What to do when after 2 weeks your child calls and says they hate it and want to come home??
That is so hard! Hang in there. It is extremely common, and it almost always gets better!
Here is a great article our kids’ college put on the Parent FB page:
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Come up with a plan. Acknowledge that this is a difficult transition and will take time but also acknowledge there is a chance (however small) that for whatever reason, your kid is not in the right place and might need to course correct.
Are they far from home? Is the living situation tough? Have classes started? Are the complaints specific or more general?
Please have your child read this:
I advise you to not succumb to your child’s request to come home. They need to give it a chance. The vast majority of students experience some kind of struggle at first, and the vast majority make it through the other side.
I also suggest being not quite so available. And let your kid vent, rather than try to solve the problem. I’ve been there and it’s hard. They will almost certainly be fine, but giving in right now doesn’t help them. Good luck.
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Stress that it’s early days and that they need to give it time. I’d also encourage joining a club.
I 100% agree with @Lindagaf’s suggestion to let them vent but don’t try to solve the problem. Read the thread that she linked too, it’s got great advice.
Bookmarking for next year!
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Oh, even 44 years later, I remember feeling homesick the first months of school … and I roomed with a high school friend. It was really hard for awhile, but I ended up loving it. My D was homesick, and it did get better … but she ended up transferring sophomore year. She transferred to a school that was still far away, though, so it wasn’t about homesickness in the end for her. S also transferred sophomore year, and while he came home to go to a school close to home, it wasn’t related to being homesick. The first weeks and even months are a time of huge adjustment. Encourage them to give it time … and to visit the counseling center if necessary.
OP- we’ve all been there.
“Back in the day” you called home once a week (at least my sibs and I did… long distance was expensive) and had a ten minute call, most of which was Mom updating you on whichever kid you hated from HS and how they are LOVING the junior college down the street they are attending… and then you got “Are you eating, sleeping, going to class” and that was it for the week.
Now- as I see with my neighbors with Freshman- it’s ALL mom all the time (and some of the dad’s as well). Kid is crossing the green- calls mom. Kid is alone in the dorm - facetimes with mom. Kid walks out of class- is texting with mom AND dad. Kid is doing laundry- guess what.
No wonder the kids are miserable. In ancient times, you crossed the green and tried to strike up a conversation with someone you recognized from your dorm. You walked out of class with someone and stood around chatting for a bit. When you were alone in the dorm, you threw open your door and walked down the hall, seeing who else wanted to go for lunch. Laundry was primetime to complain to anyone else in the laundry room about machine 4 and how it swallows quarters.
Encourage your D to set up a time- twice a week- to call you. And email with anything important like “what’s the generic name of my allergy medicine-- health services will charge me $200 for the branded stuff, but generic is free”. And otherwise, be the supportive and kind parent who says the things parents have always said- “join a club, volunteer for the coat drive, go to religious services and introduce yourself to the chaplain, make sure you make eye contact at lunch in case someone wants to sit next to you, find a job that has you interacting with other students, sign up for swing dancing lessons and no, you won’t be the only person there without a partner, sign up for sailing lessons and make sure you wear a life jacket”, Etc.
These are cliches because they work. Nobody loves college if they are sitting alone in a dorm room!!!
Hugs. Try not to be so available and give her space to work it out…
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I actually think now is not the time to be less available, but every kid is different. I felt some level of dependence and some person to vent to, helped with the transition.
I have seen many many kids go through this and it can last through Christmas break. I would see if your daughter can commit to one semester at least. When the pressure of what feels like permanent change is eased, sometimes they like it faster.
That said, there are situations when a parent should consider accepting a child back home. I did this with my youngest, but they had a preexisting mental health diagnosis.
Many schools have groups for homesick/lonely students and if she continues to feel this way, she can go to the counseling office. The more connections there versus with mom, the better. But it is early yet.
Side note: I just moved to a town an hour away from where I have lived for 30 years and I am homesick and want to leave too! But as an older adult I have the experience of these feelings passing. Young people don’t yet have that experience.
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My experience is that it’s all about options. Letting them know that they can make any choice they need to (and you’ll be there for any of it). But talking through what that means. If they want to come home, what do they think they next step would be? Transferring? Community college? Have they looked into the requirements? Are they spending they time they have on campus prepping for whatever they think their next step might be?
In some ways it’s about accepting the emotions and saying, yep, this is tough and it’s okay if you want to do something different. But let’s think through what that different might be.
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Hit post too fast. This was very similar to helping my kids through their severe anxiety. What I learned was not to say “you don’t need to worry about that” or “that will never happen”
But instead to help them work though “okay, what if that does happen, what would you do, what could you do?” It helps them regain control of a situation that feels very much out of their control. Don’t unintentionally dismiss the concerns, give them a space to think through them.
