If you have a chance to attend a freshman orientation at the college, your child is going to them by all means attend. It is usually a couple days where the new students can visit with their new advisors and guidance counselors, get a schedule set up and familiarized with it, tour the campus and of course meet other newly arrived students. Parents also get to tour the campus, meet the professors and teachers there and in general get an idea of what the school is about.

Whether they are going to be living on campus or in an apartment, students are brain fogged with activity and it is good to have someone with a clear head to check over paperwork and make sure everything is signed properly and that your child understands the contracts and leases they have signed. Then there is the fun of packing up their possessions from home and making the trek to apartment or dorm room. Offer to lend a hand in the process and help them move in, organize and make sure everything is as it should be.

High school Graduation was a milestone, and so is the transition to college life.

Once he or she is at school, resist the urge to call them. Do not be one of those overbearing parents who have to call 15 times a day. Let them call you. They have a lot to adjust to being away from home, have to get familiar with their new surroundings, and start to make friends there. They will call, when they need something. Do not convert their room into the spare bedroom just yet, a lot of college students do not stay the first year and wind up failing for whatever reason. Therefore, they will come back home to roost and think about what is next.

So your college student does not feel forgotten and secluded, send them care packages from home! Edibles that won’t spoil, pictures, and yes, underwear and socks are also a welcome sight in a package! Then they know they have not graduated high school and gone off to exile in a strange land.

Do not forget to take care of you too; even if there are other kids at home, you will still feel a missing presence in the house. Get involved in things to take up the extra time you have after your oldest has already been through college.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Finery, Schools + Colleges. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.