<p>Parents of boys have hope, some boys do call. My freshman, 5 weeks in, still touches base almost daily. He usually calls after his last class just as if he were coming home from school and we chat for a few minutes. He is loving college and seems to have made a great adjustment.</p>
<p>My older two, an 8th semester sr(hallelujah!) and a 7th semster sr, call 2-3 times a week. All 3 send us text messages, usually from sporting events; email, not so much. H says the boys inherited my “phone gene”. :)</p>
<p>I remember when the oldest went off, he seemed to always call during the day and then I would give H a full recap that night. A few weeks in I started to see a little glimmer of disappointment in H’s eyes when I would tell him #1 had called, so the next time I spoke with #1 I mentioned that he might want to call dad at work and catch up. H came home beaming because his S made a special call to him.;)</p>
<p>my-3-sons, that’s just what happened in our house. I realized that I was doing all the talking, and my husband would come home and ask if I talked to the kids. So I reminded them to call him once in awhile, too. He loves when they call.</p>
<p>My three (two in graduate school, one a junior) have always talked to each other, which I love. I talk to them usually daily, sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes important info, sometimes not. If they’re busy, we talk less. I don’t think it’s excessive, I think it’s just easy. They’re close in age and we’ve all always been close. I don’t think it means I hover, or that they’re dependent. At least I hope not. I think it’s just our mix of personalities.</p>
<p>DD gave me a special treat this morning. Her school has a live web feed, and she called to tell me she would be going past there on her way to breakfast. She stopped and waved, it made my day a bit brighter.</p>
<p>I called my S this morning at 11:45. His suitemate said he thought S was still sleeping. When I said “Haven’t classes started?” he replied that S doesn’t have any classes today. He also mentioned that the cookies I sent were great. At least I know that S got the package…</p>
<p>So far our communication from S is holding steady at one email.</p>
<p>Consolation - That’s too bad! I’d be going nuts. As it is, the same day that our S’s cell phone died a couple of days ago, he somehow hit a button on Comcast that put his email account “offline” and he didn’t get any emails from us about the replacement one that I am sending. He sent an email to us yesterday asking me to send one, so that clued us in to the problem. </p>
<p>I called him on the phone in his dorm room last night around 9:30, and a girl (who was visiting another roommate in his suite) answered the phone and told me he was asleep. So I had to convince her to wake him up. Fortunately, my S isn’t the type to mind about this sort of thing. This morning he figured out the “offline” thing, so I think we are back in communication.</p>
<p>He says he is super busy - read 300 pages of econ yesterday and has thousands of pages to read and lots of calc problems to do. He says he is contributing in class, meeting lots of people and is even participating in the running club. He likes all 3 of his roommates very much. This makes me very happy, because the last couple of years in high school, he had nothing in common with any of his classmates and didn’t ever go out with friends. He didn’t text, AIM or talk on the phone with anyone, except for the occasional schoolwork project.</p>
<p>It helps enormously to know how they are doing, especially in the beginning of freshman year.</p>
<p>S1 stayed at home, so communication was the same as it had always been. So this is my first time with S2 gone. We have used e-mail (he never answers), text (he usually replies immediately with a text or later with a call), and phone calls. I, too, have had to remind him to call H, although he doesn’t like having to repeat everything so he tries to call in the evenings when he knows we’re both home. </p>
<p>I’m seriously thinking about the Web cam, except S2 tends to call late at night from the lounge, so I don’t think he’d use it much.</p>
<p>I texted S1 yesterday from work asking him to give us a call. His reply: K (as in OK). I think this wins an award! I was not amused at the time, but then I got home and saw that he had sent a real email earlier in the day.</p>
<p>Got our first phone call last night…we had a great chat for over a half hour. He even emailed today to update us on his course schedule. Maybe at some point he’ll get the idea that if he feeds us a bit, we won’t be bugging him so much.</p>
<p>gladmom, I called him again and <em>finally</em> spoke to him. All seems to be going well. He and room mate are getting along. He has made other unspecified friends. He likes his advisor (Who advised him to avoid introductory courses and not worry about getting all As but go for the more challenging and satisfying learning experience…which is just his style, too. I pointed out that As were a good thing, even so. )He has signed up for interesting and challenging classes, and actually was pro-active in going to a prof to get permission to take a math class that was higher than his AP Calc score would place him into. (He feels confident that it doesn’t reflect his knowledge/ability.) We’re just very pleased that he took the step of speaking to the prof and side-stepped the by-the-book placement process, since he is not the kind of kid who normally pushes for himself at ALL. </p>
