Prior to this class, my parents and I had never really mastered positive communication skills. Even by my senior year, I still felt that my parents were being far too overprotective and unfair to me. I felt that my parents were truly violating many of my assertive rights addressed in the “Assertiveness training” article by McKay, Davis, and Fanning. My ability for me to be the final judge of my feelings, my freedom to change my mind and negotiate change, and being allowed to feel and express pain were all being repressed because of the way my parents were treating me (McKay, Davis & Fanning, 1995). I approached them using nearly every mechanism I knew (excepting assertiveness) yet my curfew was still the same as it had been my sophomore year, when I made last minute plans with friends they would become extremely frustrated and rarely allowed me to go out if a location or group of people had been altered. Most maddening was their tendency to ignore me when I tried to express my disappointment in their treatment of me. My grades were great, I was active in sports, student council, and my church; yet my social life continually suffered because of their lack of understanding, or what I thought was their lack of understanding.
After going through “assertiveness training” in HOD, I realized that although I had tried many approaches they had all fallen into either the “passive” or “aggressive” category, none of them even bordering on assertive statements. My most common argument consisted of me telling my parents that their over protectiveness was going to result in my complete and utter rebellion in college—obviously too aggressive. Even though I was honestly concerned that I would be overwhelmed in college and turn into the alcoholic party type, blaming this on my parents was obviously not the right solution. Often times I would just submit to their demands and not tell them how I really felt, much too passive and equally as ineffective. When I went home for Thanksgiving Break, I was concerned that everyone else’s parents would accept them as college students and I would be the only one with a looming midnight curfew. I decided to confront my parents about it and did so in a very assertive manner. I let them know that all my close friends and many of the other kids my age had parents who let them determine their own curfew and that, given the freedom I would always return at a reasonable hour. I let them know that I felt they had been unfair in the past and did not want to risk the injustice I felt harming our relationship. Finally, I suggested that we extend my curfew until 2am and then go from there. Surprisingly my parents were very receptive. They let me know that some of their lack of understanding had come from me not expressing my feelings clearly and that what I perceived as there insensitivity was actually just parental instinct and fear for my safety. I made it clear that I was not criticizing their parenting but just felt that change was necessary. The change was implemented and now I have nearly complete reign on my time of return when I am at home.
Growth and Development
The one thing that has changed most dramatically and is most obvious to me since arriving at Vanderbilt is the complete shift in my identity status. Back at home I resided somewhere between foreclosure and diffusion, content in my rigorous coursework and extracurriculars that took up nearly all my time. I had decided to go into business, much like my father who constantly suggested that I would excel in the field, and making changes to the structure my life was in never occurred to me. Because Vanderbilt did not offer a business major and I really enjoy working with others I decided to major in HOD. I took an Economics class and a Spanish class to satisfy some requirements but found myself completely fascinated. I completely shifted gears and realized that maybe I would end up in the business field but more likely on the consulting end. I now have decided completely on my own and because of my passion for it that I will likely double major in HOD and Economics with a minor in Spanish. Four months ago, this never ever would have occurred to me. My career interests seemed to skip right over the moratorium stage and move on to achievement as I find myself very happy with my own choices and invested in these pursuits. Career Weekly magazine suggests, “Understanding your own desires is important because your career won’t just be the source of your income… let your passions and interests guide you to a good career choice” (Wallis, 2002). I believe that HOD has let me realize how important interpersonal skills are and that the path I have chosen will allow me to do what I love working with people and at the same time apply my analytical thinking and familiarity with managing resources.
On a social level, I have also shifted dramatically. At home, my social goals were very limited because my time was so structured and my friends had remained the same since the sixth grade. I never felt a desire for status or popularity, and fear of rejection or abandonment by my close friends never crossed my mind. This is likely why the first few days at Vanderbilt were completely shocking and somewhat traumatizing. I found myself in need of the social support system that had been so available to me at home. I was uncertain of myself, completely out of my element in the unstructured and new setting of college life. Unconsciously I began using some of the strategies for social development, most obviously courage as I found myself having to be more assertive and occasionally even aggressive in trying to talk to and meet people that I could be compatible with in a friendship setting. My social development directly affected my having to re-establish a sense of identity and core beliefs about myself. My self-concept, paralleling the idea of the “looking glass self” was pushed in an entirely new direction. At home, I had a good sense of myself as a reflection of how others saw me, but upon arriving here, I was forced to enter a stage of reflection because I was not sure of how others perceived me. Self-concept directly affects self-esteem, which has always played a huge role in my life. I am not extremely self-conscious but I have never found myself feeling truly confident in my actions or motives.
