<p>I have seen other threads about this topic but wanted to start another one.</p>
<p>We dropped off my son last week and I can already tell that communication is going to be sporadic. This is not my style at all, I would like weekly contact (heck I would like daily, but weekly is good). But my son is like my husband, and neither of them are callers or writers. </p>
<p>We deposit quite a bit of money into his bank account monthly for his expenses (he has a full-ride, so the money is for book overages, spending money, misc.) I resent depositing the money if he can’t be bothered with a thank you or a note once a week.</p>
<p>Am I justified in (kindly) pointing out that weekly contact isn’t unreasonable and his expecting us to fork out big bucks while he can’t give us 5 minutes isn’t very nice??</p>
<p>We have a very close, loving relationship and in person he is very communicative. So, I know it isn’t personal and I get that he is busy and experiencing college and all that…</p>
<p>Send him a letter. In the letter, say “we miss you, we love, you, and we know you need funds. We’re enclosing a check to make things easier on you”. BUT DON’T INCLUDE A CHECK WITH YOUR LETTER.</p>
<p>You’ll receive desired call within minutes.</p>
<p>This seems to happen to most parents of boys who are off to college each year. I went through it 4 years ago. You just have to give him some space, learn to live with less communication than YOU would like, and get yourself busy doing other things to occupy your mind. It will get better eventually. But right now he wants to show himself[ and all his new friends who are in the same boat] that he has cut the apron strings and can think and act independently of his parents.</p>
<p>Actually, we find that when we do a project together, we have more communication. S is the webmaster for our website & DOES call about that, since it’s not about feelings and it’s something he’s DOING not mom asking him tons of Qs. I’m learning to ask less & listen more & he’s learning to talk a bit more.</p>
<p>I sent him a text, just to ask if he landed safely in LA & he gave me a call when he landed & told me that their plane had to make an emergency stop because a passenger had a heart attack but that 2 hours later he did indeed land safely in LA. I find that when I “hound him less,” he tends to call me more. Same with D. Having all of us on the same phone plan has been a boon since it is no “minutes” to call within the same phone plan.</p>
<p>The texting helps jog their memory that we’d like to hear from them with out intruding and lets them attend to it at a convenient time & place. I’m finding I’m using texting more now. I bought each of them a text package with 250 texts for $5 apiece. I have unlimited voice & text for under $56/month with a local cell phone service plus a family plan Verizon line with them.</p>
<p>We also find that the kids call if they need info & answers from us and if they’re curious about something we did or said. It really is good for us to let them take the lead on when they choose to call. I did warn my kids that if I don’t hear from them by them calling, I will call them. They prefer to choose the time & place of calls so they tend to call so I don’t have to.</p>
<p>We told our son that he needed to call every Sunday. He’s now a senior and we left him last week. He called today. At first the reason was to see how things were going and make sure that he was doing okay. He had a great scholarship but needed to maintain a certain GPA. We wanted to make sure that he wasn’t having trouble (he wasn’t). The first year he only talked for about 5-10 minutes. That was okay. We were talking. Over the years it has gone up. Now we spend about 1 hour every week talking. We always knows that he can call more and always can email, facebook, or IM but he HAS to do the weekly call. I don’t think he minds now. May have at first but now he’s fine with it. Expecting the same from D who we will leave in 8 days.</p>
<p>We paid for our kids’ cell phones with one condition. They had to call us ONCE a week…their choice of time. If they didn’t call, they had to pay for that week’s cell costs (if they didn’t call one week, they paid 1/4 of the bill). Each missed ONE call…Each paid ONE time. They never forgot after that.</p>
<p>Why don’t YOU call him? If you miss him, you call him. I think family needs to keep in touch. When my kids were growing up, I never believed in quality, I believed in quantity. It is through regular contact, caring we stay as a family. It is not a cliche when people say after kids are born, you stop talking to your spouse, before you know it you find you have nothing to talk about. Same thing could happen with your kids. If you stop communicating you’ll be out of touch with each other’s lifes and you’ll become strangers. I make an effort of staying in touch with D1. I try not to be intrusive and not ask her things she doesn’t want to talk about. She calls often, not sure if it’s out of obligation or not, but we fall into easy conversation. </p>
<p>Call him. A college student is not that busy he couldn’t take a call from his mom. How many parents here step out of business meetings to take phone calls from their kids? If we could do it, they could do it too.</p>
<p>It’s not unreasonable to expect him to talk to you once a week, especially if you’re sending him money. I also don’t think it should be a problem if you called once a week if he seems to have forgotten without making it a big deal, unless he doesn’t pick up or return your calls–which is a separate matter entirely. When my parents and I are apart I tend not to even think of calling much but am happy to talk if they call me. (mind you, they aren’t sending me any money. :P)</p>
<p>Somehow, the kids seem to talk longer when they initiate the call than if we do. I prefer that THEY call so they are the ones who have figured out what they want to share. So far with D, she’s called about every day since she left on Wednesday about things she forgot and/or needs to know. S just called in response to my text message.</p>
<p>If we want or need to get in touch with them, we do call.</p>
<p>I suggest you ask him to figure out what day and time would fit into HIS schedule best for a weekly phone call. Then tell him , in a nice way, without any mention of $$, that you would like him to make it a habit to call you at that time once a week. Sun Pm always seemed to work for us, since that’s when S was in his room doing homework.</p>
<p>There’s another side to this situation – your son’s. Do you want weekly communication with you to be an obligation? What happens four years from now when that obligation is over?</p>
