728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › General › Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays

Handling Your College Freshman's Visits Home

By Kelly Burgess

Pages:  1  2  3  

My daughter will be coming home for her first college visit this holiday season. I had been assuming that we would all just pick up where it left off, but I've since discovered I may be a little na. Instead, I may be facing a mound of new laundry and a new person who wants the types of freedoms she's been enjoying in the dorm. While that's not entirely acceptable here, this also may not be the time to insist that she strictly follow traditional family routine. Instead, say experts, a little compromise, a little planning ahead and a little patience will make for a smooth transition between college and home.

Pushing Limits
When Kathy Ensign's* daughter, Stephanie, 19, came home for her first weekend visit from college, the battle was joined the very first day. "I had told her to wait for me until I got home from work because I wanted to talk to her and spend some time with her," says Ensign, of Farmington, Pa. "When I got home, she had left a note that she was going somewhere with a boy she'd known in high school. She didn't get home until 1 a.m. I was worried sick and ready to lock her up." When confronted, Stephanie was aghast at the idea that she still had to honor the midnight curfew that had been in effect before she left. After all, she pointed out, at college it didn't matter what time she came in.

Randall Flanery, Ph.D., director of child and adolescent services at Saint Louis University, says it's common to have this kind of conflict when a child first returns from college. "College-age children return home with the attitude that they have been making their own decisions and now that they're home, they expect to continue," he says. "On the other hand, parents tend to see the few months they've been at college as merely a brief interruption in the usual household routine."

While the teen may think that they are capable of making their own decisions, to the parent it may seem like they're disrupting the household. This is particularly understandable in cases where the decisions don't appear to relate to true maturity, but tend to be rather self-centered. Some examples of this behavior include staying out late, sleeping much of the day away, leaving messes for the parents to clean up or having noisy friends over until the wee hours. In cases like this, parents may feel as if the child is treating the home like a motel. When there are younger children in the household who are still going about their school routines, this can be even more stressful.

Pages:  1  2  3  


Want to see more?