Right, so if an 18 year old had an adult passport, they wouldn’t be mailing anything or applying in person, it would expire after graduation. However, if an 18 year old had a child passport they’d have to go in person to renew.
That’s correct, if their passport was previously issued when they were under 16, they will have to go in person to get their first adult passport (at age 16 and up). They can’t “renew” a passport issued before age 16.
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Agreed – I have a shared google doc which has all of their important data – license numbers, copies of their license and passports, credit card info etc. When the wallet went missing, very helpful to be able to manage the fall-out with copies of the info accessible.
Also, I agree with credit card access – I added my kids as additional users to a couple of no fee credit cards I don’t use. That helped build their credit while keeping our finances separate. The deal was, that credit card was for emergency use, not for pizza etc. I could also set those cards up for alerts when single charges exceeded a specific threshold – useful for starting conversations about when those cards were being used for pizza . . .
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Can we move off from passports please? Questions are likely answered on the State Department website
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I don’t think many students will be on board with most of these rules. Some seem more like demands.
We had expectations.
- They had to pass classes. They had to at least make an effort to not just get by with all C’s. This was easier for one kid than the other.
- They had to use their own money for going out, shopping, pastimes, and so forth. Summer work, and then minimal-hours part time jobs after freshman year, were expected. Essentials, such as shampoo, winter gloves, cold medicine, etc…were reimbursed.
Those were the only two firm expectations I can think of.
As far as medical proxy, you can print a form online. We discussed with both kids and they were more than happy to sign these forms. My daughter didn’t play video games, and my son would have laughed if I had tried to tell him when to sleep and when to game. My kids have been allowed to drink since they were 16, especially when they have been with their family overseas, so they knew “how” to drink before starting college.
I agree 100% that incoming freshman need to know that no means no, to get and give consent, to never accept drinks from anyone, to please, lord, not use drugs, but those are really common sense issues rather than rules.
I think you should break these into two piles - documents and behavior.
Documents:
Get all the documents you want together and have him sign them or get them. Go get the passport as you’ll have the documents he needs (birth certificate) and will want the passport and documents returned to your house so they aren’t lost in campus mail.
Have him set up school emails/passwords and either give them to you or get the parent portals set up. I never set up parent portals and my kids just gave me their passwords. I could go in and check grades (never did), pay the bills, make sure all the funds were applied correctly (sometimes they weren’t), etc. One of my kids wasn’t very good at the figuring out things like could she take class A and get to class B on time, and I really like doing those things so I’d help her. The other kid didn’t want my help so I never suggested anything like classes to her.
I also needed access to their bills and other stuff for the FAFSA and taxes too. A lot of schools do not send 1098s anymore but just have them online. I needed the application of charges to know what had been applied to deductible things (tuition) and taxable things (r&b)
Get the medical stuff in order. If you want him to sign forms I bet he will if you just have them in order. My kids needed their vaccination records, an insurance card, etc. Talk to him about how the medical card works, how to get a prescription, the difference between an ER visit and an urgent care visit (hmm, about $18k in one case for us! thankful for insurance), why not to wait until 8pm on a Sunday night if he needs to go to the doctor… I think if you don’t make a big deal about it, he won’t either. “You know you need to reorder your medications at least a week before they run out. Call me if you need help… Don’t run out.”(“I know mom, I know…”)
The other talk about behavior, I think that needs to be done too. I used to read my kids the articles in the paper or online about other kids screwing up. “Can you believe this kid got so drunk he fell off a wall he climbed?” “OMG, this entire team was suspended for hazing a new player!” And of course threw in the serious stuff about cheating and asking for help when needed.
OP, I think you are smart to prepare and I wish I’d done more.
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I have to laugh. The first time our daughter went to the Dr’s she called and asked “what’s a deductible” 
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Are you joking?
There’s no schedule. She calls when she has time and wants to. She texts almost daily.
Don’t have it. As for keeping appointments, got her into managing her calendar at the start of middle school.
Added her to our credit card. As for managing her finances, that’s been something we have been teaching her for many years as parents.
We travel often enough that she has had a passport all her life. She needed an adult one and did everything for it herself.
We talk sometimes about how important sleep is. But haven’t really discussed it vs gaming, partying, or studying etc.
That’s just a brilliant suggestion, especially for kids that are going to have to fly to and from college. Excellent!
I’ve already suggested this to my student. I’ve traveled a great deal over the years, and the security line waits at larger airports or at busy times of the year/day are probably the most aggravating part of air travel. PreCheck isn’t perfect, but it’s nice to have and not too expensive.
I myself have PreCheck, but should have gone with Global Entry. I’ll try for that with our D and for myself when it’s time to renew.
