<p>I am wondering what it is like to have a child at a distant college. Particularly a child who is NOT GREAT at communicating with his/her parents. :-)</p>
<p>S is a junior, very independent and responsible, and has a preference to stay within say 6 hours of home for college. However he is open to considering distant colleges in order to get a better fit or better financial aid (which we will need).</p>
<p>So I am wondering what your experiences have been having a non-communicative child this far away? Especially what if there is some kind of issue or problem (say kid gets sick or starts failing classes, roommate problems etc)?</p>
<p>I am wondering about this because I hear about a lot of things that can go wrong at the start of college (I know they probably won’t). Maybe I’m thinking about this because S is the oldest?</p>
<p>If S were far away at school and happy and learning, it would be great and I would be grateful. That would not be a problem.</p>
<p>We live in Orange County CA and have a D at Boston College. Having our kids go far away from their home turf really adds to the enriching experience that college already provides. I would worry more about what if they find jobs where they’re going to school and don’t come home after graduating, more than I’d worry about them getting sick or having a roommate issue.</p>
<p>My three kids have been at colleges 600 and 900 miles from home. I think you’re wise to ask yourself this question - there have been so many threads lately about freshmen or even older students in serious trouble at school. </p>
<p>My younger two are good about communicating by phone at least once a week, though d2 did once go 4 weeks without calling, texting, or emailing because she was ticked off about something. I knew she was all right because her sisters were in touch with her via phone and Facebook, but it was an anxious time. The oldest was not as reliable about communication until her dad privately told her that he wasn’t going to continue paying for her cell phone unless she called more often. I naively thought that she and I had suddenly become much closer! </p>
<p>As you get more involved in the college search process, you can tell him what you’ll need from him in terms of contact. You sound as if you’re willing to grant him a lot of free space, which is good. I don’t see why he’d find it hard to meet a reasonable request that’s established in advance. If it comes down to him falling in love with a school halfway across the country, you can tell him that you’re happy to send him as long as he checks in regularly - then spell out what that means.</p>
<p>I don’t know if he’d be open to discussing this, but you could summarize a few CC threads for him and ask his impressions of what the parents/kid should do, if the problem could have been prevented, etc. We never required access to our kids’ grades, but there have been so many recent threads about kids floundering academically that I’m thinking now we were just lucky. It might be better for parents to know at midterms that a kid is in trouble - if you can agree that it’s a condition of attending, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. I don’t mean knowing what a kid’s grade was on every paper or quiz - just that he’s able to make satisfactory progress.</p>
<p>I have two rather non-communicative children in college, one who is within a couple hours drive and one who is far away. At first, I was a little worried about the second one going so far away, but now I see it in the opposite way. It is a real maturing influence for a child to have to navigate plane rides home etc. And since the closer one isn’t running home on weekends (which I wouldn’t want to be happening anyway), it’s not like I see him that much more than the far away child. And with email, cell phones etc., it’s just as easy to communicate with the one who is far as it is with the one who is close. The far away one was quite sick for a week, but did what needed to be done, including contacting health services. So based on my sample size of two, I would say that going far away can be a really positive growing experience.</p>
<p>IMO, once they are a several hours away it really doesn’t matter all that much. Mine was 10 hrs driving away in UG. Now she’s 10 hrs away by plane in med school. Still sucks for us, but the benefits the student gets from being in a “good fit” school make up for it.</p>
<p>You are too far away to help with the little stuff so they have to deal with it (not a bad thing), and if it’s a big thing …you’ll find a way to get there.</p>
<p>My son is typically 1500 miles away for UG, and this year is 3500 miles away doing study abroad.</p>
<p>I think children grow up thinking that parents exist to meet their emotion needs, not vice versa. I think they need to be taught that the parents have emotional needs for communication once the child is out in the world. I certainly know that ours did.</p>
<p>What tactics to use to create this awareness differs across people, but I always figured that threatening to turn off his cell phone would get me a call.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great responses! Lots for me to think about.</p>
<p>I tend to agree that once he is more than 3-4 hours away, it won’t make a lot of difference anyway, if he is all the way across the country.</p>
<p>I do think we would need to set up some kind of communication contract, for peace of mind, and as a safety net if something were to go wrong.</p>
