Our household is officially one person less, now that our oldest has moved into his college dorm. He’d been increasingly independent the last year, and especially this t, what with all the working, running, and hanging out in his room with his brothers he did, so I’m feeling his absence mostly at meals and in the kitchen in general (all that running garnered a huge appetite), in the late evenings (he’d usually hang out with us for a bit to watch TV or whatever), and at night (with his empty bed). My husband is missing his sports-talk buddy (thank goodness for texting!), and my older boys especially are missing a dear friend (again, thank goodness for texting! It did my heart good to hear my second oldest bursting out in peals of laughter while texting with his big brother the other night).
One of the resources I found helpful over the last year and currently, when trying to wrap my mind around this huge life change for my boy and for our whole family, was the Facebook group for parents of students at the college. There were several new posts a day over the last six months or so, almost entirely by new or prospective college parents, and answers were given by other new/prospective parents or by veteran parents, some of whom are also college employees. What a wealth of information that group provided!
Some of the bits of wisdom that rose to the surface for me, which I thought you all might find helpful, whether you have a child heading to college soon or not for years, included:
The settling process will take six to eight weeks (or longer)
As someone who wants to know exactly when things should happen (I distinctly remember asking my mom, when I was pregnant with my oldest, exactly when I could expect him to start sleeping through the night), I found great comfort in a post from a couple of years ago by writer/speaker Amy Betters-Midtvedt that was shared by a current parent in my college parent group. Betters-Midtvedt (hidingintheclosetwithcoffee.com) wrote from the perspective of a parent who’d already been through freshman year with one of her kids, and noted, “A good rule is to make them stay put for at least six to eight weeks, especially if they are having a hard time. Yes, this will basically feel like forever to both you and your miserable child. But something happens around the 6-week mark.” It’s important to note that six weeks and even eight weeks wasn’t long enough for me to feel settled — I was well in to the second semester of my freshman year before I felt like I had finally found “my people” (who are still my people); also, Midtvedt acknowledged that there are definitely exceptions to this rule, especially in regard to mental health struggles. But generally speaking, I found this timeframe — and the additional advice to resist going to “rescue” your child until and unless they’d really given it “the old college try” (literally!) — reassuring.
Encourage your child to self-advocate
One of the women in the group is a mom of two current students, and also works on campus in a position that involves a lot of interaction with students. Right before the semester started, she shared that “the most valuable thing we can do for our children is to help them self-advocate.” She said she’d been fielding phone calls from worried parents as the summer went on and her answer to each of them was to have their child contact her. She sought to reassure us all that her role — and the role of everyone on campus — is to provide any help and information the students need, but that it’s imperative that the students ask for it themselves. In general, I completely agree that learning how to “speak up for themselves, constructively ON THEIR OWN” (in the words of the poster; emphasis hers) is one of the best ways to learn, grow, and become independent. (I still reserve the right to step in, though, as I’ve seen a person’s youth work against them in interactions with older adults, which can be so frustrating.)
It will almost certainly be fine
A few parents jumped on Facebook to post notes of reassurance for the parents of incoming freshmen — they were all veteran parents of sophomores or older who wanted to assure the new parents that, though it might seem like this transition period will always be devastating and will never get better, it actually does. My favorite posts were the ones that shared about students who had really struggled during their freshman year — those who had had a really hard time adjusting and making friends — but who ultimately did and were ecstatic to be going back for their second (or whichever) year. There was even one parent who posted to say that the group had gotten her through the hard part of sending her child off to college and the subsequent freshman year, but that now that her child was a well-adjusted sophomore, the mom wanted to thank us all and let us know she’d be leaving the group, as it had served its purpose for her.
I’ll admit that, at this point, I’m having a hard time putting myself in the shoes of a mom whose child has successfully and happily finished his freshman year, so it’s a bit of a leap of faith to believe that will be me next summer (even though my own mom went through it with me and my siblings and it happened just the way the veteran parents in my current college group have said). I’ve always liked to look at those who have come before as proof that hard things can be survived and do pass (how many times during my motherhood have I looked to the older moms I know and clung to the fact that it hadn’t killed them!), and I’m trusting that these veteran parents know what they’re talking about. I look forward to chiming in next summer with my own reassurance and advice for the new/prospective parents!
Kate and her husband have seven sons ages 17, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, and 3. Email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
