What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Your College Kid Home for Christmas)
Congratulations. You survived the first semester of college! You made it through the first two weeks of sitting in your son’s empty bedroom with a box of tissues, wondering how the time flew by so quickly and how that little boy you used to rock to sleep in this room grew up and moved into a dorm three states away. Pat yourself on the back for not being the stalker parent who calls three times a day and instead settling for creeping on his Facebook page and watching for Twitter updates! You’ve been marking off the days on the calendar until Christmas break, planning all sorts of family activities—a whole month of family togetherness! It’s going to be just like old times!
Before you carve those plans in stone, take a few minutes to read through some of the common mistakes parents of college students make and consider how you might avoid them:
Mistake #1 — Assuming he will want to do….anything…
Most likely your son spent the last two weeks in a sleepless blur, sustained by coffee, energy drinks, and cold pizza. If he’s a decent, conscientious student he hunkered down in the library or his dorm room writing papers and studying for finals until all hours of the night.
On top of that, he attended Christmas parties and tied up loose ends with his extracurricular activities and athletic commitments and squeezed in some last -minute quality time with his new “family” at school. When he arrives home with his duffel bag full of rancid laundry, don’t be surprised if he shows up on the verge of a complete crash or even a meltdown. He may be an emotional wreck from all the pent-up stress he’s been experiencing or he may simply be dog-tired and ready to sleep for three days straight. As a parent, if you can anticipate this possibility and allow some time for your student to unwind and recharge, everyone will be happier and the holidays will be much more pleasant. Manage your expectations and be sensitive to his feelings and energy level. If you expect your child to walk in the door and immediately jump into the flurry of family activities, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment and adding to the family stress level during the holidays. It’s best to maintain a flexible schedule, at least for the first few days of Christmas break.
Mistake #2 — Expecting pre-college rules to apply…
Prior to starting college in the fall, your son lived under your roof, by your rules. The minute you dropped him off at the dorm, everything changed. He arrived in a world where he made most of his own decisions about everything from how late to stay out (or even whether to come home at all), to whether to show up for class, to what to eat for lunch. If he wanted to survive on a diet of nothing but croutons and Dr. Pepper, no one would stop him. But in your mind, he’s still the same kid you dropped off in August; he still needs rules and your guidance to make good decisions. This is a recipe for conflict and it’s best to head it off at the pass.
After he sleeps off the exhaustion of finals week, you may want to initiate a conversation that includes a re-negotiation of the house rules. As the parents (and the owners of the proverbial roof over his head), you still maintain the right to say what goes on in your home. You most likely still support your child financially, and even if you’re not directly paying for school, you probably still pay for things like car and medical insurance, living expenses, and spending money—not to mention letting him share space in your home over Christmas break. But just because you have the right to impose rules doesn’t mean that it is wise to do so.
In our family, although we never felt the need for a curfew, we did ask our kids to call home if they expected to be out past 11:00. Our older son doesn’t mind following this same guideline when he come home for break. Because we enjoy a good relationship and open communication, he understands that rather than his parents imposing a rule on him, he chooses to call as a way to be considerate of our feelings. Ideally, your son or daughter knows and respects your family’s values and, with good communication during the first few days of Christmas break, you can avoid conflicts about rules and enjoy your time together. Parenting involves a gradual process of teaching responsibility and letting go. Discuss expectations and guidelines in a mature and “adult” manner that reflects the changing nature of your relationship while at the same time respecting your home and your family values.
Mistake #3 — Expecting his undivided attention…
While you worked hard to prepare his room, bake his favorite treats, and plan all the fun things you will do together during Christmas break, you may need to face the reality that he has a completely different agenda. He may want to reconnect with high school friends, hang out with his college friends who live in the area, or take a road trip to visit friends in another state.
Although you naturally want to spend every minute with your son, recognize that you’re at a transitional stage in your relationship. He’s just a few years away from living independently and perhaps starting a family of his own. Whether you’re ready for it or not, from now on he will spend the vast majority of his time away from his family. If you’ve done your job right, he will be an independent adult in a few years and won’t be camped out in your basement after graduation. This is the goal, right? Perhaps you can look at these breaks as a trial run for the holidays in the not-so-distant future when you will have to share him with his future spouse and (gulp!) the future in-laws.
