A fourth-year college student panics in face of the final thesis. Suddenly, the whole family is embroiled in the drama: libraries are scoured, the computer is permanently online, and parents are expected to provide not only tea and sympathy, but academic advice as well.

Or your student is floundering, as so many do, in their first year at third level. Three projects are suddenly due within as many days, they're too embarrassed to ask their lecturer for advice at this stage - can one of you help?

"The Leaving" dominates second-level schooling to such a degree that many parents assume that this is as bad as it gets. Once your children have scaled that peak, you assume they can climb every mountain.

But a surprise awaits you: many college-age children look for active help with their schoolwork too. Did you think it was all behind you after you'd helped build that model of a rain forest in fifth class? Downloaded several hundred pages of information on social structures of suburban Samoa in second-year secondary? Think again. This feels like a new phenomenon. Many parents in their middle years who went to college can't imagine admitting to their parents that they'd left it to the last minute to tackle a paper or a project or didn't know what they had to do. At college age, you were expected to manage work by yourself - so you'd just wing it and hope for the best.

Is it that parents nowadays are more understanding and approachable? Or better educated and therefore better able to provide that help? Or that children expect to be spoon-fed and mollycoddled?

More to the point, how far should you go to help your third-level student? You may believe in theory in promoting independence and self-reliance: faced with a distraught 18, 19, even twentysomething child, it is hard not to do whatever you can to help.

You may be lucky if they're studying cyberscience, Russian semiotics or that mystifyingly difficult actuarial science - and you can't possibly offer any useful advice whatsoever. Otherwise, prepare to brush up your Shakespeare.

Dr Aidan Moran, lecturer in psychology at UCD and author of a book on how to study at third level, says there is a tendency for parents to do a fair bit of hand-holding when their children are in their first year. "I'd be surprised if they were still helping in third or fourth year; the danger is that a student would become too reliant."

All the same, he says, parents can have a constructive role to play in supporting their college students, and that being willing to help is a sign of concern, not just another thing to feel guilty about.

First-year college students, in particular, may need a lot of support. Both Moran and John Whyte of the National Parents Council (Post-Primary) make the point that the transition from second- to third-level education is a major one. "First year is very critical," Moran says, "and there have been very few studies made of this massive transition."

This is especially true for arts students, who are faced with hours of unstructured freedom.

Students in first year "need support and understanding" says Whyte, who admits to helping research college projects that interested him. "The amount of guidance available at third level is minimal," he says, especially in contrast with the hothouse, force-fed environment of students' final year of school.

The huge drop-out rate in first year is something bodies like the Points Commission are examining, Whyte says. He firmly believes that both primary and post-primary students should be better prepared for the massive changes they face as they move to the next level of their education.

In the meantime, there are practical things parents can do, Moran says. "Parents have to know that at third level, their children must manage their own learning. In school, they are taught what to learn; there should be more emphasis on learning techniques."

One simple thing that parents can do, he says, is to get their children to talk about what they're learning, perhaps by getting them to chat about their subjects over dinner. (If met with a low snarl, however, back off quickly.)

The point of this exercise is to get students to think about what they're learning, to realise what they don't understand and to be more confident about asking for help in college if they need it. Many first-year students "are really reluctant to stand up and talk in tutorials - they're afraid of making mistakes".

The fact is that there is guidance available in college if pupils know where to find it and are confident enough to do so. "There is always somebody responsible for a year, available at stated times; if not, students can go to their department head." Typically, of course, a student might refuse to look for help because he or she has left a project to the 11th hour and won't admit it. In this situation, a parent can help by getting down to basics.

Work backwards, says Moran. Ask: When is the deadline? How many words long does it have to be? What are the terms of reference? "A lot of the time, students may be confused, don't even know who gave the project - they may have missed a class, been told about it by another student - and start to work away at a tangent without ever checking the basics."

Ask the student to explain what's involved in the project, if he has seen an example of the kind of essay demanded (available, most likely, in the college library), if he has handed in a draft to the tutor. At the very least, these questions may clarify how much a student knows and how much he or she doesn't.

Moran doesn't say, but it does go without saying - try really hard to be non-confrontational when you have these little chats. (Your student is likely to have enough attitude for both of you - your job is to stay calm, v-e-rr-y calm.) And a last tip: resist the temptation to produce reams of information from the Internet, a common temptation for both parents and students. "Wellmeaning parents will think their child is just looking for information," Moran says, "when what they really need to learn is how to think critically and find relevant information."

Managing Your Own Learning at University by Aidan Moran is published by UCD Press, and should be available in most bookshops (£5.95).