megpmom, “mom and kid time” was so effective for me, too. We still do it and both of mine are out of college, working.
I have no problem being the benevolent dictator, captain of this ship- and have always told them that, no matter what, no matter when, they will always be (as a matter of fact, as well as affection) “our children,” part of “our family.” In non-confrontational moments, a sort of, “You’ll grow up, develop your own interests and ways, grow out of our orbit, but still be my dear daughters.”
Somehow, they find that comforting. It acknowledges the independence they want but, I think, also the ties they need.
This. Our daughter is home from college after her Freshmen year and last week she did an smart-aleck remark to my wife. My wife didn’t say anything right away but she did mention at the dining table after we were done eating that we deserve respect more than that and we are not her friend. We are her parents.
^^^ I sort of don’t get this. Should she be saying those kind of smart-aleck things to a friend???
I’m not sure what fully constitutes a “friend” label and a “parent” label after age 18 or so, but I have to say that I am BOTH to my three kids. I know that is not the case for everyone, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with friendship with your kids. I’m not interested in going clubbing with them, but not all their “friends” want to go to the club either. But our relationship is definitely more than me being an authority figure or whatever.
My D is also 18. She also spends a lot of time in her room and on her phone and has one-word answers to nearly any question. But she’s also working full time this summer, and I know she is very nervous about leaving her friends and boyfriend of a year for the great unknown of college, so I’m cutting her some slack. She has a minimal amount of chores now but knows she is expected to take on more in a few weeks while I’m recovering from eye surgery. Some days she makes me nuts, but then out of the blue she’ll suggest we go out for ice cream and I can almost imagine she’s 10 years old again.
While your college-age kid may not be your friend, and while he or she is still your child, he is no longer A child. This is difficult for some parents to navigate (heck, my 87-year-old mother still doesn’t get it). So, just as an example–when you are setting house rules–do the same rules apply to all adults who are living in the house?
My D was exactly the same way. Just months before taking off for college we went out to lunch after spending the morning shopping for school. At the restaurant she was chatting with the lady sitting next to us. Afterwards D saw that tears were welling up in my eyes. I explained to here that I was feeling pretty pitiful. After all my hard work, saving and scraping— all I was craving was the same polite respect and kindness that she was showing a total stranger. We both cried and she never ever pulled that teenage cr*p again.
Thank you for all the great feedback and advise. I never expected so many replies! I really appreciate College Confidential and the support you all provide.
I’ve posted this story before, but it fits here. My aunt was once at a party, and was speaking to someone who’s youngest of several children was heading off to college. My aunt, who had only young children at the time said"aren’t you going to be so sad, you won’t have any kids left at home…" The man she was speaking with replied “clearly you haven’t lived with teenagers.”
Now we have both sent our kids off to college, and have lived through various degrees of surly teens ourselves. I hear they grow out of it eventually, but it takes longer for some than others.
I’ve said this before, but the farther my D moves away the closer we get. I talk to her more now via skype than I did when we lived in the same house. And strangely enough she is the one who initiates the calls, not me. They mature and realize how sweet a deal living at home was. (not enough to actually move back!) She will be visiting for six weeks come August (thanks to the fact that everything shuts down in the EU during Ferie Agustae) and we shall see how “wonderful” home was.
I’m seeing the same thing here, @musicamusica. D1 has an internship in her college town and is staying there for the summer. (She also has a couple jobs and is proud to be covering all her expenses.) She calls frequently, just to catch up and to pass the time as she walks. When she was home she was rarely around, so I seem to be talking to her more now.
D2 is bouncing between “I love you” and soiling the nest. H reminded me today that D1 did a bit of that too last summer.
When I dropped off D1 at school, I got into a big fight her before we left. She started to cry, “Why do you do that? You are only mad because you are sad about leaving me. I am sad too, but this isn’t helping.” I guess she was being the adult and I was acting like a child.
