<p>Well, sorry to hear that about your kids. I am having a blast!! I had to tell my mother to “Stop text messaging me”. I have not heard a word from her during the last four days (Thank God)</p>
<p>I guess, one of the things that helped me was to go away for three weeks at a time during summers and spring break from 7th grade on, as part of the National Academies, etc. I am adapting well. My dad calls me and checks on me too.</p>
<p>I think my mom is the one freaking out though…</p>
<p>Wow… I understand the need for parents to back off of from their kids, but I hope I never hear my kid say ‘Thank God’ if they haven’t heard from me in four days. That would hurt.</p>
<p>Also, I’m sure many of these very successful students of parents who are sharing in this folder have been involved in summer programs. D1 was in Europe for three weeks with a group when she was between 12 and 13 years of age, aside from a few other summer camps. D2 hasn’t had such a lengthy experience, so your theory doesn’t hold water in our family.</p>
<p>I think when you post in a parent’s forum of how glad you are your mother hasn’t text messaged you in four days, you may not get a lot of sympathy.</p>
<p>teriwtt, I feel for your daughter. It must be tough to feel left out, particularly in the senior year.
cmbmom, I am so glad you weren’t offended by my post or the idea that you make plans of your own one weekend. I definitely wasn’t meaning that you should bar her from coming or anything…just that if she saw you and DH were making your own plans and adjusting to the change of her not being around, maybe she would adjust better. Glad you weren’t offended by my post…sometimes internet is sooo different than IRL.</p>
<p>Out D is one of the unhappy ones. I know it is still early (she has been there less than 2 weeks), but it is heart-breaking to hear her crying about how she is miserable and just wants to come home. She is also talking about quitting, transferring, and the list goes on and on. I keep reminding her that it will take a bit longer to adjust and to give it some time and things will get better. She is not a partier, and it seems to her that she is the only one on the entire campus who doesn’t want to drink, etc. I tell her that if she would only get out more and try to meet people, she will find that there are plenty of kids like her. Her roommate is fine, and like her isn’t into the party scene, but she is dealing with it by going home on weekends (she lives only about 1 1/2 hours away - we are closer to 4 hours). To make matter worse, D was recently diagnosed with a medical condition (concerning her eyes) and this weekend she had a flare-up. She was in pain, but was stubborn and wouldn’t seek out any help from the infirmary so we were concerned enough that we called her RA to check on her. Needless to say - she was furious and told us to never do that again “or else”. My response - “you are 18 but we are still your parents and we were worried and needed to know you were OK” and that I couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t do it again. I know that it will get better, but you can’t convince her. We finally agreed to let her come home the end of the month for a weekend, but that she WAS going back. After some resistance, she agreed and will take the train home and then we will drive her back on Sunday. This week, the campus closes down for 2 days due to the Jewish holidays, but because she has a required class “field trip” on Saturday, she can’t come home. But, she is going to spend a day or two with some of our cousins who live abut 20 minutes away, so we are hoping that getting away for a few days will recharge her. She is also going for her work-study interview this week, so maybe working 10 hours per week will do her a world of good, too. She has signed up to join a few campus clubs/activities that will be starting up soon, so that should help. But, I am already worn out by the whole situation - sometimes she calls 4-5 times per day (I hate cell phones!!) I know that in the long run, she will thrive being away, but am running out of ideas. I am so afraid to say the wrong thing to her, but I also don’t want to give in. I told her today that if she truly doesn’t want to stay there for 4 years, she should at least stick it out for this year as she will be a much more “marketable” transfer student with a full-year at the same school, and of course, earning good grades. She has an excellent merit scholarship which is the reason she went there, but without a good GPA, she won’t be able to earn merit aid as a transfer student anywhere else. It has been quite the time here for us (BTW - she is an only child, so we are dealing with that, too). But, I almost feel guilty by admitting that I have really enjoyed the last 2 weeks as we have begun to “regroup” as a couple again. I so want her to be happy and enjoy her college experience, but it isn’t happening yet.</p>
<p>ebeeeee - I get sucked in way too easily, and chances are, by the time I talk to her again, she will feel better. She’s the one projecting that her senior year is going to suck. She told me that last weekend, they actually had a social just for the girls who were abroad last spring to get to know the new members (rush at her school takes place in spring, so if you’re abroad, you’re totally left out of it). To me that says they know enough to realize it’s awkward when girls return and have missed out on all the events of the previous semester, that they intentionally plan something to alleviate it.</p>
