Parent & Family Group: Prairie Stars Family Connect
New Student Programs is excited to introduce Prairie Star Family Connect, a communication hub designed to enhance your experience as a Prairie Star Family member. Prairie Star Family Connect allows you to customize the information you receive, helping you stay informed at just the right moments throughout your student's journey at UIS.
Through Prairie Star Family Connect, you’ll have access to:
- Important news, updates, and deadlines
- Personalized newsletters tailored to you
- Announcements delivered directly to your inbox
- The ability to share updates with your student or other family members
While you will receive an email invitation if your student has provided us with your contact information, creating an account is simple! Just visit the registration page to get started. After creating your account, you can personalize your newsletter content and select how often you’d like to receive it—whether weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly. You’ll also have the option to receive information on topics that matter most to you, such as health & wellness, athletics, and family support for different student years.
We invite you to join Prairie Star Family Connect and stay connected with the latest UIS news and updates. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at UISOrientation@uis.edu.
With the launch of this new portal, we will eventually be dissolving our Family Facebook groups, so join today to keep informed about UIS and receive information about being the parent or family member of a Prairie Star!
Prairie Stars Family Association (PSFA)
The Prairie Stars Family Association (PSFA) was founded in the Fall of 2015 to support UIS parents, guardians, and family members by promoting shared experiences among UIS family members and help them feel more connected to UIS and their students. It is currently inactive in large part due to Covid. If you have free time and are looking for a way to get involved at UIS, contact UISOrientation@uis.edu and let us know if you are interested in helping PSFA get back on its feet.
Resources and Reading for Parents of College Students
Some of these resources are online articles – please contact UISOrientation@uis.edu if a link is broken or the article is no longer found at that site.
Articles
- A Telling Experiment Reveals a Big Problem Among College Students: They Don’t Know How to Study
- Succeeding in College with ADHD
- Money 101 for College Students: From Student Loans to How to Budget
- 12 Things We Wish We’d Known When We Were 18
- 31 Money Saving Tricks for Students
- How to Help Your New College Student Avoid Money Minefields
- How to Keep Your College Kid Out of Money Trouble
- Five Reasons Why Helicopter Parents are Sabotaging their Child’s Career. Written by a Career Coach another perspective to examine over-parenting.
- Helicopter parenting has caused my psychotherapy clients to crash land.
- Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out
- Teen Spirit: Helicopter parenting has crippled American teenagers. Here’s how to fix it.
- How helicopter parents are ruining college students. I’m not crazy about the title of this article, but the content on the need for students to learn coping skills – especially dealing with frustration and failure is something we help lots of students with on a daily basis.
- Transition to College: Separation and Change for Parents and Students by Jess P. Shatkin, MD, MPH. Going to college is more than just “going back to school.” The departure is a significant milestone in the life of a family and ushers in a time of separation and transition, requiring an adjustment on the part of parents, the college-bound teenager and the whole family.
- ‘Helicopter Parent’ Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means Just because you don’t follow your kid to her job interview doesn’t mean you aren’t helicopter parenting.
- Managing College Transitions: A Guide For Parents.
- College Students Speak: A Survey Report on Mental Health. An interesting report. Students coming to college with mental health issues (depression, anxiety, and trauma) are increasing dramatically. This report has some powerful insights about what happens when students do not disclose their conditions, thus not having access to campus support networks, also provides student reflection on what they wish they had done.
- College depression: What parents need to know. College depression is a common problem. Understand why the transition to college makes young adults vulnerable to depression — and what you can do about it.
- Have Smartphones destroyed a Generation? More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.
- 7 Great Tips For When Your College Kid Comes Home For The Holidays.
- Home (Bitter) Sweet Home: A College Student Perspective. Advice for Parents and Students about surviving the summer.
- Questions Parents and Students Should Answer Before Heading Off to College for the First Time.
- The Hidden Signs: Teenage Depression and Room Organization. Recommended by a parent of a current student.
Books
iGen - Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood — and What That Means for the Rest of Us. Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. (2017). ISBN-13: 978-1501151989.
Teach Yourself How to Learn: Strategies You Can Use to Ace Any Course at Any Level. Sandra Yancy McGuire and Mark McDaniel. (2018). ISBN-13: 978-1620367568. This is the book referenced in the parent sessions.
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke. Suze Orman. (2005). This is a great book about money for young adults.
Reading for Parents (a list of additional materials in this pdf document created by now retired, professor of Global Studies, Dr. Hilary Frost)
Resources
College Parents of America. College Parents of America’s mission is to promote greater student achievement & completion of post-secondary education. Please join us for helpful tips, insights & benefits that support student success.
College Parent Central. This site is designed to give you information, and food for thought, about college and about parenting a college student. If you have a son or daughter currently attending college, or getting ready to go to college soon, we hope that you will find College Parent Central helpful.
Social Media
Grown & Flown. Has a lot of great articles and resources about the college search process, success strategies for college students and parents, as well as some comic relief with common adulting issues. They are on several of the social media platforms and are the source for a lot of material on our Parent/Family group page.