Dear Dr. Debbie,
We just left our second-born at their college dormitory and I’m a mess. (The first child lived at home while commuting their first year.) Is there such a thing as an in-person parent support group meeting?! We spend all this time preparing them to leave, but who prepared US?!
House is Too Quiet
Dear H.i.T.Q.,
A college send off is indeed a family milestone. Not only is this a long-anticipated event, with years of preparation, doubts, and dreams preceding it, the actual day is comprised of actions that literally alter a child’s living arrangements for the foreseeable future. It’s a separation.
Many Emotions
Give yourself time to feel your emotions. You may bounce among excitement, pride, worry, loss, nostalgia for your college years, relief, liberation, and other perfectly valid feelings. Yes, a support group would help you to recognize and express emotions with others who are also facing this transition in the parenting role. Maybe the college offers such a group, either online or in-person with other parents?
Have you had close friendships throughout your parenting journey? With whom did you confide your emotions when your offspring lost the first baby tooth, didn’t get the part they auditioned for in the school play, got a date for a prom, learned to drive and, presumably, were granted a license to drive off in a car without you?
At every stage in parenting it helps to have parenting peers with whom to share the ups and downs.
Get a Dog
As you work through your emotions, let your life settle into new routines for at least a week or two after the college drop off. There may have been a project that you held off tackling until after the boxes were packed and unloaded. Take time to transition yourself to your next chapter.
In general, our children need us most at the beginning of their lives, and, around their typical trials and tribulations, they need us less and less as they grow up. This means you can better focus on other responsibilities and pleasurable pursuits now.
If caregiving and company feel missing at this point in your life, you might do what many new empty nesters do – get a puppy! Of course, you’ll do this with appropriate consideration for the time, cost, and effort this will require. Not to mention the occasional need for a dog sitter.
Other pursuits to consider might be your own career, travel, hobbies, volunteer work, or even a college course or two. Going to class, after all, widens your world and enhances your skills.
College Life
A full-time college student living in a dormitory is doing more than just taking classes. Trust that the college is ready to help new students acclimate to life away from home. There may have been an official orientation to welcome freshmen and transfers, tour the campus, learn about clubs and other activities, get familiar with the surrounding area – parks, stores, etc., and hopefully make a friend or two.
An academic advisor has likely been assigned to your student to help with course selections (and changes) and to offer appointments for discussing options for declaring, and changing, a major. The advisors may also be able to lead your student to internships, semesters abroad, and other career building opportunities. There may be a career center that further directs students toward planning a path forward.
Other adults, besides professors and graduate assistants, have roles to play to accommodate students’ needs, from media specialists to the health center staff. Living on campus is like living is a small town (sometimes within an actual city!) in which it doesn’t take long for faces and places to become familiar.
Campus activities are probably listed on a website or sent out via an e-newsletter. There may be organized excursions off campus, too, for a theater trip, hiking expedition, or volunteer opportunity. The bigger the college, the more variety. The smaller the college, the easier it is to make friends.
Looking Ahead
Since many students want to be with family for Thanksgiving (and families look forward to having them!) colleges are generally closed at this time. Don’t repurpose the bedroom just yet. Check your student’s college calendar for other days off when your child may plan to come home to reunite with high school friends (and the family dog). It’s probably too early to think about next summer, but living at home may be an option along with hometown employment. On the other hand, connections made during the school year may lead to an on-campus job with the strategy of gaining credits toward graduation during a summer college course.
Then again, some college graduates have maintained their childhood bedrooms as a convenient place to stay between semesters and find that this is the obvious choice after graduation when a well-paying job is hard to find and it’s time to start re-paying that college loan.
According to different surveys, nearly half of the college graduates of the past five years are living with their parents or other relatives.
The shift to a landlord-tenant relationship between parent and child will be the topic for a future column!
Dr. Debbie
Write your question to Dr. Debbie! Please include age(s) of your child(ren) and other details about the situation or concern.
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum, located at 25 Silopanna Road in Annapolis. Online reservations are available or call: 410-990-1993. Walk-ins are welcome. Fall Family Memberships to the museum provide unlimited admissions for your family through December 31st.
There is a Nature Walk on Thursdays at 10:30 am. Art and Story Time with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet is on Mondays at 10:30 am. In August CCM hosts Crafternoons from 1-3 pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with a different theme each week. This week it’s “Aviation Crafts” in honor of National Aviation Day, the shared birthday of Katherine Wright and her brother Orville Wright. All materials are provided!