<p>S does tend to keep problems to himself, so that is the main thing that worries me. I don’t want to solve his problems, but I definitely believe that sometimes parents’ guidance can be valuable.</p>
<p>jshain- yes we would REALLY miss him if he settled far away after graduation from college.</p>
<p>Out DS is a freshman at Ohio State and we live in California. DS refuses to use skype and rarely calls; we usually have to threaten to hold his monthly allowance to get him to call home. So when we went a few weeks ago for family weekend we were worried as to what we would find. Wow-we found a very happy son who got completely involved in the experience and loving college and his classes. Very independent and now very confident in himself. He says he doesn’t call much because he is so busy and due to the time difference. So we have resigned ourselves to texts and emails. Now occassionally we will get a funny call like the time at midnight when he asked “mom what are the rules for washing your clothes again?”</p>
<p>I told DS about how some of his classmates were having a hard time at their colleges and homesick. DS said that he was not homesick at all except for missing California burritos. He thought his earlier experiences of being away from us on leadership/study abroad/camp trips helped him a lot with the adjustment because when he added all of that time up it was much more than the time he spends away without a visit home. So my advice is see if your child can attend a summer program away as a test run to see how he/she will do going away. Many of these programs offer scholarships or minimal fees so check the listing in the summer programs forum.</p>
<p>As far as him getting sick I purchased a student health care policy at the student health center. My DS can get an appointment for any illness and the majority of the cost is covered by the policy. It bought me piece of mind and in fact my DS used it on his own when he thought he was getting an eye infection.</p>
<p>We also tried to develop a small circle of support for him. He had a great admissions counselor who originally is from our town so I called her and asked if she would take my son out to lunch the first week he got on campus. Plus we discovered a friend of a friend was a prof at OSU and we had dinner with this prof and she volunteered to lookout for my Ds. During parents weekend we met a really nice family of a freshman who lives in the area and we exchanged numbers with them also. You will find that those kinds of things just work out.</p>
<p>We received a couple of suggestions from the above admissions counselor which I think also helped. She said for him to come out before the rest of the freshmen class and attend a special outdoor orientation called “camp buckeye” which was for only 200 freshmen. My DS made some good friends which he has kept in contact with. Also OSU has a program called “OWL” which are selected freshman that get to move into the dorms earlier; attend fun orientation programs and then help other freshmen move into their dorms. My son thought that was a great thing to do since he got use to his giant school before the masses moved into the dorms. In fact he finds Ohio State kind of small; he says there is always something to do so there is no time to get home sick. </p>
<p>I had all the same concerns you had a year ago. Just try to find these little things which will help with the adjustment. I am so glad my DS went as far as he did because he is coming into his own. Good luck.</p>
<p>S rarely calls but he called me yesterday to tell me he was coming home for the weekend and he was 20 minutes away! While he doesn’t communicate often, H and I feel free to contact him any time. Just a quick text to ask how things are going every now and then. S is more communicative in person and isn’t into chatting online or by phone. I also ask specific questions - How are your grades? How’d you do on your midterm exam? etc. He isn’t surprised, I’ve always been this way! </p>
<p>What also helped me was the parents’ group at his school. It is an organized group with parent reps who are available to answer questions via phone/email. They hold parents meetings during the open house and welcome week of school and have a lot of info.</p>
<p>The other thing I forgot to mention is to keep in touch with the parents of your child’s friends. Our DS will have a long chat with a friend who will then tell her parents about it and they tell us about the call so we know DS is doing well. It seems that all of us parents are complaining about the same thing-children who don’t call home regularly but what we have discovered is something in common-our children are doing well in college and really liking it. We entered into a communication contract but it really doesn’t seem to work so we have his sister send him facebook messages and he keeps in contact with our family that way also.</p>
<p>Since you mentioned scholarships-we discovered that schools further away offered my DS the better scholarships; in fact that is why he is at OSU since he got a full-ride. Also as far as worrying about grades; we made sure to walk DS over to the tutoring center and talk to them and get brochures about their services. Therefore DS would know of a source in case his grades started to go south. Last week I had a nightmare about him flunking out so I called him and told him about it and he shared with me his grades (not failing yeah) so I think at this age you can reason with them as to why you need to talk to them and it usually works. Just know that your concerns have been shared by many parents and in the long run we find that our kids are well-adjusted college students.</p>