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I agree about the transferring idea. My eldest had a very rough time adjusting to college. I had endless texts of doom, tearful phone calls, “this is not the place for me”, “if I leave now you can get the money back”, “I’ll just go to community college for two years and transfer “, and all the rest.
I eventually stopped trying to “fix her problem” and listened when she said she wanted to transfer. I asked her about all the steps needed to do that (a lot). I said she could transfer if she really wanted to, but I wasn’t going to do any of the work for her, and I wouldn’t pay the transfer app fee. And in fact, it would have been incredibly difficult for me to do anything. Colleges expect students to be adults, and they must do all that stuff for themselves.
One day, I had no call, no text, and I worried. My husband sensibly said, “leave her alone.” I did, and it was the start of her settling in and enjoying her experience. This was towards the end of October.
She didn’t transfer. She had a great four years and was at the right place. At the time, it was quite possibly worse for me to hear her so upset than it was for her to feel like that. And I realized that we parents are just human garbage cans. They can dump on us all they like and they get it out off their chests and onto ours.
You know your child best, but having seen so many students find themselves struggling at the start, I can honestly say that letting them learn how to cope is the best thing for them.
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I think it is not only like @blossom said about the calls home, but all the social media they see about the wonderful time all their high school friends are having at their colleges, at the beach, at football games, joining Greek houses. My nephew went to the local flagship (30 miles from home) and he had a lot of hs and sports friends. Several of his friends at much smaller schools were coming home all the time, going up to Boulder and partying with their old friends. I know 3-4 of them did leave their schools and returned to Colorado (not necessarily to CU)
My kids did the same thing and were on the phone, texting, snap chatting photos, etc. with their old friends. Both were fine at their schools but there were some rough days. One had a hard time fitting in with her new team, the other had broken up with her boyfriend in the summer and he was still contacting her all the time (they were never going to the same college).
I did visit one daughter at her school about 6 weeks after it started and that helped. The other one came home about 6 weeks after her school started and that seemed to be all she needed to get through the semester.
Maybe plan a visit to her or plan for her to come home for a weekend? Even if the next time you can see her is Christmas, plan that trip now. It helps them to know the schedule. It helped my sister to get over her daughter leaving for college to have the ticket to go visit about 4 weeks later for their birthdays (1 day apart). She then knew daughter would be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, spring break, etc. It was really more of a problem for my sister than her daughter.
Twoin- thank your for your excellent addition of social media as an exacerbator. A neighbor’s kid is at a college where the orientation “bonding” activities were picking up trash at a local beach, painting a mural at a Boys/Girls club, etc. The kid sees her HS friends at their “fancy” colleges on guided camping trips (apparently not too remote to be able to post photos in real time), doing ropes courses in a gorgeous mountain pass, rafting in a picturesque setting, etc. and the idea of making friends while painting in an overheated building which serves disadvantaged kids seems very low brow.
So the arms race continues- and nobody gets to dig in and just get settled where they’ve landed. Your college does “choose your own pizza topping” night. Your frenemies college is bringing in a team of sushi chefs to teach rolling techniques. Any wonder kids feel perpetually out of sorts?
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Agree with the social media factor. Too many people (not just college-aged kids) feel the need to document every waking minute of their lives instead of just living in the moment. Even as an adult, I have days where I go on social media and think everyone’s life is more exciting than mine. In general, I think we’d all be better off if social media “broke” for a month or several (maybe forever).
Homesickness is tough and even happens to kids who are making tons of friends and going to events. It’s not just the more introverted kids. We know our kids best. Support them the best you can and if your instincts tell you that you need to do a face-to-face visit/well check/pep talk, then I wouldn’t hesitate to act on that (my older daughter needed one of those midway through her junior year of college). Hopefully by Thanksgiving they will be adjusted to life away from home.
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I agree with the advice to try to stick it out a while longer. I kept reminding my oldest child that her best friends from home were a tight-knit crew of five people, not a gaggle of dozens. And those friendships took months to develop!
The social media and instant communication factor is really tough. Our anxious and introverted D22 has had a much better launch than we expected. She was able to move in early for the honors college retreat, which really helped her feel less nervous. She is making friends, going to events, and was even featured smiling with other students on the college Instagram highlight reel. Classes were going well and calls home were happy and optimistic. But it took just a few social media posts and one FaceTime call with the high-school BFF at a school on the other side of the country to make her feel like the friends are having an infinitely more successful and satisfying experience.
We’re trying to remind her that it’s not a competition and her school has incredible opportunities as well, as long as she seeks them out. I also keep telling her my best friends from college are not people I met my freshman year, either. It’s hard convincing them sometimes, though. I really hope things start improving for your child @Michelle211 .
