I’d love it if my kid wanted to be in constant contact with me. Not much hope 
I’d just tell her that she should figure out for herself at least some of the things she bugs you with. That you’re happy to hear from her but it’s not your job to solve all her little problems.
I have one kid who works in a secure environment where personal devices are not allowed. I have friends whose kids work in hospital ER’s, nuclear missile sites, are on long overseas deployments, etc. They all learn not to respond to texts from their friends in real time, and their friendships survive.
I don’t buy the insult thing. I think that a kid who is independent enough to go overseas to study can be told (nicely) that constant texting interrupts her parents work day, and that setting a regular time for communication is the only way said parent is going to be able to hang on to said job.
One or two urgent texts about something serious- no, my boss wouldn’t care. But multiple times a day?
Part of it is normal for this generation: she’s sharing with you. She wants you to see all the cool thing she’s seeing and hearing all the cool new thoughts she’s been having… Right at the same moment she sees or thinks. You can respond “cool”, “glad you showed me that amazing x”, ask questions about it… Whenever you feel like it 
Be glad she’s sharing. But there no hurry to respond immediately.
Part of it is like being on a bike for the first time, she feels insecure, so that she needs your reassurance and is making demands upon you that she shouldn’t be doing.
She is abroad to learn how to solve problens. Just don’t respond or say “sounds great”. Or don’t respond at all. Decide that you’ll respond at specific times, never as soon as she texts, unlikely it’s a true emergency. Use airplane mode till you wake up so you’re not woken at 5am!
That’s very normal for my daughter who has always done a lot of texting. It was a problem when she traveled abroadin high school and international texts cost 50 cents apiece – but still much less expensive than a phone call. Now we have unlimited texting domestically and I’ve learned that if I want to communicate with my daughter, texting is the way to go. She rarely calls me on the phone – once a week at most – and often lets incoming calls route to voicemail. Since we have a family plan, I can see patterns – and this is longstanding – the kid sends thousands of texts a month, but much less voice call time than the others on the plan. She recently vacationed for a long weekend in Mexico – before she went I told her that our plan now has unlmited voice & text calling in Mexico & Canada (no roaming fees) – and she definitely was doing a lot of texting there. (But not to me… most of the thousands of texts she sends are to other friends & peers)
If your DD knows that texting is no charge – it might just be her natural way of communicating. You don’t have to respond to every single text or respond right away.
My daughter has always been a traveler, and I really have cherished the text and chat communications over the years. It’s a way that I can share in some of her experiences - plus some of the chat logs that were saved or stored bring back wonderful memories years down the line. It was a problem back in the day when it cost money… but I love the way the texting allows me to be part of her life in a non-intrusive way – and at times when she traveled on her own abroad, it was just nice to hear from her and know she was safe.
But again, you have control over the way that you respond. When you get texts about waiting in line for transit tickets or flights being delayed, that’s because your daughter has boring down time – not much else to do while waiting.
My kids text if they need something or are bored, therefore I rarely ever hear from them. It works for them and us. When we are together, it’s great. When they really need to know something, they will call us and we all chat. My sister and her kids are texting many times a day about things important and trivial. I guess it depends on how you and they roll. My sis and her girls are happy with LOTS of frequent contact. We are fine with the less frequent contact (maybe a few times/month).
I agree with sending reply texts once or maybe twice/day, only addressing things you wish to and ignoring the others (that’s what my kids do with us).
My kids get realy annoyed when I don’t answer within a few minutes. They just don’t understand how old people don’t look at their phone every other minute.
Doesn’t change my behavior though. And they text 8 times a row, or what us old folks would call “a paragraph”.
I would never ignore my child without a discussion. Something isn’t right, you need to pick a time and have a good heart to heart with her. Try to get to the bottom of it., and let her know why you are concerned. You can tell her nicely that you are there for her, but you need to come to some sort of an agreement.
When my kid is lonely and unhappy, I get tons of calls and texts. Kids are connected to their phones and everyone else at the table even when they are out together are texting and Snapchating and DMing. It’s what they do.
The kid went through a rough time, I was the person she could whine, complain and ask questions to. There was a time when things weren’t good but I found out later, she was hiding her unhappiness to me. Once I found out, I was gobsmacked.
Now I’m happy for every text, call and Snapchat that I get. They are less these days, because things are going much better.
My niece texted her mom all the time when she was abroad also. When she travels, all of us in the family get tons of communications.
When my S was a freshman in college, he called us every single night. He was very homesick and had some senional affective disorder. Once spring came and there was more light and better weather, the calls stopped. He’s so old that there wasn’t any texting, so phone calls were it. Now hes married and older and I don’t hear from him so much.
I think it depends what you see as the problem with it. Are you:
- Too busy at work/life to deal with all those texts and calls?
- Afraid that her contact is preventing her from experiencing her abroad time/maturing by handling her own issues?
If the first I’d say “hey I’m at work I can’t always text you back but I’ll answer at lunch/after work/whatever”.
If the second, that’s trickier. Others have given good advice - try to steer her towards ways to answer her own questions and solve her own problems. “Is this a good airfare to Vienna” could be answered with “why don’t you check google flights and see what the fare history has been?”
