Anyone Deal With Sibling Upset Over Sibling Going Away To College?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>My 8 year old son is not happy about his sister going away to college. We had a calendar to check the dates off until my daughter’s decision notice, and on the date where it said “We find out if she gets accepted”, he erased it and put “She will be told she is not excepted” and a smile face. (I know, laughing at the spelling). </p>

<p>She is his only sibling. He wants her to tuck him in at night the same as we do. He’s flat out stated that he hopes that she does not get accepted because he does not want her to go away. He is also now saying that he does not want to go to college because he doesn’t want to leave me. </p>

<p>I guess I should note that there have been some deaths in the family and life threatening illnesses that have likely made my son more aware of loss than other children his age. A couple of years ago, he came home from school to find me hospitalized and he did not see me for 3 days and we were afraid that I would die. After we were all back home, he did not want to go to school out of fear of leaving me.</p>

<p>Although our daughter will have to live in the dorm, the college is not so far away that she could not come home on weekends. While we are open to her coming home on weekends, I think realistically that it will not be every weekend. More like one weekend a month. </p>

<p>I did tell him that we will still see her, and I am planning to get each of us a webcam so that he can see her on screen, but I would like some advice on how others handled this.</p>

2

<p>D2, who is 14, is very upset over D1’s looming departure for college next fall. I love that they are so close and wouldn’t choose the alternative of younger one being neutral or even glad of her sister’s departure. But I am concerned. I think D2 will quickly find an up side to being in only child status.</p>

3

<p>Whatapain, we went through a similar situation. My son is nine this year, the year his sister is a college freshman, (so 8 in her senior year) and they lost two grandparents her senior year, including one two days before she received the acceptance that she chose. It was very, very tough for him. He was worried sick about what his life would be without her there, would she forget him, would she be safe, all sorts of things went through his head. He started a new school the week after she left, so that was doubly tough. He was inconsolable when she left (frankly, so was I). What we did was to give him an AIM screen name so they could chat at specified times and I nagged her shamelessly to call him. She comes home about once a month and we went up there once and he got to see her room all set-up and was made much of by her friends, so he is now ok. It is easier this year than the anticipatory phase. Best of luck.</p>

4

<p>It’s perfectly normal but difficult. Parents have feelings of loss about becoming empty nesters and the sibs left behind feel left behind. The good news is that things can change dynamically so the child left at home gets to have closer, more special time with parents that was shared before.</p>

<p>My eldest left for college 4 years ago and we all were devastated. But my second and third developed a much closer bond which had not been there before. Also, I was able to get closer to my middle one before she left for college this past August. My son hated being an only and had difficulty facing his college applications this term. He used to go to school in the AM with his sister, but after the first 3 weeks of being alone, he now goes with the girl next door. How’s that for adjustment?</p>

<p>I’m gearing up for complete empty nest next Fall. It’s life.</p>

5

<p>When S went off to college, D was in 8th grade–and she missed him terribly. Even though she missed a couple of days of school we took her with us to move him in, and that helped her see what his life would be like, meet his roommate, etc. By then she had a cell phone, and they talk on the phone almost every day–more than he talks to us. the calling goes both ways, because he is extremely fond of her as well. We are so happy our kids are close, but we feel badly, especially for D, that she misses her brother. Even though she was inconsolable at the time, she has adjusted; thank goodness for AIM and cell phones!</p>

6

<p>I think we’ll be facing the same problem soon.</p>

7

<p>My daughter (15) was very anxious about her older brother going away to college. I hadn’t thought of it until we were preparing, but because of custody changes and things like that, they have lived with different parents and family over the years, but they have <em>always</em> been together, and have always been close. My son is very protective of his sister and took a lot of courageous steps to change custody in part because of his concerns about her emotional wellbeing. </p>

<p>When my son was getting ready to go, his sister was always saying things like, “He’s going to college and isn’t ever coming home again, I will never see him again!” She thought he wouldn’t ever visit for holidays. </p>

<p>How we handled it is that I promised daughter even before son left that she could visit him in October. He came down for a day during fall break, and they took the train back up (20 hour trip) so they could spend time together. They chat via IM almost daily. I think a lot of what helped was just our acknowledging that there was a strong bond and trying to support it. </p>

<p>I think she will probably go and visit him again in the spring.</p>

8

<p>I’m not sure this will help, but when eldest son left for school the youngest (by 6 years) was very upset. We had him buy a special blanket for the oldest to use in his dorm room (he picked a very soft polar fleece throw) and the oldest brother bought and packed a sleeping bag and pillow for youngest to use when he visited in the dorm. It helped a little.</p>

9

<p>i am the oldest and the first to go to college. i’m not particularly close with any of my 3 younger siblings but do miss my family while i’m at school and have a particularly good time with them when i come home. my brothers came up for football games (only 2 hours away) and my sister came up for a weekend to party, but other than that they haven’t come visit me that often.</p>

