<p>We are one the once a week “I’m alive” plan - I like the idea that it’s tied to paying for the cell phone; we haven’t put that rule in place but will if we have to! Expecting a call this evening. I have texted him twice this week - once to wish him well on first day of class and once to tell him I’d mailed a care package and he should check for it. No response to either text but am going with the no news is good news plan. He’s not on FB or I would be very tempted to stalk!</p>
<p>^^ Oh, feel free to stalk! 
Just don’t post.</p>
<p>I KNOW, I Know, i know…but its sooooo hard.
Learned that lesson the very hard way. ;-/</p>
<p>…or send a facebook message (it won’t be seen by anyone else). Just don’t write on the wall! :)</p>
<p>So glad I’m not alone…</p>
<p>DS doesn’t really FB and he would never friend me. </p>
<p>He doesn’t answer my texts and my emails…but called today asking for laundry advice. So at least I know he’s alive…</p>
<p>Will try to relax and let him contact me. It’s hard not knowing where he is everyday…</p>
<p>I am blocked from FB but I have ATT family mapping so I can see where she is. It makes me feel better. :(</p>
<p>I was FB friends with my sons in high school (condition of having it) but of course never EVER post. When S1 went to school, I unfriended him but he friended me again 
I never call him or text him, that’s a one-way street that starts with him. I occasionally email him little things, like articles I know he’d like. But that’s it! He usually calls once a week, on his own. I also have found that he’s in touch with his brother and cousins pretty regularly, so they tend to know how he’s doing.</p>
<p>We dropped off our only child our son 2 weeks ago. At first my wife had to hear from him everyday. Then every other now it is like every 4 or if he needs to ask us a question. We are a very hands on family we discuss everything and make family decisions together so he calls whenever anything comes up that he needs advice. I can see a pattern developing as time goes on and he becomes more sure of himself he calls less frequently which in my opinion is great.</p>
<p>But now the time has come to let my Son become his own person let him find his way in a campus of 50,000 and make some new friends. He is studying engineering so studies must be his top priority. He knows this and is committed.</p>
<p>I know it is hard but we must let them find there way. Like many have posted remember if he or she isnt calling it is because they are too busy. If they were calling numerous times a day? It could be a sign that things just arent clicking the way they should be.</p>
<p>S’s willl do text much more than calls or email. I fabricate things pretty ofen but he responds. Never ask more than one question at a time…too many and you get 0 answers.</p>
<p>D (senior) and I talk at least once a day and probably text 5-10 times per day.</p>
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<p>I don’t even do that. I want D to forget I’m there. Remember back in middle school and you were driving, and your child and a couple of his/her friends were in the back seat? If you stayed silent, you’d hear all kinds of things. It’s kind of like that.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t dream of calling or texting my D (she calls me if she needs something), but we enjoy a (weekly?) email correspondence sharing articles or videos of mutual interest.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up: Barbara K. Hofer, Abigail Sullivan Moore: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/iConnected-Parent-Staying-College-Letting/dp/B004J8HX3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315226085&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/iConnected-Parent-Staying-College-Letting/dp/B004J8HX3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315226085&sr=8-1)</p>
<p>When I read this book, I was shocked at the frequency that some kids did contact their parents…
Ihen into our first week, I have been shocked at myself and how I have texted/sent a pm through FB etc.
It has slowed down alot in the second half of the first week.
