<p>Let’s not mix up the question of how parents and children who disagree can come to a decision with the question of whether one way is better than the other.</p>
<p>We need both types of people in our world – those who want to move away from home and explore the world and those who’d rather stay close by and build a life there. The Pioneers help spread ideas and diversify the gene pool. The Homebodies are the rocks of our churches and other institutions and are the ones who care for aging family members. (Granted, sometimes Pioneers come back home to live after many years away, and some Homebodies travel the world during their vacations!) Neither model is good or bad, and society benefits when we have both types.</p>
<p>I live in a family in which most members go to college close by and settle close by but do year-long study abroad programs and travel all over the world on vacations. That works for us. For others, frequent moves across the country are exciting. Still others are content to live at home and take week-long vacations to the beach.</p>
<p>It isn’t a problem when a student goes to college close by and comes home every weekend, unless he/she is depressed or not making friends. It isn’t a problem when a student goes to college across the country, unless he/she is trying to escape a bad family situation. It is not inherently better either to go away to college or to stay close to home. What does it matter what another family chooses?</p>
<p>The problem comes when a student and his/her parents disagree on how far away to go. There may be a reason that a child has to stay close to home – finances, mental or physical illness, or neurological differences like autism. There may be a reason that a child has to go farther away – for example, if there are no appropriate educational opportunities available close by. Absent those considerations, though, how should a family work it out? I agree with SteveMA that being too controlling is wrong, but ultimately the person who pays the bills is the one who has the authority to decide. Sometimes a student may just have to be thankful for the opportunity to get an education until he/she can get out on his/her own.</p>
<p>Marsian–the real point isn’t that staying home or going away is better or worse, it IS how that decision is made that is better or worse. Guilting a child into staying close to home is not good no matter how you spin it. If the child chooses to stay home because he or she wants to, great. I TOTALLY disagree that the one paying the bills should decide. That decision is how much they will pay, the rest should be left up to the student, period. It’s much the same as a parent paying for a wedding–do you really think a parent should plan a wedding and have final say in everything just because they are paying?</p>
<p>I think the bottom line is that children should not be limited to schools closeby just so their parents feel better if finances are not an issue and there is no medical reason for them to stay close. </p>
<p>Similarly, if a student doesn’t want to come home for a school break because they desire to go somewhere with their friends, then they should not be made to feel guilty for not coming home.</p>
<p>Kids have to find their own way and their own balance of time with their family and time living their own life.</p>
<p>Steve- I would never tell my kids where to go based on how often I want them home or based on how often I want to visit. My older daughter had no interest in going to another part of the country, and my younger one is an intense perfectionist which causes some anxiety. I have no problem with her being in a different part of the country if we had family relatively close, but we don’t. All that I am saying is that there is no right or wrong decision. I told both of my kids that I will pay for school as long as the school does not cost more than SUNY. If they get merit aid to a non SUNY, that is great. My older one did get merit aid but chose SUNY. She applied to 8 schools, and got into all 8. I told her to choose the school, and she did. My younger one will be told the same. We spent a great deal of time and effort visiting schools for my older daughter. We visited each school and she narrowed the list down to 3, and we visited each of those two more times. I kept my mouth shut ( it was hard) and she chose the school. She is thrilled. Each family is different. My friend’s daughter goes to JMU and the flights back and forth are too much money for my family ($1,000 round trip) so her daughter takes a 10 hour bus ride. The family now regrets it.</p>
<p>twogirls–$1000/round trip for a flight–to where, China? I think that family doen’t know how to shop for plane tickets is the real problem. Also, why the need for a family member close by? What difference does that really make? What if they were out of town when your D needed some help or whatever. What if 3 months into the school year they move? It just makes no sense to limit kids on a “what if” because even if you think you have those bases covered, something else could come up to change everything. What if YOU move (job change) after they start at the school that is 30 miles away and now you are clear across the country?? You will never be able to plan for every contingency.</p>
<p>SteveMa - you are assuming all kids are of the same maturity when they go off to college. Could it be sometimes their parents would know best how much their kids could handle? I think you tend to project your way of thinking as the best and the only way to behave. A parent could have a child who is academically ready, but not emotionally ready to move too far away. That same child could be ready in few more years to be absolutely independent. Not all parents are controlling when they take distance into consideration. More often than not, they are doing what’s best for their children. For some late bloomers, the idea that they could come home whenever they want could be just enough to keep them at school and not have to come home every weekend.</p>
<p>As far as airfare, it has gone up a lot in the last year. I used to be able to get a ticket from NYC to CA for 350-550, now they are 700+ unless you buy way ahead of time and not during peak travel time.</p>
<p>There’s no right way and no wrong way, but there’s a mentality of “everything I would ever want is right here, why would I ever bother exploring the rest of the world” which I think is a limited mentality. And I say that as someone who has lived in the same house for 20 years and has had a total of 2 jobs since graduating college. </p>
