<p>I’ve been reading it for a couple of weeks, but wasn’t ready to post until now.
My son, Adam, is a senior getting ready to leave the “nest”. He’s been accepted to 3 out of 5 schools and waiting for Berkeley on Thursday.
I can’t tell you how proud I am of him. However, I’m having a little trouble processing the fact that , after 18 years of him in my life, I have to let him go. I’m not saying that I intend on keeping him here forever, I will let him go. I’ts just that…that room without his loud guitar playing…will be silent. The dinner table will be set for 3 instead of 4. How do I let myself let go, how long does it take for me to get use to it? My daughter is 13. She and her brother are very close. How can I reassure her when my own heart is breaking? I want to do this right. I want to let him go with a peaceful heart and be a strong positive parent for both of our kids. I am looking for a solution to accept this change. I know this sounds very dramantic and maybe pathetic, but not one of my friends/family are sending their child off to college and I could really use some ideas.</p>
<p>Hi learning…
I too am going to be sending my oldest off to school this fall. It will be hard, I know what you mean! And although most of the people I know have kids in S’s class, most of them are planning to attend the local (commuter) univ. My S may end up far from home or he may end up in our own city as we are moving this year (which belive me, has added to my stress on oh so many levels).
He does not like email or IM or any of that and is not a big phone talker either so I can see lots of long periods of not hearing from him if he ends up in a different city than us. :(</p>
<p>I hate to say this…please don’t take this the wrong way…I’m so glad not to be alone in this. I think everyone thinks I should be happy to get rid of him. I’m not!
As for your son, maybe, get him a cell phone so there’s a chance he’ll answer it when you call and since he’s not a big phone talker you won’t have to worry about him using too many minutes. Or, maybe just explain to him how you feel and ask him to check in once a week.</p>
<p>Oh Learning! It is difficult. It is the part of life you never think about as you race around caring for your children. My son left last fall and there are some things that I like about him not being here: no piles of laundry, no having to cook, cook, cook, and shop, shop, shop! I have even lost pounds. That’s good. But I miss him just being around. I knew he couldn’t stay here. I knew he needed to move on in his life. I just wasn’t prepared for it when it happened. It is all exciting getting him ready to leave so that will get you through the first bit, and your younger daughter will get you through the rest. I know when my older sister left for college years and eons ago I was sad and then realized I had my parents to myself. Being the youngest, it was kind of nice to have so much attention. </p>
<p>How will you let go? You just will. As a mom, you will know what to do when the time comes. Besides like my older sister still says, being a mom never ends and she has 2 grown children and 6 grandchildren. And so it goes…</p>
<p>Sidenote: does anybody else feel slightly guilty in this phase? What I mean is that I have spent HUNDREDS (literally) of hours researching schools, planning visits to colleges, visiting colleges, helping w/ apps, planning trip to admitted student weekend, etc etc. All this for the oldest son and meanwhile my 2 younger sons are still here. I know I will do the same for them very soon, but I can’t help but feel like this whole past year has been all about S#1. :o</p>
<p>I’ll be sending my oldest to college this fall too. A couple of years ago, I went through the major blues worrying about him leaving for school. Now, I know I’ll be sad, but I can’t help but be so proud and happy that he’s matured into such a wonderful young man. To be honest, I’m very excited for him, and I hope that carries me through those sad times.</p>
<p>Hopefully, you’ll have the necessary spats, fights, and arguments over the summer and, by the end of it, you’ll both be ready to have him move out. (Then he’ll come back in three months, and you’ll love him even more!) ;)</p>
<p>DDM, we’re parents of an only, so we did not have that experience. But I think that it doesn’t hurt anyone to learn that time & attention isn’t uniform for everyone at all times. It’s just an extension in that even with a nuclear family of only three, there’s a constant shifting of priorities at any given moment between “you”, “me”, and “we.”</p>
<p>This sounds silly, but have him make a cd or tape of his music to play once in a while, and if he isn’t a big caller or whatever, this may sound odd, but give him some stamped postcards to write you a little note to get you through, tell him its not for him, but for mom, the one who gave birth, who cooked and cleaned…jk</p>
<p>I think if you tell him you know he will be fine, but you yourself are a bit sad and will be lonesome for a bit, and you promise to keep the conversations brief (my Ds pet peeve, can’t get me off the phone and I ask tooo many questions) you could probably convince him to give you a call once in a while. I know my kids don’t like so many questions, and they hear my “worry” that all is just perfect in their world, they sometimes prefer not to start the conversation</p>
<p>congrats!!! and fill the time with something else, like a hobby, vollunteering, and visiting him as often as you can (again JK)</p>
