<p>I agree with ejr1. It’s time to start looking at your own life and making plans to do the things that you value. Life is short, and this may be your best and last opportunity to finish the college education that you value highly. </p>
<p>Doing that --not nagging your highly accomplished son to do what you think he needs to do to ready himself for college – would probably be a far better contribution to how your son addresses his own educational opportunities.</p>
<p>The summer before S1 left (4 years ago), we had the exact same experience. He hardly lifted a finger to help around the house and assumed a persistent vegetative state in front of the computer, etc. Every time we asked him to do anything it became a power struggle. It felt like he wanted to get into a fight. Halfway through the summer I realized he did want to get into a fight. The fact was that HE was nervous about going away, HE was anxious about leaving his friends and HE was worried about leaving home. He didn’t really want to fight, he just wanted to be a “kid” and he wanted us to be parents.</p>
<p>My advice/observations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Don’t sweat the preparations. He won’t walk into class naked (unless the other kids do).</p></li>
<li><p>He’ll track down a pen and paper and take notes in class.</p></li>
<li><p>He’ll call home asking how to wash his clothes and could you send some more sheets. It’ll be an aggravating chore that should have been done before he left. It will also be the happiest day of your life when it reminds you that he still needs and wants your help.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>4 Finally, relax and enjoy the your time together. In 3 weeks your boy will be gone! When he comes home at Thanksgiving or Christmas he’ll be different, not better or worse, just more independent (and that will aggravate you, I promise). </p>
<p>I took S1 to school, we had to fly because of the distance; we left with just 2 suitcases. We stopped in at Bed, Bath & Beyond, spent $200 and we were done. In the last four years he’s had to plan and prepare for research trips that have taken him to foreign countries. He’s had to track down special inoculations & visas. He’s learned how to load and ship a container to Panama with enough supplies to last 3 people for 5 months. Yesterday he told me that after December graduation he’d be interviewing for a couple of Phd programs.</p>
<p>That last summer before leaving was the last time he was a “little kid” and that trip to BB&Beyond was the last time I was fully his Dad. Don’t let your own worries get in the way of the moments.</p>
<p>
I couldn’t agree more … Mom3togo and 1STtogo have already made 4-5 shopping trips and have many more planned … and I, for the life of me, have NO IDEA what they are possibly spending all that time on. I came from a clueless lower middle-class family and headed off to college with a duffle bag and a trunk (OK … and sheets, a pillow, and jackets) … the trunk had whatever I thought to pile into it when I started packing at about 11:00 the might before we left around 8:00 am … then when I got to school I went to the campus store and bought the few odds and ends I needed when I got there. I’d guess at this point tens of millions of freshman have launched having used the I’m not doing anything until 12 hours before I leave approach and the vast majority turned out to be reasonbly mature adults by the time they graduated … and I would guess still not real stressed about life.</p>
<p>Ditto–</p>
<p>Clothes? I reminded S that if he did not buy it (what ever “it” might be) before he left for college and needed it when he got there, he’d have to find where it was sold and get there and back w/o a car at his disposal. </p>
<p>His response was OK and that he’d rather get any new stuff in the town where he was going to be in school since the temperatures and “snow” quotient were noticably different. </p>
<p>That made sense (in a male way) and seems to have worked for him and it sure was one less point of struggle that summer after HS.</p>
<p>“Clothes? I reminded S that if he did not buy it (what ever “it” might be) before he left for college and needed it when he got there, he’d have to find where it was sold and get there and back w/o a car at his disposal.”</p>
<p>And this isn’t hard to do on most college campuses. Either one catches a ride with a friend with a car, one takes public transportation or one takes the shuttle services that many colleges offer to local malls particularly at the start of the semester. College students really don’t go naked and hungry because they can’t make it to the store.</p>
<p>And, it does make sense to me that by the time they are a freshman in college they have their own idea of what they like concerning clothes and it doesn’t really matter that they wait until they get to college to add in some additional things (especially where the climate at school is different from where they went to HS)</p>
<p>Your a good mom :).</p>
<p>And he will learn to be more self sufficient. When he is hungry enough, he will learn to fix is own meals…(at school, he will find his way to the cafeteria.) When he has no clean clothes, he will figure out he has to wear dirty underwear, no underwear, or do the laundry. He will wash darks with whites only 1-2 times, and then he will be more careful. He will figure out how to change the sheets, or one day he will wake up and decide sleeding on the bare mattress is gross. </p>