Psychologists suggest that there are three main models of self-esteem (Osborne, 2001). The first relies on social acceptance, which is the first major obstacle college students encounter. Another model, the competencies model, proposes that self-esteem is based on competence in certain areas of life, an idea that is also reflected in the goals of the internal working model. This model was especially important to me as I set high academic and social goals for myself upon arriving at college. Finally, the third model known as the “culture of self-worth model” advises that a culture promoting focus on the self ultimately leads to elevated self-esteem. I have found this to be the most challenging aspect of self-esteem and self-efficacy. Trying to look inside myself and see potential and confidence was hard enough in the high school setting where I was almost constantly successful. Not knowing how I would fair once I arrived here was terrifying. Once of the reasons I set one of my goals as “being aware of and open to experiences” at the beginning of the semester was because I knew that college was going to provide me with so many new and exciting situations socially, academically, and morally. My favorite movie of all time, “Almost Famous” contains a line that is the living motto of my life. “It’s all happening!” This quote makes me realize that whether you decide to acknowledge or partake in life is your choice completely. Before setting this goal, I knew that being open to these experiences and being able to analyze them and be honest with myself about mistakes would be very beneficial to my college experience. John Mayer’s newest album “Heaver Things” contains some of the most influential and reflective lyrics I have heard in a long time. One song in particular, “Clarity” has a verse in it that is particularly representative of how I want to achieve this goal. It reads, “By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone, but I will bend the light pretending that it somehow lingers on.” Realizing that moments can have such impact is an enlightening thought, but more important is “bending the light” afterwards to be able to have them continue and be analyzed in your memory. I have made a conscious effort to achieve this goal and have found that pursuing this goal has definitely heightened the learning experience in all aspects of college life. I have actually gotten back into some writing even though I am not taking any writing courses and have kept a sort of journal about college experiences and new philosophies and ideas I have encountered since I have been at Vanderbilt. The HOD class has actually made analyzing and expressing my experiences effortless and rewarding.
Once my social support system was established here at school through making friends my ability to cope with being so far from home was definitely increased. Learning to deal with separation from my parents and brother, however, has been markedly more difficult. I believe that I had a very secure attachment to both my parents and that I was considerably more differentiated than many of my peers due to my parents’ authoritative parenting style. This made the transition to college bearable, but still painful. As is suggested by Bowen in the “Family Systems Theory” lecture notes, a family truly is “an emotional unit of interlocking relationships with the individuals as a part of that unit rather than as autonomous psychological entities.” My immediate family was very close to me and I had established myself in the context of my family and was very comfortable in my role as the hero child. This had a very apparent effect on me as I find myself constantly trying to help others and constantly pressuring myself to do well at college, as if I can compensate for no longer serving that role within the household. At home, I was much closer to my father, perhaps because he played a very assertive role within the family unit. My mother and I maintained a somewhat “professional” relationship with her usually maintaining passivity because of our almost constant conflict. My father who was aggressive in pointing out my wrongdoings ultimately ended up playing much more of a supporter role than my mother did. Research has been done showing that self-esteem appears to be linked to attachment to fathers, especially considering the realms of the affective quality of the relationship as well as their source of support, which indicates self-esteem is associated with conflictual independence from fathers (McCurdy & Sherman, 1996). I find myself needing to talk almost daily with my father because simply discussing my day and choices I have made with him helps me feel more in control of myself, in addition to the fact that he is very supportive of my goals and reinforces my potential and what I should strive for.
Relating to my family and home life is my spirituality and relationship with God, which has been constantly in question for me during this transitional period in my life. I was raised in a strict Catholic environment and was a faithful churchgoer and youth leader in my church community. Since arriving at school, I have only attended church a few times and I have found that my relationship with God was not as strong as I had originally thought. One of my goals for personal improvement was integrating spirituality into my life. I chose this goal because I had never been fully satisfied with my faith. I have always been able to turn to God and I enjoy that stability, however, I believe that becoming more spiritual overall would be more beneficial to me than trying to continue practicing my sometimes overwhelming faith. In pursuing this goal, I have found myself reflecting more, on both values and morals. As an inspiration to explore my faith I have been reading excerpts from the Bible and have started a journal of biblical quotes that I find meaningful and applicable to my life. Especially inspirational is a quote found in Matthew 14:31, “You of little faith,' he said, 'why did you doubt?'” I often doubt myself and this quote made me realize that faith and spirituality could help me to be surer of myself. I have been praying more, and for me prayer allows me to turn over in my head ideas and actions that I might have otherwise overlooked as troubling me. A side effect of my increased spirituality has been finding more good in people than previously. I think that exposure to the idea of spirituality in some of the HOD lectures and discussions led to me the fact that it really is an important part of who I am. I hope to continue to explore my faith and practice religion while at the same time focusing a lot more on spiritual experiences and spiritual growth in others and myself.
