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A father's grief: James Dungy 1987-2005

Letting go, but holding a lifeline

Parents have a delicate job as their teens leave home: letting them try - and sometimes fail - yet being ready with support.

By LEONORA LaPETER
Published December 24, 2005

When a teenager leaves home to live alone, it is a time of great stress for both parents and the teen.

For the first time, the teen must learn to bear all the responsibilities of daily life. The parents must figure out how much support to give while learning to let go of the child they have raised.

James Dungy, 18, was living on his own in a Lutz apartment, 1,000 miles from his parents in Indianapolis. While the events that led to his death are not known, experts say the first year away from home can be fraught with anxiety for any teen or parent.

"Very few kids are adequately prepared for what they meet," said Berney Wilkinson, a licensed school psychologist for the University of South Florida. "They're well-known at high school and they know their teachers, and then they go (away) and they get lost in the shuffle. There's no one there to make sure they're getting done all the things they have to get done for their day-to-day life."

Many will be unable to juggle the demands of managing their finances and working or going to school. Others will struggle with separation from family and friends.

Allison Schnur, 19, of St. Petersburg, knows all too well how hard that first year away can be. Before she graduated from St. Petersburg High School, Schnur played softball, soccer and golf, participated in innumerable service clubs and carried a straight A average in advanced placement classes.

But during her first semester at the University of Florida in Gainesville, she missed her family and struggled to find a niche at the 50,000-student school. She would go to classes and come home and sleep. Her mother, Kate Schnur, worried about depression.

"I'm trying to be her mom, but I'm trying to let her do as much as she can on her own," said Schnur, a pediatric nurse. "She's pulling out of it now, but the lowest point of her life was in October and September. Her freshman year has been so stressful, and I thought I should probably go get her, but then I wondered what that would teach her."

Child behavior specialists say parents need to stand by their children at trying times, letting them make some mistakes but being there for them if things get really bad.

"It's very important to call and keep in contact with your child," said Jan Faull, a parenting expert from Seattle. "However, if your gut is telling you something is wrong, listen to your gut."

Allison Schnur said she's still trying to find her way, and she has thought often of coming home and transferring to the University of South Florida.

"The hardest is going somewhere without your friends because you have this huge comfort zone and everything you've ever known your entire life and it's just taken away," Schnur said. "And you're expected to take everything you've learned and everything you've become and use that, but with nothing to like back you up. I fully understand the little birdie getting kicked out of the nest metaphor."

Experts say students who have been given increasing amounts of independence in their middle school and high school years - such as learning how to cook meals or do their own laundry - fare better in that first year away from home. Those who have had everything done for them struggle the most.

Brittani McKenna, stepdaughter of USF psychologist Berney Wilkinson and a student at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, said she has watched one or two of her friends fall behind in their work, start skipping classes and turn to partying.

"A few of them tell me, "Well, my mom woke me up in the morning, I never had an alarm clock,' " she said. "They say, "I always had my parents do everything. They washed my clothes.' They had to take a seminar on laundry washing."

David Sevener, 19, said he learned how to cook and do laundry long before he graduated high school in St. Petersburg last June. He moved to Orlando and got a job scheduling photo appointments for the Auto Trader car selling business.

He quickly learned some hard lessons about being responsible. In October, he bought a money order for his $425 rent and accidentally left the check in the machine. When he came back, it was gone. That same day, his car was towed.

"I had to make up for it and pay late fees (to the landlord)," he said. "It was hard work for a couple of months. There have been some challenges, but if you deal with it, you can learn from it."

Wilkinson says it is important for parents to let go that first year, but not entirely.

"The biggest pitfall I see is that when parents see their kids going away, they kind of let them go and they call every once in a while and other than that, they have very little to do with the day-to-day," he said. "But depending on how their parents prepared them, that kind of separation can cause a great deal of stress for kids. Now all of a sudden, the person who made sure they had three meals a day and they were wearing the right clothes to school, that person's not there."

Allison Schnur said her struggle has been more about losing her family, friends and childhood than dealing with the schoolwork and managing on her own.

"I think it's the realization that everything you've been sheltered from and knowing why your parents want to shelter you from it," she said. "And knowing you can't go back in time to where you were comfortable and happy. You have to move forward. And it's not really a want. It's you have to."

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report.

[Last modified December 24, 2005, 01:37:38]