<p>itsv, you are so right about keeping in touch with his friends’ parents. I went to dinner with 3 of them last week whose kids graduated with mine and are also away at college. Not only did I learn that my son was coming home for the weekend but he was also not the only S who doesn’t regularly call his parents!</p>
<p>These are all really great tips-- thank you!</p>
<p>Funny about staying in touch with the child’s friends’ parents. I do that already while he lives at home! I hear lots of things that way about what is going on in his life :-)</p>
<p>"I think children grow up thinking that parents exist to meet their emotion needs, not vice versa. I think they need to be taught that the parents have emotional needs for communication once the child is out in the world. I certainly know that ours did.</p>
<p>What tactics to use to create this awareness differs across people, but I always figured that threatening to turn off his cell phone would get me a call."</p>
<p>If you had tried to demand frequent contact…especially once a week, my college aged self would take that as a sign that you’re trying to micromanage and infantilize me as if I was still in high school and thus, would double-down on my unresponsiveness…especially if this took place during mid-terms or finals periods. I’d feel doubly annoyed as the argument that “we pay your tuition/expenses” didn’t apply in my case as someone who won a near-full ride scholarship and worked part-time and summers to pay off the rest. </p>
<p>Thankfully, my parents were willing to give me complete free rein in communication because they felt as a college student, I was an adult who needed to be encouraged to take the initiative in solving my issues…including taking the initiative to call them when needed. It also helped that in my parents generation back in their country of origin, college students…or sometimes even boarding high school kids were expected to be self-reliant and parents who expected frequent contact of more than once or twice a month were seen as being “unable to let go” and risk stunting their child’s maturation through continuing excessive parental dependence. </p>
<p>Worse, most classmates in my generation who had parents who insisted on calling them more than once or twice a month were often seen as immature and excessively dependent by the rest of us. Heck, I remembered some upperclassmen going so far as to say such students weren’t mature enough for the college experience and should have postponed attending until they were. </p>
<p>From this posting, I am grateful I attended college before the widespread availability of cell phones and the increasing trend of parents wanting to micromanage their college aged children well into their college years…and sometimes even beyond if the rants from many college classmates and friends who TA/teach college courses and some acquaintances who work in corporate HR are any indication.</p>
<p>I scanned posts so I apologize if this has already been covered. My son is considering one oos for the very reasons you mention. Eight hundred hours and not a easy trip/direct flight…flight into major airport with a two hour drive. So while I agree that once they are on an airplane it may not matter much if they are half the country away or coast to coast, for me, not all commutes are created equal.</p>
<p>One in state is four hours, however on a regularly traveled route. There will be someone to catch a ride with any weekend or holiday. It’s not a deal breaker, but certainly a consideration. If he were to seriously consider the oos next spring I will put him in the car an have him make the 14hr drive, as well as the commute via car/plane to make sure he understands what he’s getting himself into.</p>
<p>All of this is an aside to the obvious communication issues. He’s not great, but not terribly lousy. Skype is good if you have something regular scheduled as other parents have suggested.</p>
<p>My less-communicative child is my S, who is a senior 280 miles from home - a 5 hour drive, no good airport options. It hasn’t been a big problem, he hasn’t gotten seriously ill and he fit in and found people pretty quickly his frosh year. It helps that he’s attending my & H’s alma mater, so we felt very comfortable leaving him there as a freshman, and he’s only 80 miles from my in-laws. </p>
<p>My D is a freshman 750 miles from home. I prefer to think of her as being a 2 hour plane flight away (and yes, there are non-stop flights. When sending a teen to travel on their own for the first time, this was a big plus for me). Luckily for me she is very communicative - this week was the first time a day passed I didn’t get at least a text from her. (OK, I’ll admit, sometimes I dreamed up a reason to text her and ask a question, but she always responded ;))</p>
<p>My big fear is that they won’t come back when they graduate. S is job-hunting now. I think he’d prefer to come back to our area, but the on-campus interviews at his small LAC are from firms that are in metropolitan areas closer to his campus, not firms near us. </p>
<p>I have no idea what D will do in 3 years. She loves the warmer climate at her school, and the cost of living is significantly lower there. She will need to go to grad school for her chosen profession and has said she’d like to return to our area for grad school… we’ll see.</p>