<p>Look at all the parents on CC who mistakenly think that how things are done in their neck of the woods are how it’s done elsewhere. “No smart kid would ever go to a state school!” Well, uh, in the midwest, tons of valedictorians go to state schools and it’s seen as a perfectly legit choice. “The only jobs that pay well are on Wall Street; there are no professional communities elsewhere!” Uh, no. “The Ivies have a special cachet in my neck of the woods – it’s the same place everywhere else!” Uh, no. Not to mention all the threads by Californians asking about what we all think of the UC’s beyond UCLA and Berkeley because they’re shocked, shocked to hear that no one knows or cares. And to be fair, the people in my neck of the woods who wouldn’t know the elite northeastern LAC’s if they tripped over them. I think some of this provincialism would have been eliminated if the parents themselves had potentially gone away or lived elsewhere. I know when I moved to the midwest from the east coast, I learned a LOT about how what I thought was a vast wasteland really wasn’t.</p>
<p>Do the parents who don’t want their children go away not favor things like foreign exchange programs? My business partner has had both of her children go to South Africa for 6 months at a time. I think those kinds of things are neat opportunities to do when you’re young.</p>
<p>Like I said, they don’t know how to shop for plane tickets–just did a search from NYC to LA for March 14-17th (spring break time) and they are $353.19 round trip…</p>
<p>As for kids being late bloomers–well, if they want to go away to college and think they can handle it, why would you hold them back? I fail to see how a 3 hour flight is any different then a 3 hour car ride to get home…yes, more expensive but if you have that factored into your costs, so what? A lot of parents THINK they know what is best for their child and you know what, they aren’t always right. What happens when that late bloomer finds a job 10 hours away and isn’t used to being away from Mommy and Daddy?? I’d rather kids go through that separation as a freshman in college where there are programs to deal with homesick kids and some supervision in the dorms, etc. then when they are trying to adjust to a new job in a new town and potentially get fired because they can’t deal with the transition.</p>
<p>The reason they are called late bloomers is because they do bloom at some point, maybe not at 18, but maybe at 19 or 21. 18 is not the magical age. I am a mom with two girls, 5 years apart, and they have bloomed at different times.</p>
<p>You misunderstood me. I wasn’t saying that the person paying the bills should get to make the decision. Rather, I agreed with you that being dictatorial, in most cases, is wrong. The fact is, though, like it or not, some parents DO put distance parameters on their children’s choices. When they do, the children have several choices: move out and work their own way through college, join the military and get college paid for eventually, or accept the money and the parameters they’ve been given. My point was that sometimes students have to accept the situation that they have and make the best of it.</p>
<p>What I was concerned about is that some people on this thread have made judgments about families where students went far away to school or stayed close by. It’s only where parents and students are in disagreement that there is a problem.</p>
<p>Of all the students I’ve known who have gone to college, I know of only one or two whose parents “guilted” them into staying close by. Most students who stay close have been happy to do so. I live in a state with a lot of strong public and private options, so most students want to stay in-state anyway, and most of those stay in-state to get the low public school tuition. For some students, “in-state” means a 7-8 hour drive anyway, so it’s not exactly close.</p>
<p>As an aside: Having a child close by doesn’t mean you’ll get to see them much anyway. I know from experience that a child an hour away may never come home (and never call, e-mail, text, etc.), while a child several hours’ away may call daily and come home every other weekend.</p>
<p>Steve, please…I don’t think you understand the range of travel issues for every possible flier. NY-LA is a major route with lots of carriers. For a more realistic example, try Portland, ME to Tallahassee or some other more obscure route. And sometimes it’s not just flights but planes, trains and automobiles, as it is for my friend whose son is at a small college in the Hudson Valley and has to get home to our small Midwestern city. It takes a whole day in addition to being very expensive. </p>
<p>Added to that, kids have to work around finals schedules and other constraints…you get the picture. The point is, the issues are different for everyone.</p>
<p>Sally–I was just answering that one specific poster saying that flights are $1000±-not true. I understand fully that there are some places in the country where flights are not easy. We have friends in ME that complain about flights all the time-I get it. Just don’t think that telling a child they can’t go to school in ME because flights are wonky is in their best interest. If they are willing to put up with the hassle, it should be up to them----and they need to figure out how to work rides to the airport, etc. too.</p>
<p>But if the student were making friends, why WOULD he want to come home every weekend? (barring an unusual situation such as an ill parent) I WANT my kids to be happy without me.</p>
<p>^Right. At what point are they going to be able to “individuate” (to use one of those awful psychology words) if they maintain their childhood routines through college? Are they then going to feel family pressure to find jobs near home, find a spouse who wants to live in the area, raise their kids there, and so on? And why do we as parents need to have such expectations?</p>
<p>I fully expected my son to want to stay close to home for college, but he has surprised us by going–and thriving–far away. The hardest thing for him, by far, has been missing the dogs. I had prepared myself for him not coming home for spring break but now he is talking about it if his plans with friends don’t work out. It wouldn’t surprise me if he came back to our neck of the woods after college, but it all depends on where his life takes him…and that is as it should be, in my opinion. I want him to think at age 18 that anything is possible, not that his life is circumscribed in any way.</p>
<p>If our D when to the school closest to us to which she applied we would actually see her less. She won’t be coming home any weekends because of her sport. She will be home for Thanksgiving for a week vs just Wed night-Sun night, Christmas break is 5 weeks vs 2 weeks at the close school and spring break is a trip with her team too. We could possibly watch her play more often if she were closer but that still isn’t 3 weeks worth of time seeing her. None of this even factored into her decision, just something I thought about now because of this thread.</p>
<p>I wish my kids would be less happy without me. Faking it would work for me too.</p>
<p>When D2 was a toddler, she would cry whenever people she liked left our house, but she would stop as soon as they were out the door. It earned her a lot of brownie points.</p>
<p>I am only stating what my friend told me about the school that her daughter attends; that flights are " close to" $1,000 round trip. I did not research this myself, nor do I plan to. The daughter travels round trip by a bus that the school provides, and the bus is $400 round trip.</p>