<p>We’re going to take S2 when we drop off S1. S2 is 16, six foot six, strong as an ox, and will hopefully prevent me from thowing out my fifty-something back. 
Will also be a chance for S2 to visit a few colleges in the area (once we say goodbye to the older son) and maybe see a show in the Twin Cities. S1 also wants his brother to come along, and I don’t want S2 to feel left out with all the excitement of sending the first one off to college, and so forth. Guess the decision really depends on the circumstances of your family.</p>
<p>I’m more in the camp of leaving the sibs at home but planning a visit in the not-too-distant future, like Parents Weekend. There should be lots of activities planned to let the kids get to know the school a bit better than the chaos of move-in day, and it’s so exciting that first time you see your college kid after they’ve been there a while. I think the younger sibs would really dig on that.</p>
<p>(Due to really unfortunate timing and a serious work conflict, I was not able to move my oldest in his freshman year. I got over the huge disappointment pretty quickly when I realized all I was missing was lugging a lot of heavy stuff on a hot day. As soon as I found out I couldn’t go, I made my reservations for Parents Weekend. Had a lovely visit with my boy and it was so interesting to see the changes that had already taken place in him a month into school. Nowadays I look for excuses to get out of move-in day.)</p>
<p>Depends on personal circumstances. </p>
<p>We will be bringing my 16 year old to his brother’s drop off. I would like him to see the University for himself as he may be applying in another 18 mos. Also, he will not have started school yet so he will be available. Since the parents weekend is in the fall and he plays a fall sport, it would not be possible to bring him at that point so this is his best opportunity.</p>
<p>My youngest son will be staying with his grandparents though. He does not want to go and would simply make everyone’s life miserable. He will see his oldest brother when he comes home for fall break.</p>
<p>Left D2 home when dropping D1 off, but it was a couple of days drive each way and D2 would have missed more than one day of school.</p>
<p>I think it is a lot of fun for siblings to go and stay overnight at some point, though. Easier with same sex sibs, of course, unless you kid has a single. When D2 and I were out D1’s way for spring break, we went to her campus on Thursday night. I stayed in a hotel,and D2 slept over with D1 and went to classes with her in the morning while I visited some relatives. Then we took D1 away from campus for a fun weekend. D2 stated afterwards that she would prefer to skip high school and go straight to college :)</p>
<p>We took our then 15 year old to drop off D1. Both of them always assumed she would be there. She was a tremendous help and loved being part of settling her sister in for the year. She color coded D1’s closet while we were gone for the parent meetings Saying goodbye gets to be a little tearful (we are an emotional family) but all of us will not have it any other way. Also D2 starts school a week after we drop off D1. I’d say do what feels right emotionally for your family.</p>
<p>Leave the sibs at home (in school). Plan a separate family visit after your oldest is settled in.</p>
<p>Will there be room in the car? Will younger sibs will be helpful, cheerful, good attitude, or will they whine and complain?
We took younger D. But school is only 1 and a half hours away, and we had taken advantage of an early drop off program for part of her stuff, so there was room in the car. Interestingly, I wasn’t going to take her and older D requested it.</p>
<p>The middle of the week thing is annoying. It only happens at Ds’ schools for freshman since their orientation runs from Wed. to Sun. It means I have to take a day off, too – :).</p>
<p>Thank you for all the candid opinions. I’ll have to go back and count but their are several persuasive comments on each side. Remembering back, I went to school six hours away, so my dad took me while mom stayed home with my 16, 10, and 6 year old sibs.</p>
<p>I need to revisit the schedule for welcome week. I know there are parent activities Tues. and Wed. but we’ll go home Tues. night and back to work on Wed. I really appreciated the visual of two kids and two sets of parents crammed in one room trying to unpack and organize. That will be crowded enough. I think I’m still leaning on leaving them in school. We have a minivan so space isn’t an issue - and S is bringing very little.</p>
<p>I’m glad we still have a little time to mull this over.</p>
<p>We wouldn’t have had room for an extra person with all the college kid’s stuff!</p>
<p>And I agree, if DH was willing to do move-in duty while I held the fort with the younger ones…it was fine with me!</p>
<p>NO!!
