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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How did the first year end up for the class of 2025 and parents?!

I can’t believe the year is almost done. Little over two weeks of classes left and then finals for mine. It was a year of amazing growth both academically and socially for one. For the other (twins obviously), it was a year of sickness and injury. I can count on one hand how many weeks they were healthy since august  drop off. Very tough year because of dealing with that and the transition.

Lessons learned:
1. More vitamins and meds on hand for the inevitable sicknesses. Also air filter.
2. We were told not to succumb to the pressure to rent an apartment for sophomore year in October but in reality that IS when you need to book
Something if you’re at a large state school. Glad the kids found a place then as there is nothing good left this spring.
3. Encourage the kids to bring home fall clothes at Thanksgiving and winter clothes at Easter.
4. Don’t stress about their grades. Don’t even ask. Trust me they are plenty stressed about it without you adding to it. If they stay out all night drinking and miss a class or an assignment, they will learn from their mistakes.  Freshman year is going to be hard, don’t expect As even if your kid has never gotten worse than an A.
5. [b]The piece of advice I have my kids when I left them at drop off was, “don’t be the drink freshman passed out on the bathroom floor”. Happy to say they never were and in fact are quite proud of that. Overall drinking has slowed down but those first few weeks (really until Midterms) were pretty out of control for many kids.
[/b]
Who else wants to report?[/quote]

Why and how would you know this?  And why would you believe you know everything that is going on even if you are pressing for them to tell you or asking these questions in the first place?  [b]What normally developing 18 or 19 year old tells mommy about drinking at college.  So odd to me[/b].

Yes, have conversations about drinking.  Don't drink something you haven't poured or opened yourself, don't leave your drink, don't leave your friends behind, etc.  But honestly you people should not be this involved in the details.[/quote]

Strikes me as odd that you don't talk to your kids about drinking or presumably anything else?  I guess you were probably the poster last fall who proudly said they dropped off the kid and didn't expect to hear from them until break.

I talk to my kids, they trust me to they tell me things. They know I will not judge them. They ask for advice. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have that relationship with their kids.[/quote]

I am the complete opposite of OP...I really don't have a great picture of my kid's day to day life at school and don't really want to. It's his life, not mine. If I haven't already talked to him about drinking enough by now, nothing I say now, to an 18-year-old, would make a bit of difference. He was home over a long Easter break however, and he shared a lot fun pieces of information, how he is feeling about things, what's stressing him out, and what he loves about college. So when you act like a normal person and treat your 18-year-olds like 18-year-olds, they treat you with respect and are willing to share. As a side note: I am very close friends with his high school best friend's mother. She shares with me things she hears from her son, who is fairly far away at college. My son and I were talking a bit about him and it turns out, the stuff he shares with his mother is complete and utter BS. He shares basically fake stuff with her so she believes she knows everything, and she knows very little. My son said, "it's nothing I'm going to tell you either. He's fine, but trust me, she does not really have a sense of his life at college at all." I'm sure that's true of my son, and probably many of these first-year college students. I do not have blinders on, but boy do so many of you.[/quote]

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