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Did you prepare your kids to be good college roommates?
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Replies to: Did you prepare your kids to be good college roommates?
He also has very high expectations of his friends. He’s been lucky in high school to have found like minds and boys who really have each other’s backs. It’s going to take time for him to forge relationships like these and he will need to be patient.
=D>
Thanks, college credit is always welcome!
As for S19, well I hope the roommate matching works out better for him. I think he'll be a good roommate as he's a considerate and kind person if not terribly tidy. I may ask D to help him fill out his roommate form. She being a college student has a more realistic idea of annoying roommate behaviors. I was clearly clueless and no help to her when she filled out her roommate form. There were no questions about sex but there was about TV for example. It never occurred to us that someone would bring a TV and watch it at college. Or gaming, like video-gaming. Didn't know that was a thing either. Didn't realize the importance of having some minor overlap in tastes in music and movies.
Or the roommate that spends every night in the dorm room, maybe with a friend (not necessarily bf or gf), can come to take over more than their fair share of the room. How do you teach giving other people space or being aware of cliques? It's not just about tidiness.
I asked her if she'd like me to get her "The Naked Roommate", to which she responded "Books?! I don't need no stinkin' book!"
Well, what she actually said was "I don't want to be THAT person, who learned how to live with a roommate from a book. I'll go in blind, like everybody else". I can't wait for the year to start, and listen to her complaining about her roommate, to which I will reply, in my most reasonable fatherly tones "it's not so bad, you could have been THAT person, aren't you glad that you're not?"...
My daughter met her roommate on the FB group. They were able to talk for a few weeks before deciding to be roommates. Neither one drank so this eliminated the possibility of significant drinking related problems. D’s school has suites, and the suite was pretty quiet both years that she was on campus.
As far as boyfriends, my D told me that her freshman year roommate occasionally had her out of town boyfriend stay over ( maybe 3-4 times all year), but the roommate told my D ahead of time not to leave...he would be sleeping on the floor. My D didn’t seem to mind and it was never a problem for her.
I agree that these things need to be discussed ahead of time, and many schools have roommate contracts. I never really inquired about any of these details...I figured if there were any issues my D would figure them out or at least complain to me. I never heard any major complaints.
For my daughter, the biggest issue was learning how to handle things that got on her nerves after awhile. It’s bound to happen, even if you love your roommate. Some things don’t seem like a big deal when you are “interviewing” potential roommates, so they get ignored. For example, my D is an early riser...even on the weekends. Her roommate slept until 12:00 or later on Saturday and Sunday. This made D crazy as she had to tiptoe around, could not turn on the light, etc. She learned to adapt and realized she had a great roommate, despite the differences in sleep habits. I guess she learned how to compromise with a roommate, which is something she really never had to do at home but is certainly an important skill to have in college...and life.
Her first two roommates, who arrived two weeks earlier than she did freshman year, were unfriendly. She eventually moved out of that room to a single because it was such a bad experience. She then went to a double and has remained friends with that roommate to now, and for junior and senior years has shared an apartment with three others. There is some drama but not too bad, imho, a great learning experience.
As for the slob part, turns out she really isn't when compared to others her age. She is disgusted by the filth in the kitchen and bathrooms in her apartment and is the one who does the cleaning. That's a proud moment lol.
I find the whole "sexiling" thing rude. Worse than that, I think anyone who can have sex with another person in these small dorm rooms borders on slutty or worse. I was very clear with my D that if she had a roommate who tried to sexile her, she was to fight back. If they went so far as to be intimate in the room while she was there she should stand over the bed and stare at them until they felt more uncomfortable than she did. If that didn't work, she should call me. I was not paying $8K/year for her to have to put up with that crap.