Need advice please from parents of college boys.

Parent Cafe
141

The advice not to compare is excellent. I think these sorts of threads encourage a lot of projection. Consolation’s post #139 hit home with me, since one of my sons traded phones with me during a visit, embarrassedly confessing that somehow a cult had his number (deliberate pun) and he wanted mine so he could more easily disengage. I got rid of the cult for him.

I am so sorry you have to go through all this. I am still recovering from it all. It really does get easier. Please take good care of yourself.

142

@Consolation I completely agree with your post. I would also establish is an expectation that we have access to their grades.

We are not rich, and I can’t afford a $65,000 opportunity for a kid to “learn about failure.” In exchange for us spending our entire life savings to put our three kids through college, we need to know that they are making a good academic effort and passing their classes. If they can’t accept that condition, then they will have to find a way to pay for their own college. We don’t have enough money to negotiate on that point.

143

My concern is that OP’s son could be spending money on other substances besides beer or weed.

My family has personal experience with a kid going off to college and blowing through 1200 dollars in less than 2 months. My stepdaughter also never communicated with us, until mid-October to ask her mom for more money. When she was asked about what she bought, she was evasive and became angry…
Turned out she’d developed a cocaine habit.

No one found this out until much later, though, in fact, after she’d graduated… The decision by her parents was to just give her space, and distance themselves from her, as well.

In the meantime, my stepdaughter made really stupid, life-altering decisions, that she probably would not have made if she were operating with a clear head and firmer boundaries… It’s over a decade later and she is still living with the consequences of some of these decisions…

I am hoping that drug or alcohol use is not what’s going on with your son. But the red flags are all there…
I would contact him, tell him you are coming to visit and want to take him out to dinner, and see if you can figure out what is really going on here. It could just be something minor that he needs to work through… But if it’s something more, you really want to address it right now.

144

I needed to send my son a “respect” reminder this week due to some arrogance in his tone, that of expressing being better than another (i.e. me.) Fortunately, he understood what I was saying and took it gracefully.

His first week at college he sent me a note asking me to buy some of his e-books and some school jerseys, plus things for his computer and such… Response was simple - that’s what you earned the money for during the summer. You’re a man now. You have a bank account. A Visa. A budget. You know how much on the average to spend each month. Figure it out. BTW, you have six months of Amazon Prime. Use it and the products will be there in two days.

I spoke to him the other day and asked how his budget was going. Not a big deal. He hasn’t spent much. Saving his money for a bigger trip instead of on little things that get used and wasted. With room and board already paid for, he said he didn’t need anything.

We talk on Saturdays and text during the week on interesting tibits. If he’s busy, he just says so. It’s fine.

I recommend cutting the allowance and let him grow up. He’s a big boy. He will figure things out. And do it with a smile! Let him know you are not mad, it’s just part of life’s changes.

And then use the allowance money on a nice wine tour or concert.

145

Most of the responses have been reasonable.

Only point I’ll expand on now is the money issue. You need to think through what is a reasonable spending expectation for him. Talk to your husband about this. Back in the stone age when I went to school, to my recollection the main spending outlet was food - occasional pizza deliveries, some Friday and/or Saturday nights out on the corner, and occasionally treating myself to nice lunches that were better than the cafeteria food. If I had to guess, as a freshman, it amounted to perhaps $40-60/week (if that) in 2015 dollars.

Haircuts? Maybe one or two first semester - pretty cheap for guys anyways.

Clothes? Maybe a University sweatshirt or two, but there weren’t any Kohl’s (or their equivalent back then) close by, and guys don’t really like to clothes shop anyways. You can probably take care of his needs with a few trips during the various breaks when he’s back home.

Beer? Yeah, I drank beer. A lot of the beer was free at fraternity parties (until rush was over anyways). I had some beer in my dorm room - some cases of cheap Milwaukee’s Best. And we probably tried to order beer out in local restaurant/bars, but it was pretty hard to actually get served as a minor.

His situation may be different, but I doubt it’s THAT different.

Uber? Really? He needs to take pseudo cabs around? I doubt that very much.

iTunes? Well, back in our day, we bought CDs. They were expensive (as iTunes is, more or less today). Give him a modest budget, and let him decide whether he wants to spend it on iTunes or sandwiches at the local deli. Being forced to make money choices, within reason, (rather than getting everything you want) is good and healthy.

And yes, it would probably be helpful if he had more personal connection to his spending money/budget - earning some or all of it. But that’s potentially a big switch to make mid-semester. Worth thinking about/talking over with your husband though…

146

@ScreenName48105 I don’t think anyone’s being too tough on the OP. I see it differently, I think everyone’s feeling protective of her. :slight_smile: We can all put ourselves in her place a bit – we want to give everything to our kids and we want them to tell us how happy they are, and she’s done her best for her son, and he hasn’t treated her well. As a previous poster said, the mistakes the OP has made were made with good intentions.

