<p>When my son came home for Thanksgiving his Freshman year, his visit with his high school buddies didn’t turn out like he expected. While he was so excited to hang out with his “gang”, going to their favorite restaurant, sitting in the basement watching movies, and just talking, it wasn’t the great time he dreamed of. I remember him telling me that it was weird, that several of the kids had changed. I’m guessing they all changed some. He didn’t like that they all talked about their new friends; the conversations were about their new school, not their beloved high school. Now as a senior he still has his core group of male friends from high school, but many of the others are just names of high school classmates. Now, it is more about the friends from college even though they all live in different cities.</p>
<p>Has this happened to other freshman? How do I prepare my freshman daughter of these possible changes? I know she will be dissapointed when her core group of 18 gets together and they don’t all mesh like they use to. He small circle I’m not as worried about as they talk everyday. I do know that she and her best friend have had a few words as their schools are very different and they both have made best friends at school. Both girls are a bit jealous of the other friends, but I believe they have figured it all out. Just another part of growing up. </p>
<p>I’m guessing when the conversations are about what “my college friends and I” did instead of what “we” did, and your high school friends don’t know all the players, it becomes hard. My son has been luck as his high school friends would visit him in New Orleans, expecially for Mardi Gras so they know all of his Tulane friends!</p>
<p>I guess it all depends on the friends. My daughter continues to maintain her friendship with many old high school friends but the relationship has changed. For example, by the senior college year she no longer enjoyed going places with old friends. However, she would go to lunch with each and mostly talk about her college friends, relationships, boys, etc. When it came time for her wedding and baby, her old friends were right there for her with showers, came to the house, and the closeness and goofing off was typical of high school years. But after that, eveyone moved on again.
For my oldest son I think he was disappointed to see the closeness vanish with his old h.s. friends. I think he was shocked the first time arriving home when they were not interested in going out in the usual manner. They had relationships and girlfriends to consider.But after a while son adjusted and moved on. He will go over for a little visit now but it isn’t like it used to be.Actually, I’m a little glad as I did worry and it is nice to see son settling down with his own relationships to consider. </p>
<p>As for my husband he has maintained close ties with many of his high school crowd. The go up to the state college once a year and go over each other’s place for football games.We are always all there for each other. I haven’t maintained ties with my h.s. chums and prefer to remember them as they all were at 16. Which is really very pleasant for me.</p>
<p>My D is coming home next week and has planned an activity with her old friends. She is not expecting much more than doing something with them. She already knows they have changed. They have joined the college drinking and partying groups and my D has not. Although they have kept in regular contact by cell and IM, she really anticipates that they will drift apart even tho they were close in HS. My D is already planning part of next summer away. I think she feels that if she is home she will not have close friends unless she takes up drinking.</p>
<p>Well, my DS may be in for a let-down. He was on the phone with me yesterday (a rare event, indeed) wondering if I knew the dates of his different friends’ Tgiving breaks. He’s already calibrating the time he will spend at family turkey day convening, to work around hoped-for get-togethers with the Gang.</p>
<p>I don’t think I could “prep” him for the let-down, though. Don’t know how I would do it, nor whether he would listen. He’ll figure it out as it happens, I suppose. </p>
<p>I do remember the drifting apart from my own era, but in my memory it occurred over a more extended period of time. Culminated in my feeling <em>very</em> left out at my hs best friend’s wedding, where she was surrounded by a gaggle of sorority sisters. She tells me now that they were a very shallow level of friendship, so sometimes what goes around comes around, I guess.</p>
<p>My College Junior daughter still gets together with her HS friends when she’s home. She’s closer now to her college friends but keeps in touch with about 5 or 6 HS friends. Thanksgiving and Christmas they do traditional things like a “day after thanksgiving, bring left-overs” to one girls house and then a Christmas gift exchange where they draw names. I don’t know of any 2 that are at the same college so they all have different stories and friends.</p>
