This is a series of posts on the skills that college students need in college and beyond.

If your child is in high school now is the perfect time to work with them on their cleaning skills (heck, if they are walking it’s a good time to work on their cleaning skills!).

There are a lot of different methods to cleaning. What works for you will probably not work for your child (just accept it – they won’t do things like you do them because you are … you.). The key is to communicate and work with them to find something that can work for them. If they learn to clean their room, they will be able to take care of their dorm room (at least their side of it!).

One thing I tried with my daughter was zones. We got the idea of zones from FlyLady (she divides the house into zones and you clean one zone per week). We tried to divide her room into zones: bedroom zone, living/study zone, bathroom zone and kitchen zone (the kitchen area didn’t really happen until she was in her dorm room). She tried it for a while in college.

We (me) also had several books that we (she) read to try to organize and clean her room. She had Organizing from the Inside Out for Teens. She got some great ideas from it.

In the end your children have to find what works for them. And they will…thankfully in their own house!

Do you have any tips to share with your children?

Your Student's Car and their 20 Closest Friends!

So your student is off to college. They had a car while in high school – the question now is – do they take that care to college?

Some college campus’ have so little parking that freshman are not allowed to have a car on campus. (This makes the car decision easy!) But for the other colleges it poses a problem for the parents and students.

My opinion is that during their first year at college, students do not need a car. Here are my reasons:

• If it is a new city to the student, they will not know their way around town and could drive into a “questionable” area of town (GPS’ are famous for taking “shortcuts” through those questionable areas!).
• You child will become the driver for ALL their friends when they want to go somewhere. Some colleges offer buses for the students to get them to the mall, grocery stores, etc to help the students.
• If your student has a car, inevitably someone will ask to borrow it. This can be a bad idea on so many levels! Your student doesn’t know all these new friends yet so don’t put them into the position of having to decide who can and can’t drive their/your car.
• They won’t come home every weekend. For those parents that don’t want to cut the apron strings – this is a bad point! I understand that! It’s hard for me to let her go too but this is a natural progression, this is the baby steps toward adulthood. They have to learn their independence. If they don’t have a car – they will stay on campus to find entertainment and get involved in campus life. This is a good thing, really!

So that is my 2 cents. Let me know what you think! I welcome your input/comments on this topic – should your student have a car at college?

Last week LakeGirl gave her perspective and tips on homesickness. This week I’m going to give parents some tips to help your new student bridge the gap between college and home and overcome homesickness.

Write letters: When my kids go to summer camp, we are encouraged to write letters, but they tell us not to say in the letters – “We miss you, etc.” I would say this is a really good idea to continue with your college student. Here’s your chance to put into words how proud you are of your student. These could be the letters they keep for a lifetime.

Cards: Send funny general cards – a “Just Because” or “Thinking of You” card. It gives them a boost to go to the mailbox and find mail! They might share the “love” with their friends.

Care Package: I’ve heard that some colleges offer care packages that you can purchase and they will send the packages for you. This can be a good idea if you’re really busy and tend to let things sneak up on you! But it’s easy to make it personal. Let the younger siblings send a package of favorite things to their big brother/sister. Here are some ideas of things to put into a care package:

• Peanut Butter – protein and good comfort food! (Check to make sure the roommate doesn’t have a peanut allergy.)
• Favorite Cookies
• Play Doh
• Bubbles
• CD mix of songs that make you think of your child
• Gift cards (grocery stores, restuarants, Target, etc.)
• Sidewalk chalk

Include something in the box that your student can share with their roommate.

What other ideas do you have for helping your child overcome homesickness?

This is the 2nd in a series of posts on roommates.

At the beginning of your school year is the perfect time to talk to your roommate about your study habits (you don’t want to do it the night before a big paper is due and you need to pull an all nighter and your roommate wants to sleep before her big test!)

Here are some questions to ask yourself and your roommate:

Do you like to study with music? Discuss the type of music (some might enjoy fast music, while another student would study better to classical music or no noise.)

Can you study with the TV on? Some students say they can ignore it, but some students will admit that they pictures are distracting!)

Do you wait until the last minute to study for a test (thus needing to stay up all night vs. someone who want to be rested before their exams?)

Do you need low lights to study by or full bright lights?

Do you like to eat while studying? (To some munching popcorn or chips can be distracting and annoying!)

What do you like to do for study breaks? How often do you want to schedule a study break? Do you take study breaks? Some students want to plow through their work just to get it done! Other students need a break after an hour or two. Maybe a simple computer game is enough or maybe a run around the dorm will recharge their creative juices for that paper that is due tomorrow!

What did I forget? What question do you want to ask your new roommate about their study habits?

This is the first post from my daughter LakeGirl. I hope to have more thoughts from the “front lines” as the year progress! Let us know what you think! – LakeMom

Summer Vacation – Time to get away from everyone at school and be back at home with family and old friends or that’s what it used to be. I don’t think I’ve had a real summer vacation since the summer after my senior year in high school. Ever since I got into college my summers have been filled with internships. Which have been awesome.

After my freshmen year I worked at Cedar Point, yes the amusement park. Which for those of you who don’t know is in Ohio, which is about 600 miles away from home for me. I was lucky enough for my family to come and visit me that summer and spend time with me. I was gone for 3 months, basically the entirety of my summer. This was the first time I had been away from my family for such an extended period of time.