<p>He also has found a club sport that he wants to participate in, and tried out for an a capella group that he didn’t get in to. (But he has never done chorus or any other singing outside the house, so that’s a big step.)</p>
<p>Overall I’m really happy with how things are going. He is apparently stepping forward and going outside his old comfort zone. Just what I hoped would happen in college.</p>
<p>Like Counting Down, I’m hoping that he will realize that if he contacts us occasionally we won’t bug him! :)</p>
<p>My household has an unusual (and serious) safety/security situation which requires each of us to be in direct contact once a night, and to be mutually contact-accessible 24/7. This household contact requirement applies even though my freshman daughter is now residing at college.</p>
<p>I remember the pre-cell phone days when I was a college freshman/sophomore, and my dorm’s hall pay phone was the only phone available for residents to make and receive outside calls. Even though I wrote and phoned (at pre-arranged times) my parents at least once weekly, my mother called my dorm almost daily, at any hour of the day or night. If I wasn’t available to take her call, my mother would demand to speak to my roommate, and then “grill” my roommate about my whereabouts. If my roommate was unavailable, my mother would “grill” whichever unfortunate hallmate had happened to answer the phone. My mother often stated that her call was regarding “a family emergency,” prompting my roommate/hallmates to search for me and bring me to the phone. (I was summoned from the dining hall, the bathroom, and the study lounge numerous times.) More often than not, I would return to my dorm room from class (or from the library) to hear from one or more of my hallmates that my mother had called multiple times, and that she expected me to return her “urgent” calls ASAP. (The “urgent” matter was never anything other than my mother’s “urgent” need to keep tabs on me.) As a new freshman, I quickly became known by my hallmates as “the resident with the crazy mother.”</p>
<p>Even though my daughter’s dorm provides a private phone for each resident, I promised my daughter that her Other Parent and I would not subject her to unnecessary and disruptive phone calls. I told her that we would not phone her unless there really was a family emergency; otherwise, if she needed to speak with us, she would have to be the one to initiate the call.</p>
<p>During my daughter’s first two weeks in residence, housing, billing, and registration issues arose which required her to communicate a lot of information to us quickly, so she called (and emailed) us several times a day. However, now that those issues have been (or are being) resolved, she communicates primarily by email, usually just once a day–at night–as required by our household safety/security situation. </p>
<p>Nightly email contact works for our daughter and for us. Infrequent phone calls–in a “no news is good news” sense–works for her and for us, as well.</p>
<p>^^If only that would work. Called S2 yesterday (had been ten days since we last spoke). He told me he had just done laundry, was hangin up all his clothes, would call me back…tick, tick, tick…Five hours later, I call him back. He says “I got busy”…yeah, right. </p>
<p>After maybe ten minutes, he says “gotta go…going over to Joe’s apt. to watch some football”. I reminded him that in almost six weeks he had made zero calls home. He laughed in a way that told me not to hold my breath…argh.</p>
<p>I have two friends that hear from their freshman ds daily. I hear from my freshman s never. I initiated contact the first couple weeks and he was responsive but now he ignores texts and e-mails so I haven’t bothered calling. I sent a package of stuff he requested last week and sent an e-mail saying to let me know when it arrived. Nothing. I don’t plan on sending anything else until he masters “thank you”.</p>
<p>I know he likes the kids in his honor’s community and he’s happy with the dorm, and I hear through friends on campus that he’s doing really well, so that puts aside the worry that I’m not hearing from him because he’s overwhelmed. I’m not hearing from him because he’s a jerk. :)</p>
<p>This waiting, this wondering “should I call? Not call? am I calling too much?” Do I back off and let him call when he needs something? Do I demand a weekly call? What if I’m too pushy and then he never calls? What the heck?! Am I dating again or what?!</p>
<p>After hearing from friends this weekend that he’s doing well I decided to leave him alone. I’m not worried about him, and the next time he wants something shipped I’ll just tell him since the last package obviously never arrived it’s not a good plan. </p>
