When Your College Student Returns Home ; Some Tips to Help You Manage.

In my last post I shared my story about how I felt having my freshman daughter return from college and how families need to readjust.

Today I will provide more tips to ease the stress and make the visit run smoothly.Parents may view a visit home, much like I did, a chance to spend quality time with your son or daughter, doing all the things you used to enjoy only compressed into a short timeframe. They are longing to reconnect and have more than a text message conversation.  Students may be exhausted; feel overloaded with schoolwork and pulled in a thousand directions trying to visit friends and family both.  They want all of the creature comforts of home but may not realize the family’s needs.

It is important for both parents and students to be realistic about what to expect during a visit home. The guidebook, “ Don’t tell me what to do, Just send money” by Helen E. Johnson and Christine Schelhas – Miller offers some things to do and some things to avoid to have a satisfying holiday visit for the entire family.  Communicate in advance about what you want to do during the break.  Renegotiate rules such as what is now an appropriate curfew. Don’t just assume students will revert to the old rules since they have been free to set their own schedules at school.  Have a family meeting to discuss important logistics issues such as who gets to drive the car and when or what chores are expected to be done. Avoid planning family activities before discussing them with the student.  Don’t feel rejected if your student doesn’t spend as much time with you as you hoped.  Do some special things for your student but not to the extent that you put the rest of your life on hold, in order to be at their beck and call.

My daughter did not return early to the city and we had a brief but fairly happy visit.I realized that I was welcoming home not the same child that left in August, but a young woman coming into her own and that was something to be thankful for.