<p>Maybe those parents who haven't taught their graduating HS seniors some basic life skills should let them fend for themselves (with some supervision) during the month of July, i.e.</p>
<ul>
<li>do their own laundry and ironing</li>
<li>cook for themselves or at least learn how NOT to blow-up the microwave</li>
<li>handle a checkbook, credit/debit card, travelers checks, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>and anything else parents and children take for granted about living at home. </p>
<p>I don't remember going away to college being such a tramatic experience for me back in the stone ages (a freshman going away to Detroit from California back in the 70's), because, being from a single parent family, I HAD TO KNOW how to wash clothes, vacuum, basic cook and pay bills, etc. when I was only in 5th-6th grade. There was no hand-holding from mom or dad back then. </p>
<p>When it was time for me to go away to college, I had to figure on my own how to ship my footlocker to Detroit, pick it up from the Greyhound station in Detroit (VERY IMPORTANT: find a dorm "friend" with a car...a friend with transportation comes in handy!), how to purchase my own airline ticket, get from home to the airport, from SFO to DWF and from DFW to college on my own, etc.</p>
<p>Of course, I would never let a child do in 2005 what I did back in 1970-71, because the world is just too crazy now! I still haven't told my family how I took off by myself to Canada during spring break, hitchhiking from Boston to Detroit just for the "adventure," staying overnight with total strangers in Cambridge and Amherst, MA, that I met on the street on near a freeway onramp, getting stuck on the turnpike near Sandusky, OH, etc.</p>
<p>Parents, on second thought, don't let your children go away to college...never let them out of your sight !!!</p>