<p>Funny that you suggested making plans of one’s own. In the next couple of hours I need to decide if I’m going to take a week just to myself, and travel to the Pacific Northwest coast for some R&R. Southwest has a DING fare that expires in two hours. This would be a stretching experience for me, traveling alone (too late to get anyone to go with me), but I don’t mind. I just want books, a good Adirondack chair, the sound of the sea, and a fireplace to curl up by if it rains. It’s soooo hard to learn how to be an adult without the daily obligations and responsibilities of kids around. But I’m trying to make a concerted effort. If I don’t do it in a couple of weeks, my work schedule and parent’s weekends schedules will prevent it from happening until after the first of the year. Do I hear any yeas or nays for this?</p>
<p>allie’smom - how heartbreaking! I hope some time with her cousins (and realizing family IS only 20 minutes away, although it might not be mom and dad) will help. A few days before my kids left, we were having this conversation, wondering who would be the first one of their friends who absolutely hates where they’re at, and comes home without finishing the semester. As far as I know, there’s just one kid (not a close friend, but acquaintence) who is coming home for good. She, too, was calling up her mom many times a day, but I don’t think this girl had necessarily picked what I would have perceived as the best fit school. So her mom finally gave in, but told her if she comes home, she has to repay her for her out-of-pocket expenses, which after only two weeks, amounts to around $1,000. Surprisingly (these community colleges know something we don’t know), she was still able to late register for some classes at the local community college, so she will be in school. But the mom pretty much begged her to stay, then finally gave in. Only time will tell if it was the best choice.</p>
<p>I wonder if coming home every weekend is actually not the best idea</p>
<p>How does someone find out what happens on weekends, what programs there are, what is happening in the town if you run away to home?</p>
<p>Sure regrouping, etc is good, but can’t that happen at another friends house? At the dorm exploring your neighborhood, studying, walking, exercising?</p>
<p>I am all for communicating- calling, texting, IMing, but wonder about if returning home too often can slow down the process</p>
<p>and teriwtt, wonder if your D grew up some when she was away and maybe outgrew some of the sorority stuff?</p>
<p>and alliesmom’s story makes a point, the roomie goes home, while instead the two girls could go off and do something together!!!</p>
<p>teriwtt, go, do it. Take some good books. Be willing to strike up conversations with strangers. Order room service.</p>
<p>I got one of the phone calls tonight from DD who is a junior. This is the first ime she is living in a single, and her friends are in a different dorm together (don’t ask, Barnard’s res. life system.) The problems as stated were: Too hot (a common theme, no?) so she can’t get any sleep, spotty internet service and no cable hook-up for TV. Of course nothing I said made things any better. I think she is used to having a roommate to vent to because this is the first such call I’ve received since she left two years ago. Things improved when I said I’d stand her to a new set of DVD’s of a favorite TV show. The next time I talked to her she was chipper and talking about going out to cisit a friend.</p>
<p>The thing that motivates D is the thing that is driving her crazy now: her strong desire to be a lawyer. She has always been the kind of person who is focused on the next step, and she is worrying about her LSAT score, even when she doesn’t know it.</p>
<p>For OP: I think I may know what school you are talking about, but maybe I’m wrong, not that it matters at all. If you go to visit her is there any way you can get her to meet you somewhere for dinner that she can get to on her own steam? I found that a good compromise was letting DD meet us somewhere she got to herself. This changed our dynamic because she displayed her new coping skills and we met on neutral ground, like equals. (Of course we paid.)</p>
<p>mythmom,
good idea. DS is on the opposite coast so that was never an option for us.</p>
<p>go teriwtt! Recharge your own batteries!</p>
<p>how can you live abroad and not grow up? I’m sure she did, but the question is does it make enough difference between her and those who didn’t go. Interestingly, her roommate from last fall, who she’s rooming again with this fall, did not go abroad, and their relationship has changed. I think it’s a case of wanting to move back into the house and expecting things to be the same, which we know (because we are old and wise) can’t happen. </p>
<p>The other thing that happened is that she landed an incredible job, kind of late in the summer, which kind of turned her life upside down, in a good way. She tried for two months to get an internship (PR), but with no luck (most had been spoken for before she got home from abroad). On a fluke, she contacted an acquaintence of ours who just started her own PR firm out of her home with a couple of other ladies. They all have stellar reputations in the Chicago PR market. D asked her if she could just shadow her for the rest of the summer, so she’d have something to put on her resume (thinking even if it meant answering phones). Well, two weeks into it, she was hired on a contract basis, making, you wouldn’t believe how much an hour. She was given some serious responsibilities and handled it well. Her boss offered to have her continue working for her, tele-commuting from school, over 700 miles away, for five hours a week. When she’s home on breaks, she will work whatever hours she can. So with this incredible turn of events, she was able to trade in her car (which was sort of my idea… long story) to get a new one. I had in mind another used car, just a bit bigger. But she fell in love with the 2007 model, and decided she was able and willing to make car payments. So she returned to school in her new car, after living abroad, having landed an incredible part-time position that gives her great experience and a good source of income, and now also has enough money to do some minimal investing with our financial advisor. So she’s had some wonderful opportunities, but that come with very adult-like responsibilities. Maybe some girls are jealous, although I suspect, as parents go, we are by far the one with most resources. She just lucked out with this position, which by the way, she has been told is hers until she graduates and can find a new job. The downside of working at a start-up company is that they can’t offer her benefits, and understand she will want to work someplace that offers them. But it gives her some time to really find a job she’s happy with. </p>
