“Navigating the independence and autonomy that comes with being away at school can be difficult,” says Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services (CPS) at Fordham. “There’s a whole set of stressors students might experience, such as homesickness, academic pressure, financial demands, and anxiety related to developing new relationships and fitting in.”

Simply put, being a college student today isn’t easy—and there are statistics to back it up: A 2018 American College Health Association study revealed that more than 87% of college students surveyed felt overwhelmed by all they have to do. And more than 40% reported that they were so stressed, it was difficult to function.

“Increasingly, more students arriving on campus have a tendency toward perfectionism,” Ng says. “We have to deconstruct that. It is part of the human experience to err and be fallible. The idea of letting go of perfectionism is really important.”

In addition, Ng adds, overly involved parenting and the pervasiveness of social media and technology are contributing to the rise in anxiety and depression on college campuses nationwide.

So what can parents do to help their children make a smooth, healthy transition and thrive in college?

Talk about what to expect.

Fordham’s orientation programs are designed to help students (and parents) as they make the adjustment to college and a more independent life. But you can also help your student imagine ways they might cope with some of the typical stresses of their first year by talking to them even before they get on campus, Father Marcotte says. These might be practical chats about doing their own laundry or keeping their room or suite clean, or deeper conversations about emotional vulnerabilities like feeling lonely or being disappointed about a test grade.

“We want them to feel that they are the agent of this process and that they are ready to face what’s going to come down the road,” he says. Discuss the fact that it’s normal to feel vulnerable at different times in life and that it’s healthy to seek out support, Ng adds. “Parents can help students identify what resources are available and how to access them if they should ever need help working through an issue.”

Encourage your student to get involved.

One of the most common challenges first-year students face is finding new peer groups and making friends. They also might get so wrapped up in academics that they forget the importance of human connection, play, and downtime.

“Studies show that students who become engaged on campus are usually more successful than those who don’t,” Ng says. So whether your child is into sports, music, journalism, or something else, encourage them to seek out clubs and activities where they can do what they enjoy while building a new social network. An easy way to do this is at the club fairs at the beginning of each semester, so remind them to attend.

Advise them to put social media in its place.

The overuse of technology and social media has been linked to mental health issues, Ng says. It interferes with essential human relationships and can foster low self-esteem by exposing young people to curated versions of other people’s lives.

“They are constantly comparing themselves,” Ng says. “We encourage our students to be more intentional, thoughtful, and discerning about how they perceive and relate to social media,” he adds, something parents should cultivate, too.

Remind them to be kind to themselves.

When students encounter the pitfalls and unexpected obstacles everyone experiences in adulthood, help them adopt a “growth mindset,” Father Marcotte says.

“The best way to build resilience is to see everything from a growth perspective. Even failures, disappointments, and losses hold within them important lessons that teach us how to go forward in a better way,” he adds. Encourage your student to focus on what they can learn from difficult experiences. Practicing generosity and meditation, Father Marcotte says, are other ways to build inner strength and “enlarge the soul.”

Finally, Ng emphasizes the importance of self-compassion and self-care, advising students to remember the basics: exercise, nutrition, and sleep. Fordham’s on-campus fitness centers and registered dietitians can help them get what they need.

Let go and trust them.

By the time your student arrives at college, they already have a moral compass that you have helped build over the years. “We have to trust that,” Ng says. “I know it’s hard to do, but it’s part of letting go.”

Father Marcotte agrees. “Parents need to see that their work is to help their children into ‘interdependence,’ where they remain connected, but the child has the ability to act on his or her own and become a full adult. This is the season for that to begin.”

—Claire Curry

Fordham’s deans of students are always available to talk to parents. If you need advice or would like to schedule a private meeting about any concerns, please reach out to them.

For more information about on-campus resources for students, check out the Quick Links for Parents section of the Fordham website.

For five minutes, they focus on only one thing—the cadence of their breathing—and let the rest of the world fade away.

It’s a key exercise that’s part of a brand new psychology course at Fordham this semester—The Psychology of Personal Well-Being: How to Live a Happy Life, taught by David Marcotte, S.J. Every week, Father Marcotte teaches the students strategies to increase happiness, shows them how to cope effectively with stress, and ties everything back to empirical research on the neuroscience of well-being. He begins class with a five-minute mindful meditation exercise, designed to increase self-awareness and help students hone in on the present moment.

“The main goal is to help them be their best self,” said Father Marcotte, “and use that best self to make a difference in the lives of others—to contribute to the community in a meaningful way.”

