Indeed - vacation time allows for review, practice & consolidation, especially given that most students have collections before the start of the next term. My son really only got a break during the “long vac” between years.
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Just an update on my son, he is doing well academically at University of Maryland, he has to study for the first time ever, but it’s working. Socially is another story we were not expecting at all! As far as I can tell, he isn’t making many friends. He has a best friend from high school who is in the next dorm and he won’t reach out to him to ask him to catch dinner, hang out, etc…He joined one club but it doesn’t appear to be a very social club, and he won’t take any of our suggestions. You might remember he is in a single room (not by choice, they put him there) and I think that set the tone. He said his dorm floor keeps doors shut, and he doesn’t really do much on weekends. So, as you can imagine, I am upset by this- mainly because he refuses to take our suggestions of joining another club, reaching out to his friend, getting a job, etc… I think it is roommate swap time for next semester so I think I am going to see if he wants to try to get a roommate.
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It’s tough to listen from a distance, huh?
Is your son feeling lonely?
While I don’t think my son is lonely, (he’s in a quad), he just doesn’t seem to be doing FUN stuff that I did when I was a freshman.
I remember our RAs made us participate in a Bunch of fun stuff, to get to know each other on the floor.
Yup, dorm doors are closed (and his room is at the way kitty corner away from the main area: good for noise level, but bad for connecting with new people);
He’s only in 1 club sport.
When I track him on Life360, he doesn’t seem to move from his dorm all weekend (there’s a cafeteria on the 1st floor). I know there’s fun events happening in 2 buildings away or something, but yup, he’s just in his dorm.
True that he’s more of an introvert, compared to me, but I don’t think just studying so much at his desk in his room with his AirPods in is the fun experience I imagined for him.
We finally spoke yesterday (after a 2weeks lapse), and his excitement was about his bike trip (probably didn’t wear his helmet: contentious issue) to the nearby Hmart and him snagging a new flavor of instant Ramen.
But I have to let him go his path (and not mine).
Bringing him some Halloween treats, and other stuff this Parents Weekend, and I’ll fill up in hugs until Thanksgiving (we’re hosting about 8 students who are not going home).
Hang in there!
Different generation/times, different kid.
Amanda
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My son isn’t really making friends either. I’m pretty sure he eats all of his meals alone, but he is super Covid cautious and said it is also hard to coordinate meal times. He does go to a party every Saturday night that he enjoys and is in one club. I just wish he was making friends.
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Fingers crossed for some good social things to happen for all 3 boys in the above 3 posts. I’m glad I’m not the only one tracking the college kid on Life360 lol. Boys are tough nuts to crack with this stuff, for sure. With all the media attention on how hard modern day social pressures are on young women (which is true), I think we feel caught flat-footed with raising sons, or at least I do. Am I saying the right things? Expecting the right things? Doing too much projection on what friendship is supposed to look like? So I feel for you college guy moms! (My son is younger…and the college girl is much easier for me to understand…)
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Boo!
Made for son,
and HS junior (as a ‘bribe’/reminder how great it is to go to a nearby college, instead of a flight away, as we’re doing all the college tours)
I need bigger buckets.
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Mine is thousands of miles away. I’m happy. For me, college was a great time to spread my wings and see the world outside of my own. I’m glad my kid didn’t take the close option. It has been a blast for her meeting people from outside the local area and realizing, it’s a big, big world. But I do have lots of friends who kept their kids close for college and then the kids wanted to work in other states 
I’d rather my kids land here after going away.
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I wanted my kid to go thousands of miles away, spread his wings, meet interesting folks, live in a different climate, etc.
Unfortunately, the only colleges that wanted him were nearby, so we’re making silver linings out of it as we go.
We’ll see where S25 ends up in a few years, but I’m less pushy about “far away” now than I was before.
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Well, there are definitely things we cannot control. My kid had a hodge podge of choices. The best was far away. I do hope my kids land nearby one day. But We’re also open to having them land close together so we visit. It is hard having them so far away though.