See my college is 30 mins away from home. Now I know what you are thinking, “you’re so close you can see them whenever you want.” For me this is not true, I am far too busy with my studies to get home and they are busy with school and sports and Girl Scouts and everything else you do when you are younger, basically it’s hard to see each other even being 30 mins away.

The next summer I was at a wonderful place call Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, which is in Becket, MA and 700 miles away from home. Unfortunately my family could not make it out to see me last summer.

And this summer I am at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, NY, which is around 650 miles away from home. This summer just like last they will not be able to visit. What makes this summer harder for me is that I don’t have cell phone service where I live and work. So I can’t just call up mom and see how everyone back home is doing or text my best friends and see how their vacations are going. I know when we go away to college we get all excited about independence from our parents and making our own decisions and being a grown-up. But when you are away from your family for 3 months, it can seem like an eternity when you get homesick.

To break it down, the first month it’s all exciting to be in a new place, whether it’s college or summer or whatever, you are adjusting. The second month you are getting into a rhythm of things. Near the end of month 2 and the start of month 3 you start to get a little homesick. This is where I am at now. You have such little time left at the place you are at, which means you are closer to getting home. Which is very exciting because you miss friends or family from home. But then you start to think about having to say goodbye to everyone here as well and that makes you even sadder, so now you’re just a huge mess, right?

Well some things to help get over the homesickness and to continue to have a goodtime without being sad about leaving:

• Talk to your family and friends, when you stay in contact over the summer it makes it easier to feel like you haven’t just left the real world for the world you are in for 3 months.
• Have pictures of your family and friends in the place you are staying now, it makes it seem like they are there with you.
• Hanging with the friends you have there, you are bound to have made some friends at the place you are now.

So play card games, watch a movie, have a bonfire, have a girly night or manly (whichever you prefer .) Take lots of pictures they are the best way to remember the good times and look back on the great friends you have made. And eat cookie dough.

How do you get rid of homesickness?

Sharing a small space with a stranger can make your college life challenging. Sleeping habits can seem like a minor thing, but it can make a big difference. Here are some areas to discuss with your new roommate.

Music/Sound Machine: some people like to listen to music while they are falling asleep. Talk to your roommate about the kind of music they like to play when falling asleep. Or maybe you roommate enjoys falling asleep to the sounds of a babbling brook (but that just makes you need to go to the bathroom). Talk to your roommate about how loud it is and if the music/sound machine can be put on a sleep timer (turn off after 30 minutes).

Temperature/Windows: So your roommate likes to sleep in a deep freeze (AC turned to 55°) or in a heat wave (heat set to 85°) or sleep with the windows wide open. This is where some compromising can begin – set the thermostat at 72°. If that’s too warm for you – get a fan. If that’s too cold for you – get a blanket. And if the wind is blowing in too much – shut it halfway.

Light: Pitch black darkness is the only way for some to sleep, others need a “little light” (some wold call it a night light). One compromise would be for the one that likes darkness is to wear a sleeping mask to bed. There are some really cool ones.

Fans can also help create some “white noise” to drown out music or noise from other rooms also.

Do you have any tips for working out different sleeping habits?

Almost every freshman starting their first venture to college will have to deal with a roommate (there are probably a few exceptions to every rule – like those that are living at home). Some new students have never had to deal with sharing living space with anyone (at least not for any length of time). A college roommate can be an learning experience for our beginning student. They can learn about diversity, sharing, getting along, communicating – important life skills. I have found some great places on the web that cover most of the ground of living with a roommate. My biggest advice to new roommates is that this is not forever (you can get a “divorce” at the end of the year), if you try and communicate you could discover a new friend and you also might learn something new about yourself!

Pink and Black has a great article on “How to Be A Great Roommate“. The main point I like from their article is to respect the person you are rooming with.

College Parent Central has an article written for the parents on “How to Help Your College Student Prepare for Living with a Roommate“.  This article talks about having the students discuss non-negotiable limits – sleeping with the window open, roommate borrowing things, overnight guests, etc – before the problems come up.

The New York Times wrote two articles on Roommates: “Sharing Spaces: The Science of Roommates” and “Sharing Spaces: Failure to Communicate“. The Science of Roommate article showed the positive and negative side effects roommates have on each other.  Everything from weight gain, mental health, grades, and drinking can be affected by the roommate. In the article – Failure to Communicate. The author talks about how today’s students are not effectively communicating with each other when a problem comes up.

Have you talked to your new college student about their roommate? New College Student: Have you talked to your new roommate?

I like to think of college life as “real life with training wheels”. As parents we get to let them  experience a little independence with a soft place to fall. As a college student, you get to take your first step into adulthood. Independence for some parents  it’s easy to let go of the “reins” (our house) and watch the student break free within the security of the “corral” (college). For some parents it’s extremely hard to let go of everything – even the “corral” isn’t enough security for them. As parents and students you need to find a happy medium that satisfies everyone.

I remember sitting at the parent orientation for my daughter’s first year of college and listening to the security officer and many other staff members reassure the parents about the safety of their children. They also told us we would not be contacted by the school about health or grade issues. We also could not contact the school about those same issues. The only thing we were allowed to call the school about was financial information. I think this shocked many of the parents. They felt that since they were paying for college they should be able to talk to teachers, staff about their students. One staff member reminded us that our children were 18 and technically considered adults – they might be our babies, but they were also adults and should be treated as such. That was the best piece of advice I have ever heard. I have tried to pass that message on to friends who have children in college. We (everyone) actually learn more when we fail at something. It is what helps make our students into the responsible, happy and independent adults they were meant to be.