Your empty (or if you still have a child at home) nest is about to be re-feathered. As you’re preparing for Thanksgiving —shopping for dinner, re-stocking the fridge with the foods you haven’t bought since your freshman left for college — you might be picturing a return to the routines and expectations you had three months ago.
You are about to greet someone whose experiences, perceptions, and expectations have changed and who has been working to build a home at college. For you, this is a homecoming. For your offspring (note we didn’t say “child.” There’s a reason for that), this is about leaving one home (or almost home) for another.
This is bound to cause a disconnect — but it doesn’t have to be a surprise. And with thought, care, empathy, and communication, you can make this visit — and future reunions under your roof — a success.
What has your first-year college student been doing since they left home?
Since August, your offspring have been living with greater self-reliance: waking up for classes (one hopes) without your encouragement; going to sleep — or not — whenever they want; eating when and what they choose, and managing a schedule that varies day to day. Most likely, they have been living in a demographically different community from yours in some way — for example, in diversity, size, location, or even common ideology.
The freshman about to return to your home for Thanksgiving has also been living a very different life of mind. They are reading more sophisticated texts (as professors, we tell ourselves they’re doing the reading). While in high school, they might have been asked to explain what a text means, in college, they’re being asked to draw their conclusions from them and even challenge and criticize authors and authorities.
They’re attending classes with professors who are experts in their field of study. They likely engage in debates on coursework, politics, and culture in class and late at night.
The college freshman is doing all this while among new friends, forming new support systems, and hopefully learning to draw on university resources for academic and other assistance in circumstances where they, until very recently, would have looked to you. They’ve been doing what they can to make this new place “home” — beyond buying a desk lamp and putting extra-long twin sheets on their new bed. They’ve been building a community and finding their place in it.
And if they’re doing well, chances are they have you to thank. You helped make college possible. You showed them that they could get there if they worked hard enough. So give yourself some credit — but then listen to the rest of our news.
The freshman who returns home for Thanksgiving break is not the person who left your home months ago.
When your college freshman walks through your door for Thanksgiving break, their self-perceptions will likely differ from your perceptions of them. A college freshman has been in a living-learning community and is expected to function as an adult. Many college students also say, “I am a different person at school.”
Maybe your kid was known as absent-minded, the nerd, or the jock at home. Your daughter might have reinvented herself at college; your son may be exploring a new identity. They might feel anxiety at being perceived as someone they no longer are.
After a few months away, living and studying in a new environment, their perceptions of you might have changed too. Maybe they’ll tell you their professors are far wiser than you. We hope you won’t take it personally and will jot down some of their more priceless insights; they will make for great stories when they bring home their future spouse or for you to share when they are parents.
More painfully, your freshman may challenge some of the ideas and values you used to share. Perhaps she’s discovered the works of Ayn Rand. Perhaps he’s decided on a different political affiliation while away. Maybe they don’t want to go to church with you, prefer to go to a different one, or are uncertain about what they believe.
You’d be amazed at how quickly a student discovers and embraces new views and ideas. It can be jarring, but it’s also a sign that the college experience is everything it’s supposed to be: challenging, mind-expanding, and new. This doesn’t give anyone a free pass out of respectful dialogue, but it’s worth remembering that when we send our loved ones out into the world to study, we have no control over what ideas will resonate with them.
Your offspring might also be certain that their new lifestyle — up all night, living on cold pizza, driven by “FOMO” (fear of missing out), is brilliant. You might disagree. It is also likely to be inconsistent with the rules and norms of your household —and it is still your household, after all. The question of rules, boundaries, and expectations is perhaps the starkest example of the push and pull between your freshman’s two homes, lifestyles, roles, and worlds.
Three ways to make your college student’s Thanksgiving break a success
1. Before they come home, consider what rules and expectations you plan to set.
Ask yourself whether the expectations you had for them before are needed now. Consider the changes in your offspring’s self-perception and experience with independence and act accordingly. Perhaps some things are non-negotiable to you — for example, going to church with you, playing in the family Thanksgiving touch football game, or texting if they’re going to be late.
Identify those non-negotiables in advance, but take a very hard look at the standards you set that have no relationship to the way your freshman has been living for three months (and if they come home apparently unscathed, that means they’re handling their new independence and responsibilities well — another success for which you laid the groundwork).
2. Have a frank conversation in which you acknowledge the challenge your freshman faces.
They’re pulled between two worlds, two homes, two sets of expectations, and even between two competing selves. Let them know you get it. “This must be weird for you to be home. It’s weird for me too.”
3. Be honest about the expectations you plan to set, but make sure you listen to theirs.
Maybe they’re concerned that you don’t see how much they’ve grown as a person. They could be anxious about being on your turf (especially if the last time you saw them was on family weekend when you were on their turf). Recognize that they may vacillate between excitement and anxiety about seeing their family and revisiting their high school friends and their hometown.
Our message is not that you need to suck it up and accept whatever comes. It’s that the college freshman coming through your door will experience this Thanksgiving visit not only as a homecoming but also as a home-leaving. When you recognize, acknowledge, and work through this together, you’re laying the groundwork for a better Thanksgiving and for a new phase in your parent-adult-child relationship.
But they still have to clean up the Thanksgiving table. You can tell them Professors Brenner and Schwartz said so.
This article was originally published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform on 11/17/2017 and updated on 11/20/17.
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