<p>“But I wanted to speak up for some other parents who handle some things differently. And especially the jumping on “everything he needs” which I CHOSE to interpret as being a “every reasonable need” and not literally, as if the parent was going to leave behind a years worth of bottled water in case precious got thirsty in the middle of the night.”</p>
<p>I interpreted things literally because the first time I was in grad school, my 26-year-old roommate’s mom would drive an hour each way to deliver groceries to her even though my roommate had a car.</p>
<p>I didn’t have a car, and had no problem walking to obtain the groceries that I needed.</p>
<p>When I was in college, the mom of one of my friends would come to college at the end of the year to help her daughter pack. Ten years later, the same daughter was still feeling the effects of being so coddled that although she was living by herself, she literally didn’t know how to work her stove! She ate out all of the time because she didn’t know how to cook.</p>
<p>There was a decision on the part of your friend to live like this. I was not coddled, and never had a car for undergrad or grad school. I had a mother who did not know how to cook. I learned on my own. Parents are not to blame for everything.</p>
<p>Yes, bottled water from Costco is cheaper than buying a bottle at a time from a convenience store. Cheaper still is the tap, if your kids bottled water habit is too expensive for the family budget.</p>
<p>I think some of you are missing the point. If you don’t think gassing up the car for the third time since drop off to deliver some necessary items to Junior is a sign that someone in the equation is having trouble severing the apron ties, than my bad.</p>
<p>I feel bad for the kids in colleges across America drinking water from the faucet whose parents don’t love them enough to keep them stocked with poland spring fresh from the frig.</p>
<p>"There was a decision on the part of your friend to live like this. I was not coddled, and never had a car for undergrad or grad school. I had a mother who did not know how to cook. I learned on my own. Parents are not to blame for everything. "</p>
<p>Sure, parents aren’t to blame for everything. Adults have choices about how to live their lives. However, if one is coddled by a parent, one may become an adult who lacks the interest to learn skills and to do things that most adults do for themselves.</p>
<p>“SOME kids (mine) won’t be able to buy that granola bar while they’re working out his class schedule, starting a new job, finding lost keys, meeting with the new club team and trying to connect with people. I left without fully supplying him (partly feeling pressure) and I feel bad. His schedule has been such that he’s had to miss meals and I think he’s just been hungry.”</p>
<p>The activities mentioned don’t take a combined 24 hrs in a day. If your kid can’t buy a granola bar because of these activities, maybe now is the time to learn time management. If he’s skipping meals, he needs to decide whether it’s worth it to forego sit-down meals in order to get other things done and whether he needs to grab a snack to keep himself going. There are plenty of work places – esp. in the types of jobs sought after by many on CC – where you are going non-stop and often feel like you don’t have a moment to eat. Overall the risk of failure in college is pretty low, so it’s a good place to learn the time mgmt skills that he’ll need in any work place – i.e. at worst he sits down to eat lunch and ends up being late to a class – chances are no one will notice and even if he is late to a small class where a prof says something, in the grand scheme it is no big deal.</p>
<p>More broadly, I don’t see anything wrong with parents providing snacks at move-in. Bottled water or granola bars can cost 25 cents when bought by the crate or box and often can cost $2 a piece when bought at a store on campus. Often it isn’t a bad idea to provide these things upfront until the student figures out the grocery situation in a few days and finds the bigger stores where prices are not as marked up as they are at campus owned stores; though it’s a little excessive for a parent to be driving up to school weekly or even monthly to replenish snacks – why not just send the occasional care package and then assume the student is getting by with the convenient/grocery stores and the meal plan?</p>
<p>A different cultural perspective…In the country where I grew up, almost everybody lived at home while going to college, in fact, until they moved out to get a job in a different city, or got married. I did that, and when finally I moved halfway across the world to the USA, I had no difficulty at all taking responsibility and looking after myself, in spite of having been looked after by my parents up to that point. I am not alone; I know lots of people from the same background with a similar experience. I feel that there is a strong cultural pressure in western society to push children towards independence as soon as they turn 18. But I have no evidence to show that if they are supported for longer, they will somehow not grow up. I, personally, will follow my daughter’s lead. If she needs me for longer, then I am not going to jump to the conclusion that she is somehow lacking independence and strength of character.</p>