It included - “what is your PO Box” which we didn’t have…to kiddo asking a question about Amazon and telling us what the tentative schedule was shaping up to be this term…</p>
<p>This is the beginning of the first full week so I don’t expect we will hear from kiddo except a call on a Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p>Fog, I’m not shocked at all. My friends kids (the girls) call and text their moms constantly. Can’t begin to tell you how often we have to stop our tennis game because of a call. There is always some “crisis” of some sort or another. My one friend who only had boys never got calls from them while we were playing (only from her mother!)</p>
<p>HAHA Emilybee…Sounds like your tennis partners should read this book.</p>
<p>Talks about the electronic tether/umbilical cords kids are on these days and delayed independence…</p>
<p>We have been glad that kiddo gave us a hint of the “lay of the land” so to speak with respect to kiddo’s choices for classes etc…juts to get a feel of what’s up…
yet kiddo used the advisors at the U…</p>
<p>On the other hand–missing kiddo in these first days and wishing we had a webcam view of life ;)</p>
<p>i may be in the minority here but i text or call whenever i want, he texts and calls whenever he wants…there are no set rules, i’m his mother, he’s my son…we talk, we text as we want to. but i never go more than 2 nights without a quick text that says “love you” he doesnt always answer, but most times there is a quick" love you too" back. May sound morbid but i can sleep better knowing i said i love you because i wanted to and i would hate to ever look back and think i didnt tell him (if something terrible happened) when i had the chance but wanted to wait for him to call me, or it wasnt time for our scheduled chat. When he comes home his phone is constantly receiving texts or he is sending them to his friends etc…a text takes 5 seconds of his time… its not like i am needing 30 minutes of his time every day… it has worked for my oldest and for this one.</p>
<p>I text or send a picture about once a day & usually get a one word response…“good”, “yes”, “thanks”…this lets me know she is doing just fine & doesn’t need mom & dad right now.</p>
<p>Hmm. My daughter has been pretty independent for a while now. In fact before I accidentally flushed my last phone down the toilet, I had made a custom ringtone for her from Kelli Clarkson’s “Miss Independent” and I made that even before she started driving, because she was friends with kids older than her (drama student, making friendships across the age barrier). She has been pretty much gone all weekend long for 4 years now except to creep in right at curfew on Friday and Saturday nights and go to church with me in the morning. After school, she’s always had so much going on - rehearsals or lessons, and if not, studying over coffee, somewhere with friends other than at home - so we have been texting daily for years now.</p>
<p>It’s odd how except for the fact that she doesn’t come home at night, during the day it isn’t really that different without her here, (except somehow the house KNOWS she isn’t coming home and is somehow quieter) even though I know she won’t be finally showing up at the end of the day. But it doesn’t seem odd to text her a few times during the day because we have been doing that for years and it would seem odd to suddenly stop. We have had a lot of business to finish up concerning her books and then she had to have supplies, like her sewing stuff for costume class, so there was a lot of consulting back and forth about that. ~Not because she couldn’t have just gone to Hancock’s to get the stuff on the list, but because I have numerous duplicates of pretty much everything on the list anyway and there was a care package going out that day so I added my stuff to it. Also this is my area of expertise so it was natural for her to ask me about the stuff. But if she’d had to get a list of stuff of which I know nothing, she wouldn’t have done much more, probably, than mention it in passing.</p>
<p>Also we’ve had to figure out some issues with dance and voice classes and lessons. Those have necessitated several phone calls.</p>
<p>She did tell me she was REALLY busy and had a lot of reading so I have not been texting her just to say “hello” except for perhaps once a day, like in the morning before her class with a joke of some sort or just to say “good morning.” This doesn’t seem to be oppressive to her. </p>
<p>She will text me when something amazing happens. She and a hall mate had a big adventure taking the city bus to a bank (she has a car so apparently they just wanted to experience mass transit, and boy, did they.) That one even warranted a phone call.</p>
<p>I expect once things get settled in there will be fewer business calls and we might not text daily…but her dad is a worrier so if she goes too long without some sort of a wave, I’ll tell her we want some sort of contact no matter how brief, a couple times a week at least. If she was ever actually on her FB (which Dad and I are friended, but not friended on her “secret” FB page that is the one she uses most) then we could see she was okay but she only posts on that a couple times a month.</p>
<p>I think it is entirely reasonable to expect they contact once a week at minimum and I think it is entirely reasonable to tie paying for the cell phone to that. I’m a grown woman and my mom and I talk at least weekly and have done that pretty much since the long distance rates started to drop. But I did separate from her before that happened; when I was trying my wings, talking frequently wasn’t even an option. I may not have even talked to my parents much more than once a month. I think they would have preferred more often!</p>
<p>edit - Parent56, we are really more like you, I think. I have backed off texting during the day because she’s so busy but I never felt bad about making quick contact and even if it’s brief she answers back. It might just be “take your vitamins!” and “haha”. But I’m not expecting long phone calls or skypes more than once a week. Like you say, a text is five seconds. She’s texting constantly to her friends…a quick one to mom doesn’t seem to be a problem for her. She knows how much it cheers me up. We are that stereotypical, very close mom and daughter. It is so sweet when boys are that way - but sometimes they aren’t. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you, though.</p>
<p>We fall into the parent 56 category. Call/text when you want - which is usually pretty often, at least with D. S is not as chatty but no rules. We hear from him once a week at least.</p>
<p>son gave me a copy of his class schedule…so i make sure not to interfere with that…and his texts are not earth shattering ie yesterday “i just downloaded epicurious…could be dangerous to my bank account”</p>
<p>i agree snapdragonfly…5 secs for mom/dad wont kill them … and son doesnt seem to have any problem with it…son went to a boarding school for math/science when he was 15, so we are 4 years into this set up and it definitely works for us.</p>