How often should I go home? How often do students go home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your parents visit you during parents or family weekend in the fall, you go home Thanksgiving and Winter break and Spring break. That's it.

Spring break you go to Panama City (if you're poor) or Cancun (if you're rich) and chase chicks. The rest of your post is correct, though.

[Anonymous]

If you are a rising junior didn't you spend some time on campus freshman year pre-covid? Or is this your second year of college and you have credits to make you a junior? I only ask because typically freshman come home more often than juniors/seniors so you might want to factor that in to your plans - it will be harder to catch up socially with your class if you are away a lot.

Both my DCs came home for fall break (a long weekend) their first year but not after that. We went for parents weekends in the fall most years but you will want to let your parents know that you may not spend every minute of that weekend with them. In fact for the kid who went to college 2 hours away, we never went for more than the Saturday because he had more interesting things to do on campus than hang out with us. Other than that it was, as others noted, thanksgiving and winter break. One kid came home for a portion of a couple of spring breaks, the other didn't come home for any of them.

Part of the residential college experience is the residential part. You don't want to shortchange that, especially if you only have 2 years.

[Anonymous]

As others have said, there is no one right answer here. Just know that if you go home too much you'll likely miss out on opportunities to connect with peers at school.

As a parent I'll admit it's hard to let your kids go and not see them for months at a time, but it's SO important for their development.

Best of luck to you!

[Anonymous]

I have two students in college; one will be a senior this year and the other a sophmore.
They both attend a college that's about a 3.5 hour drive from home. They do not have a car, but there is reasonable access to buses and planes that would make traveling home for a weekend reasonable.
Neither of them have come home during the school year except for the long breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring.)
The senior came home for the first two summers (though the second one was kind of forced due to Covid) but has stayed up there this summer. The sophmore is home this summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanksgiving then Christmas break.

And not even thanksgiving if school work is piling up.

Maybe your parents can visit you for an afternoon here and there?

[Anonymous]

We have have/had 4 kids in college so far. Each of them has been within a 5-hour drive. They all have had cars except for freshman year (only 1 kid had a car for freshman year).

For as long as each has been in college, each has been home for Fall Break (usually in October), then Thanksgiving, Christmas, Winter Break and a few more times during the spring. Additionally as parents we probably visited 2 or 3 times each semester.

Coming home for Fall Break is great. You got to change out clothes, get some stuff they needed and get recharged. Each of our kids has almost always had another kid in tow for Fall Break ("Larla/o would be all alone because everyone is going home") so don't feel weird about that.

You do what is right for you. There are a bunch of people who will post about how they had to walk 5 kazillion miles uphill in snow and no shoes to get to school so they darn well stayed there when they got there. Know that families like mine exist at every school and probably are more normal than the uphill in snow families. Do what feels right for you and don't worry about what anyone else does.

Have a great time at school! I am excited for you! Being away at college completely changed my life. Enjoy the experience!

[Anonymous]

When I went to college we had a family rule. We were not allowed to come home before Thanksgiving. So we would settle in. Op, it can be hard but you need to work through it. But now colleges have Parent Weekend in the Fall, sooner than Thanksgiving. So, as parents, we went along with that. That's what's common now. We weren't going to miss it. We weren't going to be the only parents *not* there.

But Op --- work to NOT be an outliner. Unless you have some sort of mental health problems, do what is common.

[Anonymous]

OP. The answer is as often as you need to. Which may not be every time you want to. And is probably not every time your parents want you to.

I agree with PPs that being on a residential campus a lot your first semester weekends is important. I’d have your parents come up for parents weekend. Then Thanksgiving, winter break, and re-evaluate after the first semester. By then, you should have some idea what keeps you connected, but not too connected, allows you to participate on campus and gives you time to study.

I sent my first kid to a SLAC as a freshman last year. So hard, because nobody knew where COVID was going (his college did great). As a condition of sending him in COVID under all the different rules and with added risk, we asked to see his face once a week. So, on the calendar, every Sunday night, was a Zoom call. It could be rescheduled. It could be 2 minutes long. But, we needed to see his face and make sure all was well. It ended up working well. We offered to drop it his year, and he said he anted to keep it.

Some things to think about when dealing with your parents:

Ask for one semester, and then agree to revisit. Tell them this is what you need to do to adjust. And you’d be glad to talk to them about going forward after first semester. Not do it their way. But discuss. It’s hard to send a kid off to college. It’s easier if you take it one step at a time and don’t do forever.

Be sensitive to family milestones. Ask for them in advance, and schedule what you *reasonably* can. Weddings of close family members, milestone birthdays. Even if you only drive in for a day. Come in Friday evening and leave before lunch Saturday But reasonable. So, not 3 weekends in a row. Not during finals. Not more than 1-2 per semester.

Buy yourself some goodwill and maturity points. Offer weekly check ins (short, zoom, phone or text) if you are comfortable with it. Discuss up front like an adult. Understand that some events are very important. Don’t duck calls about coming home. Don’t insist you can miss your sister’s bar mitzvah on a Saturday with nothing special going on at school. Set it up at the beginning of the semester, write it on the calendar. Then stand form against parental guilt.

Also, an on campus job with some weekend hours can give you an easy way to say no.

And remember, your parents are new at this too, and don’t have a context of going to school for knowing normal. Talking it out like an adult sets you up to make the next decision that your parents have input on maturely.

You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. Good luck!