<p>I'm feeling better about the communication thing now that I know there are others who've worked through it and have survived with manageable plans, for the most part. I still ask the where-are-you-going-and-when-are-you-coming-home questions only to be told that no other friend has to answer these questions! Can't imagine that's true, but if it is, so be it!! At least my quesitons are graciously 'tolerated', unlike a couple of years ago when they were met by a rather diagreeable personality!!!</p>
<p>Well, part of me thinks it is a little excessive for kids and moms to talk every day at length. And the other part of me is jealous of those who have kids who will allow this!</p>
<p>We talk to our college kid at least once weekly. It's the condition of OUR payment of the cell phone plan. They call once a week at least and we pay the bill. No call...we deduct the payment from their accounts. DS missed one call...didn't like paying 1/4 of that month's bill. DD has never missed a call. We are paying for phones for them so that we can communicate with them. BTW...if they want text messaging....THEY pay for that.</p>
<p>I find that the frequency of calls depends on if there is something in the works that needs to be dealt with. For example, right now ds and hs gf are planning a trip (it was our gift to him for his 21st bday) and as a consequence the frequency of call has gone up (it's about once a day for the past week, as he finalizes things and wants to run them by us). Also, when ds was recovering from his broken leg this past spring, we spoke more frequently (every few days). In fact yesterday he called because of a billing issue (he was at the hospital having a follow-up xray, they wanted a copayment, and the insurance co is reprocessing claims so told us to wait to pay anything else- and this needed to be explained to the billing clerk at the hospital). When things were"calm" , we spoke maybe every few days or at least once a week, but I used to IM him a lot. That probably got annoying as I dont see him on line as much anymore :o He would tell me if he could chat or not, and I was always careful to respect that. </p>
<p>Younger s can't wait to get away. When he is away in the summer he never calls. We have to call him, which we do periodically (maybe once or twice a week).</p>
<p>When I was in college we did the call on the weekend thing, though I do recall calling at other times as well. When we would go on a long trip and my parents would ask me to call to let them know I arrived safely, I tried to be sensitive to their request. However, I finally told them that if I didn't make it, they'd get a callfrom the cops. Ooh, that wasnt too nice of me...</p>
<p>i am a student. let me ask you parent this. how often do you talk to your high schoolers? what do you talk about? would what you usually talk about carry over to college?</p>
<p>hinmanCEO: I talk to my high school sophomore S daily, usually in the car going to and from school. His answers are often monosyllabic in the morning, but it is something. After school, he knows I am going to ask about his day, his classes, his activities. No getting around me asking or finding out. I tell him it's in my job description. Dinner time, we sit down together at least 4 out of 7 nights a week and actually have a conversation.</p>
<p>My college daughters are mad that I won't get with the program and do text messaging. I keep explaining that I can't see the teeny letters without my reading glasses but I get no sympathy. Why don't cellphones come with a font adjustment?</p>
<p>I talk to one child almost daily (she calls me when she's walking alone) and another rarely. The main trick seems to be waiting until they call me - they never want to talk if I call them, in fact they rarely pick up - bad girls.</p>
<p>I would do text messaging IF I did not have to pay extra for it. I think the cell phone billing system in the U.S. is ridiculous. In the UK there is no cost for texting and the only one who pays for mobile phone usage is the person who is making the call...not the person receiving it as well. How come they can do this and we can't? Greedy.</p>
<p>To my daughter once a week on the phone and the odd text message. Two or three emails a week. My son called me almost every day but many calls were about homework. Probably averaged a text message a day as well. But in my son's defense I went to the same school and often took him out to dinner when I was going to a game or other event.</p>
<p>I am going to be a second year student. I talk to my mom daily. I know she talks to my siblings that aren't home every day too. I go to school almost 500miles from home. I know my mom still talks to my grandma every day too.</p>
<p>I have one son who just graduated from college and one about to start. First son went to college 1000 miles from home. I did speak with him daily all 4 years. While he did complain, my feeling was in this day and age of crime etc I needed to know he was OK. On a college campus you can disapear for several days without being noticed. Roomates may feel it is not their responsibility to track you down when you stayed out at night. Professors are not going to call mom when you were missing from class etc. That is just the way I have my peace of mind. I didn't stop caring /worring when you left for school.
