By: Myrriah Gossett
It’s the first day of class, and for most students their Moms and Dads have already packed up and left them to the big wide world of college – freedom at last, right? Now, you may be coping with these changes marvelously, but what you may not realize is, that drive or plane ride home for your parents is probably agonizing. This situation is even more daunting if you’re A, the first child going away to college, B, the last child going away to college, or the most prevalent C, you are the only child.
You may be thinking that you are finally not as much of a burden on your parents, until you realize the burden your parents want to put on you to keep in touch. Some outrageous situation will arise, where you will think your parents have gone crazy in their methods to keep in touch. This is a guide for what to do if some of these situations should occur, that will inevitably leave both you feeling like you have freedom left as a new away-from-home college student, and your parents still feeling like they have something left of the umbilical cord.
Most advice Web sites and magazines such as Psychology Today offer ways for parents to help themselves deal with the issues of empty nest syndrome, or this feeling of sadness your parents are experiencing from you leaving home. Hopefully these next few paragraphs will help you learn how to deal with parents who can sometimes go to extremes when they are trying to deal with you being away from home.
One great thing you can do, if your parents insist you call them everyday or close to it, is try and do it for the first week, keep the conversations short and explain every time that you’re busy with class and homework and meeting new people. After that first week, ask them if its all right if you just give them a call on Sunday to give them a whole weekly update. Tell them it will make the conversation longer and you’ll be able to focus on your schoolwork during the week and give them your undivided attention on Sunday for that conversation. You can pick another day of the week that suits your family and also your schedule. You can also surprise them every once in a while and call them more then once a week and make sure it’s more often than when you just need some loaner money as well.
Some parents will already send you care packages, however if you call them, maybe even a phone call that is not on that set day of the week, and tell them you need them to send something, they’ll love it. If your parents still feel like you need them in some ways, they will think they play a larger role in your college life. For instance if you really did leave one of your favorite shirts, but you feel like you could live without it, just have them send it to you anyway, your parents will appreciate it and feel like they are doing something to stay involved in your life while you are away.
There have been some severe cases of parents trying to stay in touch and I hope it does not occur to most. However, if you do find yourself in a situation where your mother has gotten a web cam along with an online instant messaging account to keep tabs on you, I can offer one piece of advice. You can either not sign on to your instant messenger, or you can just change one or two numbers in your name and give that one to your said parent. That way they still thing it’s the same one however you can only sign on when you feel like talking to them.
If you don’t feel like doing that, or if it’s too late and they already have your screen name, the only idea left is to really express your feelings to you parents about invasion of privacy and that you are an adult now. This conversation does sound scary, but your parents when through similar phases and hopefully they will understand.
There are other cases of parents being a little over-bearing while you’re away at school – just try and take it on case by case and try to remember your parents’ feelings. This is a hard transition time for them as well. So if you can make it easier on them, it will make things much easier on you as well.