Rating: 
Summary: Of minimal use to most people
Review: This book might be useful in families where the child is the first ever to go to college, but for the rest of us it's pretty lame. There's no significant info here -- you can get more and better from your child's high school guidance counselor.
And there's really nothing about "parent[al] survival" in it. Barkin warns of feelings of loss and disconnect, but other than to say that many people go thru this, there's no useful info.
Check that: her suggestion to bring a toolkit and duct tape is excellent, but I didn't need a book to think of that.
Save your bux and post to a Yahoo forum instead.
Rating: 
Summary: good book for soon to be empty nesters!!
Review: Very well written...lots of quotes from kids and parents...and chapter written by her son from a kids point of view. Lots of relevant information for parents who have their first...or only kid heading off to college. Definitely worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: good book for soon to be empty nesters!!
Review: Very well written...lots of quotes from kids and parents...and chapter written by her son from a kids point of view. Lots of relevant information for parents who have their first...or only kid heading off to college. Definitely worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: April 5, 1999
Review: When my son was preparing to go to college, I got together now and then with a group of other parents of college-bound kids. All of us felt completely at sea--we wondered how to cope with our anxiety and confusion, where to get answers to our numerous questions, and what to say to our kids, who were full of fears and self-doubts as well as excitement.Having an understanding group to discuss things with was tremendously helpful to me. It was such a relief to discover that I wasn't the only parent going through emotional ups and downs as my child got ready to leave home. At the same time, I benefited from learning what other families had done about filling out forms, choosing courses, dealing with financial aid requirements, deciding what to pack, and all the thousands of unfamiliar tasks that filled our days. Sending your child to college is hard in lots of ways. You have to step back just when you want to hold on; you're proud of your kid but secretly afraid he won't know how to handle his new responsibilities; once the semester begins, you're concerned when she's homesick but hurt when she's obviously too busy to think about home. When I decided to write this book, I wanted to recapture the feeling of my informal "support group" and to provide a range of useful answers to parents' questions. I interviewed many real-life parents from all over the US whose kids were attending, or about to attend, a wide variety of colleges; it was startling to realize how much their differences were outweighed by the universal feelings and concerns. I hope my book will reassure parents that they are not alone, that nearly every parent of a college-bound kid is groping for answers to the same questions and grappling with the same anxieties, and that there really are ways to get through the whole stressful process.
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