I don’t think there is a “one size fits all” solution when it comes to teens/young adults dealing with anxiety issues. There is a lot of variation in intensity and triggers.
Can’t the kid sign paperwork permitting doctors to release medical info to mom? If mom is actively involved in the care I don’t see why she wouldn’t do this. If she doesn’t want to do this, I’d take that as a serious message for mom to back off.
^Yes, a child can do that. I just wanted to point out that if she doesn’t, Mom can still give the doctor information. S
My daughter does really well with busy and structured schedule. She manages time well and never has a problem in a competitive environment. The biggest fear is uncertainty. Once she is in it, she is fine. It’s the very beginning of the change in life worries me.
I don’t want to protect her for her whole life but I do want to train her not just be able to survive but also excel. The older she gets, the better she will be without me and the past has proved me right. She was a lot better now than then for facing challenge. I do what everyone does, just with more caution.
@mathyone she did sign the paper and I was waiting for her to tell the doctor herself out of respect. I know I could disclose what I saw but I want her to be able to face it and accept it. Sorry if I have confused someone again.
As someone who dealt with anxiety while away at college I would most likely do the following (keep in mind, I was not aware of the seriousness of my anxiety before I left)
- Is her anxiety serious enough that she is on meds? If not is this something you have discussed? Making the decision to go on medicine was the hardest decision I've made, but once I was on it I wish I had been more informed and open to it. There's a negative stigma associated with meds. Do not push them on her bit let her know if she feels xyz way the option does exist.
- Before the start of the school year have her familiarize herself with the mental health center. She may not need an appt right away but make sure she knows how to get in contact.
- Before the year starts, make sure the ducks are in a row. So much anxiety comes from things we don't know. Map out doctors that she can get to cheaply, make sure she knows how her insurance works etc. A huge trigger for me was having to make my own gyn appt (may be tmi sorry) so be sure that she knows who to go to for help
- I advise against staying the month. The first 6 weeks of school are vital to social development. In fact, as a previous tour guide and orientation leader we tell parents to hold off on asking kids to visit. Students who do not visit home within 6 weeks are often better adjusted.
Research tuition insurance, medical withdrawal academic and financial aid policies, FERPA waivers, registration with students with disabilities services, and the like. See transitionyear.org.
Sorry if this has already been said; no time to read all 8 pages. She won’t want you for dorm supplies or decor. Busses run regularly from Carleton to Target. An early bonding experience is jumping on the bus with floor mates or teammates and all going to Target to buy supplies together. Good low risk, fun social activity done during Orientation week. She’ll love Carleton. Everyone is very open and welcoming and friendly. Best wishes to her!
OP- you need to actually listen to the advice you are getting.
1- her dorm room is small. It will take under an hour at Target or Walmart to buy enough stuff to completely fill the room. She will not need her parents to help her figure out that a white board for the door is more practical than a chalk board (or vice versa, or neither). This is what kids do together at college as they get acquainted.
2- you do her no favors to imply that you think her transition issues are going to be so crippling that she needs you there longer than her team mates or dorm mates need their parents. For what you will spend to hang out in the area for that length of time, you could fly back to her (if she needs you) in two weeks. Don’t set her up for failure.
3- Nutrition is important- both for someone on anxiety medication and an athlete. Why not channel some of the anxiety YOU seem to be showing about her leaving home by researching the food options for her on campus, making her a chart or cheat sheet showing where she can get a healthy meal locally after the cafeteria closes, ordering a gift card or two for her to a local restaurant which has healthy options?
4- Ask your daughter to set up a schedule in advance of when she will call/text/face time you-- and tell her that you will respect her schedule by NOT reaching out at other times except in a true emergency. And then spend the next week practicing this boundary. Every October we read sad stories from parents on CC about kids who never leave their room except to go to classes, kids who eat lunch alone every single day, etc. We all jump in to help with suggestions- and it turns out that Mom calls the kid 10 times a day, the kid is on the phone while walking to class, on the phone during lunch, on the phone in the dorm room- any wonder why the kid is having trouble making friends??? Taking the dog to the vet is NOT an emergency, and does not constitute a reason to call a child at college, even if your D loves the dog more than anything in the world. Practice disconnecting- it sounds as though the two of you are going to need to create some healthy boundaries so that she can fully adjust to her new life.
The girl is playing a sport that starts immediately. Most of the games are either at home or at schools in the area and the parents want to stay for the games, thus the 4-6 weeks in the area.
Where planning can help is for the parents to plan things so they won’t be available to the daughter except on game days. A few days in Minneapolis (go to the State Fair), go to Wisconsin for the fall colors. Go to Chicago or down to Dubuque. Go to Duluth and drive along the Lakes. DON’T sit in a hotel close enough to get to daughter in an hour with no plans. Whatever it is you like to do on vacations, do it. Put the games on your schedule and those will be the only visits to campus.