<p>Something that I started when she was a senior in HS is a mother-daughter dinner at a sort of local Italian restaurant. We had our third annual this past June. It’s fun for us Mom’s to get together and talk because that’s often the only time we see each other. Next year the girls will mostly be 21 so we’ll see what drinks they order! The first couple of years I sent out invitations but this year I asked the girls to take it over and they did all the work.</p>
<p>My older son, who just graduated from college, still has two good friends at home (although one is in the service, so isn’t always around). The one he sees most never went to college and still lives at home, so they still do all the old stuff. But he keeps in close touch with newer friends from college, too.</p>
<p>My freshman son’s best friends have not yet left home. Some are attending community college; a couple are seniors in high school this year. I think he will be the one who has changed the most. He is really looking forward to hanging out with them and visiting their favorite restaurant. It will be hard in a way, because the parents of his closest friends (two brothers) are having marital problems, so the house everyone used to hang out at is not such a friendly place anymore. I hope it will be a good visit for him.</p>
<p>Well, son is home for Thanksgiving. He spent today visiting a couple favorite high school teachers and hanging out with old friends. He said it was “awesome.” He said people told him it would be different, and that new friends would replace old friends, but he says he doesn’t intend for that to happen. He has hung out with most of these kids for around ten years, as most of them live on our street, and they are all really close. With computers and cell phones, I think it is easier to keep old friends now than it was in my day, when letters were the main source of communication while in college.</p>
<p>S even said he wished he could go to college close to home (something he NEVER said in high school), if only there were a good music school nearby. However, there isn’t, so he will stay where he is.</p>
<p>It is REALLY nice to have him home! Christmas break will be even better. :-)</p>
<p>Lucky You! Mine is going to try and fly out of Chicago for Atlanta and then SFO (he got a free ticket) on Thursday for California. I got a phone call at 2:30 am here from my Dad worrying about the weather!</p>
<p>Well, chalk DS up as one whose return to The Gang went well. The usual suspects spent hours together last evening, into the wee hours in fact, at the usual suspect’s house. All’s well. Will watch the evolution over the months and years. Interesting question: what factors lead to the quicker vs slower diminishing closeness? In DS’ case, we live in a small town, so the kids have been together for 12+ years instead of maybe only 4 (via meeting in hs when several middle schools merge). Also, while a couple have GF’s, most of his close friends don’t. The ones who do have never been of the ilk who spend the majority of their time with the GF instead of the guys.</p>
<p>As the OP, I thought I would share also. My daughter arrived home at 3:30 and was out of the house by 5:30! Her group of friends that were home when to their high school boys basketball game. That chatted with teachers and younger students that they were friendly with. A lot of the teacher that usually attend the games were not there as many went out of town for the holidays. The kids tried to sit in the senior section, but the current senior were not happy about that, so they move to the alumni section. That my daughter said was really weird!</p>
<p>This morning she is off to breakfast and Harry Potter with her other group of high school friends. Does anyone else have a child that has several different groups they hang with? She has two from her high school and one from dance; the high school groups are different kinds of kids-one group is co-ed and one is all girls.</p>
<p>So, I have worried for no reason. My daughter said that everyone looks the same and acts the same. No one has a new boyfriend or girlfriend and they went out as a large group like they did for the past two years.</p>
<p>As my daughter attends a smallish private school, most of these kids have known each other for 13 years, although several didn’t start at this school until 6th or 7th grade and a couple in 9th. Very few live in the same neighborhood, so when they began driving is when they really got closer.</p>
