Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us

Empty Nest: Support for the college-dropoff blues

My yoga teacher is a single mom. She dropped her only child off at college a few weeks ago. The daughter is a freshman and this is the first prolonged time away from home. My yoga teacher came back a day after the drop-off with bouyant tales of the move-in, the roommate, the campus. This week she and a student who'd been absent from class for several months--a dad who dropped his child off for freshman week at college two weeks ago--commiserated with each other after class. I was busy rolling up my yoga mat and putting my props away but I overheard talk of the sadness each felt. "We--you and your wife--should get together," my yoga teacher said. "We have to support each other."

There has always been a sadness--mixed with positive excitement--when our kids leave home and the nest is empty. And now, it seems, there's a lot more reaching out for support--or acknowledging that we need support.  Is it different from the days--a generation or more ago--when we dropped our kids off and came home to an empty and eerily silent house? Evidently it is today in that we the parents are not keeping our woes bottled up inside and at home.

A recent Axios newsletter reported the following tidbits about the current state of empty nest adjustment:

Many first-year college students from different states, backgrounds and majors have one thing in common: stressed-out parents struggling with the separation.

Parents are using tech to track their kids, micromanaging orientation week and even having dorm sleepovers.

As to the support side of the equation, Axios reports:

Parents' stress is on display in online forums and Facebook groups, where parents are asking questions and offering emotional support to one another.

On these online groups and forums parents ask about minute-to-minute details of orientation, for advice from other parents for advice on their kids' roommate woes and where to shop for basic toiletries.

The "good news" on this support network: If we're turning to Facebook groups or making dates with friends to talk about our worries and separation issues that may mean we're not bugging our kids. Go Class of 2028!

painting: Renoir, "Oarsmen at Chatou"

Empty Nesting: The college dropoff blues

The college dropoff (freshman year version in particular) is a rite of passage as tearful as sending our firstborn to kindergarten and laden with plenty of meaning. Our kids are transitioning from the cosseted safety of home to the independence of young adult life. We're transitioning from controlling parents to advisory ones. In the moment of that dropoff, it's all about luggage and towels and how to find the dorm.  Once we leave the campus it's all about their new life and ours.

In 2013, Michael Gerson, a writer for the Washington Post who passed away a few years ago, penned the feelings that coursed through him as he anticipated dropping off his son at college. Here's an excerpt but you can tear up through the whole thing here.

An education expert once told me that among the greatest fears of college students is they won’t have a room at home to return to. They want to keep a beachhead in their former life.

But with due respect to my son’s feelings, I have the worse of it. I know something he doesn’t — not quite a secret, but incomprehensible to the young. He is experiencing the adjustments that come with beginnings. His life is starting for real. I have begun the long letting go. Put another way: He has a wonderful future in which my part naturally diminishes. I have no possible future that is better without him close.

There is no use brooding about it. I’m sure my father realized it at a similar moment. And I certainly didn’t notice or empathize. At first, he was a giant who held my hand and filled my sky. Then a middle-aged man who paid my bills. Now, decades after his passing, a much-loved shadow. But I can remember the last time I hugged him in the front hallway of his home, where I always had a room. It is a memory of warmth. I can only hope to leave my son the same.

painting: Lovis Corinth

Social Media Etiquette: Tips for staying in touch with the in-college grandkids

Some of us have grandkids who are away at college. Naturally, we want to stay in touch. We may even expect that contact to be as close and regular as it was when they were youngsters living with their parents. And yet we may be disappointed that our in-college grandkids are a little more distant now. They don't answer every text, email or direct message we send them.  When we don't get a reply we may be disappointed--even frustrated.  And that begs the question: What are the rules of the road here?

One suggestion is to lower expectations: We may want our communications to be back and forth but our grands are making new friends, going to challenging classes, trying out for teams or clubs and, of course, studying and partying hard. Their lives are full and full of new responsibilities. A daily e-chitchat with their grandparent? Maybe it's an additional pressure they don't need right now.

That doesn't mean we have to stop our end of the conversation, but we can take the pressure off them to respond. The least-cliched bit of advice I came across in this regard was this simple suggestion (thank you Grand Magazine here and here): Tack an NNTR onto whatever it is you're sending. It stands for "no need to reply." It lets your grandchild/college student read (and delight) in your message without feeling guilty about not replying. 

That leads to another tip: Let your emails or texts be something amusing, informative or newsie--a funny anecdote, a report on the whereabouts of one of their cousins, a link to research they may find useful for one of their courses.

Last piece of advice for now: You don't want to clog up their accounts or be in touch so often that, much as they love you, they groan to see it's a message from you, again--even though (and maybe especially if)  it's a forward of a fwd of a series of jokes about aging that your friends are sending around.

Have you got any suggestions to add to this? Pop it in the comment box if you would.

art: grandparents by Suzanne Jackson

Empty Nest: Letting Go of our college kids.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and for some parents, that means more than turkey: The freshman they dropped off at college just a few months ago will be returning home for a few days. Probably for the first time since they left in September.  My experience with this happened years ago and yet I still remember the poignancy of that "first Thanksgiving." How stunning and joyful it was to be reunited with our eldest child and to have her sleeping in her room on the third floor again. I also remember how excited she was to be off to visit her friends. A reminder, if we needed one, of how our adult children are moving away from us.

