<p>My D is feeling homesick too and she didn’t anticipate that. I think part of the adjustment is “sensory overload”. Home can be peaceful…always a room to go hide out in. But at college - especially for new freshman - it’s welcome week activities, new dorm mates, new classes, club fairs, work fairs,socials…it goes on and on. Kids who are brave and independent enough to go off to the university of their choice can feel an almost desperate obligation to go to stuff to meet people. It can be exhausting. My daughter does love her school, but it’s taking longer than she thought to comfortably “click”. It’s very encouraging to see that this is totally normal. I also highly recommend some of the books geared toward new freshman. It helps them feel less like they are the only one feeling this way.</p>
<p>No worries, LasMa, I didn’t get the wrong idea! Told D that misery truly does love company and she is not allowed to hang out in her room and brood - there are enough other kids having a rough adjustment that she can find some for sure! She did sound better today now that she’s had more classes and is getting into the swing of things. I had to have her vehicle towed to a repair station today so she’ll have to manage picking it up and I think she’s coming home on Thursday as she’s done at 1 until next Tuesday. Too long to hang out with no classses and alot of her friends are leaving for the holiday but I told her to try to arrange a ride back to school on Monday with another local kid hoping the teary goodbye will be avoided that way. No complaints, fingers crossed. </p>
<p>If it helps, I think that giving her very specific tasks (find the study center, go find a good spot in the library, extra trips to computer and book stores, text roomie and others to make a plan for dinner, etc.) helped to get her a bit more comfortable with the size and layout of the place. I literally felt like I was scheduling her day for a few days there! If she starts again, I plan to send her out to find a campus job! TG she’s a fairly obedient kid…</p>
<p>My best wishes for your D too. I have a feeling they’ll both be okay once they feel more in control again.</p>
<p>Kinderteacher – I’m sorry your son is having difficulty. My son also went to a “poly glot” high school and had friends of many different religions, races, and ethnic groups; it was a great experience. </p>
<p>My son is white and unaffiliated religiously. He has just started at a college that is overwhelmingly white and Christian. So far he hasn’t commented on the “sameness” of the student body, but his high school class sure looked different than the group at his college convocation. </p>
<p>He is having some trouble meeting other guys to hang around with (although not girls, apparently!), but fortunately he and his roommate are getting along very well and spending a lot of time together. I do think it can take time to find a group to do things with. A friend told me that it wasn’t until her daughter found an EC to get involved with at college that she developed a circle of friends.</p>
<p>Ironically, my son at one time was interested in Wake Forest but by the college application time rolled around didn’t have the grades to get in.</p>
<p>My daughter is a junior, so I probably don’t belong here…She transitioned beautifully her freshman year. 6 weeks ago we dropped her off in Australia for her study abroad program. She has looked forward to this semester away - friendly Aussies, partying, and sight seeing. Well, the girls in her women’s residential college weren’t exactly friendly,hardly any partying, and no traveling yet. Classes in Sydney just not challenging or require a lot work, compare to her school. Every time I spoke with her, she sounded miserable. </p>
<p>I told her that if the girls weren’t talking to her, then talk to the guys (there is an all boy residential college across the street). Plan a trip to Fiji or New Zealand. I also suggested for her to start her finance internship, she originally wanted to wait until she was more adjusted to her new environment. I then proceeded to write a “kick in the butt” email to her. The email basically said to stop feeling sorry for herself, to try to focus on what’s good there instead of bad.</p>
<p>In the last 2 weeks she’e beginning to sound better. She’s made some new friends across the street. She is loving her internship, even though she is up everyday at 6am to go to work. Local new grads at work have invited her out for dinners and to beach on weekends. Her schoolwork has also picked up. She is going to Fiji with a friend over a school break. Now she is wondering if she is going to have enough time to do everything she needs to do before she comes home.</p>
<p>At the start of school is always hard for kids until schoolwork and social life start to pick up. It is also better if we don’t get dragged in with their “feel sorry for me” mood. We are not exactly sending them off to Siberia or concentration camp.</p>
<p>sk8rmom - I think having your daughter get a campus job is probably a good idea. It’ll keep her busy and maybe allow her to meet more people.</p>