My freshman daughter is a thousand miles away, making friends, joined a sorority, living her best life at a big party school, and keeping her head above water academically. Still, she’s homesick and sometimes sad. She cried when I talked to her on Sunday, telling me she’s just not happy and doesn’t want to be there right now. I know it’s just that she needs a break and a taste of home, and she just needed an outlet for those feelings. As difficult as it is to see, I’m glad she chose me to vent to. I share this here to demonstrate that just because kids are having a great, social college experience, doesn’t mean they don’t all have feelings of melancholy. Transition is hard. It’s a process. We just need to give them time to adjust. In an age of social media, they feel so much pressure to be having as much fun as everyone else they see on Insta and Snapchat. Just remind them that those kids aren’t having as much fun as they project on their social media. They won’t believe you, but eventually it’ll sink in. They need to give themselves a little grace.
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Yes! Well said. My college kid has always been one of those teens who thinks it’s healthy to cry on a regular basis. Even though it makes me sad to think of her alone in a room crying for any reason, she thinks people who don’t do that sometimes are the ones with a problem. Maybe that can’t actually be generalized to everyone, but sadness is part of the full human experience.
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Thank you for posting this.
We are in a similar situation. D22 is at the right school for her. She loves it, is involved in lots of activities and lucked out with roommates (triple). They like each other and do a lot together. She goes out a lot. She is only 90 minutes away, yet has not come home and does not want to, not at all homesick.
But then I get the calls where she is just crying way too often. She is stressed about making friends (she has never eaten a meal alone), school, choosing majors and minors, money.
I am also glad it’s me she is confiding in, but it’s hard. And hard to reconcile, because I know she has a good time and yet all those tears.
Not sure what’s harder, being a college freshman or their mom 
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My d22 is doing well. I think she still misses home sometimes, but that is to be expected. The difference between Alaska and NYC is huge. But she is getting along with her three roommates, taking four academic classes and three dance classes, and dancing in a dance department piece as well as some student-run dance shows.
She’s working incredibly hard and loving that aspect of college. And she talks about friends. Since she is at a school that was a reach—and a reach almost four thousand miles away—all of this makes me very happy.
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So true! My experience was different and so were his sister’s, and I know he is a different person. I actually don’t know how lonely he is vs. how much I am projecting. He is the type of kid who will say what I want to hear if he knows I am worried. He’s watched me worry about his sisters as they went through college, and he doesn’t want to “bother people”. That’s his excuse for not reaching out to his best high school friend. Some days I’m sad and worried about him, and some days I’m mad he won’t try! Life 360 is getting a lot of use from me, as I watch him in his dorm all weekend also! He also has a single at the end of a hall, not in the middle unfortunately.
Yes, I feel like the friendship part was easier with the girls. They had roommates, and seemed to travel in packs. The friendships were fluid- one day with one group and one with another, but in general I think girls feel more comfortable reaching out to others to eat dinner, go to the gym, etc… while boys don’t.
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DD is doing well. First couple of days were rough “I see big groups of people, why don’t I have a big group of friends?”. It was so ludicrous it was hard not to laugh. But she’s a “joiner” and has jumped in with both feet, grades are good and no complaints about class difficulty (but she’s always had a good work ethic for school work). School is a perfect fit - she loves to participate in class, loves for her teachers to know her and they already do. She has a class where they are going to a prof’s house for dinner next week and that’s not unusual at her school. She applied to be an RA for next year and she gets along great with her roommate.
Sad to say, she’s fed up with her HS friends, who all went away to the same college and don’t seem to be adjusting well and can’t understand how she has.
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I think all kids experience social ups and downs during their first year of college. S22 is doing well and seems pretty happy so far and is hanging out with kids he has met, but has shared that he misses his close knit HS friend group. He is playing a club sport which he enjoys and thinks he could become real friends with some of those kids, but it is early days yet. I had to remind him that deep friendships aren’t formed in the first 6 weeks of college - it takes time.
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When we hear our kids sad or upset, we want to fix it. In this case, though, they often just need us to listen and sympathize. Sometimes it’s just a passing emotional moment/day/week, and they aren’t looking for solutions, but for a compassionate sounding board.
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Leaving home, living someplace new, making all new social connections, managing their academic independence–it’s all hard! It definitely takes time. They need to be reminded of that. In the first few months, they’ve likely not even met their people yet. I think they just feel pressured to have it all be perfect, and when it’s not, they get scared. We need to remind them to be patient and give themselves a break.
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True of parents as well! It’s been challenging for me but I am trying to be a mature, responsible parent and give D22 space 
.
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