<p>So, our bright kids somehow managed to make their way through the application process and are now away at school. Throughout HS they managed to select and schedule their own classes, work part-time jobs, participate in sports and EC’s without our help. We send them away secure in the knowledge that they are on their way to independence and becoming adults. </p>
<p>So, has anyone else had unexpected questions from their kids??? Questions that just made you shake your head and wonder how they will survive?</p>
<p>Here are some of ours…</p>
<li><p>THis summer I told him to deposit his graduation checks (he’s always had direct deposit for work)<br>
Question “How do I make a deposit?”</p></li>
<li><p>THe day after we left him at school I got a phone call. After about 3 minutes of “chatting”
Question “Do you remember my password” (I’m guessing this is common)</p></li>
<li><p>He goes to Tulane and he had to evacuate. His flight included a connection in Chicago. I got a call just after he landed.
QUestion “What do I do now?” (He is not a novice flyer…and has actually travelled on non-stop flights to visit his grandparents in florida numerous times on his own)</p></li>
<li><p>He lands in Laguardia aiport. He’s been told his father will pick him up outside.
Question “How do I get my bag??” My Response “Go to baggage Claim”<br>
His Response “I’m here but where is my bag?” My response “How do you expect me to know - you are the one there.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, I’d be interested in hearing your stories about how the little things in life still need to be learned.</p>
<p>Uh, I’ve been asked some questions by my husband that make me shake my head–like the time he called me long-distance when I was visiting my sister to ask how to reheat something in the microwave.</p>
<p>My D’s teacher answered her phone once during class, because the only calls she gets during school hours are family emergencies … so when it rang, she thought it was an emergency. It was her D, who is in grad school in NYC, asking if a queen comforter will fit a king bed.</p>
<p>Even my D, who has had her own moments, didn’t quite think that was an “emergency.”</p>
<p>Ha! Don’t get me started on the silly spouse questions!!!</p>
<p>D2 let her checks from her summer job pile up because she didn’t know how to deposit them. I didn’t let her sign up for direct deposit to force her to do it on her own. There was drama but she finally did it!</p>
<p>D1 has been calling with lots of cooking questions this fall. Scary! Her last one was how to grill brats without a grill. Explained what a broiler was. She had no clue there was that capability in the oven.</p>
<p>S called me 2 nights ago (after he’d been at college for a week), asking me what the combination to his campus mailbox was! We were in the dorm with him for all of 4-5 hours. </p>
<p>Asked him if it was on the label of the important document envelope he received when he got his key. No. I dug through stuff I had brought him and found a move-in day instruction sheet that said they would receive combinations when they turned in their room verification form. Didn’t he get it then? No. So I told him to ask at the dorm desk which was still open. Didn’t hear back, so I assume he got it.</p>
<p>D and I carefully chose and set up her new bank accounts before she left for college; made sure her debit card worked, then she closed out her other account and put the $8,000 + check in the new account. After TWO $25.00 overdraft fees on her debit card: “What happened to all the money I put in the account before we left?” Me: “I don’t know; Do you have the Deposit slip?” D: “Am I supposed to keep that? I though once it was in writing, I didn’t need it!” Me: 2 nights no sleep, six hours of legwork - Found the money - Pshew!!</p>
<p>My SIL’s oldest child (a male) is in college this year as a freshman. Several laundry questions already. SIL’s comment before he left was that once there was no toilet paper on the roller in the suite bathroom, he’d have to come home since he’d be without a clue what to do to replace it. </p>
<p>A woman who works out at the same trainer gym as I related that her freshman son (last year) seemed to totally melt down and become essentially helpless for the first three weeks. So many calls that she stopped answering them and let them go to voicemail.</p>
<p>She said that his two roomies were from boarding schools and were light years ahead of her son in figuring things out without asking their parents.</p>
<p>My racketball partner has two nieces (his sister’s kids). One calls 3-5 a DAY as a Junior in college to get her mom or dad to handle things for her. Her younger sister (a college freshman) NEVER calls for “how to’s” and to be rescued. </p>
<p>I asked my S (now a college soph) how he figured out stuff his freshman year. He said sometimes he just watched how others did it. Sometimes he asked around in the dorm. And, if it involved something off campus he’d google it or otherwise search out “how to’s” online.</p>
<p>I asked my S this summer if he had thought about having a queen-sized bed in his dorm rather than the provided twin XL. He’s in a single this year and there is ample room for one. We discussed ways to use the existing bedframe to hold a platform that would allow for a queen mattress. He’d never done any carpentry so I figured he’d be calling me once he got down to how to assemble what we designed. </p>
<p>Nah, he took the tool kit he had received as a graduation gift and figured it out. I think that once something is a priority (or otherwise important) to the student, he or she will figure it out on their own.</p>
<p>I try not to forget that my Son has shown me repeatedly how to program the remotes and other “technical” things, but I still have to call him for a refresher course because I am clueless. It seems to be human nature. Food processors and microwaves were beyond my Mom (born in 1915).</p>
<p>D called after second week freshman year. Did I know on what street her bank was located? She is not in that big of a town. Told her to find someone, stop them and ask. She found it. ;)</p>
<p>Call #1: “I lost my i.d.; what do I do?” (Maybe ask someone there?)</p>
<p>Call #2: “I hooked up a printer to my computer and it says the document is printing, but it’s not printing to this printer. Is it printing at home?” (100+ miles away)</p>
<p>Call #3: “Has the (xyz) tee-shirt been washed often enough to put in with jeans?” D was taught to do laundry as a household chore, and the tee-shirt was 2 years old.</p>
<p>I’d sigh, but these are almost the ONLY communications we have gotten in her first 10 days at school, so I’m almost to the point of welcoming them.</p>
<p>D got a lofty scholarship, and being the little Ms. Scrooge she is, tucked the money away into the savings part of her account. Then, completely oblivious that money does not float freely between the two parts of her account, she used her check card to buy a smoothie. The bank did move the $5 from her savings into checking to cover the cost of the treat, and charged her $5 fee for doing that. D was upset, but it was a good lesson in banking.
