<p>You helped your new freshman S/D unpack in his/her new dorm. Maybe you met roommate's parents. Perhaps you stayed for a parents orientation, or maybe not.</p>
<p>And now it's time to go. Parents --- you said goodbye to your freshman S/D. What was it like? Did you cry? Did they? Did you do a fist bump?</p>
<p>With my eldest, I said goodbye with a hug, drove to an airport hotel, spent the night, flew across the country, all while keeping it together. Then, talking to a young mother at the luggage turnstile, when she said she couldn’t wait to get home as it was the first time she’d left her children, I said “Oh, you think that’s bad, I just left my daughter…sob, sob, sob…” She had to hug me and pat my back, telling me I’d be okay.</p>
<p>Middle child, I think we were better although it broke our hearts.</p>
<p>When we left the youngest, we were driving home. About half way back, my husband called her and said “Okay, that was long enough, come home now.”</p>
<p>Ah, Isle of Lucy, many of us here are still trying to process high school graduation and everything that goes along with that (see threads about High School Class of 2009 and College Class of 2013).</p>
<p>I can’t even think about saying goodbye in August yet, since I’m stockpiling tissues for graduation, which is **in two weeks! **</p>
<p>She cried, I cried when we said good-bye. She gave us a present before we left, but was told not to open until we got in the car. It was a photo book of all family vacations we have taken “The Best of Times.” I cried all the way home - 3.5 hours, even H was silent, didn’t try to say anything to comfort me because it would have been pointless.</p>
<p>For a few weeks, every time I missed here I would go sit in her room, fell asleep in her bed a few times. The first time she came home, H made every single dish she liked the first night.</p>
<p>the night before we left our son on his campus, he held my hand and admitted he was a bit nervous. this was a month before school began, but he was nervous about the team camp ahead of him–and nervous about school after that.</p>
<p>the following day, all the parents met with their sons and had an orientation with all the coaches and academic personnel. then we were dismissed. it was short and quick and that was a good choice that the “powers that be” had made. </p>
<p>however, right outside the hall, the droves of moms and dads leaving was quite painful. most were too wrapped up in their own sadness, excitement, fear and joy to speak…we all made for a bee-line to our cars. i had a hard, hard time flying back cross-country and driving from the airport. i truly dreaded going home to an empty home–sometimes i still do! later that fall when we met up again, we were all laughing at how quickly we left–we were just all too shook up to speak calmly to anyone!</p>
<p>Last summer s had his tour/info session/interview at the college he is ending up attending around the same time that the entering class was moving in before their their pre-orientation trips (which was about 50% of the freshmen). We witnessed some family dramas and tears as we walked around the campus the day before his scheduled events. </p>
<p>It is such a difficult time. My first son didn’t go that far away to college, but this son will be farther away. I will be writing a letter to him for high school graduation day, and I will also write a letter that I will leave in his dorm room for him to read after we’ve left.</p>
<p>I cried on the way home with oldest mostly cause she had started crying after convocation because she was so overwhelmed & intimidated and I was worried she would have a hard time. ( she rose to the occasion)</p>
<p>I don’t know if I will cry with my youngest- She now is in the UK, after leaving for India in February and if I can make it through that, I think dropping her off eighty miles away will be a piece of cake.
( but I have been thinking about going to see UP, as a good cry is long overdue)</p>
<p>I was surprised that it wasn’t as hard or weepy as I thought it might be. I helped my son move into his freshman dorm late last August at a school 3000 miles and three plane trips from home. He and I were (are) very close and had spent tons of time together because of sports, homeschooling, etc. But there he was swept up in the excitement of it all, meeting new friends, attending meetings and orientation activities. I went to the parent activities, and while I understand the impulse of some institutions to rush the parents out, I’m glad his college didn’t do that. There was about a day-and-a-half of parent activities, and for people like me who made a 13 hour, very expensive trip out there for the occasion, it was nice to be able spend some time on campus, talk to other parents, etc. I had a couple meals with my kid and we ran out to do a little shopping, picking up things we’d forgotten. It was fun, actually.</p>
<p>When I actually said goodbye it was a little sad, of course, but I was so happy with all the opportunities and the new friends waiting for him. Mostly, it was when I got on the plane home that was weird. Not sad, exactly, but STRANGE because it felt like leaving your little kid in the shopping cart and walking out of the store. Like here he was 3000 miles from home, and I was… leaving??? It was more a kind of automatic, biological response than an emotional one. It just felt really odd.</p>
<p>Then I got used to it. He was pretty good about staying in touch over the year --most of the time anyway-- he was really happy and busy. And the year went by quickly and now he’s home for the summer and that’s really nice. He’s so far away that we only get to see him at Christmas and summers.</p>
<p>This September I’ll move my daughter (and youngest of my two) into her dorm room, and that will be another adventure, but I think having been through it before will make it see less strange to leave her. Also she’ll be just a 3 hour drive away, which feels like not far away at all. We’ll get to see her more often. (I just hope she’ll be as good about staying in touch, but given her personality I’m not optimistic!)</p>
