What a special thing to find @FallGirl.
Brought son to school 4 weeks ago. We of course missed him but knew enough what to expect that we coped with it just like most of you are doing. As he explained to a counselor yesterday (I attended session) he lived in the same house 19 years, had the same best friends since the 6th grade, Mom & Dad were always there when he came home and his dogs greeted him like he had been gone for years, etc., etc. And then poof! it’s all in the past. He started off comparing people at university with his old friends and he missed them more. We saw the phone call frequency increase until Monday night he called and could not sleep as all these sad thoughts were just spinning in his head. He also discussed how for seemingly no reason he would just be overwhelmed with sadness and grief. Today we met with the The psychiatrist used the phrase “panic attack” somewhere in our conversation. Well, I pieced together 3 hours sleep and then hit the road at 4:30 am for a six hour drive.
Prior to the counselor session he told me he was reflecting on how fortunate he was to have parental support. I think what really pushed him to the brink is that it struck him that someday we would die. All of that together was more than he could handle.
We have so much to be thankful for…he welcomed going to student counseling (they are super); he is determined to do what is necessary to succeed; he is a smart kid (differential equations, organic chemistry, etc.) and while he has had a tough time concentrating, he is somewhat keeping up with academics. I wasn’t sure I did right but I told him until he got things worked out I would stick around for support. The counselor said in this case it was absolutely the right thing to do.
So, while it is somewhat therapeutic to peck this out, I am not doing this for sympathy or any other self-serving reason. And it is not meant to come across like “quit your bell-aching, you don’t have it so bad”. Reading everyone’s story has indeed helped me by knowing I am in the normal group of grieving parents. So keep writing! I am sharing this in hopes that it will help someone. Just take a moment to give thanks that your kid is progressing like you want him/her to progress. While I wish my son was having an easier time i am happy that he loves us and knows we will do anything for him. I know too, that while tough, he will learn and be stronger from this experience. Our bond is exposed to be even stronger. I am certainly thankful that he talked with us and is determined to deal with it. I know many times families are not so fortunate. Just take a few minutes to reflect on what you have to be lucky for but don’t stop sharing experiences. Also, I was not trying for the longest post award
Hugs @StewyGriffin and it is so wonderful that you could be there for your boy. You will get through this together.
Well, as a post script - that’s a term from the past - i intended to trim the post down and clean it up a little, but for some reason it just posted itself. I hope this in some way helps someone.
@StewyGriffin, yours is a powerful and important post. Thanks for sharing. I think there is a decent percentage of new college freshmen/families that go through this type of experience. Not everyone handles it as beautifully as it sounds like you are handling it.
It’s so important to remember that sometimes kids DON’T share their feelings of sadness/anxiety the way Stewy’s son did…so as parents, it’s wise to stay on top of how they are doing. You know your kid best, and are probably the best person to figure out if something is wrong, even long distance. Don’t count on the college/new roommates, etc. to let you know if something is wrong.
I’m having a bit of a mopey day again today. Our sun turned to rain which isn’t helping.
Hugs @saintfan
We keep telling ourselves that now that DS has grown up and left our nest, we should not focus our attention on him.
What we have managed to do: During his college years, one call each week. After his college, (roughly) one call every other week.
Stumbled across an old video today looking for a recent picture of my daughter with her father to set as wallpaper on my computer. My husband had just purchased a digital video camera and he happened to be fiddling with with that day when our daughter (about 6 years old) came inside to ask him to take the training wheels off her bike. Timing right? He went out and removed them, then got video of her trying to get the whole balance thing finally mastered followed by successfully riding toward him with a big smile on her face and her crazy fine curly hair poking out in every direction under her helmet. Cut away and she is taking the lid off the trash can outside the back door, then bends over, picks up the training wheels and throws them away. She puts the lid back on the trashcan and looks up at the camera with the most amazingly proud snaggletoothed smile. She was glowing!
It’s weird, but raising a kid is kind of a series of removing the training wheels. So much anxiety that they will fall and get hurt, yet they have so much pride when they succeed to the next level.
Somehow, reading this thread made me happy, or more correctly speaking, bitter-sweet?
Thanks for sharing.
When I “taught” (could this be taught?) my son to ride his bicycle without training wheels for the first time, I was running after his bike while holding his back seat (or something I could hold on) all the time. I told him if his bike fell, I would catch it. He totally trusted me and I never let go of his bike until he had learned it. He did not fall even once, before he learned how to ride his bike without training wheels.
At that time, we had moved to a larger house (the first house we bought.) I remember we would like to be running INSIDE the house (strange, is it?) while we were playing a relatively long classical music (fast movement) on our newly-acquired stereo system (one piece we played was Beethoven Violin Concerto in D, the third movement, because it was relatively long and fast paced.)