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I told my shy and introverted D22 that she will almost certainly be homesick but that she needed to stick it out for a year before she could accurately determine whether she was in the right school or not. It’s only been 10 days and I haven’t heard any complaints yet. She’s 2300 miles from home. I think a lot of kids say a college isn’t the right fit when what they’re really feeling is homesickness. It took me well into second semester to stop feeling homesick and when I look back I am so glad I stuck it out!
We talked to our D about this before leaving. We told her she would likely have moments of homesickness, which she did. When it happened we tried to remind her it was normal, tried to help her figure out ways to get involved and connected with people, AND reminded her that others were feeling the same way, even if they didn’t show it. I think they feel that everyone else is connecting with people and they are the only ones missing home and struggling. And yes, they see pics of their friends at other schools and it looks like they are all doing amazing. I would remind my daughter that if someone looked at her social media accounts it would look the same. My D did slowly start connecting with people and she started realizing some of her friends felt similar to how she did. I would say she started to settle in at the end of the first semester and things started getting a lot better second semester. That seems to be typical of most kids I know.
We tried to give her space but we were there for her when she did need us. We spent a lot of time just listening. We learned she didn’t really want our advice, she mostly just wanted to vent and after venting, she often felt better.
She’s a senior now and loves her school and has made amazing friends. But, I would say she still deals with a little homesickness whenever she comes home. Luckily she’s too far away for that to be too often and she now expects it and it doesn’t freak her out.
This article below is one that was posted on our parent Facebook page that I like:
Hiding in the Closet with Coffee by Amy Betters Midtvedt
OK parents of brand new college students, there is a thing that might happen and I need us to be prepared.
Roughly 8 ½ out of 10 of us will get a phone call from a super miserable college kid.
Like, flat out miserable. They will be friendless, homesick, overwhelmed by the work, unsure of their every decision and will be quite certain things will never get better.
Every molecule in your body will scream, “Baby don’t worry! Mama’s here! I AM COMING TO SAVE YOU FROM THIS CRUEL COLD WORLD AND ALSO I WILL BAKE YOU COOKIES AND WHEN CAN I BOOK YOUR FLIGHT HOME?”
You must under no circumstances do the very thing you feel you need to do in your soul…rescue them.
Your child is on the Hot Mess Express and it is a ride they have to take to get to This-New-Place-Feels-Like-Home Junction.
Do not pull them off the train. Also do not get on with them and lament that yes everything is horrible because that is a straight shot to Sad Sack City.
Instead, you need to run alongside that train waving your hat saying things like, “You’ve got this it’ll all be OK!”, “It’ll be a short ride and you’ll be so happy when you get there!” or “Keep your dorm room open so people can see you are home!” or “Look straight ahead so you don’t get train sick!”
That is it.
Listen to them. Validate their feelings because the adjustment can be hard and long and feel not so great. It’s OK for them to struggle and they might just need to talk about how crappy it all is.
But they also need us to believe in them. They won’t always believe they can do it so we need to step it up and tell them they indeed can.
Remind them they are a gift from God to the world and that they’ve had friends before and they will again and their little brother still thinks they’re the coolest.
And I know what you are thinking, What if they are not OK? What if this all is a disaster and the right thing to do is to bring them home?
I hear you, and on the off chance that is the case you need them to tell you when that time is. And it isn’t on weekend two when they still don’t have a friend. It isn’t even on weekend four when they are still sitting in their dorm room.
A good rule is to make them stay put for at least six to eight weeks, especially if they are having a hard time.
Yes this will basically feel like forever to both you and your miserable child.
But something happens around the 6 week mark.
They make friends, or at least one friend.
They connect with a professor.
They break down and join something, anything.
They realize they know the way to all their classes and have a new favorite coffee at the coffee shop.
Someone invites them to a party and they go and it isn’t a nightmare.
The cafeteria staff starts to recognize them and lets them know when they’re going to make more potstickers.
And they have made connections all on their own.
Of course the conversations you have had and the bazillion prayers you have prayed have helped but basically they own this.
They have carved out a new home without anyone else and it will feel amazing.
Do not steal this from them.
Sit with them, coach them, pray for them, but make them stay on that train.
It will be one of the hardest things you have ever done.
I know, I have done it once and I have four more in line to allow me to experience this joy of parenting again, and again, and again and again. Unless they choose to just stay with me forever which at least one of them still promises to do. #liar
Surround yourself with support because you will need it too. You will see pictures online and think all the other kids in the land are happy but yours. But if you ask a parent or two you may find they are right there with you. At least 8 1/2 of them.
We’ve got this friends and so do they. 
Amy
{Edited to add: Of course If your student is struggling with mental health issues help them connect with support on their campus and then know when to fold them. You know your child best and you’ll want to watch for all the red flags. But most of our kids just need time.}
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