Again, it’s best to address this at the outset of the break. Discuss which family events and traditions you consider to be most important and which are non-negotiable and decide together how you will navigate the holiday schedule. You may be willing to sacrifice the family cookie baking day but feel that the Christmas Eve service at church and the family Christmas party are non-negotiable. Be clear about your expectations and be willing to let go of an activity (or two) that isn’t as important to you. Also, at the outset of the holiday season, find out which family traditions he loves and wants to participate in. How will he feel if you cut down the family Christmas tree without him? Would you be willing to postpone it a week or two so he can participate? You may be surprised to find out that the kid who complained about your family traditions every year voices strong objections to being left out of them.
Mistake #4 — Interrogating him about his life at school…
Your instinct will probably be to sit your son down at the kitchen table, ply him with Christmas cookies, and ask him to recount every minute you’ve missed since fall semester commenced. First, go back and read Mistake #1. Some kids will come home and want to talk non-stop for a week. Others may need more time to process the life-altering events of the last few months, so you may need to be patient and wait for the stories to trickle out gradually. I’ve learned to expect both extremes and everything in between and to make the most of the time we have together, knowing that it is fleeting.
Like most freshmen at Hillsdale College, Ryan experienced a brutal first semester (unofficial school motto: “Where your best hasn’t been good enough since 1844″). His first Christmas break, our normally verbose son didn’t want to talk about school. At all. He needed to get away from it and think about other things for a few weeks. As his mother, I found it very difficult to step back and allow him that space — and I admit, I didn’t do a great job of it, causing both of us a lot of unnecessary frustration. Learning to wait for the right time and mood has resulted in wonderful deep, mature conversations with my son when he comes home now. Your son will appreciate your willingness to lecture less and listen more at this point in his life—on his terms. Resist the urge to try to solve every problem. If you did your job right, he’ll ask for your advice when he really needs it. (And contrary to what your finely honed Spidey-Mom sense is telling you, it won’t be for every minor bump in his road.)
Mistake #5 — Expecting him to resume his former role in the family…
When our son left for college, we noticed a sudden “chore void” in the house. For example, our sons took turns cleaning up after dinner. When Ryan left, someone needed to fill his spot in the dinner rotation, along with the rest of his regular chores. The prospect of taking the trash out or feeding the dogs didn’t particularly appeal to me, so we immediately went into negotiations with our younger son, Kyle.
I won’t disclose all the details, but let’s just say that it was only slightly less complicated than the current fiscal cliff negotiations in D.C. and involved a cell phone. The arrangement worked until Ryan arrived home for Christmas break, with Kyle envisioning Ryan resuming his spot in the rotation—sort of an Emeritus Chore Fellow.
Ryan, on the other hand, envisioned coming home and sleeping for 30 days straight and doing nothing more difficult than lifting a forkful of home-cooked food to his lips (and then leaving the fork for someone else to clean up). The disconnect in their visions led to conflicts that our family needed to navigate and negotiate. There will also be issues if kids have to share a bedroom or a bathroom and various other “turf war” issues (is this just a boy thing?). The returning college students live in a world of limbo between being a fully integrated family member (with all its responsibilities) and a house guest, and each family will need to decide how that works within their individual family DNA. If you can anticipate these conflicts and initiate conversations with your kids individually and together, you should be able to come up with reasonable solutions that everyone can live with.
Most of the problems associated with kids coming home from college can be alleviated by parents (and kids) adjusting their expectations and a by a willingness on everyone’s part to be flexible. Our college kids hover in that odd suspended animation between childhood and adulthood. They try to pull in one direction and our natural instinct is to pull them home. Good communication and a balance between freedom and family priorities will help to make Christmas break a pleasant respite from the excitement (and stress) of college life for them and a special time for parents to celebrate and embrace the adults they are becoming.
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More from Paula Bolyard at PJ Lifestyle:
I had two sons and a daughter go to college. Nothing in this article rings true, unless the author did a lousy job of parenting. This sounds like the kids going to college were going to party rather than learn. Incidentally, cramming for tests, finals or otherwise, is and has always been a bad idea. I didn’t, and I believe I successfully taught my children to actually learn, so that last minute memorization isn’t necessary.
I apologize (to him, in particular) if I inadvertently gave the impression that my son is a slacker or is not serious about his education! He is a very hard-working young man who, in addition to five academic classes this semester, worked two part-time jobs to pay for his room and board, volunteered with several organizations, organized two campaign trips (volunteering dozens of hours on several campaigns),and attends church regularly. He was recently elected president of the Hillsdale College Republicans. He is a great kid and we couldn’t be prouder of him.
