Your Child Is Going to University. Here’s What I Wish Every Parent Knew Before September

Written By: Philippa Charrier

There is a strange moment after your child's university place is confirmed, when excitement quickly turns into logistics. Suddenly there are duvets to buy, bank accounts to sort, accommodation forms to complete and an inexplicably urgent need for three different sizes of saucepan. Parents begin assembling everything their child might possibly need to survive university life, while trying not to think too hard about the fact that, in a few weeks' time, they will actually be leaving.

But after more than a decade working with students, designing and operating student accommodation, and researching the relationship between our environments, behaviour and wellbeing, I have come to believe that some of the most important things we can give our children before university can't be packed into the back of a car.

We spend years preparing young people to get into university. I'm not convinced we spend nearly enough time preparing them to live there.

University asks an enormous amount of an 18-year-old, often almost overnight. For perhaps the first time, they become responsible for their sleep, food, money, laundry, timetable, friendships, exercise, alcohol consumption, workload and wellbeing, while simultaneously trying to make friends, navigate a new city and succeed academically.

That's a lot, and today's students are making that transition in a world that is very different from the one many of their parents encountered.

University has changed

Those of us who went to university twenty or thirty years ago can be guilty of looking back through rose-tinted glasses. We remember late-night conversations around kitchen tables, terrible shared bathrooms, communal television rooms, borrowed food and friendships forged simply because we were constantly bumping into one another.

Today's students often have considerably more sophisticated accommodation. Bedrooms have ensuites, kitchens are sleek and purpose-built developments offer amenities previous generations could only have dreamed of.

But something else has changed too.

A student can now wake up, watch a lecture online, order food to their door, message friends through a screen, study in their bedroom, watch Netflix and go to sleep without having had a single meaningful face-to-face conversation all day.

We have engineered an extraordinary level of convenience into modern life. But convenience isn't necessarily the same thing as wellbeing.

Parents have good reasons to pay attention. A 2025 House of Commons Library briefing cites a Student Minds survey in which 57% of respondents reported a mental health issue, while 27% said they had a diagnosed mental health condition. Loneliness is a significant part of the picture too: recent UK research found that 36% of university students experience loneliness weekly, while 23% experience it chronically.

Those figures matter. But I think we make a mistake if our only response is to ask: What's wrong with our young people?

Perhaps we should also be asking:

What has changed about the world we're asking them to live in?

Today's students aren't inherently less resilient than we were. They are the first generation to arrive at university having grown up entirely in a world of smartphones, social media, algorithms, instant gratification and constant connectivity. They can be surrounded by people digitally while being physically alone. They can compare themselves with hundreds of other lives before they've even got out of bed.

That doesn't make them weak. It means the environment has changed and thriving within it requires a different set of skills.

Don't underestimate where they live

As someone who has spent years designing student homes, this is perhaps the piece of advice I most wish parents heard:

Accommodation isn't just where your child sleeps. It shapes how they live.

Buildings influence behaviour in hundreds of small ways that we barely notice. A welcoming shared kitchen can encourage someone to leave their bedroom. A communal table creates an opportunity to sit down with another person. A shared entrance or staircase creates tiny, unplanned encounters: the hello on the landing, the cup of tea while someone is cooking, the "are you coming out tonight?" that can grow into a relationship.

Good daylight helps regulate our body clocks. A quiet, dark bedroom supports sleep. Somewhere convenient to store a bike can make movement easier. A kitchen people actually enjoy being in makes cooking and eating together more likely.

Conversely, an environment can make isolation incredibly easy.

This is why I would never choose student accommodation on Instagram appeal alone.

Parents are understandably attracted to words such as premium, luxury and private. A studio with its own bathroom and kitchenette can look like the ultimate upgrade. For some students, particularly those with specific needs, it may absolutely be the right choice. But for many first-year students, I would think very carefully about how much privacy is actually helpful.

When you're looking at accommodation, ask different questions. Is there good natural light? Can the bedroom become properly dark at night? Is there somewhere students will genuinely want to sit together? Does the kitchen invite people to cook and eat, rather than simply heat something up and disappear? Can they walk easily to university? Are there places where students naturally cross paths?

And perhaps most importantly:

If my child felt lonely in week two, what would help them in this environment?

Privacy matters. But so does connection. The best student accommodation should provide both.

Prepare them for the wobble

One of the most useful conversations you can have before university is also one of the simplest:

It might not be amazing immediately.

Freshers' Week is sold as an instant explosion of friendship and fun. Social media reinforces the idea that everyone else has found their people within approximately 48 hours.

Real life is messier.

Some students arrive and love it immediately. Others cry in their bedroom. Some dislike their flatmates. Some feel homesick. Some wonder whether they've chosen the wrong course, the wrong accommodation or the wrong university. Some call home convinced that everyone else has made friends except them.

