<p>I am curious what experiences people have had when parents are divorced and the kids have followed a particular visitation schedule for years, once their child goes off to college. I am prepared to be accepting and flexible, I am just wondering how my son will handle it when he comes home for breaks. His younger brother will still be spending time in each home on certain days/weekends. We live within a few miles of one another so whatever he decides to do will be manageable. Already this summer he has been much looser about where he is when depending on what works best with what he is doing but I don’t want him to feel any pressure about “choosing” when he has limited time home. I always felt keeping to the schedule (with reasonable flexibility when it makes sense) took that pressure off the kids and kept everything predictable but life changes. Any experiences of others?</p>
<p>Once my older daughters turned 18, they spent time where/when/as they wished. I know I didn’t pressure them…just issued invitations when I particularly wanted they presence for something.</p>
<p>I think that it should be up to him. He has solid relationships with you both, I’m presuming, and will want to spend time at both households. I don’t see why he shouldn’t be encouraged to make the determination by himself.</p>
<p>You may want to mention to him that he should make sure to spend time with his little brother while he’s home, though.</p>
<p>Yes - I assume he will determine where he spends time when. And I do think it will be important for him to sync things somewhat with his brother - they have been through alot together! I guess it is just one more thing that will probably be changing and I wonder what it will look like. When I think about it, I am confident it will take care of itself and I guess I will forget I ever wondered about it. Two weeks from today he will be spending his first night in his dorm and I am feeling apprehensive for myself…</p>
<p>I think it will take care of itself. In my house, my youngest is the only one who still does the ‘every other weekend’ at her dads. The older two are working and they see their dad (like you, we live close by) but they rarely spend the night any more.</p>
<p>Once my kids were in high school they made all their own arrangements with their Dad. With school, work, and extra curricular activities they had to visit when there was time. This continued through college and I let it be between them and their Dad. He also lived a few miles away.</p>
<p>I started college as my sister started high school. Our schedules were very different, and my parents lived in neighboring states. So our solution was to each visit alone whenever it best suited our individual schedules. It seemed to work for everybody.</p>
<p>Once D1 is a college student, I think I’ll leave it up to her. I would suspect that she’d still go to her dad’s house the same time as her younger sister, though. </p>
<p>We live just a couple of miles apart so the back-and-forth has never been arduous.</p>
<p>Having lived through this with my step-children whose mother insisted we keep the long-standing visitation schedule even when the kids were in college (so, when they were home from school, we had the kids every other weekend and Wednesday nights for dinner until they graduated!!), I encourage you to allow your son to make the decisions about when and where he wants to be. You should tell him, as far in advance as possible, when you especially want him at your house for something. For holidays, you might want to negotiate with your ex-spouse - in most cases the boys will probably want to be together so whatever arrangement you have for your younger son should work. </p>
<p>I think once kids get to be 16 or so (younger or older depending upon the kid and the circumstances), that they should be given a great deal of control over their lives in terms of “visitation”.</p>
<p>Well…think of it this way…once the student is at college, NEITHER parent will be seeing the child on that “old schedule”.</p>
<p>When I was in college and in this situation, I spent half of winter break with my mom and half with my dad. I didn’t spend full summers at home, but I usually visited, and spent at least a week with my mom and at least a week with my dad. Most other breaks I spent with my mom.</p>
<p>Just adding that the more my mother insisted I spend time with her as an adult, the more I resented it and the less likely I was to actually do it…</p>
<p>My parents live nearly 2000 miles from each other, so it’s impossible to do a weekend schedule like most have.