College students are in the midst of “emerging adulthood,” he explained. This is often accompanied by emotional and mental distress—not just at Fordham, but at college campuses nationwide. A fifth of college students across the country—among more than 67,000 surveyed students—reported they were stressed or suicidal in the past year, according to a study published last September in the journal Depression & Anxiety. Father Marcotte’s class was created to help combat that, he said.

The Power of Gratitude

As humans, our brains are prewired for negativity; fear and anxiety helped our ancient ancestors survive. But that means we instinctively focus on the negative aspects of our environment, Father Marcotte explained. We also harbor emotions like envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness. They’re normal parts of life, he said, but if we allow them to fester, they make us miserable.

“Negative events are like a sponge. When they get wet, they start getting bigger and bigger,” he said. “And if we’re not doing something to counteract that, the sponge gets so big that it fills our head.”

In his penultimate lecture on Dec. 4, he spoke about how students can overcome negative thinking with a simple yet powerful solution—gratitude. Being thankful is more beneficial than being optimistic, hopeful, or even compassionate when it comes to mental health and satisfaction, he said. Studies have shown that when people practice gratitude through everyday activities like journal writing, they tend to fare better than those who don’t. They cope better with stress, recover from illnesses faster, and view life through a rosier lens.

After the mini-meditation session at the beginning of class, he asked the students to review their homework assignment—a written reflection of four things they’re grateful for—with their peers.

Chantal Chevalier, FCRH ’20, said she was grateful for her 19-year-old sister and her mother, a woman she calls her “best friend” who single-handedly raised two daughters.

“If I don’t tell her I love her before I leave [the house in the morning], something’s wrong,” Chevalier said.

The student sitting behind her, Calli Prifti, FCRH ’19, said she was grateful for her health after almost losing her “second mom.” Last winter, her mother’s best friend suffered a brain aneurysm. She was unresponsive for 10 hours and nearly comatose for a week. Doctors said she might not survive, Prifti recalled. But a year later, she’s alive and well.

“We’re on autopilot so much of the time. We don’t think about what could go wrong,” Father Marcotte told the class. “A car accident an hour from now could paralyze us from the waist down—or neck down—for the rest of our lives. It’s pretty terrifying if you stop and think about it for a second.”

In an open class discussion, students shared the little things they were grateful for: pillows, hot water, the ability to attend college, getting advice on a research proposal, being alone in a normally crowded subway car. But when Father Marcotte left the classroom, the students spoke more candidly about their final thoughts on the new psychology course.

“Before I took this class, I always felt like I was kind of alone in my problems,” said Allie Rutter, FCRH ’19. “That everyone else is so put together and has their life figured out, and I don’t. [But] everyone has been really open, and we’ve all gotten very close as a result of the class,” she concluded, as several students nodded their heads in agreement.

Chevalier called it a “safe space” where students receive helpful, day-to-day strategies supported by something that made a difference to her—empirical data.

“It’s not like a self-help book,” she said. “It’s actual research that has proved that we can improve our well-being and our own happiness.”

Perhaps most important of all, the class—which is also being taught next semester—inspired a new outlook on life for many of the students. Isabella Russo-Tiesi, FCRH ’19, said she used to complain about little things to her friends: presentations, upcoming papers, school. But after everything she experienced this semester—taking the LSAT, spending time with a little girl battling cancer, and learning strategies to improve her well-being—her mindset has matured.

“Without taking this class,” she said, “I would be reacting in the negative ways that I did before.”

Our phones are flooded with alerts and we are compelled to view them all because we feel “FOMO”—the fear of missing out, says Kirk A. Bingaman, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education. Our ability to give someone our full, undivided attention has therefore declined, he said. But he’s found a solution in a common religious practice—something he calls “contemplative spiritual practices.”

“In religious settings, [it’s] what we’ve always done to bring us closer to God, make us more spiritual,” Bingaman said. “In a digital world, we need to also be doing it to preserve the human attentional capacity.”

The practice is one of the major themes in Bingaman’s new book, “Pastoral and Spiritual Care in a Digital Age: The Future Is Now” (2018). In 143 pages, he details the threats and opportunities that advanced technology—including smartphones and social media—brings, and how the digital age has influenced how we define personhood.

The Power of Prayer and Meditation in the Digital Age

All readers—religious and atheist alike—can learn lessons from his book, especially the parts where Bingaman describes how people can preserve and increase their attentional stability in our hectic digital world, he said.

