<p>College students coming home from for the summer can be a HUGE adjustment for everyone involved. </p>
<p>In our house, I feel silly asking, "What time will you be home?" knowing that D has had complete freedom at school. Yet, where we live, it's good to know when to expect someone walking alone at night, just in case. Plus, it's only considerate. How much food shall I buy? Who will be here for dinner? It's a little awkward!</p>
<p>Do you have stories to tell? Advice for setting reasonable limits? I'd love to hear them...</p>
<p>No college kids home yet. School isn’t over for one and the other is living at school and doing an internship. Still, we’re not exactly empty nesters. My oldest lives with us and we always make him dinner, although when he eats it is quite variable. We never hestitate about calling him to ask what his timing is and he’s considerate about coming home at a reasonable hour.</p>
<p>When the other two do come home, I try to be quite flexible about who’s eating with us and make sure I have plenty for guests. More importantly, I also try to have lots of favorite snacks and fruit around. Those always disappear by morning. </p>
<p>For years, my DH had to ask the kids to stay quiet or go home by 1:00am, since he was the only one who had work the next day, but that has changed now that the kids are older.</p>
<p>I try to figure out what nights in the upcoming week my husband and I will both be home to have dinner, and then ask the kids to be there, as well if they have not already committed to something. That gives us 2 or 3 “family dinners” together each week.</p>
<p>I also ask that they come up to our room and say goodnight no matter how late they get in, just like when they were in high school. This does save me that terror of waking up in the wee hours wondering who made it home safely, and going downstairs for a bedcheck. (I’d have trouble getting back to sleep after that journey, but not from a quick goodnight said from my own bed.) Gives me a chance to eyeball them, too, and sniff for the tell-tale breath mint odor, if you know what I mean. </p>
<p>Kids are still expected to keep their rooms reasonably tidy, help with chores, just like in high school. And stay busy after 1 week of lounging around and catching up with friends. Job, volunteer positions whatever. Just no lolling around.</p>
<p>Oldest DD lives with us while she finishes her student teaching and grad school. She spends every weekend with her boyfriend, who lives about 90 minutes away. Youngest has been home for about 3 weeks. Biggest problem we have is she is a vegetarian and the rest of us are not. I try to make one or two vegetarian meals a week, on nights when I know she isn’t working. My issue is when she decides to go out with friends and isn’t home for supper on those nights. I know she’ll eat leftovers when she gets home, or take them to work the next day, but meanwhile the rest of us are eating stuff we wouldn’t normally choose. Oh well, I’m trying new recipes and they aren’t bad. No problem with anything else.</p>
<p>Well, I had to start cooking better (healthier) food. D1 has some stomache issues and we all eat better when she’s home. She started a summer class today. Good thing because her week “off” left her bored out of her mind. With d1 having an 8:00 class daily, the only one I have to nag about when she’s coming home is d2! D1 starts her jobs next week. Adds another summer class in early June. Then it won’t matter that she’s home, I’ll never see her anyway.</p>
<p>Mine were rarely home summers. They both were staff at a residential camp on an island in puget sound. However when they were home, i would ask them to either call by 10pm. Or be home by 11pm. They were pretty good about it.</p>
<p>Food- they were just happy they had more selection than at camp. We tried to have dinner at roughly same time, if they were home they ate with us, if they werent they didnt, but there would always be extra.</p>
<p>I asked them to warn me when they brought friends home & sometimes they remembered. :)</p>
<p>When D came home for her first summer, we had to have a meeting of the minds about curfew in particular. We needed to accept that she wasn’t really subject to “curfew” any more, and that we had to trust her a little more than we were comfortable with. She needed to accept that when she’s under our roof, she’s not a free agent and owes us some consideration. </p>
<p>For our family, this plan works: When she leaves in the evening, she lets us know approximately when she’ll be home. If her plans change, she texts us. We wait until about 4 a.m before we put out an APB. YMMV</p>
<p>We had the “three adults, one roof, common courtesy” chat last night. Had to explain that it was not the “parental rule chat” but rather than there are certain expectations of adults living together and sharing meals. Like answering the phone to make a dinner plan.</p>
<p>On the bright side, my son got an internship offer yesterday that apparently is going to pay his commuting expenses and some money – and be a really great opportunity. It’s the first job he’s had that he got all on his own and will not be subsidized entirely by mom and dad!</p>
<p>Absolutely no problems with daughter at home - she’s looking for work and self-studying for a fall class and doing chores around the house. Our son is gone so things are overall a lot quieter. Food bills are lower but he’s nice to have around when going to work out or for physical lifting stuff.</p>
<p>My S has been home the full month of May. With his starting a nine week internship next week, he has been getting as much quality couch time as humanly possible (although he does baseball umpiring about 4 nights a week). I think a month home, two months away at an internship and then about 3 weeks home at the end of the summer works out really well.</p>
<p>My son has been home since Saturday. So far, so good. He started his part time job on Monday and his internship starts on Friday, so he won’t be home much at all. I have asked him to do a few things - call if he is not going to be home for dinner, call, not text, if he is going to out after midnight, hang his car keys on the key holder so I don’t have to search for them or wake him up if I need to move his car, and to not leave wet towels on his floor.</p>
<p>We went through the difficulties with our high school sophomore home from her boarding school and informing us that since she didn’t really live with us any more, she wasn’t subject to our rules. Once we worked through that, things ran pretty smoothly - and now that she’s a rising freshman, I don’t anticipate too many problems. We have found that when we treat her like an adult, we get mostly adult-type behavior in return. YMMV.</p>