For Parents
Day 1 can be easier than Day 40.
The first weeks may be full of orientation events, new friends, photographs and excitement. Parents receive cheerful calls and assume the transition is complete.
Then the novelty fades. Assignments become serious. Friend groups change. The weather turns. Cooking becomes repetitive. The student may suddenly say, “I don't know if I like it here.”
This does not automatically mean something has gone wrong.
Adjustment is rarely a straight line.
A student can feel confident on Monday and deeply homesick on Thursday. They may love the course and dislike the city, or enjoy friends while struggling academically.
Parents should expect fluctuation rather than demanding a simple answer to “Are you happy?”
Change the questions you ask.
Instead of calling every day to ask whether they ate and studied, try questions that encourage reflection: What was the most interesting thing you learned this week? Who have you met? What has been harder than expected? What problem did you solve yourself?
The conversation begins shifting from supervision to adulthood.
Resist solving every ordinary problem.
A difficult roommate conversation, confusing university form or missed deadline may feel urgent to a parent thousands of kilometres away.
Listen. Help the student think through options. Encourage them to contact the appropriate university office. Let them experience the satisfaction of resolving something themselves.
Know when 'normal adjustment' is no longer enough.
Persistent inability to attend classes, severe isolation, serious health concerns, safety issues or distress that is not improving deserve appropriate attention.
Independence does not mean abandoning a student to serious problems. Encourage use of university counselling, health and support services where appropriate.
Parents have an adjustment period too.
The quiet bedroom at home, fewer calls and the realisation that your child is building a life you cannot see every day can be emotionally difficult.
The first 100 days are therefore a transition for the whole family. The student's independence and the parent's ability to step back develop together.
The first 100 days are not a test of whether your child is happy every day. They are the beginning of learning how to create a life in a new place.
A simple 100-day parent plan
Before departure, agree on communication rather than improvising it. Perhaps there is a regular weekly video call while ordinary messages remain flexible. During the first month, resist interpreting every emotional fluctuation as a verdict on the university. By the second month, encourage routines: classes, meals, exercise, societies and sleep. By the third month, the student should increasingly know where to seek academic, health and administrative help. Parents should know the emergency contacts but should not become the first solution to every ordinary problem.
Questions parents should ask before deciding
• Are we calling to connect or to check?
• Is the student building local support?
• Are difficulties temporary or persistent?
• Does the student know university support services?
• When would we consider a problem serious enough to intervene?
What this means for the family
The purpose of these questions is not to make university planning more complicated. It is to make the family's reasoning more visible. When parents and students can explain the assumptions behind a decision, disagreements become easier to discuss and trade-offs become easier to accept. A thoughtful decision may still involve uncertainty; international education always does. But uncertainty is very different from proceeding without understanding the academic, personal and financial consequences.
Parents also need to remember that the 'best' decision is rarely the one with no disadvantages. Every university, country and career path involves trade-offs. The objective is to identify which advantages matter most, which risks are manageable and which compromises the student and family can live with. That is a more realistic standard than searching for a perfect university.
A final thought for parents
University planning is one of the first major family decisions in which a young person's future, a parent's experience and significant financial commitments meet at the same table. The strongest families do not remove the student's voice, and they do not abandon parental judgment. They create a process in which evidence, values and responsibility can coexist. That approach may not eliminate difficult choices, but it gives the student something more valuable than a perfectly managed application: practice in making consequential decisions well.
Bidyut Advisory Expert Insight
Evaluating academic streams, university choices, and future career pathways requires a personalized strategic roadmap. Schedule a 1-on-1 counseling session with Bidyut Dutta to structure the ideal higher education plan for your child.