Also my son's college was notories for screwing around with students in the flight program to the point I almost had to sue them for breach of contract. They cut back on screwing with him. He completed his flight training and graduated. The majority of his fellow students who he started with are STILL there trying to catch up and finish. Had it not been for those daily phone calls advising him on how to deal with them and intervening when I had to, he would still be there as well. One size or situation does not apply to all. You have to go with what is right for your situation and relationship with your kid.
Second son will be going to a school only 95 miles away. I don't anticipate issues with his school. He has never been much of a talker...Hi i am going here or there, be home late etc. and that is about it. I don't expect I'll get much more than that from him at school. I just need to know you are healthy and safe and I am OK. I expect he will drop by more often though since he is only a 1 hour train ride from home. He actually chose a close school so he could come home once in awhile. Time will tell........</p>
<p>DS1 (rising HS senior) is FABULOUS about contacting me when he is traveling, whether solo via air, on his way back from a meeting with his prof and needs to let me know when he'll be at the bus station, etc. (Maybe I should suggest he spends a semester abroad so I'll hear from him1 :)) He attended a summer program last year and we hardly heard from him. He was better this spring at another long-distance event. </p>
<p>IMs felt intrusive, emails were good. Calls are decent. He tends to contact me more than his dad, esp by phone, which can be touchy.</p>
<p>I have told him that we felt left out of his life when he was gone last summer, and that we should agree on some sort of regular communicatrion when he goes off to college so we aren't feeling left in the cold, and he's not feeling nagged. We have reached tentative agreement at once a week.</p>
<p>I suspect we'll be emailing a lot.</p>
<p>I'm a freshman in college, and I talk to my mom at least once a day, generally more than that. I generally call my dad less but my mom updates him on my life. my parents also text me all the time.</p>
<p>"I have one son who just graduated from college and one about to start. First son went to college 1000 miles from home. I did speak with him daily all 4 years. While he did complain, my feeling was in this day and age of crime etc I needed to know he was OK. On a college campus you can disapear for several days without being noticed."</p>
<p>I am curious. At what point in his life will you feel that it's not necessary to talk to your son each day? People disappear daily from all sorts of places. The odds, however, of anyone disappearing are minimal. When I was in college, I let my roommates know where I was. That, to me, seems a more effective way of having a safety plan than calling Mom every day. </p>
<p>I doubt if most parents called their parents daily when the parents were in college away from home. I know that I didn't even call mine weekly. My mom wanted me to write her weekly like she had done with her mom for years, but I tried to do that, but didn't get around to it. </p>
<p>After college, as a single woman, I moved 3,000 miles away to grad school, and then moved to 3 other cities where I had jobs. Then, I got married, and moved several more times. Several times, I have lived (including living alone) in cities that were the murder capitals of the U.S. Fortunately, nothing horrible has happened to me, but I don't think that contacting Mom each day would have prevented much. I do think, however, that having friends in the cities where I lived, and having reasonably good sense about safety issues, was important.</p>
<p>Remembering how recalcitrant my mom was in old age about insisting on living alone and not getting one of those "I've fallen and can't get up" services, I am wondering how the parents on this board who are so worried about offspring will address their own issues as we age. My mom insisted on living alone in an isolated house in which she also insisted on shoveling heavy snow despite a heart condition. She moved 800 miles to be near me only after her doctor called me and told me that my mom's health was frail and she was unlikely to live long unless she moved near me.</p>
<p>I eventually moved Mom into a nice apartment for the elderly that was about a mile from my house. Despite having medical problems that included frequent dizziness, Mom refused to enable the call button in her apartment. She ended up dying apparently after falling and not being able to get up.</p>
<p>As I write, I have several friends who have had double mastectomies due to cancer. I have another friend who is in a rehabilitation hospital after having lung cancer that spread to her brain and caused her not to be able to have much movement on her right side. All of these people are younger than 60 and most are parents. Seems to me that if anyone should be worrying, it should be our kids -- to make sure that we are healthy and safe.</p>