One way to hone our ability to focus is to regularly conduct contemplative spiritual practices, such as centering prayer—a method of meditation where one focuses on a sacred word or a mantra, like the Bible phrase “Do not be anxious,” and silently prays. Ideally, he added, one should pray this way for 20 minutes a day to achieve the desired effect.

Those who are not religious can turn to mindfulness meditation, he said. Instead of focusing on a religious word or phrase, one should focus on the rhythm of their breathing.

Plenty of people can use these practices in their professions, said Bingaman, including pastoral and spiritual care providers, counselors, clergy, chaplains, educators, and clinical care practitioners working with anxious clients.

As he talks about in the book, studies have shown that these mindfulness-based therapy exercises can change the brain for the better. If you practice them regularly, he explained, they have the power to shape the brain’s neural pathways and help stabilize one’s attention. And in the age of technology and digital distractions, he said, these contemplative-meditational practices are becoming comparably important to religious belief and doctrine.  

Technology of the 21st Century

Bingaman’s book doesn’t focus only on the negative aspects of the digital age; he also gives credit to the ways that technology has made our lives easier.

Many of our daily errands are easily completed, thanks to advanced systems like self-checkout stands at the supermarket, cashless toll lanes at tunnels and bridges, and ATMs at the bank, Bingaman said. He added that medical technology, like cochlear hearing implants, can also have life-changing effects. He mentioned that thanks to those little chips, his father, who suffered from a loss of hearing, could once again hear the songbirds that he loved when he was young.

Bingaman also recalled a meeting with his financial adviser, who, thanks to a computer algorithms program, completed a complex procedure in a matter of minutes.

“My advisor’s brilliant, but he said, ‘I can’t even begin to compare to just the speed,’” Bingaman said, snapping his fingers, “‘and [the program]did it more precisely than I could’ve done it. I would’ve spent hours on it.’”

In his book, Bingaman explores this new hybrid humanity—a mix between natural biology and technology—and the theological implications for religious faith communities.

“What constitutes human personhood in an age of increasing technological enhancement?” he asked. “If we’re more and more technologically enhanced, how will we be a reflection of the divine image in the future?”

But at the rate that machine intelligence is advancing, Bingaman stressed, the most important question isn’t about meditation or even machinery: It’s about who we are and who we want to become.

“How do we hold onto our humanity?” he said. “How do we preserve the most precious qualities of human experience, while we have this window of time and opportunity?”

“The caregiver often has things going on in their own life and focusing on the patient’s experience is something we, as caregivers, want to always have on our minds,” said Berry, who graduated in May with a doctorate in ministry from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE).

In April, Berry organized an event at the multispecialty hospital called “Walking the Patient Experience: Labyrinth Meditation,” where she asked staff to reflect on a patient who challenged or inspired them. Afterwards, they were invited to take a walk on a labyrinth, an intricate circular path, on a canvas that was lined with unworn patient socks.

The idea was inspired by lessons she learned in the Foundations in Pastoral and Practical Theology course, taught by Tom Beaudoin, Ph.D., an associate professor of religion, where she explored how objects and everyday materials can be used to promote spiritual growth.

“In chaplaincy, we integrate spirituality, behavioral health, mental health, and emotional health as well as education and holistic care, which looks at the whole person,” said Berry.

“[Labyrinth meditation] was a meaningful way for the spiritual care department to create more awareness about patient experience, to support staff, and to bring to life the sacredness of the hospital space.”

As participants made their journey towards the center of the labyrinth, they could reflect on several things, including a patient’s suffering, how caregivers coped with their patient’s struggles, and how they experience compassion for them as their caregivers.

“When you work with patients for a long time, you get to know them,” said Berry. “If their health deteriorates or they die, sometimes that grief can linger.”

Berry also provided a wooden finger labyrinth for participants who were not able to walk the full-size labyrinth. The small-scale, portable labyrinth allowed them to trace the path to the center with their fingers. Through the exercises, participants reflected on a variety of other personal experiences, she said.

“One of the volunteers shared that when she looks at the four quadrants of the labyrinth, she thinks of the four seasons,” said Berry. “And as she walks through each of them she reflects on the season of [her]life, considering where she has been, where she is, and what may be unfolding next for her in her life.”

Berry views the labyrinth walk as a form of meditation that could inspire hospital staff to slow down and better understand their patients’ diverse needs and perspectives.

“The nice thing about the labyrinth is that it’s interfaith,” she said. “People may understand it as prayer or a contemplative experience to reflect and be aware of their bodies and what it means for their foot to hit the ground. The goal is to allow your body to move through the circles, twists, and turns. And trust that you will get to the center.”