<p>My son has been at college since 8/15 move-in day. He only calls me when he needs/wants something & rarely responds to any of our e-mails. He does send short IMs to our D (a HS junior). I guess he’s always been pretty reserved, but sure wish he’d share more of what he’s up to. Any suggestions? I want him to contact us a bit more regularly but don’t want him to see contacting us as a “chore.”</p>
<p>I don’t want to be discouraging HImom, but if you find the secret pass it on. Our college senior S makes rare contact, usually it is when he needs an immediate cash transfusion ;). We never reall set up a ‘Sunday afternoon call time’, though I often wish we had.</p>
<p>My S calls home every Sunday, at my request. Otherwise, he would not call at all. He would email exclusively. He does send a “midweek” update email that generally identifies topics of conversation for Sunday. Unless something comes up, that is the extent of his communication home. Of course, he does IM little brother frequently when both are online.</p>
<p>I had absolutely no problem telling my S he had to call home each weekend last school year. Pick the day, but call home. Friends are amazed I insisted he do that, but it certainly solved the “no communication” problem.</p>
<p>HImom, We are in the same boat. I had a similar problem with my daughter but after a month or so we worked it out. I let it be known that I needed to hear from her once a week- her pick of the day. Sunday was a very busy day for her. Now that she’s a senior we usually talk once a week over the phone and then e-mail back and forth every couple of days.</p>
<p>My freshman son is in the doghouse. We’ve had two short conversations since he moved in last week, very one-sided and at the end when he HAD to go, I told him that I needed to hear from him once a week and preferred Sundays. The stinker agreed but did not call! I e-mailed him and told him that I would not be calling him but he must call home once a week. It is very frustrating.</p>
<p>My son never calls, even though I’ve asked him to call once a week. I tried insisting, and that lasted about two weeks before it vanished as if it had never been said. He never sends me emails and seldom responds to those I send him. He <em>will</em> chat with me on IM, although he seldom initiates such chats.</p>
<p>HImom, as mominva said, I don’t want to be discouraging, but it’s not an unusual situation. Not that this is comforting in any way, just letting you know you are nowhere near alone in this predicament. It’s year two for me, and I’m finally getting used to it. Sadly.</p>
<p>One bit of advice that does work from time to time: I have IM set up and almost always on, occasionally with an away message. I do not initiate conversations unless it is something I was going to call about anyway.
Especially with D,but once in a blue moon with S, I’ll get a ‘Hi, you there?’.
Word of advice: Do not use with HSer living at home. I invited her to dinner via IM (she was upstairs, music was on and it was loud). She thought that was over the top. I am now blocked!!</p>
<p>i would recommend using AIM. works wonders. that was the way i communicated with my parents throughout college, with an occasional phone call. Whenever my phone rang and i saw it was my mother i knew it was because she screwed up something on the computer, otherwise she wouldn’t have called. :)</p>
<p>Mominva - lol! Blocked in your own home!</p>
<p>Different things work with different kids, I think. About mid-way through S1’s freshmen year, he wanted help with some summer job aps. He started forwarding various emails pertaining from career services, one thing led to another, and he found it was easier just to forward everything to me! 
I learned more from reading emails his friends wrote to him, emails from profs, mass emails from housing or whomever… He found it a painless way to satisfy my need to know, without him having to endure a Q&A with the 'rents.</p>
<p>He’s now graduated and on his own, and has decided he enjoys talking to us. I call him on weekends, but if it gets to be Sunday afternoon and he hasn’t heard from me, he’ll call.</p>
<p>S2 is more difficult. When I call, he’s too busy right then, etc, and never seems especially pleased to hear from me. I seem to have a knack for waking him up - any hour of the day. He does write nice, newsy emails once in awhile. But we have had to resort to the famous, “Tuition is due, and we’ve heard so little from you that we aren’t really even sure if you’re at school, or if you still like it, so we don’t know whether to pay or not. Please advise.”</p>
<p>Binx, I am going to add “Tuition is due…advise.” to my arsenal. Thanks.</p>
<p>I have a deal with my son: if the subject line says “ping” he has to respond. I try not to abuse the privilege. </p>
<p>I have found the most effective way to get my son to call is to tell him I’m too busy to talk to him when he does call; usually he’ll then call back when I tell him to, and when he does call, he has time to talk! </p>
<p>My daughter responds quite well to an email asking her to call. But again, I try not to abuse the privilege.</p>