Last summer, I sent her to a three-week class/camp in a far away state, and she learned to handle plane changes, lost luggage, coin-operated laundry, etc. I hope she remembers the lessons :).</p>
<p>Call #2: “I hooked up a printer to my computer and it says the document is printing, but it’s not printing to this printer. Is it printing at home?” (100+ miles away)</p>
<p>Thank you mystery2me for my CC Laff o’ the Day. :D</p>
<p>I suspect that calling home with ‘drama’ is just reflexive for my S. I’m trying to change his and my behavior by reminding him of all the resources on his campus. Mostly, I think he wants to vent a bit because its all new and it gets so overwhelming, he’s a bit homesick and wants reassurance that we are there, etc…So far, he has figured it out for himself, either by talking himself through the steps while I’m on the lines, or finding someone who can. It’s reassuring to see that happening and I look forward to the day when he calls primarily to say ‘hi’ and tell us about challenges surmounted. (I have reminded him that I will soon be old and (even more) useless and start calling him with all my crises, so he’d better get ready.)</p>
<p>I like the 24 hr rule propounded elsewhere on CC: that you don’t worry until 24 hrs have passed during, which time your kid either will have fixed it or it will have ceased to be an emergency. We were also advised by the resident life folks to ask three questions:</p>
<p>1) How do you feel? (so they can vent)
2) What are you going to do? (so they own it)
3) Who can help you? (identify the resources and start the constructive problem solving)</p>
<p>We didn’t get many “help!” calls from S. This is what we got, through the kindness of strangers:</p>
<p>“This phone was found in the student center. We pushed the Home button. Do you know who it belongs to?”</p>
<p>“I found this wallet in Port Authority. Is this the the right phone number for Student X, whose license is in it? If so, I’m coming to your town; I;ll drop it off [all money and credentials intact.].”</p>
<p>“I found this license…”</p>
<p>“I found this phone [another time…}”</p>
<p>etc, etc. Angels must watch over him–he never knows what he’s missing, much less has a clue how to get it back again. It just finds him.</p>
<p>My S called after his wallet (with everything in it) & cell phone were stolen after he left it “just for a minute” on the bench at the school gym & went to the bathroom. <ugh> He said it lowered his faith in humankind a bit. D shrugged her shoulders (she’s usually the one losing things). He wanted to know what to do & then was unhappy at the long list of things I gave him, with #1 being contacting campus security and/or the police, #2 contacting the credit services to place theft alert on his record. </ugh></p>
<p>He has called from time to time about his passwords as well. Once in a while, I even know them.</p>
<p>I sent husband and son on a college road trip, because I had to take our daughter to a dance competition a day later.</p>
<p>Call from Baylor: “The faculty member can’t meet with us at 9, but he can meet with us at 1. Can we do that?” </p>
<p>Call later that night from San Antonio: “We took a wrong turn and can’t find our hotel.”</p>
<p>Once DD and I left for our trip, the calls stopped and they managed to visit three other schools and get home safely all by themselves.</p>
<p>Of course, I did get a call about picking up the younger daughter at the airport (she had gone to visit grandparents): “Did daughter check her luggage? Where am I meeting her?”</p>
<p>D mentioned in a phone call that she cooked a lovely chicken dish, but it tasted a little garlicy, so she would cut down on the fresh garlic next time she made the dish.</p>
<p>The recipe called for 2 cloves of garlic–she mistakenly thought a bulb of garlic was a clove!</p>
<p>The garlic story reminds me of when our oldest son (awhile back) was making a recipe that called for chick peas. He didn’t know what those were, but reasoned that since chicks were baby chickens, chick peas must be baby peas (the green kind). It didn’t destroy the dish but not exactly the same thing.</p>
<p>My daughter who loves mashed potatoes after her first attempt to make them
“they were really stodgy and dry”
me “heat the milk up before you add it”
her “I was supposed to add milk?”</p>