When we stepped out of the elevator in my daughter’s dorm on move-in day, her younger sister dramatically pointed to a fixture on the wall.
“There! That’s where you will fill your water bottle!”
It had become a family joke over the course of the summer. I had joined a few college parent Facebook groups, and had learned that the parents had questions.
So. Many. Questions.
“What do students wear from the showers back to their dorm room?”
“What winter coat should I buy my student for the Wisconsin winter?”
And the one that took the cake for us: “Where will my student fill up their water bottle?”
Maybe your own oldest child is packing for college right now. And maybe you, too, have a lot of questions.
Your teens will figure it all out. I promise. (Photo credit: Carrie Kirby)
Here are the answers to your questions
1) Your student will figure it out.
2) Your student will figure it out.
3) Your student will figure it out.
Your child is, after all, 17 or 18 years old. Some people their age are serving capably in the military, or — more in past generations but sometimes still — already parents running their own households. They are clearly bright enough to get into college.
When you drop them off in their dorm, they’ll be surrounded by hundreds of other students in the same boat. If they don’t see that bottle filler, they can ask someone at the front desk or their roommate. I doubt that one single student in the history of the modern American education system has died of dehydration because they couldn’t locate a water source.
What if they really need help, though?
Maybe your student has a disability and needs more guidance than typical students. Hopefully, you have chosen a school with a great disability center you can point them to. Yes, you know your student better than I do. But even in the case of students with disabilities, would it hurt to ask, “Is this a challenge my student can attempt to solve on their own first?”
I’m not saying that we should be dropping our students at college and ghosting them. Of course, we’re available as a resource. But should we be the first resource for every bump in the road? I don’t think we should.
During her freshman year, my kid ran into a challenge related to medical coverage. I encouraged her to check with the college health service. When that failed, yes, I stepped in and made some calls for her. To be honest, the situation was nearly beyond my own ability to work out, and it took all of freshman year to find a workaround.
Don’t abandon your teens but let them figure out most things by themselves
So I’m not saying I would never help my young adult offspring deal with a problem. As a journalist who knows my way around the internet, I help other family members figure out such problems as well. That’s what families do.
My husband and I also did something for our daughter that I think was more valuable than trouble-shooting: We listened to her.
In the early months of freshman year, there were some long FaceTime sessions. Sharing a room and eating in a dining hall felt like living 24/7 in public to my little introvert. Going from California to Wisconsin induced culture shock. And the food sucked.
We listened to our daughter but not to intervene
We listened sympathetically to all of it. We sometimes gave into the temptation to offer advice, although, as you might expect, our kid dismissed most of our ideas as dumb. After all, we weren’t there. She was the one best positioned to figure out ways around these challenges, or ways to accept them.
As the months went on, and she built a friend group for kvetching and mutual support, the calls dwindled.
At the risk of bragging, here is a list of challenges my student worked out on her own during her first two years of college:
How to get from the communal showers back to her dorm room on a co-ed floor.
What kind of storage worked best for her tiny dorm room.
How to feed herself even when the dining hall hours conflicted with her class schedule.
Where and with whom she would live sophomore year. (A tough one at her campus, where leases for the next year are usually signed by Halloween.)
How will you spend your last summer together if not pre-planning every aspect of college life?
Personally, I wasn’t lucky enough to spend that summer with my college-bound daughter. She worked at the summer camp she’d attended for years, leaving just a couple weeks at the end of the summer to pack.
That was probably for the best, because it didn’t allow time for us to plan the furnishing of her dorm room down to the last Q-Tip. What the paucity of prep time forced us to accept is that there is very little a student needs to bring to dorm move-in day.
Bedding. Their clothing and personal effects. Their phone and laptop. A first aid kit. Beyond that, students can easily buy what they need once they’re in the space and better understand how crowded a tiny, shared room can feel. Even for rural campuses, they can order what they need online.
Don’t worry if your teen wants to take very little to college
One complaint I see parents — especially parents of boys — make is that their student hasn’t gotten interested in shopping for or planning their dorm room. I say, who cares? When they get there, they may realize they need more than their sheets, pillow and clothes. Or maybe that’s truly all they wanted to schlep. Let them be.
The dumpsters and give-away piles at move-out day at the end of freshman year attested that many dorm room purchases barely got used, and were discarded after a scant nine months either way.
Of course, some students are excited about planning their dorm room. Some connect with their future roommates and swap Pinterest pins to choose color schemes and themes. If so, let them.
Ask your teens if there is anything they want you to do
As for you? Ask your kid if there is anything they want you to do with them to prepare. Ask them their priorities for their last summer at home. Ask them if they have worries about the year ahead.
Maybe plan some activities together that have nothing to do with their impending life change. They are probably thinking about it enough without spending every day of the summer planning it.
And then, drop them off. And no, most students will not need you to book a hotel for the first week to ease the transition (an actual parent question). They may be anxious for their new life to start with your departure. Even if they’re more scared than excited, prolonging the goodbye may make it that much harder.
Don’t forget to fill your water bottle on the way out.
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