<p>He is a little more than 2 hours away. He has a car with him (which may be a mistake).
He is enjoying his classes, has joined a few clubs and enjoys the gym. He plans to try out for the ping pong team and play a few intramural sports.
His roommate is his best friend from high school. Roommate has to come home this weekend to get a few things. Ds wants to come too. Wants to see his gf and doesn't want to be at the college on his own without roommate.</p>
<p>This is a big school (NC State) and I think there is plenty going on. I do not want him to make a habit of coming home on weekends.. in fact, we told him last week that coming home the first weekend is not a good idea. </p>
<p>What do I do? Say no? Compromise?</p>
<p>Someone please help..what are your thoughts?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say “no,” but I would let S know that I have a list of chores for him to do around the house, so will welcome his presence. At my house, for instance, I always appreciate S’s presence doing yard work and cleaning off the roof. Perhaps that’s why he tends to come home only for Thanksgiving, Christmas and at the end of the school year.</p>
<p>Just let him come home and be welcoming. In a few years, you will be wishing he would come home. Everyone deals with this transition differently and I think most kids have a drive for independence in them. The first weeks are hard. Things will be fine in a few months.</p>
<p>When I moved to our current house, I spent some time here, then went back to the old place, then moved in to this one. That’s the way I do transitions, and I find my kids have their own ways too.</p>
<p>I was just watching a PBS show on hummingbirds. The mother bird continues to feed the offspring even after they leave the nest, for a little while. I thought it was apt for this week, when so many of us are preparing for kids to leave for college.</p>
<p>Cynical view from someone who has had a son that age, with a girlfriend a year younger:
He’s not “coming home” too early, he’s going to girlfriend’s town to visit her. It just happens that you live there so he can stay for free and get good food.</p>
<p>I vote for “just say no”. Those first few weeks are when the students have the most free time (academics are still gearing up) and are making their friends. </p>
<p>My daughter joked with her friends her mom was mean and would not let her come home for a month. But that was the time when she made her best friends, which happened to be kids that lived far away and could not go home. I only was bold enough to make that mandate based on advise from a college intern at work . Her mother had given her that rule (despite severe homesickness). It’s one of the rare times I’ve heard a young person bragging about the parent’s wisdom.</p>
<p>NSM- That’s what I learned quickly when I changed schools closer to home! Upon entering the door, my family said to me, “Unload the dishwasher. Vacuum your dog’s hair off the floor. Set the table.” I was quite ready to turn around and go back to school so I wouldn’t have to do chores. At the same time, I was treated like a guest because my family had its own routine built in.</p>
<p>But anyhow, I’m guessing it’s really the GF. Just keep the doors open… and compromise his wishes to come home with chores.</p>
<p>I would not tell my son he couldn’t come home.</p>
<p>What if the girlfriend becomes your daughter-in-law one day and resents the fact that you tried to keep the two of them apart? Your son has probably already told her that he’s coming home this weekend. Do you want him to have to tell her that their Saturday night date is off because you won’t let him come home?</p>
<p>This is a really tough one because I am VERY close with my son who will be headed off in a year. It’s easy for me to say now, and I know I’m going against the group vote, but it’s really a combination. </p>
<p>I would let my son know I missed him and he was welcome home, but I would really, really encourage him to stay at school for the first month. I would explain this is when most of the social activities are going on for new students and people are meeting each other and making friends. That’s an important time not to miss out on. I’d plan a special weekend in a month to come home and shop for anything he realized he might need for his dorm or fall clothes.</p>
<p>It may or may not work…he may need this one weekend and then agree to a month. The initial social ‘bonding’ for new students is important and students that miss out because they are home or on road trips to visit friends at other schools do miss out on ‘putting down roots’.</p>
<p>Ultimately, you’re his mother and will know what the right thing is to encourage.</p>
<p>I don’t see the big deal with him coming home. Kids at school are probably going hog wild in the first few weeks as they party hard and get crazy. I think coming home is fine and visitng the GF is fine and he’ll settle in fine. This is an enormous transition and if he wants to ease into it what’s the harm? He’ll look around his room, check in with his best girl, hug his family, and head back to school filled up and ready to run. </p>
<p>His roommate / friend is coming home to get a few things and they’ll be together. He doesn’t want to be alone in his dorm room first weekend. It all makes fine sense to me.</p>
<p>If you forbid him to come home, you are saying that the place he calls “home” is no longer his home. People are always welcome in their own homes. I don’t think a freshman is ready for the idea that the place where his parents live is not his “home.” (A few years from now, he may call it “my parents’ house,” but not yet.)</p>
<p>Moreover, he is attending a state university. There are probably quite a lot of students who live nearby and who go home for weekends frequently and very casually. If you prevent him from doing this, you are setting him apart from his peers. </p>
<p>I would let him come home and not make any fuss about it.</p>
<p>How could anyone tell their child not to come home? I have to disagree about missing out on making close friends etc. I went to a large school, and the first saturday night after classes began (not during orientation) was one of the loneliest nights of my life. I actually had not a thing to do,and I was too scared to go to a party alone, so I sat in my room alone. I was hardly ever in my parents house alone growing up, and even though I had been a babysitter for years, something about that room in a new place all alone was so terrible.</p>
<p>A few years later I lived alone in NYC, and I never felt so lonely as that Saturday night. A few years of maturity made a difference.</p>
<p>In your son’s case, I bet he does miss the gf.</p>
<p>I remember thinking how upset my daughters boyfriends’ parents must have been when he was coming home often to see my daughter. Here it is four years later and although they had broken up for a while they are back together and appear to be serious.</p>
<p>If he wants to come home it is probably what he needs to do. You can discuss the importance of the first semester bonding that is important for the remainder of his college years. My daughters boyfriend made great friends but he did not make them by going crazy the first few months of college.</p>
<p>Another point of view…
Last year D hit a “rough spot”, called and wanted to come home for a weekend. We welcomed her back. Then the following weekend, same thing. That time I said “no”. It was really, really hard to do (H admits I was right, but that he would not have been able to). I felt terrible telling her that she had to learn to deal.She stayed that weekend and ended up doing fine and being glad that she did. We were both glad in the end.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a problem for him to come home. It sounds like he is adjusting well. Some kids manage better when they know they can “touch base”.</p>
<p>I had similar experience to Fallgirl. our kids going off to college also launches a new kind of relationship with them, so we aren’t so much simply saying yes or no, as if they are kids, we are offering our thoughts or perspective. my d wanted to come home couple times as first year bc her roomies were locals and were doing so. we talked about how their choices influenced her and then what was the best choice for her to make…ie. staying gave her opportunity to meet new friends, and perhaps enjoy the privacy of being in the dorm alone. I agree that they should always feel welcome to come back home, and sometimes they do need just that, but it’s also important to encourage them to create their new home at school. when I brought my sophomore d to her college two days ago she happily said, I feel like I’m home.</p>
At the same time, I was treated like a guest because my family had its own routine built in.</p>