DS will have 2 months+ before he heads off to college. What did you do to help your child prepare over the summer? DS knows how to do laundry, and he just received his atm card. He does not know how to cook, although we aren’t too worried about that since he will have a full meal plan this year. What other things should we be prepping him for?
I think you have to trust that all you have taught him leading up to this point will kick in.
Make sure he knows any relevant personal and family medical information he may need at a new doctor’s office, such as his insured parent’s SS#.
In general, start to clearly delineate exactly what “business” you will take care of and what he will be responsible for, so there is no confusion and nothing slips through the cracks. When kids are totally dependent or totally independent there is no problem, but during this transitional stage you might need to clarify division of labor so there are no wrong assumptions about what you will or won’t do. One of my children automatically took on everything, but for the other one I needed to say things like “Don’t forget to make your doctor’s appointment for the college medical forms” because in the past I would have made the appointment and wanted to make it clear I now expected my kid to do that for himself.
Using his ATM card is less important than knowing how and when to check his account balances.
He needs to be told to always check his spam folder as important emails sometimes get sent there. And…NOT to ignore anything related to his college that is sent.
He needs to understand deadlines, and the importance of meeting those deadlines…for everything.
He also needs to know where to look at his school for the fun things to do…activities, clubs, etc.
DS is not very independent… so yeah, we’re a little worried.
How to order something from Amazon Prime.
How to change his sheets.
Where the nearest pharmacy is.
Teach him to sign UP for Amazon Prime first!
if he is on any medication, how to order it and get it.
How to use ATM and write checks.
How to address an envelope.
How often to wash sheets.
I don’t recall anything specific with the exception of having them progrAm our lawyers phone number in their phone. They all knew the banking, laundry, doctor stuff and had been getting themselves up and out the door for several years before college. I was a mom big on getting the chicks raised and ready to leave the nest lol
Do they actually need physical bank checks in college?
@sleeplessmom1 mine hasn’t written a check in two years so far.
From the college student’s point of view, the answer to this is never, unless he’s having unprotected sex in the bed, and if your kid is having unprotected sex in the bed, the state of the sheets is the least of your concerns.
Don’t be surprised if he calls you from the doctor’s office to get the answers. If he’s like most kids, he has no idea what immunizations he has received or how old he was when he had that surgery he vaguely remembers (let alone what the surgery was for).
Have your lawyer’s phone number in their cell phone? Honestly? I’m not falling off a cliff, so in a dire emergency, I’m still available via text or phone in, um, about two seconds. Their world is a lot smaller than when we went to college. The simple stuff - laundry, food, sheet changing, they can figure out if they want to (some don’t care about clean sheets or clothes). The big stuff they’ll let you know about - my third and last is heading off and I’m not worried at all - in fact, rather looking forward to it.
Bit caveat if there are underlying issues with the student that should have been addressed by now with accommodations or college health services.
When you have your kid on the phone and you’re talking about something that absolutely, positively needs to be done, a useful thing to say is “How about doing it now? That way, neither of us has to bother remembering it any more.”
Now that people have multiple electronic devices and most things can be accomplished 24/7, it’s amazing how much stuff can get done during one phone call. He needs to book a flight home for Christmas? Or send Grandma a birthday present? Or RSVP for his cousin’s wedding? Or submit an application for a summer job? Or order a prescription refill? He can do all of those things, and many more, from his laptop while the two of you are on the phone.
Is this independent? No, not really. Is it efficient? Yup.
How to bank!
My dd had to show her friends how to ask for help when they lost their ATM cards.
and how to deposit birthday/holiday and utility checks.
If he wants you to transfer monies directly into his account, he needs to be willing to let you transfer from your account to his.
If he has a credit card, he needs to know how annual fees and interest work.
Don’t let him sign up for any cards on campus if he doesn’t know how these work.
@sleeplessmom1 , my experience is that most college students don’t have physical checks, but they might occasionally need them. My DS was the only one out of his team who had checks, and they needed to write one for a hotel stay. He wrote the check and everyone else venmo’d their share to him. (I guess in that case it could be advantageous to be the one without checks: no risk! But he was admired for being more “adult.”)
You can get free checks from an online account with Capital One, for example.
Just prepare yourself with questions your DS may ask, like filling out forms, ordering food over the phone, where laundromat is, where to get the lab notebook, etc. At the end of first semester, my son is settled in and no longer needs much help.
Google is your friend.
Take time to go through your house and note what is there. The family medicine chest/first aid supplies. Desk supplies. Laundry and toiletries. As the mother of a son I noticed all of the M-D combos shopping for sheets et al while I was solo. I got sale items sometimes and brought them home for approval. The one thing to do is to be sure son does the packing so he knows what he is taking. You need to assist to be sure he takes things he would use but forget.
Mainly let him enjoy the summer without obsessing over college. The school will do orientation and have to bring lists. He may be secretly scared but surprisingly aware and in control of what he needs to do.
1 used checks, #2 brought them and might have written one or two but #3 has never had checks and never needed one. Landord wants one payment and the kids use venmo..each kid venmos one kid who venmos the entire amount to landlord. I still write maybe one check a month these days if even that. Lots of changes in the last decade for sure
One big thing the kids at my school are warned about: Please have a Health Care Proxy filled out!!! We left a copy in the heath office of my son’s school, and kept he original.
My son started his freshman year of college, 3 hours from here, in late August last year.
On September 9, I made the 3 hour drive to help him out. He was miserable with 3 big problems:
- His phone was broken. Apple was 40 minutes away, he had no car, and hadn’t yet made friends who had cars. We went to Apple and they replaced the phone.
- His brand new Mac didn't work. It didn't turn on, it was basically a big paper weight. We found a Best Buy half an hour from school. They told my son that there was an issue with the RAM, and that he could pick it up in 2 weeks. So I stepped in. I said that I had made the 3 hour drive to address this issue, that he was a freshman in college 30 minutes away-- could they possibly resolve the issue that day? The manager asked what would make me happy, and I responded that I would like him to have a working computer that day. He accommodated us by replacing the defective computer that day.
- This was a biggie-- his Wisdom teeth started coming in and he spent the week before my visit in PAIN. As luck would have it, they broke the skin before I arrived, and he was fine.
Mission accomplished, and he had a wonderful freshman year.
Not sure what you should take from this-- other than a dental checkup before leaving.