<p>I would keep the communication lines open on your end by sending e-mails and written letters (which are still a thrill to receive while in college), but no guilt and no obligation and no unnecessary questions asked solely to force a reply. Phone calls are not as good because they can be perceived as invasive and because when he doesn’t answer you’ll wonder if he’s screening your calls. All it takes is two calls from mom in one semester while he’s out with his friends, and your reputation is solidified – along with an unflattering reflection on him, because then he’s either a mama’s boy or someone who ignores his pesty mom. It’s no-win.</p>
<p>I was actually posting on here last year about feeling resentful about so little communication when I’m sending things or depositing money. It does seem to split down gender lines–though there are exceptions.</p>
<p>I heard very little in the beginning, but it did pick up as the year went on. I know that my s loathes talking on the phone, so I don’t take that personally. He was best at answering a text–usually within the hour–but e-mail answers took days. </p>
<p>There was a lot of discussion on here about whether we should be stressing the fact that it’s just good manners to thank someone for a gift or money, or whether we should send the money and the care packages and know they appreciate it even if they don’t say so. </p>
<p>I have a friend that says,“Call me every Sunday or I’ll show up unannounced.” I’m torn between using that approach, which might help him get into a habit of staying in touch and eventually not seem so burdensome–or actually enjoying the fact that he’s making contact of his own volition.</p>
<p>I am very interested to see how it goes this year. I felt last year that he wanted to establish his independence.</p>
<p>You might not like my male perspective but I’d say - learn to live with it. This is the way he is (right now - it could change by next semester if this is his first year) and may be part of his own method of learning his independence. You can’t expect him to have the same behavior in this area as you would have. You could get angry, sad, or vindictive and hold the money over his head as a way to force him to contact you, but is that really the condition under which you’d want him to be contacting you?</p>
<p>I also think you shouldn’t call him very often since invariably he’ll likely be busy or in with a bunch of mates and it may be awkward for him. They should be able to attend college without having the mom contacting them too frequently (according to the student’s idea of ‘frequently’ - not the mom’s).</p>
<p>Try some alternate forms of contact - IM, text message, email, but don’t go overboard on it.</p>
<p>Regarding spending money - a lot of parents don’t provide this to their college kids since most college kids should be able to handle this themselves so you’re being generous for sure but do you really want to attach strings to it - i.e. calling you on some basis or else you’ll feel resentful for providing the money (as it seems to be now)? You’re asking for a behavioral change on his part but what about yours?</p>
<p>I would not want to make money contingent on talking to me. Especially with a kid who has a free ride!</p>
<p>I think your goal really is to make DS more thoughtful, and have him understand that communicating with you and DH is important to you both. I would talk with him abut adult family responsibilities. I would let him know that calling once a week is your expectation for his being considerate of his family. If there are grandparents, I’d throw in calling them once each month. His wife will thank you someday.</p>
<p>It may not be seamless (wasn’t for us!), but I would consistently send the message that communication is something that caring family members do, but stop short of the “If you care about us you would…fill in the blank.” There is a flip side: our son now expects us to let him know when we have arrived at a destination when we are travelling. Turn about…</p>
<p>Now that our son is comfortable with his independence and our respect for it, he is much better–but not perfect–about calling.</p>
<p>I think that this is yet another version of the 2-year-old saying “I do it myself!”</p>
<p>You don’t want to be an unreasonable thorn in his side. You should call him every day at random times - so he won’t say “great, in a couple minutes MOM is calling. ugh”. You cannot let this type of behavior go on-- he is to learn this art of communication or he will never start or return a phone call with employers.</p>
<p>In case my first post came off as harsh let me say that I do sympathize with you and don’t fault you at all for wanting more contact with your S. I think most parents would like to have more contact with their ‘away’ kids. My point was just that this is the time to give him some slack in this area even if it’s naturally difficult to contend with yourself. If this is his first time away it could very well be that after a few weeks or maybe a few months he’ll settle into a routine where he’s more in the mode of communicating with you although again, you might have better luck with other means like IM or text msg. IMO the least to more likely means of communication are - webcam, email, phone call, txt msg, IM although the last two can switch around. Although the webcam sounded like a good idea, it never happens. I’m sure this sequence varies by individual student.</p>
<p>Note that when we do get phone calls it’s typically when our D is walking to/from class and has the time to freely talk to us - plus I don’t think college students, especially female ones, ever like to walk anywhere without talking to someone on the phone at the same time.</p>
<p>We set S up with skype, the cell phone, and gmail chat.
He has nothing to say if I call him on the phone-- classes are ‘fine’, the food is ‘ok’, how are things-- ‘going pretty well’.</p>
<p>But when we chat, we get much more content, humor, and conversation. </p>
<p>So, try a couple different avenues 'til you find the one that is most comfortable for him. </p>
<p>A couple things that have worked for me in the past:
A text that says ‘are you alive?’ usually gets a one word response.</p>
<p>If I haven’t heard from him in a week or two, I send a text or email reminding him that campus security is happy to check on kids for worried parents. That always gets a response.</p>
<p>I haven’t tired the ‘check in the mail’ lure yet…</p>
<p>What if you have a bad relationship with your parents? I would like calling my parents minimally while I’m at college and sometimes not even at all. They are too negative and they demand too much. Every time I talk to them it always ends up in an argument because they always want it their way. I really don’t like my parents that much. </p>
<p>Is there anyway I can avoid this communication thing because honestly I would want to . I don’t understand what gives parents the right to, in a sense, blackmail their children saying things like, “Since we are paying for your education, you have to call us.” I don’t agree with that method at all. If your child wanted to call you, they would. </p>
<p>Sorry If I sound immature, but thats just the way I feel about this.</p>
S just called in response to my text message.</p>