<p>i had a late exam but decided to drive home for christmas break that night…pretty late, actually. i drove pretty slowly due to bad weather (and i also had a stray cat that i had found that needed to be dropped off–NOT good traveling companions!), lack of gas, and lack of food (desperately needed a happy meal…) and didn’t end up getting home until 11:00.</p>

<p>i was very pleasantly surprised to find my entire family, with their PJs on (keep in mind this is a 17 yo girl, 15 yo boy, 12 yo boy, and parents), waiting for me in my parents’ bed when i got home. i guess they missed me after all!</p>

10

<p>Aww, Kristin’s story is reminding me that I won’t have both kids on the bed with us to watch movies anymore…</p>

<p>I think the sleeping bag idea is cute. I wonder if colleges allow young children to stay over during Parent Weekends/Sibling Weekends.</p>

<p>My daughter is active in band/chorus/musicals, so we will probably make the trips to her college for those things.</p>

11

<p>About the “more attention for son” issues-- I’m not sure that her absence is a good thing in that area.</p>

<p>My daughter was 8 when he was born, and had all of my attention until that point. After he was born, for a lot of reasons, my daughter probably got the least amount of attention of anyone in the home. Prior to that time, I had been in college and she was my only child. After his birth, he was a sick baby and I was trying to start a business right out of college. It was a very difficult time, she was the one to take the back burner on priorities after a lifetime of my (almost) undivided attention, and I feel bad about it. But she was never resentful, and if she was, she never showed it. She loved him. And over the years, when times were tough, she pitched in and helped with him. So I think in some ways, she has come to be almost like a 3rd parent in the home. </p>

<p>In the last few years, he has become healthier, and I have made changes in my business to ensure that I have more time with both children. In the past couple years, I’ve made a concerted effort to have more one on one time with my daughter. In fact, this college process has caused me to spend a great deal of time just with her, and he can be nasty. </p>

<p>Unlike my daughter, my son does get jealous and thinks nothing of saying it and showing it. In fact, my son will actually tell me if he feels that I have spent more time with her, or someone else, and will tell me almost daily “You didn’t spend enough time with me. You didn’t take me anywhere” or “You took me to xxx, but didn’t really spend time with me”. This kind of thing gets said even when I take him out for icecream and read him a story if he feels that he wanted me to play hands on games with him and I didn’t. When we all lay on the bed to watch TV, he will do all that he can to take more space. </p>

<p>In fact, when my husband give each other a kiss in front of him (which is not often and is pretty chaste), he’ll actively try to get in between us (and has since he was an infant), although lately he just throws his hands over his face and runs away. </p>

<p>That all being said, despite my son’s ability to monopolize everyone’s time, my children seem to be extremely close. She holds him, tucks him in, feeds him when I am busy, and even makes an effort to be at all of his activities with us.</p>

12

<p>I think the key player in all of this is your older son. Clue him in that whatever he says now matters a great deal, and ask him to give extra reassurances to your younger son in the most vague, general way, such as, “We will always be brothers, no matter what.” “Brothers are forever.” “I might have a gazillion friends but you’re my only brother.” Keep in mind that he’s only 8 so say things very simply and emotionally that he’ll remember.</p>

<p>I think that will reach his heart more than “We’ll visit him on Family Day, which comes 5 weeks into the first fall term…” Those are parental thoughts of scheduling and arrangements. </p>

<p>I think at age 8, he just needs to know he’ll always have the love of his brother. </p>

<p>Of our 3, the oldest and youngest are boys, and there’s a 6 year gap. The first big departure came not at college, but in Fall of h.s. junior year for a semester of study abroad. All were in public and day schools, so nobody was used to departures for boarding school. We travel together to grandparents, and the kids all attended a sumer camp where my H worked. Nobody was accustomed to saying “goodbye” among the siblings; their summers and vacations were all within the family or extended family together. Kinda claustrophobic, actually, but we did what we could. So, the boys were used to being close, despite the 6 years between them. The girl sandwiched inbetween also helped bridge the six-year-gap. </p>

<p>When the oldest first left home (at age l6 for those 4 months…), our youngest took it so hard he got physically ill, vomiting daily. The doctor ran many tests that found no medical problem. Dr. finally concludee he was just mourning the loss of his brother. It was idiopathic, and he thought it odd but wrote it up as for psychological causes of family adjustment. He was cured the day the plane landed back home.&lt;/p>

<p>During college, we did many of the good things other posters recommend: call, email, visit. These things help a lot. For home vacations, we’d also give the big brother some cash and the car, telling him to take out his younger brother all day, to a movie and meal together. Their chat was then not diluted by other family matters. I recommend this very much.</p>

<p>There was a point, around older S’s end of sophomore year in college, when the younger said he no longer felt he was feeling so badly with the comings and goings. It took him many comings and goings, obviously, to adjust. Give it well beyond freshman year in its entirety. Some kids are very deep and there’s nothing wrong with it. </p>

<p>Fast forward to today. Older brother graduated college 2 and a half years ago and moved to a big city. Young brother is a freshman in college. Young brother is busy planning a trip to visit the big brother’s apartment and stay for several days. They email several times a week. I anticipate they’ll be close (along with their sister) long into adulthood, although they now live in 3 different locations. </p>