147

I am dividing my time today, worrying about collegemom9999’s son, and JustOneDad’s hypothetical first-year who may or may not be given $80 for shuttle service during move-in, and several fictitious children in books I’m reading and shows I’m watching. I have a really difficult time not worrying about all the kids, real and imaginary. If I worry about yours, it may be possible for me not to bother mine with all my worries about them.

148

I’d go to the airport and give JustOneDads kid a ride and help
moving in if I thought he was in my city.

149

It’s helping me to picture JustOneDad’s hypothetical kid as six feet tall, someone who obviously “lifts”, and just returned from a very successful gap year experience, backpacking overseas in a bunch of unknown languages, with $5 in his pocket.

150

if he’s drinking off campus, yes, Uber could be warranted.

My son has a credit card for books, tied to his dad’s account. He doesn’t use it otherwise, but we did tell him he could use it for Uber if he’d been drinking. He otherwise earns his spending money but I wouldn’t want him to drive simply because he was out of funds.

151

@Pheebers, I think you’ve completely misunderstood my post.

All dependent relationships are, at their core, mutual. It’s only been two weeks. Big adjustment on both sides.

152

I’ve seen lists of events that are psychologically damaging.

Among the bigger ones, I think, are divorce and job loss.

In a way, OP’s experience carries aspects of both. As a stay at home mom, devoting much of her attention and energy to her son, he was, to some extent, her “job”. And she may have been communicating with him as much or more as she did with her spouse.

The loss of both a major part of her life’s purpose and social connection likely has been a major jolt to her - moreso than perhaps she might have anticipated going into this (though she presumably also expected more communication than she’s been getting).

153

@MWDadof3 “Haircuts? Maybe one or two first semester - pretty cheap for guys anyways.”

Not so for my kid lol! His “fade” haircut apparently “requires” a cut every 2-3 weeks. I told him anything over 1/6 weeks is on him! You are right on target with the rest of your post though we tell him he has to pay for any music/iTunes out of his own pocket.

154

RE: grade access.

Now is not the time to deal with this. But my rule for the college kids is that they just give me the passwords for their .edu email accounts and the school’s online system.

Too much hassle and brain damage to get through the large stack of required consent forms for me to get access to that stuff another way. The kids don’t care since they would very rarely ever use those email accounts for personal stuff. It also makes dealing with things like tuition bills and student health insurance much easier (since the schools operate on the fiction that the student is the payor/decider).

I almost never check those things. I checked a tiny bit when they were frosh; almost never since then. But if there’s ever a reason for me to wonder or worry about what’s really going on I can find out on my own. Since the kids know I can see their official school business (grades, disciplinary issues, dropping classes, etc.) I usually hear about issues from them first. Just be careful not to abuse/helicopter the access.

Any athletic or academic scholarship a kid gets would have much more onerous reporting and compliance requirements. So I tell them that my online access rules is just a condition of the almost full ride scholarship that mom/dad awarded to them.

155

Another take on too much money for college kids, when he graduates and gets his first real job will his starting salary be enough to pay all of his bills (food, rent, insurance, phone, utilities) start a rainy day/retirement fund and leave him with an extra $200+ a week ‘just for fun?’ I think you are setting yourself up for subsidizing your son well after graduation if he gets used to so much extra money each week. I think you are doing him a favor by reducing the amount of money you are giving him.

156

@Northwesty I don’t actually have access to any email or system. We just have this expectation established that our three will tell us how their classes are going and what grades they have. That is part of the deal. They tell us how their grades are voluntarily and always have. They also know that if a class isn’t going well, we will try to support them and not yell at them, so that probably helps. We don’t expect grades to be great, but we do expect effort.

157

I disagree that now is not the time for grade access. The OP and her husband are totally funding their son’s education. A lot of kids see a dip in their grades that first year of college due to that freshman adjustment period, and I understand that and would be forgiving of a routine dip in grades. However given the rather extreme behavior by the OP’s son, (apparently really heavy partying, $400 week, etc.) I would be concerned that he is maybe not even attending class. We certainly can’t afford to throw away a semester of school because of bad grades, and even if we could, it would indicate that school is not any kind of a priority. I would definitely be looking at grades as an indicator of something drastically wrong. I would certainly hate to find out at the end of the year that my kid is flunking out.

158

I can’t help but recommend “Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. Budgeting, getting/staying out of debt, how to save and how to invest. It has specific guidelines and goals for money management. Easy read but an eye opener.
Not only did our kids and some family/friends members get a copy but all associates in my H’s firm did too.

159

One caveat for Dave Ramsey’s stuff: His religious beliefs are part of his process. Some may not be comfortable with this.

160

My husband and I took the Dave Ramsey course, and we are religious, but were surprised that there wasn’t a lot of religious talk in his course. It mentions giving in a general sense, but I felt the focus was more on giving as a “pay it forward” kind of thing.

I was 2 or 3 sessions into the program and starting to wonder if I was confused, and maybe Dave wasn’t a Christian since I wasn’t getting the traditional “church vibe” from the course. In the end, Dave does finally come out and tell his story, but his religion was much less “in your face” than I had expected.

It really is a very practical course, and I hope my D can go through the program in the coming years. I think there is benefit for taking the course regardless of your stance on religion.