<p>If you have a relatively non-communicative S, I’m not sure the distance will matter that much. He can be just as silent from 2 hours away as from cross-country. Unless you plan on driving to his campus to visit him, with cell phones and unlimited texting/long-distance and Skype, it wouldn’t really matter if he were 1 hour away or 3000 miles away, the ease of communication would be the same. The ease of a rescue (in case of illness) or a comfort visit home, however, would be a different matter.</p>
cobrat, the OP specifically stated that she was looking for input for dealing with a non-communicative son considering long-distance schools, one who (she later stated) tends to keep his problems to himself. If you’ve read the Parents Forum since August, you’ll have noticed the many threads about freshmen students who aren’t able to navigate their own path well once they’re in college.</p>
<p>Contact once per week may well be too much for a particular college student, which is why I suggested that parents obtain agreement to a reasonable request for contact, established by the parents and the students mutually. It’s wonderful that your own college experience was such a successful one. What would you say to the parents of those students who are struggling with academic failure, substance abuse, and mental illness? Would it not have been better for them to know about these problems as soon as they develop? Parental payment of student expenses doesn’t mean control, of course, or shouldn’t; but the parents of these struggling students will have to pay financially and emotionally to assist their children now.</p>
<p>It seems to me that children become aware of parental emotional needs once they become adults. This takes longer for some people than others.</p>
<p>“I would worry more about what if they find jobs where they’re going to school and don’t come home after graduating, more than I’d worry about them getting sick or having a roommate issue.”</p>
<p>commasplice - Most of what your describing is your own worry about how you will be able to help your “very independent and responsible” Son. It’s very natural (and sweet) to be concerned but also important to remember that it’s about your feelings not his needs… </p>
<p>He will be attending school as part of a community, and students care for other students when they are ill, (or need other help) and most schools have health centers. As part of a cohort he may be lonely but he won’t be the only one, and he’s likely to talk to friends (new classmates) who are going through the same things than a parent anyhow… You may even find that your S is more talkative with you after he leaves home because it allows him to just chat with you (kind of like how some boys will chat more during a long car ride when they don’t have to maintain conversational eye contact)… If your S chooses well he will still have to stretch and develop but it will likely all work out… Just like real life…</p>
<p>Two quick thoughts - </p>
<p>Transferring is much more common than it was even 15 years ago, so if he needs to make a change after giving it “the old college try” he just transfers…</p>
<p>One big problem I have seen with some students who choose schools far from home is that they need to make sure that they are not choosing a “suitcase school”. Look for the percentage of students from OOS because the last thing you want for your S is to be the only student on campus weekends and after 7pm.</p>
<p>Hello, Our 18 year old daughter has applied at three Florida State Universities and we’re waiting her admission acceptances. We live out of state now, so she will be far away. Thank you all for your posts…I’m nervous. She wants to begin college this summer, 2011and I’m worried about how summer school “works.” Would you recommend I call and talk to an advisor, or admissions? While I like the idea of her moving onto campus and getting to know her way around at a slower pace during the summer months, I’m wondering what kind of course load she would take and if its worth the extra cost, to have her move onto campus early. I’m hoping I may find another parent out there that can provide any information about beginning college in the summer months for a freshman?? Thanks!</p>
<p>We thought about it when S1 wanted to go far away, 3 airports or almost a 2 day drive. Saying goodbye and knowing you won’t see them until Christmas is unsettling. They are excited to “come home” that first Christmas! If a student is “ready” to go away to school and wants to do this it can all work out. We have two now far, far away and they are thriving. They miss their friends back home but as my now senior said when he came home for a couple weeks this summer, “they are still the people I went to high school with (friends that stayed close enough to get home on weekends) but I have so much less in common now and their experiences are very different from mine.”</p>
<p>We’re also had several friends who kids thought they wanted to be “far away” only to discover they really wanted to be closer to home. There is no right or wrong and you really don’t know until you are in the midst of it. I would never send one of mine far away unless I was certain they were capable of self sufficiency and independence. I would want to be able to “get there” within an easy day’s drive if I had any concerns about their ability to self regulate and navigate. Also they could be totally self sufficent etc. and just “miss” their hometown friends, or miss being home for Thanksgiving, high school homecoming, and their previous social network - those are the kids that can surprise you because you think they will be totally OK and suddenly the state school down the road that they vowed they’d never attend starts to look awful good to them.</p>
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