<p>The person to reassure your little boy is your big boy, and you absolutely should sit him down, tell him the stakes are high, prompt him with language if he’s not sure what to say. Tell the big brother this isn’t about holding him close to the house. Obviously, he’s going to depart. But sometimes teens (excited about leaving, naturally) blithely say things that hurt an 8-year=old.
If big brother says on the phone, “Man, it’s just 8 months till I’m outahere, I can hardly wait…” he’s not thinking right then about the 8 year old who is definitely in earshot.</p>

<p>If you remind him of the love he feels for his little brother, AND offer some simple language to express it, you can help things a lot. I can’t imagine any big brother who’d be unwilling to cooperate in this way. The stakes are high for him, too. Remind him that he’ll always want that brother as an adult friend; he’s got skin in the game, too, in other words.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

13

<p>my kids are 8 years apart as well & we really don’t have any family but us.
When older D went off to college- it was to a school less than 200 miles away ( next state)
When H & I drove her down, we made sure her sister was away at camp- and had friends pick her up- because we wanted her to get settled without issues.
When younger sis was able to go down on parents weekend a couple months later- older D was well established & able to show her around.
Younger D has been to visit sis many many times at her college, either by herself- while I was staying at a hotel, when she has gone with a friend, or by herself on a train and had older D pick her up.
Its worked out rather well in the long run- they are still fairly close being that one is 25 and lives in another state and one is 17 in high school.</p>

14

<p>p3t has it right…it’s about the kids having their own bond.</p>

<p>We have been lucky that our 3 boys have always enjoyed being close (not to say they don’t fight…)</p>

<p>When eldest came home for his first break, and every break since then, the boys started a tradition called “Brothers Day” I’ll come home from errands or somewhere and find a note saying “we went out” or, nowadays, just “Brothers Day” The boys generally spend the whole day together–lunch, a movie, bowling/skating/waterpark/zoo or what have you, dinner etc–generally witha trip to Best Buy for a new game or two that they then play all night. The big rule: it’s only the three of them, no parents or friends or cousins allowed.</p>

<p>The first time the boys did this we were so pleased that we reimbursed the big one for what he had spent that day; now we tell him just to use the family credit card that he otherwise can use only for emergencies.</p>

<p>The oldest lives in DC now with a real job—but when he came home for a visit for a few days he kept up the tradition. The middlest boy is a college freshman now, and he and the youngest kept this tradition themselves over this break.</p>

<p>It sometimes gets expensive, but what the boys get from it is worth a lot more than the money they blow for a day. They’ve made themselves a lot of good memories and it helps them keep relating as they grow into young adults.</p>

15

<p>My son is making plans for my graduating daughters room.</p>

16

<p>well our oldest room was in the basement- and that leaks- but I wasn’t slow about taking it over ;)</p>

<p>They did just have a nice vacation together- the oldest was just going to come to the mountains for a few days- but then her ride back canceled which " forced" her to stay with us, then she stayed for a few days after that- so nine nights total! :D</p>

17

<p>whatapain, my apologies for the gender confusion in my Post #12.</p>

<p>You wrote you have an older DAUGHTER and I wrote to you as if she was a he. But the same dynamics apply as far as that little brother is concerned. I’m sure you figured it out, but didn’t want to be disrespectful there :)</p>

18

<p>OP, I guess I’m more than a little concerned by your son’s demands for attention and his constant comparisons to how much he gets versus anyone else. The line you wrote about him physically trying to separate you and your husband when you kiss sets off alarm bells for me. For a 8-9 old boy, this does not sound like normal behavior. Have you considered talking to your family physician about this?</p>

<p>The above isn’t meant as a personal attack at all; best wishes to you and your family. And I hope your D gets into the school that she wants. For me, though, I would NOT require her to come home nearly every weekend to appease her younger brother. Sounds like a form of emotional blackmail to me. He needs to get used to change and adapt - it’s part of life. The alternative is very unfair and unreasonable to your D. I’m sure she’ll gladly come home and see him on a regular basis!!</p>

19

<p>I hope no offense is taken, but it sounds like the little boy runs the household</p>

<p>Still tucked in at 8? Gets nasty if attention isn’t on him? You can’t show your husband affection in front of him? And he wants his sister to fail? </p>

<p>I hope when she goes to college, she isn’t guilted in to missing her college life to hang out with little brother.</p>

20

<p>Kids are pretty resilient – I think it’s important to remember that. My youngest was 8 when his oldest sibling left for school, 10 when the next sibling went across the country and will be turning 14 when the next (and last for him) one goes. But he will also be launching into high school and coming into his own and his life will go on – it will change but it will go on just as it has the last two times. He’ll be OK – he knows now that these relationships are his to keep regardless of where his siblings are geographic ally. I think for young kids a webcam is great as are phone calls. When his sister went far, he made her a surprise sign to put up in her room wishing her a great semester and drawing a picture of the family, etc. He almost lived in a t-shirt from her college that year – younger kids can figure out ways to stay connected.</p>