How to Drop Your New Adult Off at College
Repeat after me: It’s not about you
Hey, parents who are about to drop your kid off at college for the first time. Can we talk?
As you usher your precious pearls through the archway of adulthood in the midst of a pandemic, you can either totally screw up this last milestone, or you can knock it out of the park. Let me help. My husband is the head of an undergraduate residential college at a midsized university, so I live in the same building as 200 freshmen. On move-in day, I have a front-row seat. And as a parent, I will soon be doing the big drop-off, too, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what I see.
This doesn’t have to be hard — if you can remember one thing: This isn’t about you. It stopped being about you at some point between the advent of high school and the day that acceptance letter arrived. It’s time to accept this. Once you do, everyone will be okay. Including you. Here are the critical steps for dropping off your New Adult (not child!) off at college:
Before move-in day:
1. Two months before drop off, tell your New Adult in no uncertain terms that there is a website to answer every question they might have about move-in and residential life. Because guess what? You’re not their personal Googler anymore. (Remember years ago…