Another fun thing we did was to use his very large set of (wooden) blocks to build a large structure. And then imagine that enemy’s bomber flied by and dropped bombs (smaller blocks) which would eventually destroy the structure we had built. (Well…some parents here may think I may not teach him the right thing here. Fortunately, he did not play too much violent video games while growing up - thanks to our super slow dial-up Internet connection. (We had never had the cable modem or DSL connection until his junior or senior year in high school.) He was likely the last one in his circle of friends who had the faster Internet connection, and the last one who had the cell phone and also the smartphone. He got his first smartphone after He had graduated from college.
Hard day. Parent’s weekend. While our best friends are there to hang out with our daughter, and we are grateful for that, wish it was us. Fighting tears. Oh well.
It was …kinda sad at first, yes, when the last one left. But, I was busy working full time and he was so happy and thriving that it quickly smoothed out. We had the summers to help the big transition all the way out. Honestly, I don’t want a bunch of adults living here now! We’re good. That said, they are all around (within 30 minutes) so we get to see them fairly regularly, Sunday dinner is always an open invitation to any and all who can come.
Most of the time I feel more excited for her than sad that she is gone. It was hard to realize that this weekend is parent’s weekend and we can’t enjoy it with her by being there, and that once your kid is an adult and moves out, there are so many moments that you miss forever. It is her life. We do have daily texting conversations and she always seems excited to talk about what is going on. Since she is an early riser and she doesn’t want to wake her three roommates, we end up having these hilarious and long discussions. She is a great communicator thank goodness. It means a lot.
We only had a weekly call when DS was in college, and rarely texted each other (he texted a lot to his friends, but not to us 
)
I am envious of you.
Your experience is what I keep reading here. I am sure it will slow down, but for now we really appreciate it. Had a brief video call after she performed in the parent’s weekend concert and it was great to lay eyes on her. She looked very tired as she had her first two college tests last week and lots of extra rehearsals, but she also looks happy. So reassuring.
Video call? This gives me another reason to be envious of you.
As far as I remember, DS only had video calls with his GF, not with us 
But while he was in college, it was not his fault that he did not have a video call with us. We did not give him the necessary gadget. We gave him a flip phone (with the texting capability only.) Well…he had the notebook so we could have a video call if both he and we wanted to. But we thought that, by doing so, we might be too “intrusive” to his (private) life. So we were happy with just the plain old phone call during his college years (and now also.)
We paid the bill for the family plan. So we were very aware of his usage patterns. He texts with his friends. A lot of texting. Almost all his phone call minutes were with us. The young generation seem to use the texting exclusively, and rarely use the phone.
Re: “she looks tired.”
Well, more often than not, when DS called us (especially nowadays), he was quite tired. To me, this means he knows we are eager know whether he is OK or not. Even when he was very busy and tired, he decided to give us a short call. This means even more to us, because he tries to be considerate, and know how we feel and what we want (even though it is just a brief call.)
Have I mentioned before that he came home almost every break all 4 years in college? We value his “efforts” there too. (But we have never been to any parent weekend. He was fine with it too.)
BTW, DS told us many times in the past that when he was on campus, he was VERY active. When he was at home, he felt he was quite idle. But he still liked to come home whenever he could (in college days.) But this was then, not now (that is, he can not come home so frequently any more.)
You are right, gadgets are required these days, and we tend to be pretty frugal where gadgets are concerned. Daughter went on two high school sponsored trips last spring out of the country where we live, so her very basic cell phone without a data plan wouldn’t work in either country. She had a small hand me down Nexus tablet and we decided to practice using Skype, both the video calling and texting to see if it would work for our family once she started school this fall. It has turned out to work well for us. Over the summer my sister in law gave her an iPad that she was no longer using because her job required her to get a newer model for some kind of observation system, and my daughter is making high use of it. We did get her phone unlocked here so she could get a stateside Sim card and got the most basic T mobile plan for her. I have no idea if she is using the phone much but want her to have one. I do love texting with her everyday, sometimes it is very short and not really interactive, and other times much longer. With three roommates, it is hard to do video calls without disturbing others or having them hear part of the conversation (even though she has headphones), plus we are in vastly different time zones. She has gotten up early and video called from the stairwell of her dorm to be considerate of her roommates and call us when she knows we are awake. I am so grateful for WiFi.
@NorthernMom61, it’s very considerate of your daughter and you to think about the roommates when making calls. My older daughter had a roommate in her first year of college who Skyped a lot with her parents in the middle of the night, from the dorm room (college in California, parents in southeast Asia). It was disruptive. So whether or not your daughter’s roommates realize it, your daughter is being good to them.
@rosered55 I think we have ended using the text part of Skype for that reason, it is more private and doesn’t disturb her roommates. I do like the chance to actually see her, but we don’t need that face to face every time. Sometimes we both have the text on in the background, and we just stop and talk for a brief moment, much like if she were here drawing or reading at the kitchen counter while I am cooking. That’s kind of natural for us. And we aren’t really talking about anything major or profound, just being us. So I am liking how this communication method is evolving for us, and it makes missing her being here a lot easier. Some might criticize that it is too much communication, but so what, it is working for us.
Happy day! DS, roomie and friend down the hall recorded a little song and FB messages it then made a little video for my birthday!