<p>sk8rmom + lasma - you’re both doing all the right things, saying the right things. Having been the equivalent of your children 20 years ago (allright, more like 25…) I can say that time is what worked. It takes time to get “into” classes, meet different people, feel comfortable in a strange room, strange dorm, strange town/campus. It doesn’t become familiar for awhile. Particularly, I think, for those who were very attached at home - no matter how independent a person your student is. In my case I will not prepared for the parties, noise and music. I had had a sheltered life (not my choice but strict home life) and it was all new and alien. It took developing a routine of classes, work, study groups to become comfortable. I eventually did. Made loads of friends with whom I am still good friends today. But that first month-2 was hell. I think it will happen for your students - keep encouraging them, keep supporting them like you are. You’re offering them great suggestions. One day they will look back and chuckle. But I am sure its really hard now for all of you. Campus job a good idea - great way to meet people.</p>
<p>^should read “I WAS NOT” prepared…duh…</p>
<p>Classes haven’t started yet, but so far so good. </p>
<p>My son was very anxious the week before – he slept very poorly. His massively socially skilled younger sister coached him on clothes – he’d never paid any attention to clothes at all in the past and didn’t want to but in the end has been wearing all of the clothes she (we) purchased for him. In the two-day parents part of the orientation, he never removed the Bob Dylan-like jacket she chose for him.</p>
<p>New beginnings are probably relatively hard for him socially. While they are hard for everyone, he likes to have and has developed a small number of deep relationships in HS and with a few adults. He’s a really cerebral kid who is happiest debating whether the UN is a failure or some aspect of the right to privacy. So, watching him make conversation with other freshman guys – most of who speak in short utterances – is interesting, but he was doing fine (“How’s it going?” “Pretty good” “Are you on a team?” (He’s 6’4", 215 lbs) “No. I’m going to play intramural sports.” “Which ones?” “Probably basketball. How about you?” “I’m on the hockey team.” “My roommate is on the hockey team.” …). Interestingly, the girls seem so much more with it – they respond warmly instead of grunting, can speak full sentences, are charming, and energetic often to the point of perkiness. He played ultimate Frisbee and went to a school-sponsored freshman party. Reported that both were fun. [The party had Foosball, ping pong and laser tag. Did they plan this party so that the socially inept boys had something to do? I’ve been wondering what the girls were doing]. </p>
<p>He’s slept well since he arrived and left early this AM going on a 3-day backpacking/bonding trip. He met with his advisor (the Dean of Freshman) who urged him to not kill himself in the first semester, which is extremely good advice for a really gifted kid with serious learning disabilities. He picked a schedule that he was very happy with and got all his courses.</p>
<p>For him, we won’t know how things go until the courses are in earnest. But, as I said in another post, while the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the smell of the pudding is pretty good.</p>
<p>After repeated breakdowns all day on move-in day, last Thursday, and a demand to be taken home (to placate her we got halfway home before she told me I could turn around), I can barely get her to spare 5 minutes to talk.</p>
<p>Just got done talking with a mom at work. She is in tears. Her son was dropped off last Sat. He is 5 hrs from home, first gen college student, very introverted.
His roommate is never around and this kid has not been to the dining hall yet. A recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>lasma and others whose kids are unhappy, I was thinking about the daughter of a friend of ours who arrived at Princeton and was really unhappy. She hadn’t gotten into her dream school and wasn’t sure she wanted to go to Princeton but it was clearly the best school to which she was admitted. In my judgment, she is bright but not brilliant kid who is a driven and worked really hard in HS and performed really well. The consequence of this is that she was burned out and probably should have taken a gap year, but she didn’t. She called home multiple times every day. Everything was bad. The kids were all partyers (there were a number of heavy drinking jock types on her floor), the classes were not challenging (ha), there were no interesting kids, there was nothing to do if you didn’t want to go to parties, … . Her parents and we knew that that wasn’t true and suggested things to do though she didn’t do any of them (Join the Outdoors Club. Participate in art or drama. Take yoga classes. Look for other activities in which you’ll find like-minded kids.) Anyway, her parents talked to the Dean who was willing to defer her admission, but she stayed and had a miserable freshman year. No change in behavior. Numerous calls per day, etc. </p>
<p>Early in her sophomore year, Princeton somehow magically transformed into a great place. Really interesting kids. Great clubs to join. Wonderful research opportunities. Fabulous professors. By senior year she was ecstatic about the place. So, if the school is a good fit (and for lasma’s daughter it seems to be), making it through the first year may be the best thing (although convincing her to do so may not be easy). I wonder if you might compile a bunch of examples of kids like our friends’ daughter for whom the adjustment was tough but for who sticking it out was a good decision.</p>
<p>@smoda62. Wow. You are a good parent. Sounds like she is too busy for you already. Busy is good.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for the complement. 