I am so glad that neither kid did the fouling of the nest thing. Bad enough they were leaving. Both were easy to have around which of course made it a little harder.
A few weeks ago, my 25 year old son, who is usually very pleasant and easy to get along with, asked for some help with something. I helped him the best I could, but he was a bit ungrateful because it took me a bit longer than expected. I sent him a text letting him know that I didn’t appreciate his response. He quickly called, admitted that he was wrong, and apologized.
If I had said nothing, he would have likely thought that he could get away with talking to me (or anyone) that way.
My number one unpleasant kid at 18 is now 24 and she said or actually texted me yesterday that I might not have to worry about nursing home, she and her sister will be very wealthy and build a grandma’s quarter in her backyard for me or my husband. That was a huge turn around, at least for one kid, the other one has stopped rolling her eyes when we speak, she is not quite there yet. Give them time is my motto.
They all grow up eventually. I feel that it’s best to maintain a positive attitude, even through the eye rolling and sarcasm. When S gives me snark, I jokingly snark right back. If something is important to me, such as going to church, I do put my foot down. But I try to remember what it was like to be a young adult living at home, and cut him some slack. I know that he tells his friends that we’re “cool” parents and all of his friends like visiting and staying with us, so we must be doing something right.
OP, I recall jokingly saying that my blood pressure dropped 50 points when my D took off for college. She was a “good kid” but of the “street angel, house devil” variety at times.
Well, she is now 31, well launched, and has been living in a city six hours from us for years. Our adult relationship has been great. She is married close to two years to a wonderful man and several days ago give birth to our first grandchild. Hubby and I are thrilled with our two additional family members via her, and she is deeply appreciative of her family of origin. Our relationship has never been better – and believe me, we had some challenging times, such that I once joked to my husband that if she ever got engaged I would be sending her fiance a sympathy card, LOL!
She has even requested that we consider retiring near her so we can be more involved grandparents. I told her I would “rather be missed than possibly ever resented.”
But all’s well that ends well, as I bet will be the case with your family. You have gotten some excellent advice and seem to be handling it well. Best wishes!
Op,
Your D sounds like how my D was before she left for college.
I hadn’t heard about soiling the nest before this thread. I’m happy to learn something new.
Regardless of soiling the nest, I do think that you should point out the behavior and talk about your expectations as others have posted. Or you could do the positive reinforcement-thing when she is acting very pleasantly.
When very young boys try to “beat each other up” or act very aggressively, some parents just shrug their shoulders and say “boys will be boys”. I’m the type of parent that doesn’t accept this as an answer and try to work with them (maybe needing to try many different methods) so that they don’t keep beating each other up. I usually do not accept the “that’s the way it just is” answer without trying to improve it, albeit with varying ranges of success.
I watched Dave Ramsey via computer today, and there was a hard working policeman who worked a lot of nights and OT, his wife who had a college or HS related job, and two sons with older son maybe a HS junior. One of their emergency fund uses was when their two sons had a physical fight and the younger boy (who looked to be in maybe 8th/9th grade) during the physical scuffle fell through a window and landed in the hospital! - they showed a picture of him in the hospital bed.
I do know how some boys do this macho thing. My 13 YO brother knocked my 12 year old head into the floor and broke off my front two teeth (older sis, age 15 was not properly monitoring - I was yelling her name when he slammed my teeth into the tile floor). My offense was that I had a light on while reading at 9 pm and he didn’t want to shut his bedroom door because younger sister and my room off the playroom had the a/c and the light ‘bothered him’. I had to have ugly awful silver crowns until my teeth ‘matured’ and we had a quack dentist who pounded mental posts into my bone w/o anesthesia.Senior year in HS I had to have a root canal with the second tooth ‘dying’ - good thing it was with an oral surgeon and proper anesthesia. Parents during college paid for correct crowns with a good dentist, and a few years ago I paid for better matching crowns. Believe me I paid a heavy price for my brother’s macho.