Some Collegial Advice Regarding Freshman Year

Over the next several weeks, households across America will experience the exhilaration and agony of sending their children off to colleges.

Here is some advice for parents and students from a veteran of the Freshman Phenomena.

* If you are driving your most precious cargo to his or her school, there is not a car, truck or van on the planet large enough to carry all the clothes, electronic gear and other stuff she or he will want to take along. Assure them that small household appliance technology has found its way into higher education; and if the dorm room doesn’t have a 19-cubic-foot refrigerator with ice maker, a smaller, but workable version can most likely be rented.

If you are putting your child on a plane, train or bus to college, you’ll have an easier time managing the transfer of personal possessions. Kids are smart enough to know that if you are not there to lug their stuff up three flights of stairs, they’ll have to do it themselves.

* Crying is assumed, expected and normal. Not only when you exchange that final goodbye upon parting but also when you realize once again that higher education is a costly proposition. Console yourself in knowing that when the process ends four, maybe five years out, your investment and your sacrifices may produce an educated, responsible and well-prepared citizen equipped to deal with the world’s problems. Or, at the very least, your efforts will result in someone who might be willing to try and make it on his or her own, so you can actually start investing in your much-looked-forward-to retirement.

* Getting them to phone home. As parents, you don’t want to seem too pushy while making sure your college freshman phones home once in a while. Many freshmen, because their brains are flooded with so much data at college, forget their home phone numbers; hence, they never call. So, occasionally, send your son or daughter a check torn in half and made out to him or her. Amazingly, the offspring will remember the number and call, and in sorting out the details of a replacement check that isn’t ripped in half, you can have what amounts to a real conversation.

Finally, some advice to students:

Be kind and understanding toward your parents. They are mentally a few RAM short of a gigabyte when it comes to the prospect of you being on your own. Whether you are just a city or county away from home or across the country, with you out of the house, your parents will experience an emptiness that will make them stand teary-eyed in your vacant room, wondering how to fill the void in their hearts.

Try to give your parents more than one-word answers to their questions when you speak with them. When they say, “How’s it going?” they aren’t looking for “Good.” They are really wanting to know what classes and teachers you are finding interesting, what books you are reading, whether you have any new or added body piercing or tattoos, and if you’ve met the boy/girl of your dreams and are planning to elope soon.

Your parents, and you, will adjust to your new college career. If you both work at staying close through the highs and lows, if you communicate, you’ll slowly come to regard your parents as supporters in more ways than monetary.

And they’ll come to realize that their children are becoming men and women, preparing for wonderful lives brimming with optimism and promise.