Jeez, the OP can hang out in Minnesota for a month if that’s what she wants to do. It isn’t going to harm her daughter, hinder her social relationships, or delay her adjustment to college. If the D doesn’t feel the need to talk to her parents or hang out with them, she won’t. If she does, she can. What’s so awful about that?
The first few weeks at college can be very stressful, and it can help a lot just to know that there’s someone there who can help you with little things. That doesn’t mean that the D will collapse in a heap the moment her parents get on a plane to go home, and it doesn’t mean that she’ll never learn independence.
Some kids just need to keep the training wheels on a little longer, as much for their own sense of security as for anything else. This is not a black-and-white issue: either the OP cuts the apron strings on the day her D moves into the dorm, or else the D is doomed to never grow up.
The predictions that the D is going to suffer horrible embarrassment because her mom is watching her games, or that she won’t make friends because she’ll be hanging out with her parents every night, sound ridiculous to me.
All that aside, yes, obviously the most important thing is that the D gets hooked up with the college mental health services, including making an appointment with a psychiatrist who can prescribe medication if she’s taking anything that she needs to keep on taking. (Somewhat ironically, learning to manage her own mental health care and ordering/picking up her own Prozac, was a big step for my D in learning independence! Thank you anxiety for teaching my D how to be independent!) It’s good that she’s at a small LAC with a supportive environment. I’m sure she will do very well there.
@twoinanddone I feel like you have taken a peek at my itinerary. It’s exactly where I am heading to. Chicago, Duluth and Dubuque and her games. I am freaking out how you would know that!
It’s funny how people think I would hinder her growth by staying there for a month while I am not even going to see her that much. It would be the same if she was staying in CA. I would still let her be part of the team and the school and go watch some games. But thank you again for all the comments.
I lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota for a total of 15 years. Not many other places to travel for a weekend. Dubuque is a pretty nice. Nice riverfront.
I read through all pages rather quickly, but didn’t see much mention of the support she will get being an athlete - she will have to take care of herself and they will help her do that. Her coach and team mates will be such a huge part of her life. The best part of being an athlete is you start with a huge support and friend system that only gets stronger over the 4 years. A friend had a terrible time letting her daughter go to college, and frankly, the process seemed way too much about mom’s emotions. But she had spent years watching her compete as a junior, so not seeing the daily practice and matches were very hard for her. Yes, she was there way way too much during the first fall, but it eventually tapered off as her daughter moved on and away from her as well, and was eventually too busy to spend time with a visiting mother. It happens over time. I would think you would like to see some of the early games/matches since you won’t be able to see them like parent’s that live close to the college do, so enjoy them that first month (but don’t hang out at practices, that can be awkward). I hope the coach is well aware of any issues, and you trust them to help her work through these issues and any others she has while there.
Oh, dear, I think this is a terrible idea. I say this as the mother of a child who has battled anxiety and depression for years. I know how hard it is to watch her spiral down into panic and sleeplessness, and I understand the desire to do anything to prevent it.
But nothing you can do will keep her from experiencing anxiety. All you can do is help her recognize her symptoms and empower her to seek help on her own.
Help her set up her doctor and therapist near campus. Help her transfer her prescription to the pharmacy nearest her school. Encourage her to tell her new friends when it is appropriate that she is dealing with this so that they can push her to seek extra help when she needs it. Your goal should be to help her build a support network that doesn’t include you. Yes, you can be supportive but you won’t always be there!
And I can almost guarantee that if she does run into trouble, it won’t be the first month. It’ll be right before exams, when you’re not there. This is why she must have a support system of her own making.
So the accurate title for this thread is “Help affirm a parent with anxiety that their plan for launching their D is 100% correct”. Which is fine. But the OP asked for other’s experience- what lessons they learned from their OWN kids, and seems quite resistant to even hearing another POV.
I’ve seen lots of kids have rocky adjustments and then turn it around beautifully. I’ve seen lots of kids have great adjustments and then spiral. I’ve seen lots of kids have rocky adjustments and never fully adapt to college life and either slog it out for four years, or come home and figure out Plan B.
The only common thread among the “kid couldn’t adjust” is not the kid- it’s the parent. Parent swoops in to fix a problem when the kid could have worked it out alone- with help from local mental health professionals. Parent supports some unrealistic thinking and decision-making by the kid when the friends, coach, etc. would have helped the kid develop some healthier habits. Absent an eating disorder (doesn’t seem to be present here) or an addiction problem (ditto), most mental health professionals on or near college campuses are more than up to the task of treating and monitoring a kid on anxiety meds and can refer said kid to talk therapy, CBT, etc. to develop good problem-solving techniques.
