The motorhome of siblings and grandparents and dog for move in
Actually, this happened during my move-in as well. The interior designer came into a room down the hall with swatches and paint chips as was promptly told by the RA, âYou know that thatâs not gonna happen, right?â To make it even more amusing, mom arrived in a limo complete with liveried chauffeur and butler to haul the monogrammed trunks up the flights of stairs
It certainly proved to be an interesting night of conversation for my suitemates and I as we sat on our university-provided furnishings while drinking hooch from red Solo cups. 
OMG that is too funny (unless you are him gah!)
My daughters roommateâs family did this and the grandmother and siblings thing. It was so ridiculous. D and I were done getting her stuff unboxed and were walking around campus and her roommate and her mother and grandmother were busy figuring out what more storage to buy because for example she brought 6 bathing suits to college in NOTHERN OHIO
OMG how arrogant is that?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unless your car is a school bus, those things will fit in a dorm room.
My cousin is an interior decorator, and her daughtersâ parts of their dorm rooms always looked beautiful and perfectly co-ordinated (we saw photos, and sheâs not the type to impose on people so I donât think anyoneâs post above refers to her). When I asked D19 if she wanted some help from her, I got a horrified look - kind of what I expected - D19 is not into the âdecoratedâ look.
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One of my freshman hallmates brought the entire family - parents, grandparents, and siblings, to drop-off, but I got the sense that it was because she was the first in her family to go to college and they were so excited to see her there that they all wanted to share in the experience. It was rather sweet. They stayed out of the way and she brought a modest amount of possessions so there was room to move. Thankfully, no ceramic pineapples!
My daughterâs school has move in down pretty well for freshman. You have a specified arrival time say 9 to 11am based on dorm. The car lines up based on where they tell you and weaves its way forward. There are stops along the way and the room and key form is brought to the student in the car then the student gets a packet which includes the room key at the next station. Along the way as cars slow down/stop people come by with snacks, water etc. Okay I was surprised by the ice cream at 9:30am but did take a water.
Once at the front of the line tons of people are there grabbing everything from the car so you donât need to carry a thing - it is all labeled with room number. Some one tells driver where to park and student goes to open room.with other passengers. It is very quick. Driver parks then comes to room. It was a 3 story building no elevators. Once in the room we helped make the bed and get things out of boxes such as the new microwave. All 4 sets of parents in the suite were doing basically the same thing. We all went to lunch leaving the trash and said we would all come back and get it since we needed to find out where it went. We came back and it was gone - never did find out where or how. All families were given free lunch in the cafeteria that day and some places like the bookstore were open.
At one point there was a parent meeting and the kids started orientation. After a bit the kids were brought in and shortly thereafter given a minute to say good bye to family then told to continue on with orientation (basically a bit nicer but a short good bye). I think there was a small question and answer period then a parent reception if you wanted to stay longer (we didnât). We were leaving anyway but I think it was a hint that the kids were busy so time for parents to go. If it were not for the parent part I might have left sooner - it was a bit late since some dorms could not move in until later and we were one of the earlier ones. I didnât want my daughter to be the only one not having parents to say by to but it was cute and fast.
This year seems worse to me - 3 years moving in the same day with no helpers. I plan to bring a friendâs son who is a football player to help move things and probably help with making the bed and the real basics but leave shortly after. We havenât gotten a timeframe yet. Move in is the day before classes start and my daughter has an 8am the next morning
That would be pretty good news for her! And less embarrassing for me, so a win all around. The car is a rental SUV, but not a giant one. The room is just SO small though. Weâll see what kind of magic she has!
One of my Dâs rooommates bought along 5 adult family members for move-in and they all wore matching T-shirts with âTeam Xâ on them (X being roommateâs name). I thought it was cute. I think the dumbest thing a parent can do on move-in day is to alienate or antagonize their kidâs roommate or his/her family. The pineapple story is a classic for dumb parent moves but I always wondered the girls got along after that amazingly bad start. These kids need to live together!
Our move-in mistake was not properly preparing our daughter for when we planned to leave. I THOUGHT we had discussed it. My husband and I surely had, and my daughter was there, but perhaps she was preoccupied. Anyway, our plan was to leave right before dinner and my daughter starting talking about whether we should all go eat in the dining hall or go out, and we said wait, no, now is when we are going to leave!
Poor kid was really surprised and it made the parting really tough. She rallied just fine though, and met people in the dining hall and was over it quickly.
But I feel terrible about it.
âThey stay too long. They take the kid to lunch and dinner and hang around. Let your kid get acclimated and meet the rest of their floor and participate in orientation activities. Itâs time - just GO.â
The real mistake is not knowing the culture of your kids school. For one of mine the Roomate parents dropped all the stuff in the room and skedadled. They â didnât believeâ in staying, time for kid to acclimate etc⊠Only that wasnât the way almost everybody else did things. Almost all helped their kids move in, took them to Target for missing items, out to lunch and then dinner. Goodbye breakfast the next day. We felt so bad for the Roomate. No one else to hang with. We included her in our dinner but she clearly felt awkward. The kids had a full week of Orientation and activities after we left so plenty of time to make friends and get acclimated. Pro tip: know your kids school and what is the standard. You can choose to ignore it but you shoukd know whatâs what.
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We drop off D19 on Saturday 8/17. I was thinking I would dress like the most obnoxious Dad around. Hawaiian shirt, sandals with socks, bucket hat, etc. Then be sure to talk to every kid I see and try to introduce my D19 to them especially the boys. I think it will work out fine. Should be fun.
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OH!!! thatâs funny gpo613. I would do the mom-version of that too!
@skieurope, so, these kinds of people actually exist? LOL.
Sadly, yes.
@gpo613 @bgbg4us this has already been done. See hilarious story below (from a mom in Maryland):
https://people.com/human-interest/mom-asks-college-students-date-son/
First rule of thumb: not to embarrass your kid, especially before s/he has made any new friend.
I fully agree with this. The biggest mistake we made with oldest was assuming we were to get him there, assist a little with the room, then take our younger two and head out. After all, this is what the procedure was at our college when we went so we naturally assumed this was the way it happened everywhere.
Instead, his college expected parents to stay and had events planned for the student and their family (separate and together) before parents were supposed to leave. The other parents all stayed. Our poor lad got adopted by another parent, but TBH, this REALLY affected our relationship from his end. He thought we didnât care (love language and all) as we were a really close family and âdumpedâ him. It hasnât been the same since as this led to other things afterward - less sharing, etc. (sigh) If I had one do-over with him, this would be it. Sure itâs a small thing from our perspective, but it was huge from his.
We fixed it for our other two lads. We paid attention to what orientation was supposed to be and shared it with them as much as we were supposed to (even though some was boring to us), then left.
That first kid is definitely the guinea pig of a family. If any new parents learn anything from reading threads, donât assume one is supposed to dump and go. Check - and know your student.