I think she just needed to see that she had a choice. Yes, she is “too busy”. She claims that she only has time to talk when walking somewhere. I’m having a little trouble adjusting to being outside the loop but at the same time I am happy for her.</p>
<p>My highly adaptable and contented son, now a sophomore, reminisced over the summer about the real shock of his first weeks of freshman year at his huge midwestern state university: sharing a room with someone for the first time in his life (a great guy, it turned out); being surrounded by several thousand people he’d never laid eyes on, after growing up in a community where he can hardly walk down the street without seeing someone he knows or recognizes; being in a big school (which he wanted) after never attending a school larger than 350. He wasn’t sad or especially homesick–just stunned! He got right into the swing of things, but he does remember the feeling of disorientation. Young people respond to that disorientation in a million different ways.</p>
<p>kinderteacher: His biggest adjustment was the “sameness.” As an caucasian city kid who also went to a polyglot HS, the only suburban kids he’s ever been around are his cousins. At college, he has made great friends–in-state and out-of-state students, and all from the suburbs! He finds the environment odd, but as a future journalist, he’s a keen observer. He says he’s grateful for his childhood experiences (music to our ears), and it’s eye-opening to be exposed to so many “sheltered” (his term) people. I’d encourage your son to keep looking for his niche, which he probably just has not had time to do yet. In the beginning it’s easy to forget that those first weeks of college are incredibly demanding in every way. I’ll bet transfer-itis will wear off.</p>
<p>Shawbridge - the same thing happened to my best friend’s daughter. She hated the university her freshman year. AND she was only 1 hour from home and was rooming with a high school friend! She insisted she was transferring to another college for her sophomore year, but ended up staying at (and loving) the original university. Her mom said that she thinks the reason that D ended up being happy was that she changed her major; mom thinks that the major she had originally chosen was overwhelming her (it is a six-year program) and once she was brave enough to switch away from her “dream” major (read: maybe it wasn’t her dream major after all), she became less stressed and more laid back.</p>
<p>momof3boys, thanks for the perspective about online HS friends. it helped.</p>
<p>Thank you all for sharing - I feel better. Dropped D2 off 2,000 miles away last week and have only received a two word text message since then. It’s not so much that I am missing her, it’s more that I would like to know what’s going on and share in her experience (probably why she wants to keep me out of it!). Her friend down the street from us reported that she has been talking with D on Skype and shared a couple cute stories with me. I guess I will have to be satisfied with second hand info and be thankful that D seems to be adjusting well.</p>
<p>lion0709, we think (perhaps optimistically) that being too busy to call is a good sign.</p>
<p>Shawbridge I hope you are right. DH insists that the girls (small, women’s college) must have been instructed not to contact parents much so that they can adjust - I guess that’s how he’s adjusting!</p>
<p>I had an interesting conversation with a woman I work with who has all the negative traits of a stereotypical helicopter mom. Her son is also a freshman, about the same distance from home as mine.</p>
<p>She asked me if my son was coming home for the “long weekend.” I replied that the subject hadn’t even come up. She said hers would be home for the weekend. She then asked when my son left for college. I said “10 days ago.” Her response was “Well, mine’s been gone for 3 weeks!” I had no reply to that!</p>
<p>Wiggle, that’s interesting about the major change. My D said the same two days ago(she’s pre-pharmacy and is at one of the closest schools to us that offers a PharmD). Although she’s had her heart set on this for a couple of years and has spent a summer volunteering/shadowing in the field, suddenly she feels it’s overwhelming to think about 6 years of school. Right now my advice to her is do nothing about the major because the classes she’s taking this year would transfer to many majors and I’m pretty sure any major she would choose would be science related. </p>
<p>Her truck is repaired and it looks like she’s planning to drive herself home tomorrow and get a ride back to school on Monday. Told me she’s got alot of homework and bringing most of her books with her Now I feel bad for her roommie who will be left alone for 4 days. But I think D needs to get away from everything school related and regain her perspective.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the good ideas and support!</p>