Also, one doesn’t go to Hillsdale College to “party rather than to learn.” This article will give you some insight into the school’s rigorous academic standards. Only 10 students have graduated with 4.0 GPA’s since 1991. While
Paula- what a great article! And so timely as we were just discussing ALL of this with husband and son. Again, this was a great article. MOST families go through the “changes” and a little guidance or encouragement to navigate these new waters is appreciated. God bless you and your family as you continue on your journey.
Nothing in this article rings true for dear old Bud because once his spawn had escaped out the front door, they never came back home again for a visit or any other reason, and are awaiting his bilious death from a safe distance away to claim their inheritance(s).
Produce your evidence for your slanderous assault!
NanGee was poking fun at someone taking them self entirely too seriously…Lets hope you get a sense of humor for Xmas.
There’s nothing funny about slander. The tired excuse, “It was just a joke!” is just that, a tired excuse for…. pretty much anything.
Well, different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
why invite these little weenies home in the first place then?
Because blood is thicker than puke?
You owe me a new keyboard!
In the words of the immortal philosopher Instapundit, “Heh.”
Funny, I find everything in this article has, in fact, rung true to my experiences with three college students. I write this tongue-in-cheek because of your rude statement about the author’s parenting and holier-than-thou attitude expressed regarding cramming, etc., but more than likely, you did not experience any of this because your children did not attend schools that demand the same rigor. Best not to judge and to keep such supercilious comments left unsaid.
Don’t forget to get a special, disposable toilet seat and some really good disinfectant to handle the STDS they may well have been exposed to at college. The percentage of people that age having been exposed is something like 30% and rising.
Merry Christmas to you too Scrooge. I doubt you have children with that take. Disposable toilet seats, disinfectant…? You do realize generally speaking you don’t catch STD’s off toilet seats. That was really a lame comment.
Apparently someone has no sense of humor and can’t recognize satire when they see it, even if STDs are a real concern. Must be a liberal.
Well, text is a lossy medium.
These stories are familiar. Given where I live, I could hardly not.
By the way, thank all of you parents for taking back your kids for the holidays. My neighborhood is, albeit temporarily, mine again, if only for a few weeks.
Even without cramming, there’s an exhaustion that sets in after the end of the term at a challenging school…. after weeks of running on adrenaline and coffee and using every ounce of mental energy, a lot of students need time to crash and play some mindless video games. At a challenging school, classes alone can take more than 40 hours a week, and once chores like laundry, part time jobs, and a couple of extracurriculars are thrown into the mix, you’re easily looking at 80 hours a week.
Her description certainly matched my college memories, and I never crammed or pulled all nighters, and my idea of a party was “Sitting around drinking coffee while we did homework…”
5 common mistakes parents make…… in words:
1. “You look way skinny”
2. “You look like shit”
3. “Are you trying to be a girl?”
4. “Are you trying to look like a boy?”
5. “They let you into class looking like that?”
For those commenters bickering about what their kids do or don’t like – anyone with a few kids knows – every kid is different and each kid is different at different times. All you can do is be there and try to offer what is needed or may be wanted at the time. Knowing what and when is the Gordian knot for all parents.
I’m dying inside because our sons are terribly bright, we are terribly normal, and if I knew I could send them to a place like Hillsdale…well, Merry Christmas.
We had the great good fortune to send our kids to a high school that put on a seminar for newly weaned parents covering some of the ideas expressed in this article. Otherwise we might not have been prepared for the changes that had occurred in our kids in just 4 months away from home.
Every situation and every child is different, but I think it’s safe to say they all change significantly while away from home and at least semi-independent for the first, extended period of time, and you’d best be prepared for it.
As the parent of two recent grads from college, one now in medical school and one on her way to post grad, I found most of this article pretty familiar. Sounds like your kids are my kids, pretty much.
Now from the parental standpoint, here is what I’ve discovered over six years of them being away at college:
I can’t wait for them to get here (see the one in med school very seldom), and about 48-72 hours later, I’m counting the days to when school starts back up.
Laundry loads increase dramatically. I can literally here the washer moan when the youngest one brings her bags.
I could make twelve rolls of toilet paper last a year. With the wife and two daughters, twelve rolls disappears in less than a week.
The refrigerator magically goes from sparse to stocked.
Dad at some early point is relegated from the big screen back to his bedroom TV.
And memories come flooding back, reminding me I’m glad it’s over but still believe my children far and away my greatest gift and greatest accomplishment, hoping the world can’t corrupt my babies. If I were young again, I would do it again in a NYC second.