<p>I think the computer games are because he is bored. And he is probably a little anxious about the whole college experience. He can distract himself now with computer games and such. </p>
<p>If he accomplished what he did in high school, and if he does not have addictive behavior with regards to the computer, he should be fine. He will learn to get organized, and keep tract of assignments etc. There will be a wake up call at some time during the first semester, and then he will get it. I think the summer before college is the most difficult. It gets better.</p>
<p>Re: shopping. I (male) don’t get this “college shopping” thing. I did no college shopping whatsoever, except for picking out a portable typewriter around high school graduation. I had clothes that I liked; they fit me fine. I took two spare blankets, and rented sheets. Anything that I would actually use (toothbrush, razor), I already had, and the zillions of things I didn’t have happened to be things I never used at home and wasn’t about to start using just because I had gone to college.</p>
<p>My wife and kids did do some college shopping, but it was completely a pretext for Just Plain Shopping. Not a single necessary thing happened in all those trips. Heaven forbid, a kid would get to college and find our there was some item of something he would like to have and didn’t. He would have three choices: (a) Continue to do without and work around. Generally a fine choice. (b) Get it on his own. Always do-able with a little effort. (c) Call his parents and trade his attention to a lecture on preparation for whatever the thing is. Also a perfectly satisfactory choice.</p>
<p>The last thing in the world you should be worried about is his not wanting to go college shopping.</p>
<p>If he does not care about what he is bringing, a big favor you can do is to get a minimal list together. Lots of stuff means lots of care and hard to move. Hard to keep track of the stuff and if he didn’t buy it, he may not even know he has it.</p>
<p>To the OP, I’ve just read your post, not the responses, and I must say, I have one in the same. He’s very smart and involved in school, but when not in school, it’s video games nonstop. Have to run myself ragged to get him into numerous activities just to get him away from the TV. </p>
<p>Because of this, his grandparents feel that he has no potential, we shouldn’t waste our time and money sending him to college, he’ll just be a failure. What’s more, they are trying to talk us into not letting him go away for college, that he should just stay local. I think this would be a big mistake, as the only way he’s going to do for himself is to go out into the world. Kind of like throwing the baby in the swimming pool so it will learn to swim.</p>
<p>Although I’m a year away from your situation, I’m hoping that I can be strong and let my son go away to school, and let him fail or succeed on his own. </p>
<p>Our principal gave a good talk about nurturing when we entered high school. He likened a child to planting a tree. When you plant the tree, you have to add a little manure to the mix. Those F’s in chemistry, those dirty underpants, those torn jeans, are all the manure that go into the soil that let our children grow into young men and women.</p>
<p>Whether you or he realizes it or not, subconsciously, he has the values inherent in himself that you have taught him. They will shine through him and see him through on his way to adulthood. </p>
<p>Good luck and best wishes!</p>
<p>Well, I have taken all of your advice to heart and lightened up on the stress (his and mine). Since I’ve first posted another scholarship has come in. This makes his 7th which means the tiny loan he took can be cancelled…everything except for a couple of hundred (maybe) for books has been covered. Whew. I’ve left it to him to call and clarify cancelling the loan, and finding out which scholarships override the others…he is seeing the qualifications to keep the scholarships and is seeing that he has a lot to lose if he doesn’t keep the grades going. I’m not sure if he understands yet the difference of the work that will be expected, but I hope he’ll learn really quickly. High school was pretty easy for him, and he is one of those that his Calculus teacher said he could do the math in his head. He said several times in school that he wanted a challenge…he is about to get one.</p>
<p>I found out he IS listening…he texted his roommate about who is bring what, and luckily the roomie is a friend since they were 8, so he doesn’t have to stress about that…the suitemates are two other friends so he is happy and anxious to go. He did tell me last night that he’d miss being home and us…and his friends. As the high school year gears up again, he is feeling reality…I remember how I felt MANY years ago, when I wasn’t going back and it seemed everyone else was. </p>
<p>SunnyFlorida…thank you for your message. The laundry lesson has been learned for a while since I work full time. Whether he remembers to wash often is to be seen. DreamMom, about the messy backpack…that was mine too. Drove me nuts, but teachers said he could pull anything they wanted out of pile of loose papers easier than some that had notebooks. </p>
<p>As for what I will do to begin a new stage in twenty days…I still don’t know. New doors and a new security system is in the works so that will give me a fresh approach to cleaning for a few weekends. After that, we will see…photography more than likely will be my niche’. </p>
<p>Thanks again…I am growing in this process.</p>
<p>^^^you have this mom of a rising college senior smiling. A nice smile. Thanks.</p>