We miss him, Maybe he doesn't miss us. ?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>All,</p>

<p>Our son is a college freshman. He is our oldest, and our first child to go off to college, so this is all new territory for us. We miss him a lot, and it does not seem like he misses us, much at all. </p>

<p>We are not naive. We realize that he is now an adult (and has not been our baby for many years). We realize that part of the growing up process is letting go and allowing him to find his way. We realize that once they (students in general) go off to college they are not going to want to be calling mommy and daddy every day. </p>

<p>Initially, for the first week, he called us about every other day, with some question about doing laundry, or some administrative paperwork, etc. That was close to a month ago. Now, he does not call us much. We call him every 4th or 5th day, if we don’t hear from him. He does not seem interested to tell us much about the many things going on. He is not cold or ugly with us. He is just not as forthcoming as he seemed to be in high school.</p>

<p>In case it matters, he is at a well-known university with close to 20,000 students. The university is well known for good academics, and good social times.</p>

<p>During our brief calls, he says, and we believe, that he is happy and is doing well. He and his roommate seem close. (We met him during move-in week). He has a full load of 17 units, and seems to be doing fine in his classes. He mentions that he went to the movies with some friends. When asked what he has been doing, he mostly says, “just hanging out". His communication with us is brief, and almost like he is in a hurry to get off the phone. We are also not naive about colleges, dorms, and drinking. We realize that is probably happening. (It happened when i was in college and in the dorms, and I realize it is, unfortunately, part of the college experience).</p>

<p>We would love to hear about the food in the dorms, the new friends, what they have been doing, how he likes his classes and/or his Profs. We want to hear some of his comical stories about events with his friends. In high school, he would occasionally tell us some humorous tales about adventures with his friends. Surely now, being new to dorm life, and to college, he must experienced many new situations that “could be” communicated to us. I guess we are a little sad, and our feelings are a little hurt. My wife cried today, that he does not seem to miss her – the way that she misses him. </p>

<p>I know that there are surely families who have worse situations. There are probably some families who have had very stressful relationships, and (for whatever reasons) the students have no interest, and who refuse to call home. There are probably some parents who are glad to have their child move out (due to the past stress, arguments, etc). And there are probably many families like us, no major fights, and the typical years of churn with having a teenager.</p>

<p>We have loved him all along. We did exert some parental control over the years, communicating the importance of homework, schoolwork, curfews, etc. He did not always appreciate our rules, but he mostly lived pleasantly within them. He is probably glad to have a new sense of “total” freedom, and that may be part of the reason for his lack of communication. Nonetheless, it still hurts, and concerns us.</p>

<p>I am interested to hear from other parents who have been through this, or who are going through this.</p>

2

<p>Well my H and I are communicating with our son. The first few days it seemed as though he could not wait to get off the phone. When I asked some questions the answers were, “yes”, “no”, “OMG”. I realize that sometimes he did not feel free to talk, was busy and it was bad timing (ie:he was waiting on a food line etc.), but sometimes there were no excuses for being so curt. Finally, I sent a brief IM and I asked him to call me when he was free to talk and when I could speak in more than 20 second soundbites. I told him that I would not try to call him any longer. It worked. He called me, to my delight, the next morning. I was able to get all of my questions answered and he was willing to share some of his college experiences with us. Since then, he has been more patient with us and we are communicating.</p>

3

<p>We sent our son off to college last year. He’s not the most communicative kid in the world. He was bad at calling, okay at emailing. We found that he really didn’t start to miss us and his home until around Thanksgiving. Part of it is just being overwhelmed with new people and routines and busy-ness, so much so that he couldn’t catch his breath to even think about home and family. The other part is that he’s a boy and most of them just don’t like to “chat” on the phone. I’m guessing that he will have some wonderful stories to share with you over Thanksgiving and the winter break. Tell his mom that it could be so much worse; he could be miserable and wanting to transfer already and still not want to talk about it with you guys!</p>

4

<p>Well…it does seem that the pattern is that they do not communicate very much in the early weeks and even months - and that this seems to be some necessary part of separation for both sons and daughters. They DO bounce back though, and start communicating normally again, sometimes to the point of calling too much! </p>

<p>I think they do miss their parents and families, but the new college experience is so all-consuming that it just takes some time for them to adjust. It is difficult at first but it DOES get better.</p>