<p>H will be 58 tomorrow, and rides his bike to work daily in our city, which has crazy drivers who have no clue how to drive near bike riders. Until I asked him to stop, H used to each day tell me about times he was almost hit. Some summers, H works in Manhattan, and also rides his bike to work there. I worry far more about H's safety than I do about S, 19, who right now is 7,000 miles away home alone and working while I'm visiting H who is working on the other side of the world. </p>
<p>As for safety concerns about being crime victims -- most of us are increasingly looking older and like easy prey. Perhaps we should be worried more about us or perhaps our kids should call every day to make sure we're OK.</p>
<p>My D has been gone 2 years now, and we basically let her initiate all contact. She usually calls several times a week, mostly Mon-Fri. This is not by pre-arrangement, and its mostly to say "Hi, what's up". </p>
<p>Weekends are too much fun for her to have the time to call home. Of which I am glad.</p>
<p>I did a bit of IM-ing initially, but then felt it was intrusive, esp. when it took her 3 minutes to respond!! So now all I do is send an occassional email that has news from us, and does not require a response.</p>
<p>My S is going to college this Fall, and I am sure we will hear far less from him, than we do from her, but hopefully on a weekly basis.</p>
<p>
As a college student, I think it is more feasible the other way around. You yourself said that you never wrote home like you were supposed to and many of the posters here have said that their kids don't call home as much as they want them to. So, why do you expect a self-centered college student to call home and check on their parents? I could never imagine anything happening to my parents (although we live in a safe area and they are both relatively young), so I would never call home to see if they were OK if I was a kid who didn't enjoying talking to my parents just to talk them.</p>
<p>I think sschmid is right. When I moved thousands of miles from home into a much unsafer area than I was used to, I didn't mind my grandmother calling to see how I was and making sure I hadn't been hurt or anything. My thoughts are, my parents and grandparents kept me safe for 18 years, and now they are just trying to make sure I stay that way...</p>
<p>Our son is a rising college senior and we have typically talked with him about once a week. That was plenty for both him and us as it allowed us to catch up on the important things and not get involved in the minutia of his growing independent life.</p>
<p>NSM,
Your post is so apt.
Towards the latter years of my parents' lives, I called daily. Eventually, I did the same as you. I hope my S doesn't have to be concerned for my health for at least the next 20 years.</p>
<p>"So, why do you expect a self-centered college student to call home and check on their parents? I could never imagine anything happening to my parents (although we live in a safe area and they are both relatively young), so I would never call home to see if they were OK if I was a kid who didn't enjoying talking to my parents just to talk them."</p>
<p>I don't expect college kids to call home daily to check on their parents. My point was that we middle aged parents are more than likely in more danger than are our kids, yet our kids don't call us daily to check on us nor would most of us want or expect them to call for that reason.</p>
<p>Reality is that everyone -- including one's parents -- is at risk. I know a young woman who ended up going to college in her hometown because she couldn't afford her first choice college and didn't get into other schools that would have provided full aid. Within 6 months of her starting college, both of her parents suddenly died: Her mother from a brain aneuryism, her dad died in his sleep of a heart attack. Neither was older than age 52, and neither had any kind of medical history that would have indicated they were at risk of sudden death. So, you never know.</p>
<p>People here on CC routinely post articles about college students who suddenly die or have some unfortunate or dangerous occurance. However, no one is posting articles about college students' parents who suddenly die. I'm sure that the latter happens far more than does the former.</p>
<p>I've followed this thread since its inception and one thought I've had is related to the comments of many parents on how often we called our parents when we were in college. Most of us were subject to the policies and rates of AT&T in its monopolistic days. Long distance calls were pricey and that fact alone constrained communication among family members. I think the shift towards more communication is obviously due to the fact that technology has flattened the world and we can, easily and for minimal cost, communicate with a host of folks via phone calls, text messages, e-mails, and instant messages. I think the only challenge is in finding what is the correct balance for your family. For those parents who want more communication than their teenager wants to offer, obviously both will have to compromise (or if parents pay the phone bill, maybe kids will have to acquiesce entirely). Otherwise, if everyone is happy, what difference does it make how often we speak to our children or to our parents?</p>