<p>I think, for me, it’s all about change. It’s hard anticipating change, but once I’ve walked in it for awhile, I’m ok. In my experience change has always been go to me. I’ll just have to learn to “mother” in a different way.</p>
<p>I sent my oldest to college this past fall. It seems so hard to believe that I am on this end of the posting. The time has flown since September. I, like you, thought that I couldn’t even bear the thought of her leaving. I loved every minute of her being here- she’s been the best kid. I have two younger children and I didn’t know how they would be without her here. </p>
<p>We’ve all done just fine. After the initial shock we settled into a new dynamic here. As a poster above said my other two children may like having more attention from us. That senior year can be so busy with that oldest child! </p>
<p>When my daughter comes home it’s so great to see the adult she’s becoming. She loves college and made an easy adjustment which made it nice for us to know that she is so happy.</p>
<p>I miss her and yearn for the days when she was little but its all good now.</p>
<p>That gives me peace to know that this time next year, I’ll be telling my story of how we all made it through. Hopefully, I can reassure somone else. :)</p>
<p>L2B, When we left S#1 at college last Aug. he was SO happy that it was hard for me to be sad. I didn’t want to spoil it for him. In the weeks that followed, I did find myself just sitting in his room looking around and wondering how all the years flew by so fast. I read on the board in some long ago post by a Mom that said after her S had gone off to school, she found herself not so much missing her 18 yr. old son as she did the boy he had been at 6,8 10,and 12. I found this to be true also.</p>
<p>Is your son a pretty independent kid? When our S was a senior we really tried to start “letting go” throughout the year. He pretty much made his own decisions and plans and then let us know what he was doing. If he had things going on with friends and was going to miss dinner with the family for instance, we just asked that he let us know that he wouldn’t be here but did not demand a full explanation of his plans. We stopped telling him what time to be home and let him make the decision. He was a responsible kid and handled it pretty well. It was hard for me to give up “being in charge” but it helped so much in the long run. He was in and out and away from home so much during Senior year that it sort of conditioned us to his being away in college.</p>
<p>Try to do some fun things with your daughter. I seem to find myself hanging out and talking or watching tv with S#2 (a soph) more than I did in the past.</p>
<p>S#1 is not a phone guy or e-mailer either so I told him I would not bug him by calling all the time if he would just call me once every week or so to let me know he’s still breathing! We’ve both held up our end of the deal and it has worked out well. </p>
<p>Also don’t be surprised (a little hurt, maybe) when he comes home to visit from college and rushes out right away to see all his old friends rather than spending a lot of quality time at home with the family. That has been the case thus far with my S. I’m told that as they get older there will be less of that.</p>
<p>warning: skip if you don’t want to hear the personal story…</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking a lot about when I was pregnant with him! :eek: . Actually that’s not an exaggeration. You see, my oldest S was not a planned pregnancy and I was given a lot of (unsolicited) advice about what to do about my pregnancy. I mean, I was not in high school, but I was single and had not finished college. All I can say is that I am so glad things have turned out the way they did. S is definitely a keeper. Maybe because those days were so difficult (my dad did not talk to me for almost 3 months after telling me I should consider adoption), I am really cherishing the last few months I have with him.</p>
<p>Your son sounds like mine. He has been weening me off this year and I too have let that happen. It does help. Ever since he’s been driving , he pretty much leads his own life. He is an amazing person and will be missed, but I think I’ll take the advice to focus on Kamryn (daughter).</p>
<p>citygirlsmom- funny you should mention the music CD. I asked my son to make a “good music” CD for me before he left for college this past fall- he has great music taste and I wanted to have some of that to play in my car. The day before he left for Yale, he came to my room with 2 CD’s which were inscripted with a sharpie that said “Music that will make you cooler than all the other moms.” I laughed, thanked him, and put them away to listen to after he left.</p>
<p>The first CD was cool, hip music that he loves- some jazz, alt. rock, R and B,etc. I actually felt a little cooler listening to it. The next one? Well, I spent most of the day driving around crying as I heard songs that I knew he carefully selected because I liked them or they said something he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. Such as: Beautiful Boy by John Lennon (real tearjerker for the mother of boys), I’ll Be Seeing You (…in all the old familiar places, etc. don’t get me started!), Brown Eyed Girl (guess who has brown eyes?), and on it went. So personal and so precious to me.</p>
<p>I can’t listen to it all the time, but when i haven’t heard from him in awhile, I play it and smile. Because I know he is living his dream and I have to be thankful he has the opportunity and wings to do it. You let go with your mind and your arms, but never your heart.</p>