<p>How can I help my son who is dealing with his first love?</p>
<p>Is your son a first year student? If so these first few weeks are when lots of activities are going on around campus to try to get the new class acclimated to the university and involved. Encourage him to attend these events. Validate his feelings that it’s normal to miss family and friends. What he doesn’t want to do is spend all his free time texting and skyping his gf while other students are making new friends, getting involved, and becoming familiar with their new surroundings. While there are mixed feelings from parents on how early to let kids visit home (ie homesick or to see a gf/bf), personally I think if they are not in crisis the first month is really important for them to stay on the weekends to make friends and start to feel ‘at home’ in their new surroundings.</p>
<p>Most students do start to feel better about being away from family, friends, and work out gf/bf relationships after a few weeks. Best of luck to your son.</p>
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<p>I thought the gf was at a different college, not at home.</p>
<p>Unless geographic distance and cost are huge issues, they could visit each other without parental knowledge or permission. I suggest not forbidding it since you can’t prevent it.</p>
<p>When I was a freshman in college, I met my boyfriend (a junior at another college) at his parents’ home one weekend while his parents were out of town. My parents never knew, even though his parents’ home was only about five miles from theirs (and both were a five-hour drive from my college).</p>
<p>This was in 1976. I don’t think young people have changed much since then. If they want to get together, they will.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving is coming with turkey drop for most kids in this situation , even if it takes a little longer</p>
<p>Encourage him to make new friends and connections so he can get acclimated to his new school . Once he gts settled , nature will take it’s course</p>
<p>That is so hard. If he talks to you about his feelings the best thing you can do is empathize and not minimize his feelings. The fact that you are posting here means that you are an understanding mom. It’s also a good idea to remind him of a time that he can look forward to seeing her. Both of my Ds had their first boyfriends when they left for college Freshman year. Both in love. My oldest only went three hours from home so her BF visited on weekends. That was something that we advised against because we felt that his presence would inhibit her enculturation at her school. Of course, they did what they wanted to do anyway. She ended up breaking up with him over spring break.</p>
<p>My younger D went 8 hours from her BF. He visited her there twice and she came home for the usual breaks. They broke up during the summer between freshman and sophomore year.</p>
<p>It is so hard for them to go off to school in a new environment, missing their family, their friends and, for some, their first love. Poor kid.</p>
<p>Marian - I was assuming if at different schools they may meet back at home. The operative word would be ‘encourage’, knowing kids are going to do what they want, and can arrange, in the end. At my son’s school first year students aren’t allowed to have cars so visits home, or to other schools, are curtailed and dependent on public transit, upperclassmen with cars, and parents willing to make the trek.</p>
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<p>This. </p>
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<p>Just dropped off S today who was going thru this same thing 2 years ago. Tomorrow is his first day as a junior - they are a stronger couple having made it this far apart and they look at it as 2 years down, 2 to go and lots of opportunities for both of them in between .</p>
<p>Let him know they can have both - a relationship AND time, fun and school apart if the relationship will allow it. Encourage healthy, not obsessive contact with each other and be understanding of their sadness of being apart.</p>
<p>My freshman roommate had this issue with her BF–tons of phone calls. They even got busted for making long distance calls and charging them to 3rd parties! (because calls were expensive back then, and they stayed on the phone a LONG time. . .)
He ended up transferring to her college, and they eventually got married after graduation–still together after all these years. You never know. Most of these relationships don’t last, but some people do meet “THE ONE” in high school.</p>