Hi I am a newbie boarding school parent. My 16yr DD was in a LPS before so has always lived home before she left for the boarding school. This is her first week, and so far we’ve had 2 calls in the beginning and texted a couple times each day. I know she is quite busy during the week and has sports on weekends, so shall I “schedule” a call or facetime with her once a week? We don’t usually call her either when she lives at home (there was not much need), but we did text a lot.
Any advice on the cadence of communication with your kids in boarding school?
Our plan is to call on Face Time once per weekish. We also use the app Marcopolo, it is a little like Snap Chat. She leaves us a quick video message when she has time and then we respond when we have time. It feels like we are connected without the pressure… if that makes sense!
Very kid dependent answer as it really just depends.
DS was very active and would usually call us most weekends and we tried to drive to see a few of his soccer matches. If he had issues getting settled, we would have called more often but in his case once/week, at his initiative, most weeks was more than enough for him. We would have loved for it to be more frequent but felt he had to lead this. YMMV
Some people like to schedule a weekly call. It saves a lot of texts about the logistics of a call and the angst of missed calls. It is also a good way to be in touch “normally” rather than only in crisis moments.
Many parents of both BS and college students get calls when “everything is wrong”. Often, after the vent, the student’s life resumes quite normally and happily while the parent is sleepless and fretting. This ensures check-ins outside those moments of perceived disaster.
I think during the early days, some students benefit from being able to process, vent, etc with a parent and it can ease qualms about being away to know they can be in touch. You just want to be sure that this isn’t so frequent that it gets in the way of being present at the new school.
This is very much a YMMV issue, but regardless of how you approach it, the goal is for your child to develop bonds in the new community and be independent. Your approach should support that.
from boarding thru college, we made it a point for ds to call twice a week. it didn’t have to be long; just touch base on a regular basis. this would avoid the dreaded “hi dad send money”
I send my kid little text messages for things of interest like dog, new food, etc. We talk maybe twice a week. She used to call more as a freshman but as a junior it’s less frequent. I also send happy surprise packages to her.