<p>My DS got home night before last. His girlfriend picked him up (which kind of bummed my husband and me out a little) and brought him home. We all had a great dinner, actually got a little teary (including DS). By the end of the dinner a couple of his friends showed up at the house and by the end of the evening, I had 19 year olds draped over every couch and chair. They all seemed the same on the inside, but are very different looking on the outside, all much shaggier, beards and longish hair. My S’s hair is a story in itself, he left with short layered hair and clean shaven, now it is like a curly blonde mop with a splotch of black in the back thanks to some friends who applied dye after he feel asleep first after a concert. It’s pretty funny. He has a full beard and I am asking that he at least clean it up before the grandparents come over. He is going to get a hair “trim” this afternoon. He is sure that Teresa (hair lady) and I are in cahoots to make him clean cut! I have promised him otherwise (wink, wink). Oh well, he is happy, healthy and has NO tattoos or body piercings (yet)!</p>
<p>I was reading the post with fascination, since my D and S both have maintained close friendships with their HS friends–but only with three or four close friends; they never hung around in a BIG group like that.</p>
<p>So my guess here (truly a guess) is that your D will end up with just a few close friends…</p>
<p>While the big group is 18, there are many smaller subgroups. Some. my daughter will only see if they get the whole gang together, others she will see regularly. For now they are happy as a big group, but not every night. My guess is they will do a “group night” each holiday and be with their subgroups the rest of the time. It was always hard to get 18 to agree on where to go, what time to meet, etc. I know coming in for only a few days for the holidays will only make it that much harder.</p>
<p>My D has maintained close contact with her core group of 6. She is home for the first time for Thanksgiving, and already she wasn’t home last night, and has plenty of activities scheduled with them. But then these kids have been together since kindergarten. Maybe that’s the reason they are still close and IM each other everyday. Except for one in Illinois, all the rest stayed in TX, and D is in Mass. Yet, they still seem close, and even send ME postcards! D is going to visit them at school and a couple have plans to fly up during their spring break (different week). Somehow, I know this group will really stick together.</p>
<p>S finished classes at 1 yesterday and headed to the high school to hang out with friends. Since he graduated early, some of his friends are now in college and some are high school seniors. The freshmen are attending very different colleges and all seem very happy. One who had dyed her hair blue as of graduation day has now normal hair through lack of money and time. One who spent 18 years with brown hair now has an orange mop; it must go very nicely with the Stata Center at MIT. Other than that, S did not report any startling changes either in appearances or personalities. More gatherings are planned for this weekend.</p>
<p>My freshman D’s thanksgiving visit is going as my W and I predicted - - unfortunately. Day 1 was spent with my W at a doctor’s appointment followed by an afternoon of shopping. In the evening two of her close HS friends visited. The third of the old group was out on a date. The visit lasted about an hour when the other two left to go drinking. We expect there will be another short visit sometime over the next couple of days but it will follow the same pattern. There is no boyfriend in the picture. That relationship ended once college began and he was looking for more of a commitment. The old music friends were from Saturday classes and none of them live nearby. She had tentative backup plans to go to the Macy’s parade with a college friend but the weather is bad and it doesn’t seem worth going. The rest of the visit should be kind of boring, just sitting around with the old folks. I am not sure my W and I know how to make this the best possible visit. Any suggestions are welcome. With the old friendships waning, we don’t expect to see our D spending summers at home, lonely and trying to meet new friends. D has already applied for a summer job as a counselor in a music camp in another State. After this visit, we expect that she will also decide to remain at school during holiday intersession and take an elective. D has not yet mentioned this, but I won’t be surprised. It looks like we have become empty nesters and won’t see our D except for short visits.</p>
<p>Oh, edad!<br>
We were looking forward to going to a movie with S (but he has decided against P&P). Maybe H will persuade him to go to museums. There are some very interesting exhibits. But when he is not out with friends, we expect him to hang out with the old folks. or maybe, since he already got the third-degree from mom over dinner yesterday, he will opt to stay in his room. That will be okay. There is something very nice about knowing all our kids are under our roof, even if we don’t see them outside of meal times.
Snow is being predicted today. Have a Happy and warm Thanksgiving!</p>
<p>Hi-I was in a similar predicament after high school. My family moved a week after high school graduation and I never met anyone in the new area. I think just doing things as a family is good. Since I didn’t know anyone in the area, I appreciated my family more certainly than I did when in high school.</p>