Our S told us, “Google is your friend,” so when he asks us things we don’t have an answer to, we tell him, a loved ones told us, “Google is your friend,” and we all smile. Sometimes they just think we’re omniscient, and sometimes they are unhappy or scared or lonely. Talking is a good idea.
Sometimes when people are abroad their internet connectivity may not be all that great, or they could be facing charges for use of international data while texting is free. My kids have always used me as backup internet-lookup service-- but I don’t think they hold it against me if I am not able to respond right away. It’s just that checking online to compare flights might not be so easy when someone is abroad and relying on their smartphone for information.
Also, if the traveling kid still relies on the bank of mom & dad - and would be charging that flight to Vienna on mom’s credit card — then the phrase, “is this good airfare to Vienna” really means, “is it ok with you if I charge $350 for this airfare” - in which case, the kid is seeking permission, not a comparison shopping service. And if the charge is going onto mom’s credit card, mom is likely to get an alert from the credit card company when overseas flights are booked from overseas locations, so its good for the parent to be given a heads up in any case.
@brantly , it’s what @LeastComplicated said. This generation of people uses texting as a conversation tool. It’s cheap and easy and it’s how they stay in touch.
I think you should acknowledge that and make it about you, so she realizes it’s a generational thing. Tell her that you really can’t get used to texting 40 times a day, so you need to make appointments. Tell her that her frequent texts make you concerned about her. Ask for times that work and then call her and have a real conversation.
She is still in little girl mode if she is sharing constantly with you, and it would be helpful for you to tell her that you are glad to hear her concerns once per day. In the near future she needs to stop the incessant texting, as employees won’t tolerate it. Moreover, it prevents her from sharing with her adult colleagues there with her, who may very well have better insight into her questions than you do. She can’t develop relationships with them if She is always texting you. Surely all the things you mentioned could be easily solved by the average 20 year old so encourage her to do so herself and watch her esteem rise.
When a friend’s kid first left for college I honestly wanted to grab her phone and smash it to prevent the constant texts and calls she received. . It was an hourly conversation about nothing. Ugh. I didn’t hold out hope.
But I was wrong…
Happy to report that all eventually subsided big time and kid is a very responsible young woman who solves her own problems.
It’s just a growing period.
A little of each of the above. Also I want her to immerse herself where she is, not to be thinking about home and the people at home all the time.
I think I’m going to ask her to email me instead of texting me. I’ll ask her to text me for emergencies only.
She does write a blog and updates it once a week. It’s pretty comprehensive and includes photos. I find that sufficient.
I have 2 juniors and there are times when I get bombarded with texts and calls just like this. It’s usually when they are unsure or anxious and unable to understand why. I’m fairly patient for a couple of days and then I start being less available (yet understanding.) I’ll set some boundaries. My phone gets turned to Do Not Disturb at 10:30 pm. They know that if they are sick or hurt, they can call the landline.
I’d ask her what’s going on. Is she aware that this is a new behavior from her? I’d also remind her that you have a life and if you were calling/texting her like this, she would be concerned about you as well. I did finally get one of my daughters to talk to a counselor this past fall after some housemate problems. She had so much anxiety about the issues and I didn’t feel equipped to help her work through them. Things are much better this semester.
I’m wondering if your DD doesn’t have a lot of peer support abroad and is using you as a substitute.
“A little of each of the above. Also I want her to immerse herself where she is, not to be thinking about home and the people at home all the time.”
Have you had that conversation and expressed those concerns?
It’d be very frustrating though to want to share something you find fantastic and not be able to - I’ve done this with my parents, who are too old to know how to text, but whom I’ve equiped with a “senior smartphone”; they always enjoy seeing pictures of places I’m visiting, with the text being a caption. (Sometimes with “look up ‘xyz’ in encyclopedia” fo details :p, sometimes with “look, cute animal” caption when the animal is surrounded by scenery). It’s easier than Email, most of the time, depending on whether there’s wifi or not, etc.
I’m old enough to remember when mobile phones were bricks, so I can’t imagine a teen not sending texts, it’s wired to their brain and basically they seem to see through the pictures they take, their phones hold the memories they want to keep, etc. 
So, she can text as much as she wants, but not call.
And expecting an answer is different - you aren’t glued to your phone (you’re old, she’ll get it :p). And sending questions at all hours is obviously a different situation from the above, too. So, I’d treat her sending pictures differently from her wanting answers to her texting questions for things she needs to figure out herself.
How much did she text you when in the US, at her college? Is this a new thing?
I agree to wait and answer her once or twice a day unless it is an emergency—and some of these emergencies she can handle on her own. I’d tell her that is the new plan. Tell her why? That’s tougher. You know best how she’d take it, if it would be better to tell her you just can’t answer so many texts so promptly or tell her you want her to manage more on her own.
S2 just returned from abroad. He doesn’t text me much in the US, but did text me pretty often when abroad. (It wasn’t every day, though.) Because he did miss us, he was good about the weekly video call, much better than he is in the US. Before he went away, I did tell him that he would have to handle a lot of issues on his own, that because of time differences and my lack of knowledge about where he was going, I wouldn’t always be able to help. He took it to heart and did try to handle a lot of issues on his own—for better and for worse!
Now S2 is back and we don’t hear from him any more.
all I have to say is, yes she should definitely go to Vienna. and Lisbon too if she can swing it.