Namaste and hoping for a wonderful Freshman year for the D.
This transition anxiety can hit any student. My daughter, who never had any issues with anxiety or separation, called me during her first semester at college (a 6 hour drive away), hysterical because she was convinced that nobody liked her, she would never make a friend, etc. This hit me out of left field and with 4 other kids at home and a full time job, I could not leave and go to her. My husband has travel anxiety and so he couldn’t go to her. I made her go to the campus health center, where she was seen almost immediately, and signed up for counseling. She had 3 sessions and told me that she was told that almost ALL kids have some level of separation stress. It was suggested that she introduce herself to at least one person sitting alone at each meal for 2 weeks. She did that and wound up talking to many interesting (and also scared about being unliked) kids. She is now 25 and is still friends with some of those kids she approached her first semester. She graduated from the school she was so afraid she wouldn’t be liked at and wound up loving it so much that her younger brother is there now.
My suggestion is to try and get her in with campus mental health before school starts. They are experienced with dealing with these issues. I could have told my daughter to say hello to a stranger and she would have scoffed at me. When an expert suggested it, she did it. Your daughter has a built-in core group of fellow athletes. You might consider contacting the coach and asking if your daughter can be assigned an upper class buddy to help her acclimate - maybe the program already does this? Having someone that she can turn to might be enough to let her relax enough to become a productive member of her college community.
As for staying in the area for a month, you are lucky to have that much time available. After her first year, I was only able to visit my daughter at school twice - once when she did her major presentation and once for her graduation. I have not visited my son at all, but he is a very different person and isn’t interested in having us visit. Ironically, he is actually diagnosed with anxiety but he has never had separation issues, just performance (school work) anxiety.
I understand this isn’t true for all families - but I know one very well in which 2 of their 3 kids deal with anxiety issues - one sought treatment for severe panic/anxiety attacks at college and the other transferred from a college across the country to attend one close to home because of anxiety. Thing is, the parents have been a nervous mess for all the years I have known them - mom freaks about everything, including travel, while overanalyzing the importance of anything they do, and dad takes medication because he is over stressed and full of anxiety over work. Apples don’t fall far from the tree. Often times, the source of a kids stress/anxiety or whatever issues can be found by looking in a mirror. Just sayin’…
I haven’t read all 8 pp, so, sorry if I’m repeating or have missed anything.
First - my D was just diagnosed this past spring with GAD and depression, currently on meds, so I have very similar concerns as OP.
She’s also moving onto campus early, but for marching band, not sports… I actually think it will be good for her to do that, be on campus early, gives her an extra week to adjust to campus, dorm life, before welcome week gets into full swing…
We are currently looking into setting D up with a therapist and some group therapy sessions at the Student counseling Center that specifically deal with anxiety, so she has a support group of peers. Getting her prescription set up for 90 days, where to pick up, all that…
I, too, thought about staying for a week or two in college town, or very close by, in case she needs me or forgot something, :).
But of course, I’m not doing that. I agree with others who said that’s sort of sending her a message that I don’t trust her to be grown-up and independent and capable of handling day-to-day things on her own. So, I’ll probably stay overnight in college town, because it’s more than 4 hrs drive, then… we are heading back home in the morning.
The campus and town both offer free bus rides for students and it shouldn’t be hard for her to figure out how to get to Target or Wal-mart or the mall to buy anything else that may have not been packed. I also agree that a last-minute shopping run can be a good chance to bond with dorm-mates.
I have wrestled with this all summer. I know how you feel, OP - we want to protect our child, but also know we need to let go. It’s really hard for me to accept that I cannot prevent my D from having another panic attack, or emotional meltdown - she’s the one who needs to do the work on that, and my hovering could just make it worse.
All I can do is help her get a support system in place, and hope that she has taken things learned in therapy to heart and is working on those skills.
I’m trying to be confident she’ll be okay - to the point where I actually booked an overseas trip for me and my husband at the end of October. - I did work around parents’ weekend, Columbus Day wknd etc the times she might want to come home, or ask us to visit. But you now what? I’d be very surprised if she asks to come home or asks us to visit then. she’s stayed away from home over a week before… But, just in case…
But after that, I’m traveling to Italy for a couple weeks, and she will be okay. Thing is, my traveling is going to be a good lesson for ME - otherwise I’ll be sitting at home, just worrying if she’s alright. I know I need to go on with my own life, too, and not plan it around what MIGHT happen. Because what might happen may very well not…
I agree, too, with post 118 that parents often transfer their anxiety unwittingly - i know we probably have and my H has has panic attacks intermittently since Ive known him - A really big part of me thinks that my own D will benefit from being away from us, and from OUR stress, for a while.
And I think it will benefit me being away from my D, as well.