My kid is the same, never shared details of his day, would only give one word responses. So I’m not expecting much (and not getting much). He texts when he needs something and answers my texts maybe half the time. He would never think of sending pics or FaceTiming us. I’m not worried about him making friends, I’m worried that his social life will get in the way of school and he’ll end up dropping/flunking out. That sounds like catastrophizing, but it’s a real concern as we were afraid his college offers would get rescinded because his grades were so awful senior year. He has two 8am classes and two 9am classes and it will be so hard for me not to call him to make sure he’s awake!
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I can totally relate! My kid also has four early morning classes and I’ll be shocked if he makes it to any of them on time. I, too, will resist texting him to see if he’s up. Like you, our house is so much less tense and stressful, but I do worry about him academically and am half expecting him to not finish school (at least not there).
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My daughter wants daily dog and cat pictures.
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My S25 has been gone 10 days now. He called on Friday - largely I think because my husband told him to. The whole call was less than five minutes. I now know: he’s fine, he’s met people, he’s doing things, he’s eating food (which is also fine.)
So basically exactly the same communication I got in HS. 
His older brother calls me on Sunday’s typically (I dropped him off six days ago, haven’t heard from him yet other than a first day photo with no words) and I think S25 is planning to do the same. Both boys will want me to reimburse for their books, but until they tell me what they cost I can’t exactly do that.
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The first 2 years of college were rough for my adhd kid. He didn’t take meds regularly and stayed up too late and could not wake up. He now sets the Alarmy app for an hour before he needs to get up. It forces the user to awake enough to perform an activity and he take his Vyvanse and goes back to bed. When the “real” alarm goes off an hour later, his meds have kicked in and he can more readily get up and go on about his day. He also found he needs to write to do lists down on paper versus the phone so he got better at using his small planner.
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Yes, totally normal. Mine just came up for air and texted: “Things are moving at a million miles a minute over here but I trust it’ll slow down when classes actually start.” I too check in periodically on “find my” and am happy to see him roaming all around. Living their best lives.
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Yes, this! We offered to take D22 off Life360 when she left for college, but she wanted to keep it, saying it helped her to know where we were and feel more connected to us.
At first I checked a lot and could see that she was waking up last minute and skipping breakfast and running to class. And I could also see when she stayed out until 3 a.m. But I resolved never to open my mouth, that she was an adult and living her own life, and she could make her own decisions (however poor, lol). I have stuck by this.
We also designated one night a week to call, which worked well for the first 2.5 years. Then the past spring semester was crazy busy and the phone calls were sporadic. But I always texted and sent pet pictures and memes, and she responded when she could.
S25 is actually my best communicator and loves having Life360 because he wants to know what’s going on with everyone in our family all the time. So no issues there. 
(He’s also about 2 hours away on a couple of horrible highways, so for my peace of mind, I need to be able to check in when he’s driving to/from school.)
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We refuse to give into Life360.
No worries when people do use it, but it does kind of amuse me when it gets brought up casually as something that’s just a natural part of their lives like it is for absolutely everyone else no exceptions right? by my kids’ friends.
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We don’t either and most parents I tell that to look at me like I have horns. I knew that if we got it I’d stare at it obsessively, which clearly isn’t healthy for anyone. So I’d say the decision was mostly due to my own lack of discipline. Also, I felt like my kid needed some teenage adventures that, if things went sideways, they’d have to extract themselves from all on their own. All families are different though and I totally get it if others do have it and it works well for them! 
We dropped C25 off at the airport yesterday for study abroad and they couldn’t ditch us fast enough at the TSA line, LOL. I guess that’s what you want, right? A kid that’s ready and excited to make their own way into the world? It made me feel good. Less sad, more excited for them. Maybe the reality hasn’t hit me yet. They are currently STILL traveling as they had a long layover and then the connecting flight was delayed a couple more hours. Hopefully arriving soon, in a time zone 6 hours ahead of us, and they’ll get in the dorm and get some sleep. The last week has been a stressful whirlwind, so I know they need it. 
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When my S22 was a senior in HS they had to do a “senior experience” after AP exams but before graduation. Most kids did internships or started summer jobs early. S22 and his four best friends planned an epic road trip. They drove from home (DC suburbs) to Glacier National Park, then to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Arches, Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon. They didn’t plan enough time to drive home for graduation, so they drove to Vegas, parked in long term parking, and flew home then my boy and the van owner flew back after graduation and brought the van home.
They were taking a mid-1980’s van that belonged to one kid’s grandmother on this excursion, and camping at most every location (on the way out they stopped at Cedar Point amusement park and had a hotel there, and they had a hotel at the end at the Grand Canyon). We made them do a course with a local mechanic before they left but still, that’s a lot of miles for five 18 year olds. I put Life360 on S22s phone - with his permission - before they left because while I was confident in his ability to problem solve, that was still just… a lot.