I love my wife more.
That made me cry. So sweet.
The author left out the part about helping them lug yet more things back to school. Of course they live on the sixth floor of the dorm. The elevator doesn’t work. Despite tuition that approximates the GDP of a second world country, the maintenance staff isn’t working during the holidays, either.
I miss them, but I get reminded every month when the bill for the PLUS loan arrives.
I wish my parents had been this way. As it is, as soon as I graduated from university, I fled home and my family didn’t hear from me for about a decade.
Time, that horrible beautician, is nonetheless a great healer; so, in the words of the immortal Michael Palin, “I got better.”
*Chuckles*
Well when I was a college guy I fit much of these stories. My younger brothers were similar but not the same but that’s to be expected. We all live different lives after all.
I still have over a decade to worry about this stuff with my daughter, and then more years after that for my son.
I graduated only a few years ago, sparingly coming home from a challenging college and a couple of part time jobs (one being a medic on an ambulance). Shortly after graduating, I commissioned into the Air Force and went away. Just two days ago, I came home for my first holiday with family in nearly four years. Everything written in this article reflects or hits one some form of the truth what I experienced as a college student and now on leave .
I was exhausted. Let us sleep. Or sit. Or walk around – whatever needs to be done. Getting hen-picked for the first 96 hours of our return absolutely sours any mood we may be trying to stabilize at. We understand you’re excited – so are we… but we’re going to throttle it, not firehouse it.
Don’t be offended when we need to get out of the house. We love our families, especially in small doses. This was easier in college, when all my friends found their ways home as well and were just down the street/scross town. Now, with most moved on or busy with their own serious relationships/families/inlaws, it might now be as easy to hear “I just want to get out of the house for a while” over “I’m going to go visit [so and so]” – the same end is being met here, some quiet.
Let us explore the place we grew up in. I had never been to a bar in the town I grew up in until yesterday. I lived in a city with a major college in the area and a very active young-adult crowd that I have never been a part of.
This is a personal one – don’t stuff food in my mouth. I’ve spent four years cooking on my own, eating out where I’ve wanted to, choosing my own diet. I understand that the cookies are good, as well as the chicken, turkey, pies, and everything else you’ve been cooking. Give me a moment to breath between bites and don’t get that hurt look on your face when I say “I’ve had enough for now, thank you.”
I’ll echo exactly what was said earlier – don’t ask for every detail that’s occurred since they were last home. In active duty, I don’t want to have my psyche probed because there are things in there I don’t want to bring up again or share. In college, its because I know you won’t want to hear what I’ve been doing on my weekends. We’ll open up when comfortable -probing violently and hen-pecking doesn’t help that process.
Those are my personal thoughts…
Croutons and Dr. Pepper: the author has met my 19 year old daughter.
Strangely enough, my relationship with her is such that these things didn’t happen. I eased her out of the chore rotation last school year by easing her into helping me care for her 92 yo great grandmother. She’s never had to do that at Christmas though, since ggm’s daughter comes home for the holidays. Her brothers are out of the habit of expecting her to do her share here, and she’s been doing it anyway. Not bad for a college freshman.
I read this nodding my head — my college freshman has been home a week and so much of this is ringing true. While I expected much of this, the experience still has it’s challenges. But as the author points out — it’s the way it should be as we both navigate the transition to his adulthood.
“Like most freshmen at Hillsdale College, Ryan experienced a brutal first semester (unofficial school motto: “Where your best hasn’t been good enough since 1844″).”
That brought back a lot of memories from my first semester at Hillsdale! Best of wishes to Ryan!
I give him three days at La Quinta Hotel near the house. If he wants to come home he accepts our rules…period. If he does not, after three days he can go back to college or find a friend with whom to stay…..renegotiate? He is a son, not an equal.
Just be thankful if they don’t come home sporting dreadlocks, demanding a vegan diet, and trying to convince you that the USA is to blame for all the evil in the world.
This article is spot on. I gave my son a lot of space when he first got home. I let him sleep late and re-adjust to being back in the fold. Besides, I didn’t have a lot of quality time for him when he first came home due to the mountain of laundry I was doing. After a couple days, he started opening up with us about his life at college. It was a wonderful time of sharing. As much as I miss my baby, I am really liking this young man.
Welcome to the “new normal.” Enjoy your time with your son! (I’m beginning to think the need for sleep is a kind of finals jet lag).