College parent FB pages 10% useful 90% Cray Cray

[Anonymous]

How about the mom/dad that complains about the roomate.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone explain why parents remain in the groups after their child has graduated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have one DC at a smaller private college and one at a big state U and the parent pages are extremely different.

My oldest is at UMD and the parent-run FB page is drama-free and very helpful. The moderators are fantastic.

UMD Facebook page is generally helpful but every once in awhile there are parents asking about a weekly cleaning service, personal chef, laundry service, or complaining about a grade their student got in a class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes I wonder if I'm just to disconnected from my kid's college. I literally have no idea about anything nor have I sought it out. He just finished freshman year. I did a quick Google search around May 1 to find out what day moving out day was, emailed the kid to find out what day and time worked best for him and showed up. I have literally not interacted with anything to do with his college other than that all year. Am I missing something?

You might want to join the parent's Facebook page. I joined it for my son's class (2025), and it has been 80 percent helpful. It was useful last fall when a lot of kids were getting sick, and the student health center did not have enough capacity, and we had to find health care off campus.

[Anonymous]

I really enjoy seeing the parents who post their graduating college senior in their cap and gown. And then they say where their child has secured a new job.

So for me, the FB parents' page is very much worth it. (I have not every posted, but like to lurk now and then.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes I wonder if I'm just to disconnected from my kid's college. I literally have no idea about anything nor have I sought it out. He just finished freshman year. I did a quick Google search around May 1 to find out what day moving out day was, emailed the kid to find out what day and time worked best for him and showed up. I have literally not interacted with anything to do with his college other than that all year. Am I missing something?

+1. You have a healthy relationship to the process of allowing your child to become an adult. You should feel very good about this!

Hmm . . . isn't it possible to have a healthy relationship with your adult child while still being interested in what's happening on campus? There were no parent FB pages at my two older kids' schools, but there is one for my youngest. Most questions come from parents of incoming first-year students and seem quite reasonable. Parents of other students have asked about things like finding graduation housing -- again, questions and answers seem appropriate and helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes I wonder if I'm just to disconnected from my kid's college. I literally have no idea about anything nor have I sought it out. He just finished freshman year. I did a quick Google search around May 1 to find out what day moving out day was, emailed the kid to find out what day and time worked best for him and showed up. I have literally not interacted with anything to do with his college other than that all year. Am I missing something?

Let’s be friends! I’m a mom of 3 -a college grad, a rising sophomore at a large in-state university and a rising HS junior.

I don’t have a FB account, nor insta nor Pinterest.

Call me lazy, but I truly can’t be bothered with keeping tabs on the daily goings on at each DC’s school.

My DS kept insisting he didn’t need anything extra for his dorm - and he was correct. Sent him with bare basics. Yes, his dorm was spartan-looking and plain, but he didn’t need or want a custom loft, a hutch, framed posters, all sorts of organizers, etc.

I drove to move him home -solo-and we ended up donating most all dorm-specific accessories that I raced out to buy him. A student passing by loading his car asked if he could have the dorm fridge. Deal.

[Anonymous]

PP 9:40.

I’ve checked out of the daily goings on and what I consider the minutiae of daily academic life starting midway through my DC’s MS years.

Guess I’m following my late parents’ leads: let me know if you need my help, but I’m not wasting my time on unimportant details like making certain every aspect of your school life is cushy and comfortable. I’m not running a fundraiser so your all night grad party will be amazing.

I’m not checking your grades daily, reminding you of deadlines, getting you in tutoring, firing off emails to your counselor, helping you to switch classes/drop/add because you don’t like the teacher. I’m not intervening, period.

This attitude has served our family well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This helps a ton! Our oldest starts college in the Fall. I've successfully avoided joining FB all these years, but was afraid I would finally need to in order to get some useful info on the parent page. Sounds like I can remain blissfully unplugged!

Mine is in HS and I’ve never been on any of DC’s school social media. I’m also glad — though until I read this it didn’t cross my mind that parents of college kids were doing this. Of course, I had a parent who lived too vicariously through me.

[Anonymous]

We have a mother who lets you know with every post where her son will be living, has posted his apartment number l, shared his medical issue with every post. She will ask the same question multiple times. I wonder if her son knows how many details she is sharing about his private life. It is creepy!

She even asked if campus police would do welfare checks on him off campus because you know it is just across the street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm on two parent FB pages. One is a high academic state school and the other is a small, Catholic school. The only complaints I've read on the Catholic school page are parents complaining about the food in the dining halls. Otherwise, everything is super positive and helpful. It's a smaller school and the group is not very big so maybe that's why it's a great resource.

The state school FB page is so entertaining - arguments about politics (reminds me of DCUM), questions easily answered by using google and helicoptering. During Covid it got really toxic - the school had really stringent restrictions (for example, no one could be in a dorm room except the residents of the dorm room - you couldn't even have your next door dormmate in your room.) There were parents who were calling out other students for breaking Covid restrictions. I guess their kid was telling their parent about classmates who were breaking the rules, and the parents would post the infractions to "encourage" everyone to follow the rules.

My favorite helicoptering post was when a parent wanted to know how to change the practice schedule for her son's CLUB baseball team. She was unhappy with what time and how long the team was practicing. My DS is on a club team but I have no idea when and how long he practices - the only time I hear about a competition is when he lets me know.

That's extremely messed up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a kid who just finished freshman year. Ignore the FB posts about tricking out the dorm room. DD asked me to take stuff back after about a month and to stop sending care packages because her room was tiny and they had no space. All she really needed was the basics for a bed, desk, clothing, Brita water pitcher and access to food (meal plan was terrible, so she supplemented with Uber eats a few times a week). Anything else not only wasn’t necessary, but became an annoyance and distraction when she was trying to study and live with a roommate in a tiny space.

I don’t understand how this was news to you unless you never lived in a dorm.

+1

My freshman room mate was all about "how much stuff" - it was a nightmare. Decades alter, she is still into "stuff". It's kind of sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoy seeing the parents who post their graduating college senior in their cap and gown. And then they say where their child has secured a new job.

So for me, the FB parents' page is very much worth it. (I have not every posted, but like to lurk now and then.)

I agree. The VT and JMU parents' FB pages are full of wonderful, helpful people. I've learned so much from them.

[Anonymous]

There was frequent use of the word “draconian” on both of my kids’ college FB pages through COVID. Pictures and complaints about dining hall food and lines to get in during surges. Questions about cleaning services and laundry services. Parents telling other parents to let their kids figure it out and then other parents defending the various degrees of helicoptering and snowplowing.

Overall, some helpful information, some not and some pure entertainment and/or irritation. The good news? You don’t have to read any of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes I wonder if I'm just to disconnected from my kid's college. I literally have no idea about anything nor have I sought it out. He just finished freshman year. I did a quick Google search around May 1 to find out what day moving out day was, emailed the kid to find out what day and time worked best for him and showed up. I have literally not interacted with anything to do with his college other than that all year. Am I missing something?

You are doing it right, IMHO.

My guess is some parents do not have enough to do. Maybe they lived for their kids or lived lives of luxury without FT jobs. I can’t imagine who else would have the time to build headboards and cubbies that get thrown away after a few months or who worry about weekly cleaners and Dyson vacuums.