<p>Now that I’ve written this all down, I think I have underestimated how different her life must seem since she last lived in the sorority house last December. I have no doubt she’ll find her place once again.</p>
<p>Maybe this only helps me, but it’s an idea. When they miss you and you miss them – send something silly in the mail. I send D especially funny comics from the Sunday paper, her favorite candy, interesting clippings I’ve read (recently one about a movie Daniel Radcliffe has coming out this fall), and this weekend I ran across a 6" chattering skeleton in a dollar store. When you pull the string in its head, it’s teeth chatter. It made me smile, it will make her smile!</p>
<p>I don’t do this everyday or anything like that. Just when something strikes me.</p>
<p>Getting back to OP, I agree with Midwest Parent. In the first month of college, I would not have the heart to insist that my kid stay at school if he/she clearly wanted to be home.</p>
<p>My husband and I discussed the situation tonight. We have decided that daughter can come home any weekend she wants except for parents’ weekend when we will go there. She has been staying at school on Friday nights and going to activities, so she is trying, just needs/wants to come home more than I hoped she would. She does not like change and she is really trying so we will take the baby step approach until she is ready to fly all on her own. Thank you to Midwest parent, your post really made me think of how my child reacts to new situations, not how I react to them.</p>
<p>Midwest parent, nice post (#17).</p>
<p>cmbmom, I hope your daughter feels better about her school. I feel for you. We don’t want to see our children unhappy if we can help it. It’s in our job descriptions as parents.</p>
<p>As long as we’re talking of baby steps, maybe this is a time to consider positive reinforcement when she talks about anything to do with the campus. Expand the conversation on the smallest thing she mentions that has the hope of sounding like a good thing from the direction of the campus. Even a little comment like, “some girl on my hall has a picture of her dog on the door” can lead to talk or giggles between you two, and that’ll increase her realization that what she discovers at campus is of potential interest to you, so it could be to her.</p>
<p>When she melts down about negative things, listen actively and sympathetically but perhaps just say, “that must be tough…” and leave it there without a big conversation about it.</p>
<p>I guess that’s a behavior modification approach (I don’t know psychology in a formal way). It’s not unsympathetic, either. Maybe it’ll wean her off of lamenting her new campus life.</p>
<p>You didn’t ask for that kind of advice, but it just occurred to me.</p>
<p>Do schools turn off the A/C in dorms on weekends? When my son returned to his dorm on a Sunday, the dorms were hot and his thermostat had no power. </p>
<p>BTW… many kids who go to in-state schools do go home on many weekends. (some even have weekend jobs in their home towns.) That’s why many of the on-campus dining places are either closed or have very reduced hours.</p>
<p>If your D is at a school where many kids don’t live on campus and/or they do go home often on weekends, then welcome your d home on weekends. Things may change later on when she meets some people who do stay on campus thru the weekend, etc. </p>
<p>Those who have kids that are at schools where many kids are from far away so they stay at their dorms on the weekends may not be able to truly understand what this kid is going thru. </p>
<p>How many of us would like to have to stay at our offices over the weekend, when no else does???</p>
<p>The reality is, there are kids who pick schools (for understandable reasons) that end up not being the best fit. And we don’t want to see our kids unhappy - yes, it’s in our job description. But we also want our kids to stretch themselves, and maybe that means sticking it out somewhere a full semester before deciding to come home (unless there are extenuating circumstances).</p>
<p>And let’s face it, how many of us want to see tens of thousands of dollars go out the window for an experience that makes our child miserable? I suspect that money doesn’t grow on trees for most parents here, and if I were in that spot, I, too, would be tempted to haul my kid home if they were miserable (and I intuited it was not anything that would get better over the semester). It’s a tough call for both sides… kids and parents. Most kids encouraged to stick it out, will adjust fine and someday laugh at those initial calls home.</p>
<p>Just having a thought-- Are there any out of state or international kids there? The school my son is at made sure that there are bonding activities for those kids (who would always be at school on the weekends). Maybe she can latch on to some of their events.</p>
<p>I am heartsick for those of you whose kids are unhappy. I am hoping my freshman doesn’t have a homesick meltdown. Keeping fingers crossed, he is happy and busy so far.</p>