My son has global entry and he loves it! I do not really care about it all that much myself (skipping a line every once in a while is not THAT big of a difference to me), but it seems to make my son feel like some kind of international globe trotting movie star. Ever since he got it, he has been even more eager to find excuses to travel 
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Sadly, Global Entry has a 4-6 month timeframe, so I guess D is going for PreCheck (and hopefully today).
Global Entry is great. It’s heartbreaking to come home to the US and see gigantic lines at Immigration after usually very long international flights. Totally agreed with your S!
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I held out on getting it for a long time until a miserable experience at SFO where we waited in line at immigration for probably a good three hours - so long that by the time we finally got through, we had to hunt all over for our luggage because it had already been removed from the conveyor to make room for the luggage of another flight. And while I suppose this is really a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things, it was after 15 hours or so or travel and we were too tired for this BS. We filled out the paperwork for global entry the following week.
(And, yes, the global entry folks just whizzed right through as we waited in that ridiculous line…)
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I love global entry. I could get through the immigration in less than 10 min (5 most of the time). It’s even better when I have just carry on.
I also have Clear for domestic, but I don’t find it as useful. I get TSA pre check with the global entry and that’s just as fast as Clear.
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Out of curiosity, why do you have both Clear and PreCheck (through Global Entry)? Are there any advantages to having both?
D is going to be flying a lot, but not so much internationally, at least for now.
I have both global entry and Clear because they are free through my credit card. With global entry you are usually TSA pre-checke. Clear is supposed to be faster when it’s available, but not always the case.
If you have clear, you technically do not need any ID to go through security or board.
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Clear basically lets you cut into the precheck line. It’s useful when the precheck line is also long.
…adding to this however that if one of the parents has sole custody, that parent does not need a notarized document from the other parent for the child getting a passport. If however, the other parent takes the child for a passport appointment, that parent (the one who does not have custody) does need a notarized document from the parent with sole custody.
(Custody and parenting time are two different things and are decided separately. Most divorces the parents have shared or joint custody - meaning that they are required to make joint decisions around medical and educational choices - but in some divorces one parent will have sole custody and make all medical and school decisions.)
The time to get a global entry appointment is 4-6 months, but if you are traveling internationally you can get it completed as you re-enter the USA. I’d been meaning to get it and I saw the signs as I came through customs (in Austin TX). The next week I applied and the first appointment I could get in Denver is in Sept. I did go to Canada since then, but I came back to the US by land, so couldn’t process it there. There are some appointments available sooner, but they are in remote places. Ironically, one is in Blaine (?) Washington and we drove through there on my return from Canada, but it was a Sunday…
I’m okay with waiting for global entry but for those of you waiting to get it when your pre-check expires, make sure you allow for the overlap. To get the pre-approval only took a few days, so if you are planning any international travel, go ahead and apply and then you can use it on your way back into the country.
In the 'What to give kids for graduation" thread I suggested global entry or Pre-check. I gave precheck to my daughter and her boyfriend for college graduation and they both wish they’d had it all through college. They now wish they had Global entry as they are going to the Dominican Republic next week, and he went to Canada last month (wedding and the bachelor party).
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No, I’m not joking. I was paying for it, and 2 of the 3 had had very inconsistent academic records before college. I wanted to see every grade, every upcoming assignment, the email from the prof saying, “Hey, student, you’ve fallen off the radar. Are you dropping the class?” For 1 of the 3, this was crucial. For another, it was at times useful, but much of the time not necessary (but when it was, boy was I glad I had it). For one of the 3, it was completely unnecessary, and I basically never looked at it (although I did need it to straighten out the financial stuff for that one occasionally, but that was my responsibility).
If they’d wanted total privacy regarding academics, and academic-related communication, that was fine - all they had to do was finance their own educations. But as long as I was paying for it, I was going to make darn sure that they got through. One kid (very bright, but totally uninterested in college) now has the needed undergrad degree so that they can move forward with their career. Another has the needed degrees, with latin honors, but might not have, had they not had that support, which was occasionally very necessary. Another is well on their way, with none of this needed, only needs a sounding board and some advice on the best path to compile the needed record for their career aspirations - I never look at that kid’s records, not even for kvelling purposes.
Say what you like, think what you like, but this is all part of my job as a parent, of raising kids who are able to support themselves because I will not be here forever to do it for them. My kids had more freedom and independence from about the age of six than virtually any kids I know (except for a few who were being raised “free-range” style). I did what I needed to do, individually tailored to the personalities, abilities, and diagnoses of each of them, in order to move them forward towards self-sufficiency.
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