Dropping off your child at college should be a and usually is a very special experience between a parent and child. Let him (and you) have that together without the distraction of younger sibs, no matter how close everyone is. Tell the younger ones that they will have their turn…in time. Just my opinion…
I agree about Family weekend for a family visit. Very important</p>
<p>College for D1 is only 45 minutes away and move in is on a Sat. for us - however, I am still having second thoughts about D2, who is a hs senior, coming on moving day. Mostly due to the small size of dorm rooms and the confusion of unpacking and organizing in a small space, I think the fewer people involved the better. Younger daughter is contemplating her options; one of the deciding factors may come down to the fact that on move in day the elevators are used by the moving company to take bins of student belongings up to dorms - students and parents will have to use the stairs to lug any other items from the parking lot up to the dorm room. Daughter is on floor number 5, so younger sib may consider a nice goodbye hug at home.</p>
<p>I would call housing if all the particulars of move in aren’t clear - where to check in, where to drop off stuff, will there be elevators etc. Depending on the answers, and the personalities of your kids, either option could be the right one for you. Extra hands might turn out to be a plus, or they could feel life bored bystanders. More detail on your college dorm move in procedures should make the decision easier.</p>
<p>Another question that nobody has mentioned–how will your younger children’s schools view their missing school to accompany their sibling to college? Would it be an excused absence?</p>
<p>Regardless of what College Boy says, as the parent I would say that the younger ones are not allowed to miss school for this reason. I don’t think any of those posters who commented that they took the younger siblings to move in day also said that they took the younger ones out of school to do so. It would be a different issue if school hadn’t already started.</p>
<p>It would not be an excused absence at our high school. My mom demanded my sister come but she was not in school yet.</p>
<p>When our first son went off to college, we left the younger siblings at home. It was a very long drive for even adults to tolerate, and to save money we had planned to go and return in one day. Also, we needed that space in the car. The older of the two kids has since mentioned multiple times that she wished we would have taken her and that if wasn’t fair she didn’t get to see big brother off. I think not going bothered her a lot also because due to scheduling conflicts with other visiting opportunities, it took quite a while before she finally got to visit big brother’s college.</p>
<p>Now it’s #2’s turn, and her move-in day is also on a Tuesday (bad, bad, bad!). This time we need to take a plane across the country, and unlike when S went, the grandparents are not able to babysit for the youngest. As it turns out, Thursday and Friday of the week before move-in Tuesday are days off for the Jewish holidays, so we decided to make it a mini family vacation. The compromise is that #3 will miss two days of school, which is not ideal, and we parents will not stay for all of move-in day so #3 can be back for school on the Wed. after move-in day.</p>
<p>
Parents > school. If the parent says “please excuse kid on such-n-such day”, isn’t that by definition an excused absence?</p>
<p>
Wow, your kids get along???</p>
<p>If you lied and said they were sick, then it would be excused. At our school they ask why. We can get excused absences from college visits if we get a form signed by admissions, however, which is nice. Though only ten excused absences before you fail the semester.</p>
<p>Here- you couldn’t have 10 for the whole year- plus if you don’t even know your kid was marked absent- say if a sub didn’t take roll correctly, you can’t get it corrected if it is as much as three days later.</p>
<p>But that is neither here nor there. ;)</p>
<p>When oldest D went to college- her sister was 11, but we arranged for her to be away at summer camp and for a friend to pick her up- Transitions are not easy in our family.
D was also first-gen college- neither H nor I had ever attended a 4 year school- & D was attending Reed College to boot- a fairly intimidating place for all of us at first.</p>
<p>I was really glad that we had arranged for younger D to be elsewhere, because emotions were high. ( It was about 4 hrs away from home). In fact D broke down and cried after the convocation, she was so scared to death.:(</p>
<p>It was nice to have the time- just the three of us- We did bring younger D to campus a few months after, for family weekend- although because the 1st hum paper was due that weekend, D was really busy.</p>
<p>When we took S1 to college (3 hrs. away), S2, then fifteen, was more than happy to stay at home. He really had no deisre to go making the decision easy. I’m so glad he didn’t come. It was a long hot day. DH and I plus S1,the roommate, the roommate’s parents and older sister made for a very crowded space in the dorm room. The whole campus was jammed (big state u.) making parking a nightmare. It was a long day. After a few minutes of being interested in the surroundings, S2 would have been miserable.
Glad we left him at home.</p>
<p>At my kids’ hs it would be stressful to miss a day; they also do sports and are expected to be at practice daily. I only consider letting them miss a day for illness, funerals etc. Include them in a send-off celebration the night before or plan a weekend visit to college after your son is settled in.</p>
<p>I took my two younger boys for move-in day. Somebody asked, “Would they help, or would they be a distraction?” Well, mine helped by being distractions. My then 6th grader loved it—was fascinated by the dorm and couldn’t stop talking about going of to college himself, and the younger one was there strictly for comic relief. I felt it was good for them to be there. Their older brother is such a presence in their lives, and I wanted them to see where he would be living. We did move him in a day early, so we missed a lot of the chaos of the first move-in day in the dorms. There wasn’t a wait for the elevator, and it was helpful to have extra hands to carry things. Sophomore year I gave them all the option, and they wanted to come for move-in day again. Maybe it was just a day off school, maybe it was the fantastic pizza near my son’s dorm, or maybe they like seeing him off too.</p>