<p>My children’s college has a great ritual – first, a long convocation, filled with high-falutin’, subtantive speeches, music, and some humor. That ends with a huge procession in which students and parents walk together, led by a corps of bagpipes and the university standards, from the chapel, through the campus for several blocks, to some formal gates at the entrance to their main quad. There, the new students pass through the gates – with upperclassmen lining the walk on the other side, clapping and hooting and generally cheering them on – while the parents have to turn aside. Of course, there are lots of hugs, quick and lingering, but there is sort of an hydraulic pressure that forces the students through the gates, and it’s so enticing on the other side with the older students cheering, that you really can’t drag it out.</p>
<p>The kids go on to several hours of scheduled activities. The parents go to a lovely reception with the President and Dean, at which everyone is so depressed they can barely speak.</p>
<p>Of course I cried. Almost everyone does. Both times (but harder with my first child). They were really ready to go through the gates, though.</p>
<p>Something about that sounds a little creepy to me, and kind of Big Brother… but that’s just me. Always chafing at the imposition of institutional order. ;)</p>
<p>JHS, That sounds lovely. </p>
<p>I really cannot imagine what it will actually be like…I already feel such a mix of emotions and he just became a high school Senior!</p>
<p>H and I got a little teary-eyed as we drove home, but D was so thrilled to be at college, and we were so thrilled for her, that it was much more of a happy experience than a sad one. Plus, we knew we’d be seeing her shortly for Parents’ Weekend, then Thanksgiving break, etc. </p>
<p>Now that she’s a rising senior, spending much less time at home when she’s on break and preparing to be truly on her own, is when the real separation takes place, it seems to me.</p>
<p>I remember when my parents left me. We had finished moving all of my stuff in and had lunch on campus. After wandering around for a little while they said they had to get going in order to make it home before it got too late, so we had hugs around and they left. Apparently mom cried a little on the way home (I’m the youngest), but dad was alright (his fourth time doing this, old news).</p>
<p>Turns out there was a special final dinner for parents and their kids that night. Everyone’s parents were still around, so they went leaving me in the dorm. Alone. :(</p>
<p>DD had a very scheduled drop off day. The idea was to keep the kids busy and get the parents out of there fast! We did all our teary goodbyes at home in the weeks before she left. I tortured myself by reading all of the CC goodbye posts just to inflict some more misery. The actual goodbye was quick. She shuffled me off away from the building so nonone would see us each crying. The she went back into her dorm room and started unpacking. We were flying back to the other side of the country. Best thing we did was plan a stop in Washington DC for the weekend. It softened the blow of going home to the empty house right away and got us out of the normal routine that would have been now without her for a few days. The first two weeks were tough. I cried every day and missed her terribly. But each time she called she seemed so excited and happy and was adjusting so well. I just couldn’t help but feel happy and excited for her. That’s what all these years have been about. Getting them to this point. It’s sad for us but be happy for them. It’s the best 4 years of their life!! It’s tough on the parents but you DO make it!!</p>
<p>I was blindsided by two things: Leaving the house was very hard, though I hadn’t imagined that it would be. At that moment–walking out the door and closing it behind us–I realized that from now on my only child will return here as an adult. The second moment was leaving him at his dorm. I tried really, really hard not to cry until after we left, but just as I hugged him I began to sob in the most pathetic possible way. I made a little joke and jumped into the car. I knew I would shed some tears, but the sobbing just came from nowhere. Then, as we drove east away from his college town, we looked behind us and saw an absolutely stunning midwestern sunset. I knew then that it was okay: a new part of our lives was beginning. I am not a religious person at all, but I felt that his grandparents were all looking down on him, smiling with pride.</p>
<p>I would recommend focusing some on what you’ll do next, after your child leaves. The sadness is normal, but it lasts a few weeks and then life goes on. We’ve all had a good year in our family. We’ve developed comfortable ways of staying in touch during the school year after a period of silence at the beginning (boy, was there a long CC thread on that one). Now I’m happy to have him home for the summer, but I must admit that I miss my new empty nest routines.</p>
<p>I was fine until I came home and walked through the door into a quiet house. Then the wailing and blubbering kicked in.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m going to be a wreck next year when D1 leaves. I’m a blubbering fool reading all of your posts!!</p>
<p>See post #34. 
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/544135-help-oldest-daughter-going-off-college-we-need-support-3.html#post1060806170[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/544135-help-oldest-daughter-going-off-college-we-need-support-3.html#post1060806170</a></p>
<p>For some reason I was OK leaving S1 – I guess I had mentally prepared for that moment. However, pulling into the driveway after the five-hour drive home was hard – the realization he he wasn’t going to be there suddenly hit. (Even though the house was by no means empty – two kids to go!). </p>
<pre><code>Later that day, I suddenly burst into tears in the grocery store when I ran into an acquaintance whose son, a year older, goes to the same school. She made the mistake, in trying to make me feel good, of telling me her son loves it so much at the school that he never wants to come home! Big mistake!!
</code></pre>
<p>I cried when I left D1 on campus. I left her at a reception with her new friends, and walked across campus to my car, sniffling into a kleenex. Then I almost got smacked by a big truck as I crossed the busy street that bisects the campus, which sobered me up in a hurry. :eek: I was okay after that. :)</p>