some self-discipline..

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