So far it was all about textbooks, where to get what. Books were to be picked up from different sources/locations. I had to tell him that.
Of course help with homework.
@herewelearn are you talking about a college freshman or a high school freshman? Considering this is a college board I would hope you’re not helping your college freshman with homework…
freshman in HS? or college?
If we are talking about college, why on earth are you helping with homework?
Even in high school I wouldn’t help with homework. Although I would hire a tutor if necessary. Most colleges have some sort of tutoring for core classes.
I thought I was a helicopter mom, but frankly I didn’t know where my kids got their text books. I just saw it on my Amazon bills or their school book store. I didn’t know about their homework either. I did hear about their social issues.
Ok, looking back, when D1 was a freshman she was quite lost at her very large uni, she would call me up to complain or ask me how to get to certain places. I was her personal concierge for a while.
My child’s third grade teacher told us to stop helping with homework. She wanted to see what the KID did…not what the kid did with corrections by the parents. She asked us to simply make sure homework was completed.
So…even if HS…no homework.
We also didn’t help,our kids purchase textbooks…they figured it out themselves.
We did help one kid make airline reservations to come home for Christmas.
Get your kid to sign up for Amazon Prime (free for first six months, but we found it worthwhile throughout college, and now I share the account with my kid anyway and we just have to be careful what shipping address to use). Then you don’t have to worry about textbooks, they can get 'em cheaply online with 2 day delivery.
No college homework. D1 needed help with HS math homework; she wanted to stay on the honors math track with her friends but is in no way a natural. So I was her math tutor throughout HS. In college, D2 tried to get me to review papers sometimes. I turned her down flat and told her to use the writing center on campus.
I have to admit that I asked my dad for help occasionally with my engineering homework, since he was an engineering prof. He was good at explaining concepts I struggled with!
I meant college here.
I ordered all his books from the college bookstore online before school started. He just need to pick them up. He also needed help with purchasing other things.
With all due respect, if your son can handle college classes he should be perfectly capable of ordering his books himself. I do pay for my kids’ books but I don’t purchase them. Ditto on his homework. Time to let the duckling swim on his own. Make sure you’re not helping because you want to feel needed and part of his life still. The transition can be hard for us parents but its important that our kids learn to do these things for themselves.
IMO, purchasing the student’s books is a bit too much. They might not know how to do it when they first arrive on campus, but after one day they’ll know. They talk to other students.
Even for my kid with a learning disability and executive functioning issues, I did not help her buy her books. I suggested that she talk to other students, and that the college bookstore would be easiest – but also the most expensive choice. Since books were her expense to cover, she had incentive to find cheaper options. I may have explained ISBN numbers so she would be sure to get the right books. But she needed to determine what was needed for each class and get them.
My mom helps me get my books because the bookstore requires a credit card for rentals and I don’t have one. (Same thing with ordering online.) Is that uncommon?
One reason it’s good for the student to get the books is she can find out which classes really use the books–some don’t (according to both my kids). You can also give out if prior editions of the text are OK and save a bundle over the current edition. For both kids, we helped them get their textbooks 1st semester of college and then it was up to them to sell and get books for subsequent terms. S became excellent at making money selling and buying.
I didn’t help my kids with homework after about 2nd or 3rd grade. They didn’t want help and frankly the math S was doing in middle school was stuff neither H not I learned or could figure out!
S did have an engineer try to assist him in HS advanced math, but S found it much easier to figure things out on his own (and search the web). We did try hiring tutors for D in HS because she had a lot of medical absences, but they weren’t helpful–she needed time and health, which no one could give her.
OP, at the very least, do the book ordering process WITH your child for second semester so he can learn how to do it next fall and all semesters after that. It’s really not that hard.
Is there a reason you just did it for him??? Or that you felt he could not do it on his own? If he does not have a credit card, just give him your number for ordering purposes with the agreement that he shreds the paper with the number as soon as he orders.
College isn’t just about homework and studies, it’s about life skills. Like obtaining your own daily supplies.
My college roommate always had trouble registering because her wealthy parents were always late paying the bill. I helped my kids by paying the bills on time and making sure they had enough money on their debit card to buy books and supplies. I did comb the uni website one year for #3 who was trying to find a tutor. I found an obscure reference to a support center he would never have thought of…and they helped.
My homeschooled son managed to locate and buy all his books (yay!).
We are not far away from his campus (though he lives on campus), and I confess to doing a load of laundry. But I’m out of town this week and he’s running out of clothes so he will figure it out.
IMHO first year is the time to unwind some of the helicopter stuff (slowly but steadily for us).
Your support may be most valuable for non-academic issues – things that you usually handled at home but your child has to handle alone now.
I answered lots of medical questions, for example. My kids called me from the health center while they were filling out pre-appointment paperwork to ask questions about their medical histories. One sent me a photo of a cut and asked “Does this look infected?” The other asked for advice when it turned out that the campus pharmacy didn’t carry a medication his doctor at home had prescribed for him to use on an ongoing basis. (We brainstormed possible solutions and figured out that the easiest was for him to fill his prescriptions at a CVS that was within walking distance of the campus.) I also remember being asked “Can I take Tylenol for this headache even though I’m still taking that antibiotic that was prescribed last week?” which was a good opportunity to point out that the pharmacy is great place to call when you have questions like that.
We helped our son a couple of times with pointers for what office to go to for things he needed. So far the only thing we have had to do for D is add her as an authorized user on the family phone plan. She was having phone problems and the ATT store wasn’t much help because she wasn’t “authorized.”
I quit doing laundry years ago 