<p>I don’t usually envy people their daughters(I have 3 boys) but in this instance oh, I wish…</p>
<p>My son’s been at U of Chicago since a week ago this past Saturday – he called Sunday, Tuesday, Friday, and again Sunday; we talked each time for anything between five minutes and more than half an hour. He says that at least for a while, he’s going to try to call each of his parents every other day. He’s close to both of us – although I think he goes into way more detail with me about things like classes and schedules, the same way I was much more involved than my ex in the college application process.</p>
<p>So, I’m pleased so far, and am hoping the regular calls continue. We’ll see, since classes started this morning, so I’m sure he’ll be much more busy.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>PS: He’s ignored both of the emails I’ve sent him. He claims he doesn’t always check his email regularly. I’m skeptical.</p>
<p>For me, at least, this worked. Slowly, oh so v-e-r-y slowly, freshman S started to communicate. He wanted to go it alone. Soph year is much better, or at least it has been with the election to email about.</p>
<p>FREE ADVICE to College Confidential newbie… You’d rather have this problem than freshman meltdown complete with tears and mental and emotional stress [his and yours].</p>
<p>My son never called freshman year. He did not answer calls, never listened to his voicemail, did not check his email. He would respond to a text message. It was extremely annoying.
I expressed that to him this summer. Soph year and he is calling regularly just to talk. Regularly for him is every 7 to 10 days. I am thrilled. He still doesn’t check email. I don’t send him packages since he doesn’t check his mail. It is just who he is. He is communicating fairly often with his siblings which I love. His calls still are not the most informative but that is also who he is. I have two other children who call me multiple times in a day. They are female.</p>
<p>I still get daily text messages and calls. Very grateful for that. We have also gotten two very nice long emails to the whole family. And DH has had a couple chats on the weekends with her. And D2 IMs with her around the edges. The webcam seems to be something that just suddenly will get used. It is a spectacular lift to see their smiling face - wish she would use it more.</p>
<p>I think two things are helpful with this contact business - gender and whether or not they are verbal. DD1 is a writer and enjoys texting and emailing and just putting her life into words. She knows we are an enthusiastic audience. She can’t resist the fun of giving us word portraits of her new life.</p>
<p>Of course I’m saving all she’s sending. It will be fun for her to look at one day.</p>
<p>S2 actaully called today (after only six weeks… but who’s counting?).whoo hoo…I shouldn’t get too carried away though. </p>
<p>He called to tell me that we need to be sure to get his meal plan changed for next semester because he has already blown through all of his board bucks not even halfway thrugh the semester. It seems there are other places on campus more preferable to eat than the cafeteria but of course they cost more,lol. Less cafeteria meals, more board bucks. Also, wanted me to check at our local CC to see why his transcript sent from there was not showing up at his univ. Seems he can get on the computer to register for Spring semester two hours earlier(on Oct. 31) if he has those hours added in,lol. Nice to know I’m still needed for something. He sounded good though and it was nice to hear from him.</p>
<p>My son called yesterday, the 2nd time in a month. In that month, he has replied to most emails, and we’ve initiated contact a couple of times when we saw him on instant messenger (but not every time, because we don’t want to push). So… I guess we’re doing pretty well overall.</p>
<p>He sounds good, sounds happy, so that’s great!</p>
<p>After not getting a phone call for 2 weeks & no email responses for at least 1 week, I sent S a tongue-in-cheek email yesterday introducing myself by name but telling him he could call me Mom, noting that I heard we were from the same town & actually lived very close to each other, & that coincidentally I also had a son at the same college as him. I suggested he call so we could better get to know each other & see what else we had in common. Must’ve done the trick 'cause he called last night. Since he’s my sarcastic child I figured he’d respond better to this approach rather than a more straightforward “why haven’t we heard from you” approach.</p>
)He has signed up for interesting and challenging classes, and actually was pro-active in going to a prof to get permission to take a math class that was higher than his AP Calc score would place him into. (He feels confident that it doesn’t reflect his knowledge/ability.) We’re just very pleased that he took the step of speaking to the prof and side-stepped the by-the-book placement process, since he is not the kind of kid who normally pushes for himself at ALL. </p>