<p>aj- re the granola bars. I don’t think we’re really disagreeing. Yes at some point soon, as in many times in the past, my s will be able to buy himself a granola bar. My point was that with the craziness of moving in, getting his schedule down, and even not knowing how his meal tickets work, it would be nice to have that for him for starters. Also, yes all people must have these skills, but they don’t all have to be perfected in the first week of living on your own, when you don’t know how things work, and don’t have anyone you know nearby.</p>
<p>Same with time management. As parents with disorganized kids know its not just as simple as just learning time management. It’s a lifelong effort. And some things he’ll just have to learn by hard knocks and experience. But I think a lot of soft-hearted parents like myself don’t really want all those knocks to come immediately when a kid just sets off by himself.</p>
<p>The story given was about a mom who traveled 120 miles round trip three times in two weeks to deliver “stuff”. Unless she’s skateboarding or driving a hybrid, whatever savings she picked up at Costco have been reduced by the costs of gas and wear and tear on the car, (what’s the IRS deduction guideline $0.35/mile? $126 for this mom). It’s not about setting your kid up with a stash of (cheaper) candy bars, it’s about letting go and apparently she can’t. </p>
<p>Whatever happened to “Care Packages” stuffed with stale crumbled cookies that you shared with everyone in the dorm?</p>
<p>So I sent DS a box (hard to call it ‘care package’ given the contents) filled with misc stuff like plastic hangers, over the door hanger, lanyards for keys that we had laying around the house. The cross country shipping cost more than the purchase of the said items would have been locally. Tried to figure out the relative carbon footprint of purchasing vs shipping, gave up, decided didn’t want purchase of more plastic when we already owned it. Don’t know if it was stupid or not. </p>
<p>Asked him if he needed anything else. He said was running low on a toiletry item. I was so pleased that he actually asked for something that I promptly ran out, bought it and threw it in the box. Lets see:</p>
<p>Price of item: $2
Extra for shipping: $.25 (?)
Car expense to target: $3.50 (20mi RT at .35/mi, discounted 50% as did other errands)
Pleasure of providing him with something he needs: Priceless</p>
<p>We left before the Official Parent Departure Time. Everything was unloaded, most of it unpacked (this was intentional; S2 wanted to do some of the unpacking later) – it was just time.</p>
<p>S2 called us five minutes after we were off campus – I left my cellphone on his nightstand. Oops!</p>
<p>S2 has ADD and organizational issues – he has worked really hard and made tremendous strides during HS. It’s the little stupid details that get him frustrated, not the difficult work. He thinks he’s the only one who will lock himself out, forget his schedule, etc. Before he left, I was sharing CC stories with him about other kids who have done some of these things – just to normalize the experiences and reassure him that he is not alone in feeling worried, forgetful, overwhelmed or confused.</p>
<p>I made it clear to him that he could call/IM me to brainstorm approaches or help him solve problems during the interim. And yes, he has called — and he has clearly done thinking about ways to approach the problems before getting on the horn with me. Some of my advice is just BTDT, this is how you work with bureaucracies, etc. If ten minutes of my time helping him navigate the little things can help him manage the big things on his own (that I cannot and should not be involved with), it is worth it. </p>
<p>I’ve also been making it clear that second semester, he will know the ropes, this will be easier and I will be asking how HE is going to solve HIS issue. However. I know that I will not be shipping him food, ever. Given that S2 is a big guy and loves to cook, I have no worries whatsoever that he can forage for food. He should be sending ME brownies!</p>
<p>I just saw this thread and can’t read all the pages except first two and last, so hope I am not repeating. When we saw that Brown asks parents to leave after move-in day, we just shipped her stuff and she went alone, she asked for that and to have me come later when I could spend a week. We are from CA.</p>
<p>Edit to say: I forgot to say how that went! She was confortable to travel alone. The school allowed boxes to be received and stored ahead, then delivered to the dorm, and it worked out just fine.</p>
<p>I do buy some stuff when I visiit. I collect sales goodies and send care packages a few times every year, even now that she is in grad school. It is fun to get a package of treats, toiletries, and all. Homemade cookies, not so much anymore.</p>
<p>D is gone and S is next.
I’m going to find a University like Brown that allows you to ship all the stuff in the preceding weeks…That’s the best idea I’ve heard in ages.</p>
<p>I reckon I’ll simply DHL the boy as well.
Following the advice here I’ll pack 4 bottles of Costco water and a box of granola bars in with him
You can even use DHL’s tracking system to make sure they get delivered on time.</p>
<p>I’d just like to say that we are not the first generation to have a hard time saying good-bye. This thread brings up a memory that pulls on my heartstrings. My Dad was a single parent after my mother died when I was in tenth grade and I was the only child. After he drove me up to my college and helped unload the car, I was ready for him to go and nicely told him so. He hugged me and walked away and I could tell that he was crying as he left. I doubt that any ceremony would have made that moment easier for him.</p>
He should be sending ME brownies!</p>