Mom Warns Kids College Is Like Hogwarts But With More Harassment and Less Magic
KEY POINTS
- •Rachel Garlinghouse, a decade-long college teacher and mother of four including one dual-enrolled student, advises parents on freshman prep.
- •She urges kids to communicate directly with professors, take self-defense classes to combat campus risks, and set personal boundaries early.
- •Garlinghouse emphasizes prioritizing mental health and encourages seeking college support to survive and thrive beyond just good grades.
Rachel Garlinghouse, a college instructor and mom of four who somehow manages a kid dual-enrolled in high school and college, has seen over 1,000 students lose—and occasionally find—their minds. Her crash course for parents includes teaching freshmen the sacred art of directly emailing professors instead of having helicopter parents gossip in academic DMZs. She recommends self-defense classes to dodge not only bad vibes but actual campus-level threats like stalking and phone burglaries, which brochures conveniently omit. Garlinghouse stresses boundaries like no staying up past 11 p.m. if you want to survive 8 a.m. math. And yes, mental health checks trump grades—because apparently, depression doesn’t care if you passed Calculus.
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(1 of 3)Parents: Teach your kids to email profs without enlisting a SWAT team, dodge creeps without turning dorms into Ibiza, and say no harder than their worst Tinder dates.
College prep tip: Sending your kid off without a self-defense class and email lessons is basically enrolling them in stress camp.
If your kid’s college plan is just 'sleep in, binge TikTok, cry at midterms' then congrats—you’re about to fund a GPA disaster.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 7/18/2026 | Author: Rachel Garlinghouse
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