Have College Freshmen Changed?

TheGFG
Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:44:49 +0000

Despite easy access to internet and cell phone, my D doesn’t seem to feel the desire to use these media to contact dear old mom and dad very often. I just gave her the I-need-to-hear-from-you-once-a-week lecture! My friend’s daughter at the same school also does not contact her parents with any frequency. Indeed there are threads on CC written by parents lamenting the lack of contact with their children, while other folks are happy to report very regular communication or are unhappy about too many calls. So I guess I’d say that if the child has the need or predisposition to reach out and touch base, he’ll do that in whatever way is available. If he doesn’t, the ease of communication won’t make that much difference. When feeling a little homesick at college, I recall writing letters to my sister and high school friends–a task more time-consuming than sending a text message. Yet I did it.

That said, I don’t recall any of my high school friends leaving their original college in order to attend school closer to home. I do hear those stories frequently now. But mightn’t that be due to a greater incidence of kids going out of state or far away to school? My mom insisted I only apply to schools within an hour’s drive from home, and most of my friends also stayed within 3 hours of home. I was able to come home on a weekend if I wanted or needed (though I seldom did), but my own D is 3,000 miles from home and can’t. So maybe that fact is making it seem that many kids are having trouble living on their own at college when it really isn’t worse.