<p>I dropped my daughter (age 16, HS class of '15) at a HOBY weekend last night. She is staying at a college dorm, which mean she had to bring XL Twin Sheets, towels, all of the comforts of home, etc. </p>
<p>All I could think is that it felt like a dry run for what it would be like to send her to college in a couple of years. I wasn't emotional or anything like that, but it was weird to just leave her in a strange place, knowing she was a little nervous and unsure. </p>
<p>She called me last night before "lights out." She had gotten over her nerves and had made fast friends with her suite-mates. </p>
<p>For those of you with college-aged kids, is this what the real thing feels like? </p>
<p>No, that’s not what the real thing feels like. Your daughter is only going away for the weekend. You get her back in a few days. Her life is still w you at home.</p>
<p>When H dropped D14 at a summer program between 7th & 8th grade, he had the same experience. He called me saying that he had just dropped his girl off at college. This will be the 5th summer we drop her off at a college. Still, I’m sure it will be different when it’s for real, not just for 1-3 weeks.</p>
<p>I still have a hole in my heart everytime S1 goes back to college, and he’s a rising senior. S2 is a rising HS senior and I don’t know how I’m going to cope when he goes away. Do you ever stop missing your kids?</p>
<p>We dropped my oldest off last summer. At first it felt like sleep away camp- it did not hit me right away. A few days later I started crying and could not stop. I cried at commercials, I cried to songs, and I got up at 3 am and cried. We had a " therapy group" consisting of a bunch of moms who had freshman kids. This lasted about 3 weeks and then it started to get better. Now she is home for the summer and I pray that I don’t go through this again. What I found strange is that my younger one ( age 16 now) did not seem to mind that her sister left. I guess it’s because they keep in touch all the time through facebook etc?? I felt so bad for her because normally if she gets a new pair of shoes she would naturally come home and show her sister- but now it can’t happen and I felt so sad!! She did not mind- they skyped and it worked out fine. I really hope that this August is better than last! The only way I could describe it was that it felt like intense sadness and intense happiness at the exact same time.</p>
<p>I went away for a week for a summer program at a college the summer before my senior year of HS. The only time I’d been away that long was on a class field trip with teachers as chaperones. One day my mom just started freaking out that something was wrong, but everyone was telling her everything was fine (she was at a baby shower for her HS friend’s daughter). I was in an area with no cell service so I didn’t answer. I got a little bit of service and saw my phone had maybe 100 texts and missed calls from her, grandma, uncles, aunts. “Hey CPU just checking, call me back” escalated to “CPU WHERE ARE YOU”. I was scared that something happened to someone back home so I called my mom. She told me she called the campus police(!!!) I was mortified and embarrassed to tell that to the program directors. This night was 2 days before I was supposed to come back home. I got back to the dorm and found a note from campus police “CPU please call your mom she’s looking for you”. </p>
<p>I laminated the sign and hang it up in my college dorm room now and I will never let her live that down. We laugh about it now (almost 2 years later). I’m the oldest child so this is new to both of us. Luckily that happened then, because my mom wasn’t sad when she dropped me off at real college (initially); We did hug and kiss 1000 times… But I make sure I kiss my mom before she goes to work every night so that wasn’t necessarily unusual.</p>
<p>I called the matre’d at a restaurant D1 was having dinner with her first date. For some reason I felt uncomfortable about it and she wouldn’t answer her phone (rightly so). The matre’d had to ask her to call her mom. Now, this guy did turn out bad after few dates, so I wasn’t totally wrong.</p>
<p>What is to come is when your kid starts to refer to their dorm (school) as home. Now, that hurts.</p>
<p>I found it completely different. The summer drop offs were just for a few weeks. The college drop off was much more difficult for me. Youngest one being dropped off August 29 – trying hard not to think about it for now.</p>
<p>When D went back to school for junior year, she texted us when she arrived, as she always does. The text was one word: “Home!” Yeah, that was a misty moment for DH and me.</p>
<p>Sorry- I really liked it when D said after a semester abroad “I’m home” back at her apartment. I thought what a great feeling instead of a negative comment. Summer camps were more like a vacation for us, but off to college was harder and more permanent. Yes it does get easier. D1 now out of grad school is happy and settled in a job and relationship and that makes me feel good.</p>
