How to stay calm social distancing with your college kid

Well-meaning parents should consider taking a dozen additional actions to avoid all the anger, frustration and resentment that can build up in any home where family has been suddenly forced

to shelter with their college-age kids, according to interviews with five child psychologists and authors on college student success. Experts say taking these helpful actions with your

college students now can result in weeks — if not months — of greatly improved coexistence: • ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR GRIEF. College students now are struggling in ways they've never

struggled before, says B. Janet Hibbs of Philadelphia, coauthor of _The Stressed Years of Their Lives: Helping Your Kid Survive During Their College Years_. “Acknowledge their grief.

Don't be dismissive,” she says. “This is a big deal." • AVOID ASKING QUESTIONS. When your kids are away at college, they function perfectly well without answering a lot of

questions from mom and dad. So don't fall into that trap now, says Karen Levin Coburn, a licensed psychologist, senior consultant at Washington University in St. Louis and author of 

_Letting Go: A Parent's Guide to Understanding the Parent Years_. “You have an adult living in your house who has been doing just fine without you, so focus on the things that matter,”

she says. • INCLUDE THEM IN DECISIONS. This is a situation where everyone is in the same canoe and has to paddle together, says Anthony Rostain, M.D., chairman of the psychiatry and

behavioral health department at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, New Jersey. He coauthored the college survival book with Hibbs. “This is really about the family making decisions

together in order to survive this,” he says. • TREAT THEM AS EQUALS. It's critical to view your college-age children as problem-solvers, not problems to be solved, says Martie

Bernicker, executive director of SpeakUp! in Devon, Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia area. The nonprofit promotes teen dialogue with adults. Two of her sons are now home from college during

the pandemic. She says one successful way for parents to accomplish cohesion is to ask your college kids specifically, “What are we doing that is driving you crazy?” Listen to what they

say. Then stop doing it. Martie Bernicker, third from left, of the nonprofit SpeakUp! in Devon, Pennsylvania, is at home with her family in the Philadelphia area during the coronavirus

pandemic. Courtesy of Martie Bernicker • SHIFT THE PARADIGM. Sean Covey's daughter, Victoria, is back home in Utah from her senior year at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista,

about 100 miles west of Richmond. So Covey, president of FranklinCovey Education, quickly decided he needed to “shift the paradigm,” lower expectations and focus on the positive.