I put Life360 on S25s phone too at the time. Just so we could try it out and because he was doing a lot of solo biking and hiking around, sometimes on some very busy roads or, conversely, very isolated areas, and I just wanted the comfort of knowing I could find him if I had to.
That said, once that summer was over and shortly before college started, S22 asked if we could turn it off and take it off his phone, and S25 just stopped sharing location once the school year started. I decided it wasn’t worth pushing to see, since the specific things that had me worried were over. Besides, they both have iPhones, so I can always do FindMy if I’m really nervous. I try to only peek in when it matters to me for a logistical reason - like the kid is taking the train home, where is the train now. But I’m human and sneak a peek other times too sometimes. Like yesterday, S25 had agreed to call me on Sundays and I was dawdling going to the grocery store because I didn’t want to miss his call. So I checked to see where he was to see if it seemed like a good time to run out (he was at the lake, clearly not a time he’d be calling his mom).
So I get the appeal - of both the more informative Life360 and the general data on FindMy, but I try not to look too much. They know I do, and don’t seem to mind, largely, I think, because I don’t push or pry. (And I think they take it as necessary - because they both also have put their phone down and not been able to find it, so the FindMy function has been useful, so they don’t want to turn it off…)
To this day, S22 talks about that road trip as one of the most amazing experiences of his life. I’m so glad they were able to do it even though i was, apparently, the only parent who actually supported the idea. The other parents all thought they’d fail in the planning and approval stage so they said yes thinking it wouldn’t go anywhere… they don’t know my kid. This was his dream and he was bringing his friends along, regardless of how much work it took.
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What an epic adventure! I would totally use it in this scenario too (and maybe would conquer my obsessive checking at some point). What a gift from you, too - showing him how much faith you had in him!
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I have a confession…my 25 year old opted to stay on our life360. She likes seeing where we all are. We travel to see each other often and she likes to track us so she knows when to leave the cell phone lot, or if we are renting a car, when we will actually arrive at her place. She tracked us when we were on vacation too ; ). No complaints from me either and I will sometimes check if I want to call her to make sure she didn’t get tied up at work or is driving.
I’m sure at some point she’ll leave our family group but she doesn’t seem in any rush and we don’t abuse it or even really talk about it.
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We are not a Life360 family either. I track my 13 year old’s location only using Google Family Link, but I really feel like I’m tracking where he forgets his phone more than his actual location. . It’s useful in the “mom, I can’t find my phone” … And then I pull it up and he left it at neighbor friend’s house.
My minor “spying” on the two college kids is that they are logged into Google Photos on our ipad so sometimes I look at their photos to see how much fun they are having. I told them they could log out of it, but they chose not too. 
My husband got sucked into a life360 group with his siblings and their families for a while. I don’t know if he stayed logged into that or not. I quickly found an excuse to leave the room when they were discussing it… there’s no way I was going to get suckered into that!!!
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That’s our family’s vibe too-- livin’ like it’s the 80s. The only time my D26 will share her location is when she’s on a road trip somewhere.
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My daughters (17 and 13) would bust a gut laughing if I brought up the possbility of Life360 
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I don’t know what Life360 is or does, but we share our locations on Google and have Find My through Apple. My sister and mom have my location, too. Honestly, it is such a convenient thing to know, “Mom is still 20 minutes out, I can ask her to stop at the store before she gets here.” We use it for convenience.
I told D25 that I would prefer she continue to share her location with me and that I will never talk about her location and she is free to go where she pleases, but in the event of an emergency, I would like to know where she is/was.
I have family members who log their teenagers’ Google searches and talk about it with them (and others), so this is not invasive or overbearing in my world.
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I mean, at some level I’m surprised my oldest (26yo) hasn’t suggested dfbspouse and I get Life360 so that she can track us, since she’s gotten convinced that we’re so old now that we’re well into our 50s that it’s time to start obsessing over our continued health and ability to live independently…
ETA: And all this worry even though, FWIW, both of our sets of parents are still alive and active in the ±80yo range. Go figure.
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This is what I do too, but I use find iPhone.
I got a call about 5 days in, but otherwise I am lucky if we get a thumbs-up or photo. Hoping he calls tonight.
We use Find My. I don’t track them in general and try my best to respect their privacy. I never look at it at night or early mornings.
I don’t know their schedules, so I do look at it during the day to see if they’re in an academic building before I text them. (I don’t want to bother them when they’re in class.)
S25 called me (on the phone !) to ask how to get quarters. There’s an app, that I loaded money on, they can use to pay for laundry but apparently it isn’t working. I’d put an emergency roll of quarters in the bottom of his laundry basket and he’s used them up so he needs more. He said he could make money selling quarters above face value since no one seemed to know how to obtain quarters.
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I laugh too, but my C23, in her first apartment after college graduation, ran into precisely this problem—the laundry in her building took quarters, and she discovered that since her accounts are with a bank that doesn’t have any branches in the area she was living, it was nearly impossible for her to acquire quarters for laundry.
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