<p>Our oldest S is entering Junior year. His first weekend he was home sick and questioning his choice. He called and we had a marathon conversation lasting almost 4 hrs. First and last time. After that he rarely initiates a call. WE try and call him every week or so and the conversations are short—5 min. at most. Occassionally I’ll see he is on line and IM him a few questions. I’ll get short replys up to a point. Sometimes I use the IM to suggest he call us when its a good time for him but its usually related to a specific piece of info that needs to be addressed like a flight schedule. I like the previous comment about not “abusing the privilege” with IM—I don’t want it to be an annoyance. He will call back if he missed a call from us so I suppose we should be grateful for that since I’ve heard of extreme cases when a studenty cannot be reached. SIt is not a good feeling as a parent. On my best days I try to see it as a positive sign that he is healthy and happy and involved with friends and learning to be independent —and that’s a good thing. Still…would it kill them to pick up the phone???</p>
<p>It appears once again this is generally a boy thing.</p>
<p>I speak with D nearly every day, she just started grad school. She’s usually pleasant and will actually not sound bothered by the mere sound of my voice.</p>
<p>S, a yr out of college, is the tough one. I have figured out a couple tricks though. I will call him, let it ring twice, then hang up. Or I’ll text message him “please call”. Invariably he’ll call me within a day or two, asking “did you call?” which allows him to call when it’s good for him…I learned long ago I usually call at the wrong time.</p>
<p>One other thing…I made an agreement with him that “fine” and “nothing” aren’t acceptable answers, as in “How’s work/girlfriend/apartment etc?”… unacceptable answer: “fine”. “What’s new with roommate/college friends?” etc… unacceptable answer: “nothing”. How “nothing” can ever happen when you live and work in Manhattan is beyond me!! So the answers are still short but not one-word.</p>
<p>I also re-phrase my questions. Instead of how’s work, I’ll ask what project he’s working on. I’m learning.</p>
<p>I talk to my dad every day on IM. We have gotten into a habit of sending each other rediculous headlines from the day’s news (dave barry blog notes, funny CNN stories, etc.) and swapping short notes about our days.</p>
<p>My mom has an annoying habit of walking off while you’re IMing her or using other people’s screen names (like my dad’s), not telling you it’s not that person, and then not passing along messages you left, so I only talk to her on the phone since she doesn’t “get” IM. </p>
<p>Without IM and the occasional email, I wouldn’t talk to my parents nearly as often.</p>
<p>OK, will try to get my S to choose a day to call. Sure hope our D is better when she’s off at college–I know I was!</p>
<p>Not sure why it started, nothing was ever said, but I talk to both my kids who are in college nearly every day. For my d. it is usually when she is driving home from class (hands free) or when she is waiting somewhere for something. We also IM quick questions. My son calls (honestly too much) when he is walking between classes, waiting for laundry, or doing some other kind of errand. Usually, unless there is a problem the conversations aren’t long, but just quick check-ins on how is your day kind of thing. I rarely call them as I never know when they may be busy, but if I do need to talk, I do like 2331clk does and let it ring to show missed call, then hang up. They can call back when convenient. If I really need to reach them–like Grandma in hospital type of thing or insurance co. needs your student ID #–I text.</p>
<p>D calls frequently (even as a senior!), but S1 (soph) doesn’t call often. If I see that he’s on, I’ll usually IM “how’s it going?” and he generally ends up IMing with me for a while, and we cover a lot of topics. Neither of our Ss are big “phone” guys, so…I’m trying not to push it.</p>
<p>If you send an unexpected care package, they’ll call. :)</p>
<p>But seriously, taking a step back and letting the son or daughter do all the approaching works wonders. I have IM, but am often invisible or offline, even when I’m not. I just don’t believe in being constantly accessible. </p>
<p>But a better answer is that this seems to be mostly an early freshman year thing - it seems like from sophomore year forward the calls, emails, etc. come a LOT faster and more frequently - almost to the point where you wish they’d stop calling so much lol.</p>
<p>Actually, I have sent two care packages & am in the process of mailing the third–we’ll see if he calls about the 2nd package (full of munchies). Oh well, at least he keeps in touch with sister via IM.</p>
<p>We have a new twist this year - we’re both sort of avoiding each other. I’m annoyed because the two times he has contacted me it’s been to bug me to mail stuff that he forgot. Well, he packed last minute, left a huge mess in his room, as if I’m going to RUSH to the post office to spend $12 mailing him stuff!</p>
<p>I second the AIM though. It’s nice to just send a quick, “Hi, how are ya’?” It’s less embarassing than talking to his mom on the phone…</p>
<p>We found that S1 called us very infrequently last year. We tried not to bug him too much, but there was one situation where we really needed to talk to him. We left several messages and emails, with no response. H finally left a message that said if we didn’t hear from him within 24 hours, we were calling the campus police! (he was joking, but I think it got S’s attention) We heard from him within the hour, and have since set it up that we expect a weekly phone call, at his convenience. We’ll see how it goes this year.</p>