If you are the parent of a college kid, or a kid looking at college soon, this article is for you.  One local paper offers a college student the opportunity to write about his experiences from the battlefields of the dorms.  This isn’t about the academics, but rather the realities of being on one’s own.  For parents, it can be an enlightening peek into the processes they can help their children prepare for as they move into young adulthood.  A scary concept for sure, but one we all need to deal with as we prepare our offspring integrate more smoothly into the world of shared living spaces.

It is easy to see why college freshmen get so stressed.  Not only are they working at a whole new level academically, but then they go to their respective abodes and learn to live in a group setting with others who don’t love them like we do.  I get a kick out of this column, because it really forces parents to take a look beyond the books, and understand what their college freshman is dealing with on a practical level.  It is scary to feel the pressure of studying around your night to do the abode cleaning.  This young author borrowed from his own mother’s ideas of hiding dirt, just to survive cleaning night while maintaining his television schedule.  That may not sound like a big deal to many of us, but honestly, what would you do to watch your absolute favorite TV show?  That’s what I thought.