More recently, Kelly Corrigan  wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times of the emotional experience of dropping off her daughter at college and of her excruciating awareness of the split path. Corrigan tells us that before she drove her child to campus she (and all other parents of incoming freshmen at her daughter's college) received an email from the campus psychologist. The message: limit contact with your child, including texts; this is a time for your child to "individuate and separate."

In grappling with this dictum--and coming to terms with her sudden awareness that she doesn't "own" her child--Corrigan writes that even though shegave birth to her child and she could trace many of her daughter's features to parents and grandparents, "I didn't have any ownership over her. Wherever she came out of and whomever she looked like and however much she needed from me, she didn't belong to me."

Corrigan turns to psychologists to square this realization. Here is what she says she learned from Ariel Trost about "letting go":

“If we can let go of this notion of ownership and see us as our own and them as their own, it can create a space to marvel,” she said. “Ownership is not closeness.”

Borrowing from Buddhism, Dr. Trost suggested aiming for a compassionate detachment. Not detachment from our children but from the outcome of who they are becoming. “We are working toward a place where we can enjoy each other,” she said.

painting: The Ferryman, Ivan Canu

 

Parenting Memories: Stolen moments with our grown children, and they with theirs.

My daughter is aglow. We are on a FaceTime call but I can see the happiness radiating from her face. Her daughter, who started college this year, came home for a day. They took a drive into the country, went on a short hike, stopped to book shop, had lunch out. They talked about everything and nothing. No pressure, no agenda. Just a stolen day together.

How I remember--and still feel--the joy of spending a day or even a few hours alone with a grown child. Usually, when I see my grown children they come encumbered. In their young adult years, it was with friends or by papers to write or places to go. As the years flew by there were spouses and children. To have a grown child to myself for a few hours is a treasure that's hard to describe: A special warmth, a comfort, a feeling that all's right with the world--or will be. It's not a mom thing. Their dad guards his moments alone with his children as well.

To hear my daughter last night--and a few weeks ago my son--bask in the glow of spending time with a child who no longer lives under their roof is to relive those companionable and spontaneous moments. The cycle of life is repetitious and reassuring. With so much in the world collapsing around us--our weather cycles,  public discourse, ability to compromise--this is one small thing to feel good about: Our grown children will treasure these moments with their children as much as we did and still do with them.

photo: Maia Lemov

 

The Pain of Parting: Lessons in Letting Go

Our son sent his oldest child back to college and his oldest daughter off to Roma for a gap year of study abroad. He still has one child at home but his heart is aching. As his two eldest headed off, he managed, he tells me, not to tear up in front of them.

He also tells me he has come to appreciate how we did the same for him and his sister. "I had no idea," he says, "how hard it is and how hard it must have been for you and dad." I am not violating his privacy when I repeat the following words since he posted this wry take on his Facebook page: "Two of my three kids are leaving in the next few days, starting this morning. If I'd known how hard their leaving was going to be, I never would have encouraged all of this "go to college" business when they were little."

On the morning after his daughter flew off to Rome, he called to let me know she had landed safely, made her way to the appartamento she and two other students had rented, registered at the school where she would be taking classes and bought supplies at a nearby grocery store. Dinner will be ramen and nectarines. The other girls will not arrive for another day or two. My Grand and her parents were texting every step along the way--from airport landing to getting a sim card to figuring out the tricky lock on the appartamento door. She did all this with only 4-weeks worth of Duolingo Italian stuffed into her brain. My son is so proud of her for the confident way she figured things out and so happy that she is embarking on this avventura.  But he is heart-heavy. She is now so far away. He misses her.

He wanted to know how we managed to keep the pain of parting from him and his sister. I reminded him that when he left home for college, there was no Internet, no texting, no email. There was only a landline and the mailbox. We couldn't have shared the immediacy of our sadness even if we had been inclined to--which we weren't. Like him today, we did not want to weigh him down with our blues. We only let him see the pleasure we were taking in his launch.

So excuse me while I deliver pats on our own backs. We were able to show our children how to let go gracefully. It wasn't intentional and it may not seem like much. But evidently, it was.

painting: Monet. Bridge at Argenteuil

 

Helicopter Parenting: Does it end when our kids are adults?

Does helicopter parenting end when our kids graduate from high school or enter the work force? Don't bet on it. But don't indulge in it either. Barnard College's  Natalie Friedman can bear eyewitness account of the dangers to our children's welfare of over-parenting or having a bulldozer or snowplow parent--or even a lawnmower. So many words for those of us who can't stop intervening in our children's lives--even though they are adults and living independently.

Friedman fields call every day from "interveners." That's how she sees the damage done to a child's growth and ability to advocate for themselves. Although her words of wisdom are aimed at how to help your college kids grow up without your "interventionist" support  they also have relevancy to the post-graduate years--those years when our kids are setting out on their own, starting jobs that can support them (or come close) and are trying to figure out where they want to head in this world.

