<p>... especially want to spend time with you or re-live the earlier times.</p>
<p>Plus - they've now become nocturnal!</p>
<p>This is true. Mine didn't even come home the first Thanksgiving, but spent it with an aunt in the east instead. Then, winter break she spent a lot of time with friends, a little with family, and said at the airport that she was very glad to be going back. (This is good, I guess, but it didn't feel good.)
The second year, however, was a lot better! She wanted to come home at Thanksgiving and spent a lot more time with family during winter break. I think by the end of soph year, the transition has been made, and kids feel a lot more secure with their new place in the family. They don't have to prove their independence, and parents have adjusted to it as well.</p>
<p>I concur with ASAP. </p>
<p>We have made an effort to be very welcoming to our sons' friends, and every time S1 is home we host a dinner for the whole crowd. That has helped immensely.</p>
<p>Me too. Our daughter looks forward to coming home, and facing up to the obvious changes while embracing old traditions has worked out well.</p>
<p>My son is bringing home his friend from CA, so I'm already prepared for the lack of "just family" togetherness. He also keeps saying that he can't wait to see his friends, and then adds a dutiful post script that he also wants to see us. So, I have no illusions. But, from my experience with my (older) daughter, I think its true that once they feel more secure with their independence, the desire to spend time with family becomes more mutual.</p>
<p>I fully expect mine will primarily sleep and eat while home. He told me he is anxious to cook. He also said he has two papers to write.</p>
<p>For the most part, I think girls are much more attached to home and family than boys. My D calls home twice a day on average, just to touch base and tell us about her day, and while she does seek out the company of her high school friends over school breaks, she spends a lot of time reconnecting with family. I don't, somehow, expect my son to be so home drawn once he gets a taste of the freedom college has to offer. </p>
<p>My Mom, and my Dad's mother also, use to be fond of saying, "A son is a son 'til he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life". This apparently meant that daughters are more emotionally attached to their parents throughout their lives than sons, given the seeming fact that they tend to stay in touch more, and often perform as the primary caregivers of elderly parents more often than boys. Most males in my family and extended family seem to pretty much exemplify this. My brother, for instance, will go for months at a time without showing any inclination to call my parents. My Mom will often call and leave numberous messages before hearing back from my brother. My sister and I, on the other hand, call home at least once a week and visit several times per year. We're all lucky to see my baby brother around Christmas or Thanksgiving. I do not hold my sister-in-law responsible for this. I really suspect its a "male thing".</p>
<p>"My D calls home twice a day on average,"
wow
while mine isn't a freshman- I am lucky if I get a hold of her for 5 minutes on the weekends.
I am used to it by now however- not happy about it- but resigned
especially after when she was a freshman and up for Thanksgiving- only been at college for a few months- but referred to it as "going back home"
I do agree that in general women seem to feel more comfortable with phone conversation. I have tried to get my husband to call his parents for a year- ( they live in town)- they keep calling here- but hang up when I answer and don't usually leave a message ( I *69 them)- I have no idea why he has gone from talking to them every couple weeks- to every couple months to not at all- but nothing I say is going to make him pick up the phone.</p>
<p>Do you let your kids be? Or force them to spend time with the family. What a dilemma</p>
<p>We may talk to D only once every 7-10 days but e-mail occasionally fills in the gaps. Otoh, she is looking forward to a family reunion next summer and also a just-the-three-of-us mini-vacation before going off to her expected internship.</p>
<p>Since my boys grew up in Atlanta, and we don't live there anymore, we don't have the conflict with friends when they come here. Last spring we met for a few weeks in Atlanta, and the boys were very interested in spending time with friends, but were also careful to ask us for our schedule first, and to see if we would mind. We tried to do our family things during the day so they would have their evenings free for friends.</p>
<p>However, every time we give them the choice of having Christmas or summer with relatives in Atlanta, or here with us, they always chose us, which we pretend is because they want to see us, and not because they want to go to Germany.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Plus - they've now become nocturnal!
[/quote]
digmedia, this is my enduring recollection of D#1's Thanksgiving return during her freshman year. She'd always been something of a night owl, but somehow turned into a vampire in her first two months at school. During Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, we wouldn't see her until late afternoon, then be aware of her on the computer, watching TV, or cooking all night long. (It's disconcerting to smell tacos being made at 3 AM.) We had several, um, discussions about the need to be considerate of other family members, but it took a year for her inner clock to regulate itself.</p>
<p>D#2's school has a week-long Thanksgiving break, for which I'm grateful. It means she doesn't have to do the airport thing the day before Thanksgiving. I hope it also means that she'll have time for sleep, friends, AND family.</p>
<p>The pull of friends is definitely strongest freshman year. It seems to level off once they have a year at school under their belts. </p>
<p>My kids call home pretty often, S1(jr) about 1-2x/wk, S2(fr) almost everyday, but I know Thanksgiving break will be spent mostly with friends. What I do is say that I am going to make a special dinner with all their favorites and ask them which night would be best. It lets them know that it IS going to happen but gives them the freedom to choose when. It works out pretty well and everyone looks forward to it.</p>
<p>We too have be awakened by the aroma of onions frying at 3 AM!</p>
<p>I had to laugh when the parent in the article mentioned the 12midnite curfew. What was she thinking!!!</p>
<p>We did away with curfews on the weekend toward the end of our DS's junior year and it was not unusual for him to roll in past 4am. We merely needed to know where he was and know the family there.</p>
<p>I think this accomplished several things. It indicated our trust in him and approval of his friends. It preped him for the "freedom" he would encounter in college with the result being that it was no big deal and not a thing to overdo. I believe it helped him to avoid hanging out late at nite during the week when the focus was on academics.</p>
<p>We are leaving the country over Thanksgiving and S in his first year of college will be left behind. He will spend it with family friends. We will miss him, but he will be home on Dec 10. We have been very close while he is at college, IM, Video iChat, email, and cell phones have made us all feel connected to one another. As a result, whatever he wants to do on his break, is fine with us.</p>
<p>Having gone through this with S, we're pretty much prepared for D. S did learn the hard way that he had to leave us a message on the answering machine (we don't hear it at night) if he was going to spend the night at a buddy's house. The first time he didn't, we called him on his cell phone at 6 a.m. to make sure he was okay!</p>
<p>Frazzled, my D has always been a night owl (even more than I am) but college has exacerbated the tendency. The number of times she calls us at 10:30 or 11:00pm our time...and she's three hours later.... This semester she has a great schedule for her: no classes before 11:00am.</p>
<p>When I think of the number of 8am Calculus classes I had.... Bleah.</p>
<p>DS called last night at 11:45pm. For any HS or college kids reading this, that's late for old people! I always assume that any call after 10:00 pm is bad news, but in this case he was just returning my call from earlier in the day. Anyway, the reason I mention it is that he said he'd probably work on some math later -- meaning last night after midnight! I know his sleep habits will drive me a little crazy when he's home for Thanksgiving, but I'm sure I'll manage to enjoy him anyway. He's bringing a friend from college, so I'm sure they'll both go to bed about an hour before we get up.</p>
<p>I actually have a high school senior who is up all night at least half of the week. Very noctural. DH and I have finally trained him to be quiet; I thought this would drive me crazy at first, but now I think it is just preparation for vacations with college students!</p>