Cheers, not Tears

Yep. I am honestly telling you that getting your student off to college is a time for cheers and not tears, even though the latter is what you’re going to be thinking and worrying about the entire time.

Colleges expend a great deal of effort in giving students a smooth transition from your home to their college home, and while the process isn’t perfect, they try. And part of that trying is keeping the students very busy

You Know What May be Coming

When we took our daughter to college, we drove up in our rented van (yes, she had too much for even our largest vehicle). The unloading and setting up process worked like magic: we stopped, a number of student athletes and others unloaded everything we brought, and carried it up one floor to her residence hall room all in about 10 minutes flat. I parked the van and walked back to her building to find my daughter and wife feverishly putting away all of her clothes, toiletries, equipment, school supplies, etc., so it was just the way she wanted it. Throughout the process, my wife would look at me occasionally with that look in her eyes that said she was just about ready to break. But she didn’t — at least not then.

At some point after my daughter was completely moved in except for posters on the wall, we all gathered in the gymnasium for the high-energy welcome by the university president, dean of students and several other campus officials welcoming the new students and family members to the university family. Soon the students were whisked away to spend their first day of new student orientation. Parents and family members were shuttled off to our own sessions. No tears here, just lots of noise and confusion.

What the College or University Tries to Do

And it seems that the university was focused on doing whatever it could to keep parents and students moving quickly and with energy so that inevitable breakdown was postponed for as long as possible. But of course that couldn’t last forever.

Nope. All of those sessions we had with the other parents on topics like residence halls, student conduct and academic advising were just distractions for many of the parents, who had heard much of that same information at the June orientation program. In fact, I left with another set of parents to do some last minute shopping while my wife attended another session. When the inevitable moment came, we took a picture at a gazebo on our daughter’s campus, and made our way to our car. Sure there were some wet eyes, mostly my wife’s and a tiny bit from our daughter and me, but we all made it through just fine. And we made sure that the smiles we gave our daughter getting ready for this new phase of life were much bigger and brighter than our tears, and said our goodbyes. The next thirty minutes or so were punctuated by very little talking, a few sniffles, a few laughs and wistful sighs. When our daughter called us late that night, she was tired but strangely animated, and still happy that she was there. She also said she was really ready for this and not to worry. So all of a sudden, the daughter becomes the parent, comforting both my wife and me.

Who knows? Did our focus on cheers and smiles rather than tears get her off to a better start? I don’t know, but I certainly think so. Try it for yourself.