<p>Church camp used to be a vacation for us, too. The children of most of our friends went so we would all get together back in town for dinner, ball games, etc. It was also a glimpse into the future for DH and me, since both kids were gone and we were empty nesters for a week. Now that S1 is in college and S2 is a rising HS senior, the future has pretty much arrived and it’s sad and exciting at the same time.</p>
<p>Chances are, when she is going to college, she might have done a freshman orientation so she might know some people going in. She’ll still probably be nervous and unsure then quickly feel like she’s just made a bunch of new friends. After 2 weeks, D (who was crying and anxious before move in day) called and said “I love it here!”</p>
<p>My D went to summer camps - all during high school. Emotionally I always knew in a couple of weeks, she would be home again. I could hold on for a couple of week. Still, the feeling of worrying about her and missing her at summer camp was just the beginning of a long slow process leading up to college.</p>
<p>My D just finished her 2nd year of college and just came home. She feels she lives in two worlds: college is home and home is home. I am adjusting to that idea still.</p>
<p>Two years ago, the summer before she left, was the hardest for me. I was in silent mourning the entire summer before she left for college in the fall. She was very excited to begin this new chapter and I was not ready to leave the old chapters behind. When fall came, letting go was hard. After 2 years, I am more accepting of the changes and I am beginning to see her and appreciate her more as a young independent adult. </p>
<p>I still get anxious, thoughts of missing her come and go, and I always want to hear from her.<br>
I don’t think as a parent that feeling about your child, no matter what their age, ever goes away.</p>
<p>ITA, mom489. I’m in silent mourning now for S2 as he starts his senior year in HS and having mounting anxiety now about S1 graduating college and entering the “real world” this spring. I agree that it’s exciting to see an independent young adult forming, though, and I am happy to hear him talk about his friends who were a year or two ahead and where they’ve landed. I really think he’ll do OK - I just hope I do too.</p>
<p>My son went to 3 week camps at college campuses. He was so happy I was happy for him, but nervous about his adjustment, etc. But we used the time the kids went to camp to go someplace the two of us, or be able to work on projects, etc.</p>
<p>Once they’re really gone, it’s different. I was a bit of a mess, crying A LOT at first. My most favorite, embarrassing breakdown was crying at the deli counter the first time i went and didn’t buy his favorite thing. </p>
<p>Not sure how I’ll do this year dropping him off. I’ll probably cry again over it, hopefully not as long. I’m a bit of a emotional mess with things like this. I have a younger daughter who will be a senior and I’m in denial about her really leaving.</p>
<p>Having kids go away for a week or longer really was just a blip and nothing like going off to college for me. The thing that warms my heart is how both want to be HOME in HI for the holidays. Now that S lives in VA and D plans to live in LA for a time, hoping they will indeed both be able to come back home to HI.</p>
<p>Would it have been better for them to stay at home, do house chores , get menial jobs and not use their full potential? I think that would be worse. Yes living in the basement would not be good. But I agree letting go is hard, but the alternative is less attractive.
Interestingly if you would ask my mother who is 90 this question of which is better- all her life she would have chosen that her kids stayed. I actually knew a few people who are in their 60s from my home town who never left home. They did go to college , returned home and lived with their parents or very close. Never formed relationships much outside the home and never married or had kids. They are now in the same spot I am with no kids in the home but their lives seem more empty- that is my perspective - perhaps their perspective would be their lives are less stressful and less complicated and perhaps a little less financially strapped.</p>
<p>I absolutely know it’s best for my kids to grow up and embrace life and find their way in the world as an individual. My grandfather had 2 brothers and 2 sisters and for lack of a better word were very clannish. They didn’t think anyone was good enough for their family. My grandfather and one brother married, the other brother and 2 sisters did not. They lived together in a house their entire lives and the sisters shared a bedroom. When the sisters went to a nursing home they were roommates. So one brother and one sister worked, the other stayed home. They never accepted my grandmother and were never kind to her.</p>
<p>It used to scare me to death to go visit them.</p>
and I will never let her live that down. We laugh about it now (almost 2 years later). I’m the oldest child so this is new to both of us. Luckily that happened then, because my mom wasn’t sad when she dropped me off at real college (initially); We did hug and kiss 1000 times… But I make sure I kiss my mom before she goes to work every night so that wasn’t necessarily unusual.</p>