Here are some bits of her advice about helping kids advocate for themselves in college, though the tips below are relevant beyond the school years. (Words in parenthesis are mine, not Friedman"s.) The full article, which ran in the NYTimes, is here

--Help them write “scripts.” If your student is scared to talk to a professor or feels intimidated by a dean (or if they're in a workplace and are anxious about talking to a manager), help write a “script” for the occasion. Chances are you’ve had experience talking to your boss or manager, so tell your student what words to use. ... Ask your student to write down your suggestions in a notebook or type them into a phone, somewhere your student won’t forget to look right before stepping into a professor’s (or manager's) office.

Encourage them to follow up. Sometimes a student will work up the courage to find a professor, only to hear something disappointing: They are failing the course, or the next exam will count as their final grade.(Or a manager may tell them they're not performing well.) ...Some students will take this disappointing news and turn it inward, feeling terrible and using negative self-talk. ....Help to reframe the disappointment as a learning opportunity: Your student should follow up with an email or another visit to the professor with specific questions like, “What can I do to be better prepared for the next exam?”

Remind them to talk to more than one person. A professor, a friend or a teaching assistant might have one answer to a question, but others on campus (or in a business organization) might have advice of a different kind. Encourage your student to get to know other adults on campus who might be able to help navigate a less-than-ideal situation. Getting lots of information and input can help them make better decisions. Remind them that learning to live with disappointment is a facet of self-advocacy. Even students who are great at asking for what they need may not get the response they want. Remind them that this is O.K.: Rejection is a part of life.

Friedman ppoints out that too many parents have a “don’t-take-no-for-an-answer” mind-set, and their children adopt the same attitude. "This approach rarely works for self-advocacy," she writes. "Remember that every conversation is a give-and-take, and coming off as angry or inflexible is only going to create tension with the very people who are in a position to help." 

Friedman's bottom line for us and our children: "Learn when to accept “no” as the final answer and when it is appropriate to push back or ask more questions."

 

Young Adults: What if they call home from college and they're miserable.

Photo: Palo Coleman

They're off to college. The empty nest looms or maybe just the diminution of the number of children at home. Paterfamilias and I have been there, lived through that. Now it's one of our grown-up children whose oldest child has bounded off happily for college.

So maybe this is as good a time as ever to talk about a blog post Dr. Carl Pickhardt wrote for Psychology Today. It's not about children leaving the nest or parents having empty-nest longings. It's about a surprise call parents may get from their child while he or she is presumably taking notes in classes, trying out for various activities and figuring out how to fit in. Even if our kids go off to college happily, we parents may find all is not what it should be with the new experience. Pickhardt's post is about what to do if the child you've dropped off at college calls home weeks later and is in crisis. 

Let me let Pickhardt set the scene:

Most young people making this transition into more independent living have at least a few times at the outset when they feel truly unprepared and overwhelmed.... Consider some hard adjustments of this challenging time.

Some of the adjustments Pickhardt ticks off are missing home and family; feeling lonely; disappointment at  not coping well; concerns about living up to parental expectations; incompatibility with a roommate.

So how parents can parents handle the situation. Here's Pickhardt's five-step process should that "crisis call" come. 

1.   WELCOME the call. “We are so happy that you thought to call us; we love hearing from you, whatever you have to share.” Show that the loving family connection is unbroken. 

2.   EMPATHIZE with the upset: “Yes, if sounds like you are going through a really difficult time. Tell us more about it.” Provide emotional support.

3.   OPERATIONALIZE the problem. “Can you tell us specifically what is happening and not happening that has contributed to your feeling this way?” Bring the problem into practical and objective focus.

4.   STRATEGIZE about what to do. “What might be some constructive actions to take that would ease your current unhappiness, and would any outside help be useful at this time?” Explore problem solving possibilities.

5.   ENERGIZE with faith in finding ways for moving forward. Declare: “We believe you have what it takes to meet this challenge and will come out stronger on the other side. Please keep calling us, and we’ll keep checking in if you like, so we can be with you as you work this through. " Provide confidence and optimism. 

Depending on how fragile your child might seem, Pickhardt notes the possibility of seeking professional help from on-campus sources.  But not too fast.

When a college crisis call does come in, it may help to remember that quote from John F. Kennedy: “When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” 

So, parents need to thread this needle: Take action if endangerment is communicated; but short of that, provide listening, empathy, and advice if asked, but do not intervene and interfere in this opportunity for the young person to grow.

What it feels like to send your first born off to college

I will not name names. But this was a Facebook post written by a dad I know who drove his oldest child--his son, who happens to be my grandson--to college a few days ago and managed to keep those lump-in-throat emotions in check--for a while:

And for those who are asking the obvious question, by some miracle I did not cry. (No one will believe that.)

At least not until I got home and found a letter from him on the kitchen table. Then it was full-on runny nose blubbering.

He will be so happy there and I will still miss him so much.