Tell them before they go that this can happen. A difficult Tuesday in Freshers' Week doesn't predict the next three years of their life. Friendships take time. New places feel strange before they feel like home. Confidence often comes from repeatedly doing things that initially feel uncomfortable.

At the same time, there is a difference between a normal transition wobble and a young person who is genuinely struggling. Persistent withdrawal, hopelessness, significant changes in eating or sleeping, or a child who simply doesn't seem themselves shouldn't automatically be dismissed as "normal student life". Encourage them to use the support available through their university or GP when they need it.

Give them an operating manual for their own body

When I wrote Student Thrive Mode, I wanted to give students something surprisingly few young people are ever explicitly taught: a basic operating manual for their own brain and body.

We talk a great deal about mental health, but far less about the everyday biological foundations that help support it.

I organise these around six pillars: Mind. Breathe. Move. Fuel. Connect. Sleep.

They sound almost too simple. But that's the point.

Sleep isn't wasted time. It supports memory, learning, emotional regulation and performance. Movement isn't just about fitness or going to the gym; it affects mood, cognition, stress and brain health. Food isn't simply calories; a student's brain and body need the raw materials to function, which is why teaching them three or four cheap, simple meals before they leave is more useful than it might sound.

Learning to slow and control the breath gives students a practical tool for regulating themselves before an exam, presentation or difficult conversation. Connection matters because human beings are profoundly social creatures: a WhatsApp group isn't the same as sitting opposite someone, and a hundred likes aren't the same as having somebody who really knows you.

And mindset matters because university will involve rejection, mistakes, disappointing marks, awkward social encounters and uncertainty. Learning that discomfort and failure aren't catastrophes, but part of growth may be one of the most valuable lessons university gives them.

None of these things guarantees perfect mental health, nor are they a replacement for professional support when someone needs it.

They are foundations.

Talk about loneliness before they're lonely

We talk to teenagers before university about money, sex, alcohol, personal safety and studying. I think we should add loneliness to that list.

Not because we want to frighten them, but because it is much easier to recognise something when you've already talked about it.

Tell them that if they feel lonely in the first few weeks, it doesn't mean everyone else has found their tribe, and they haven't. Encourage them to join something early: a society, sport, volunteering group, course social or club, even if walking into a room full of strangers feels uncomfortable.

And remind them that friendships rarely arrive fully formed. They grow from repeated, often slightly awkward encounters: saying yes to an invitation, sitting with someone new, suggesting a coffee or simply starting a conversation.

It may feel uncomfortable at first. That's normal. Connection takes effort before it becomes effortless.

Resist the urge to rescue

This may be the hardest lesson for parents.

When your child phones and says they're miserable, every parental instinct screams: fix it.

Sometimes they absolutely will need your help. But sometimes what they need is for you to remain calm enough for them to find their own solution.

Listen before solving. Instead of immediately telling them what to do, try asking, "What do you think you could do?"

University isn't only an academic education. It is an apprenticeship in adulthood. They need the security of knowing you're there without feeling that every uncomfortable experience requires parental intervention. The confidence that comes from solving a problem yourself is difficult to acquire if somebody always gets there first.

And prepare yourself

We don't talk enough about this side of university.

Your child may be excitedly packing their bedroom while you are quietly contemplating an empty chair at the kitchen table.

Sending a child to university is a transition for parents too. The relationship changes. They need you differently. You have to learn when to step in and when to stand back.

There will probably be messages that go unanswered, calls made primarily when they need money and photographs suggesting they're having the time of their lives without you.

This is, in a slightly painful way, exactly what you've been preparing them for.

What I most want parents to know

Your child does not need to arrive at university knowing exactly who they are, what they want or how to do adulthood. They are going there partly to find out.

What we can do is make sure they understand what human beings need to function well: sleep, movement, nourishing food, connection, daylight, periods away from screens, ways of regulating stress and environments that support rather than undermine those behaviours.

Today's students are growing up in an environment that asks very different things of their brains and bodies: constant connectivity, constant comparison, endless stimulation, reduced movement and fewer unavoidable face-to-face interactions.

Sometimes, thriving in the modern world requires being deliberately human.

So yes, buy the duvet.

Buy the pans.

Buy the laundry basket they will almost certainly overfill.

But alongside all the things you're packing for them, send them with something more valuable: an understanding of how to look after themselves, permission for university not to be perfect, and the confidence that when life inevitably wobbles, they have the tools to find their feet again.

Because the goal isn't simply to get them through university.

It's to help them learn how to thrive there and long after they've left.

Philippa Charrier is an author, keynote speaker and student wellbeing advocate with a background in architectural and urban design. Co-founder of FAT Properties and author of two Amazon bestselling books, Designed for Wellbeing and Student Thrive Mode, she has become known as a “Mum on a Mission” for student wellbeing, exploring how our environments and everyday behaviours can help young people thrive.