5

<p>My son is not even gone yet (only a HS jr) but spends several weeks away from us each summer at camp, and never seems to look back once he is out of our sight. I think I know exactly how your wife feels, and believe I have voiced those same sentiments, that we miss him, and he seems not to miss us, whenever he is away.</p>

<p>However, when we see him, he is absolutely delighted to go on and on, and regale us with all his stories. I think some kids just communicate less when they are away, and I am hopeful that yours will decide to share a bit more soon, and I’m sure will have lots of things to tell you when you see him in person.</p>

6

<p>When our younger son started his freshman year, he told us he would call once a week, and that if we called him, he would deduct that from our time for the week. Well, it turned out he called more often than once a week. However, it did work best if we let him choose when to call. He would often call when walking between classes or some other time when he would not be interrupted and was not busy. if we had a question or wanted to hear from him, I would usually email him–sometime IM–and ask him to call when he had time. I also occasionally send him emails telling him what’s going on around here, so he still feels connected to home.</p>

<p>I really do think it works best if you let him do the calling. But you can always email to let him know you are thinking of him and to ask him the questions you would like to hear about.</p>

7

<p>Sigh. I too am hungry for news and know I just have to endure this. My son deferred his first-year and was in remote places last year where communication was hard, so I didn’t really expect it. And I adapted to his being gone. But now that he is within range for calls or email, there still is so little news! When he does call, I have to fight sounding like the Grand Inquisitor. Friends reassure me that even boys eventually become more forthcoming. And dads I know say that being non-committal and uncommunicative by phone/email is perfectly normal for a guy who is actually quite happy and content. Still…</p>

<p>A wise mom on another thread I follow wrote: “It occurs to me that one could describe the parent journey here as learning to not need to be needed–at least not in the same familiar ways.” So I guess we are all feeling somewhat dislocated, even when we are at home…I’m sure we’ll find our way with time…</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the many responses. </p>

<p>I got confused, and posted this thread twice. Here is the other thread with about 30 responses, for those who feel close to this issue:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=237053[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=237053&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Again, i appreciate all of your respones, and they have been very helpful to my wife and I.</p>

9

<p>Helms2Lee and everyone,
Hi, I am brand new to the board and I am feeling very glad, as I read through the posts, that I found this source of support. Our only child, our daughter, started her freshman year almost 6 weeks ago, and I am going through all of the sense of loss and sadness that has been described here. I have been, as many of us are, reading about “letting Go” etc as I try to normalize the process we are experiencing with our daughter. She and I have always been very close, although I have made a diligent, and I think, an effective effort to discourage her from feeling somehow responsible for me or for filling in any gaps in my life. She had a very involved high school experience with many many friends and activities, and was gone a fair amount on the weekends.</p>

<p>She seems to be making a good adjustment ie. grades are good, has made many friends already, busy socially at least on the weekends. She does call home about every other day, but when she does, there is a different quality to her conversation, as if she really wants to keep it short and not give any details. I have even been aware that a couple of times, she has called when there are clearly other people around and she almost sounds as if she is trying to impress her new friends with how nonchalant she can be with me. I text message her rather than calling her…I let her be the one to call when she thinks its a good time for her. Someone insightful said on here ( forgive me I didn’t notice the name) that this experience is a lot like dating where each party is trying to strategize! LOL So true. I believe in my heart that after all we have done for our children, the majority of them will “come back around” at some point and let us in more than they are doing at this point. I am aware that my daughter is trying to be “cool” and I’m allowing it to hurt my feelings. The only time we seem to have a “real” conversation is when she needs to dump some frustration, apparently a very common freshman year phenomenon. Sigh…this is a thankless period in our parenting of them isn’t it? Thank you for listening. I want to end by noticing what many of us probably realize, that they probably have little realization of how hard this is for us. Sometimes I struggle with whether to confront her about her currently “cool” communication with us or just leave it alone with the hope she will mature out of it.</p>

10

<p>Hi Helms2Lee -</p>

<p>It sounds like your son is adjusting well to college. It’s very normal that he would call infrequently at this point, he’s busy with courses and making friends. It’s annoying because you would like to hear more about his experiences, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Just keep trying to call him every few days to see how things are going. I call my son during lunch when I know he’s not too busy. Sometimes he’s happy to talk and othertimes he isn’t. It’s hard when you are used to knowing what’s going on in your children’s lives on a daily basis to suddenly be shut out. But it just means that they are successfully becoming independant. Probably time for you to find a hobby or something. ;-)</p>