I’m an incoming freshmen, and I decided my parent-visiting schedule (mom has/had full custody). I’ll spend a little under a week with my mom at christmas, and the rest of winter break with my dad. Since the rest of time is a lot longer, I’ll spend all of spring break back home at my mom’s.</p>
<p>this situation is really upsetting my current life balance. before college, I lived with parent a full time, and parent b I saw a few times a week and alternated spending weekends at this parent’s house. since i left for college, all hell broke lose. when i return on breaks, i return to parent a’s house. because these breaks are often short, I get to see parent b, but not as much as this parent would like. parent b, as a result, has gotten very angry and likes to use money as a bargaining tool to get me to spend more time with them. Not bribery…money. as in. I won’t pay for your plane ticket back to school if you don’t spend this amount of time with me. this has lead to a large number of fights and really tense situations. i love both of my parents and want to spend time with them, but attempting to manipulate your child leads to unhappiness. Please, however you choose to divide the time, don’t drag family relationships throguh the mud by manipulating your child.</p>
<p>My sister lived with her mother through most of her life and came to see us o the weekends (we are half sisters and have the same dad). When she went to college, we actually saw more of her. While her college isn’t too far away, she makes sure to spend time with both her mom and her dad. She sees both of them on holidays and sometimes in between. But she makes sure to spend time with me so we can keep our relationship. </p>
<p>Basically, it hasn’t been a big deal either way.</p>
<p>my rents live in different states, with my dad just recently moving away. for the past year i split thanksgiving and christmas time, and the summer as well, but college will be a little different…im now having to split fall breaks, 4 day weekends (if i come home), etc. </p>
<p>my parents, however, now understand im 18 and such decisions are mine as i’m theoretically not a child.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for your thoughts/experiences. Obviously I want to handle this in a way so that it’s ok for everyone, most importantly my son who is going off to school. That’s been the goal all along and I think we have done ok. I want him to feel as though its not a big deal even if it is sometimes hard for me.</p>
<p>I’m here as a parent, but I was also a child of divorced parents.</p>
<p>I think it’s important for divorced parents to remember that, just as with college students whose parents live in the same house, your child may have other things to do during breaks in addition to spending time with you.</p>
<p>For many freshmen, spending time during breaks with high school friends is a top priority. Some students also have a boyfriend or girlfriend – sometimes at a different college – whom they would like to spend time with. A lot of students schedule medical and dental appointments for breaks, especially the long December/January break, which means that they have to be in the community where they lived during high school in order to keep those appointments. And often, students need to spend some of their break time applying for and interviewing for summer jobs or internships – a process that may involve travel to other cities. I don’t think that students should feel that they’re shortchanging their parents – whether married or divorced – by spending some of their break time doing these things instead of being with their families.</p>
<p>I too am a child of divorced parents (way back when). My mom, in particular, was very concerned that I spend at least 50% of any time I had at home with HER. She didn’t really care about my dad, or my friends…or even things I might want to do alone. This caused me no end of angst over the years…she would find out when I was arriving and calculate out the hours. To be honest, I resented this (especially when I was married with children of my own!!). I got to the point where I simply didn’t tell her my arrival and departure plans at all. At times I felt like I was “sneaking” into or out of town, but it was a lot easier than arguing with her over a few minutes or hours of time she felt she was shorted. </p>
<p>Please…I urge you to let your child make some decisions about family sharing. There may be times when he needs to be with his dad a huge amount of one vacation and little with his mom. BUT then there will be times when mom will see him more. Whatever you do…don’t micromanage this. It has the potential to cause a lot of problems. Be grateful for the time he spends with you (and his other parent).</p>
<p>MY DH & I are married, but the same “rule” should apply…my kids set their own schedules when they are home on break- IF they are home on break and I encourage them to stay connected with friends and even not come home on some breaks, but go visit a sibling or old friend at their school (when schools have odd little breaks that don’t match up to the mainstream)</p>
<p>It is not about me, it is about them becoming adults and running their own lives. DH is the child of divorce and his mom did all she could to keep his time with his dad to a minimum and to this day his parents get cranky if we come to town and don’t make it all about them. As thumper does, we will sneak into town, stay with other family a day or two, then have them drop us back at the airport to be picked up by the in laws- it’s pathetic. We have tried having them know all we are doing and they always pout, it is not worth it.</p>
<p>However, I would tell any one fighting this in college, go ahead and stand up for yourself now- FIL is 90 and still wants all the time, we should have made a bigger deal of it 30 years ago to try to change them, so whilst keeping the peace is nice, you might start “training” them now! And try to stay out of the time with divorced parent thing and focus on time for yourself in the discussions- it may raise fewer red flags if you are leaving your parent B to hang with your friends than if you are going with parent A</p>