Birds aren’t the only creatures migrating in spring. In May, many college students swoop home for the summer, landing with their loads of dirty laundry and cravings for the comforts of home. As glad as we may feel to have our children return to the nest, adding them back into family life is rarely as simple as rebooting their high school days.
Finding a new equilibrium usually requires work on all sides, but the process can be smoothed when parents and teenagers alike bear in mind that they are entering a new and unfamiliar phase of the parent-child relationship.
They’ve Changed While Away
Adolescence and young adulthood are marked by tremendous personal growth, so it should come as no surprise that the child who returns from college is not the same as the one who left.
Some changes will be entirely welcome. Anna Yarinsky, an 18-year-old freshman at Vanderbilt University, wants “to try to be more helpful around the house” this summer. Accordingly, she’s planning to help with buying groceries and making dinner now that she’s back with her family in Manhattan.
Other developments will be easy enough to absorb. While away at school, Jackie Green, a 20-year-old junior at The Ohio State University, traded the meat and pasta of her childhood for a diet of fish and vegetables.
“My mom is pretty accommodating, and willing to make new things,” she explained, “but the rest of the family isn’t into the food that I like.” They came to a compromise. A couple nights each week, the family has fish and vegetables while Ms. Green is home with them in Orlando, Fla. “And my mom said that if there was anything I really didn’t want, she wouldn’t make that while I’m around.” The rest of the time, they eat as they always have. “But it’s all right,” Ms. Green said, “a decent balance.”
And some shifts may test family bonds. Hawk Anderson, a 22-year-old senior at the University of California, Riverside, from San Diego, was initially disowned by his mother, his primary parent, when he came out as bisexual at age 19. “Through patience and time and my own hard work, I’ve been able to reconnect with my mom,” he said.
We cannot always know the nature or scale of the changes we’ll be greeting when our college students return home, but we can prepare for their return by remembering that young adults are, by their nature, unfolding.
Rejoining Family Routines Isn’t Easy
Isabel Beach, a 20-year-old junior at Barnard College, observed that when she’s with her family in Homer, Alaska, “I’m the only one on break — everyone else is still working.” Indeed the rhythms of family life — with younger siblings who are still in school and parents who go to work each day — don’t always harmonize with the routines of a college student who may still be recovering from finals and keeping odd hours.
As glad as we may feel to have our children return to the nest, adding them back into family life is rarely as simple as rebooting their high school days.CreditAndrew Seng for The New York Times
So it would not be surprising if there is some friction in the window between the return from college and the beginning of summer jobs, internships or travel plans. It can help to have a conversation about expectations, maybe saying that it’s O.K. to spend a few days on the couch eating Doritos, if it’s done with respect for established family patterns.
After months of independence, it can be an adjustment for young adults to be expected to pick up after themselves or text us if they’ll be missing dinner. Jac Guerra, a 19-year-old freshman at Brandeis University who will soon return home to Guildford, Conn., reflected that he is “going to have to remember that my mom doesn’t want dirty dishes in the sink.”
Fitting back into family life can be especially awkward for college students whose bedrooms have been claimed by younger siblings, or who have lost their exclusive access to a car. While most young adults don’t expect that their high school life will be preserved in amber, a little empathy on parents’ part can still go a long way.
Saying something along the lines of, “We appreciate that you’re not used to sharing a car with your sister — let’s figure out new routines that meet everyone’s needs,” may help ease the transition home.
Issues May Go Beyond Housekeeping
It’s important for parents to remember that their returning students sometimes need support around experiences they may not have mentioned in texts or weekly phone calls, from helping a roommate who has blacked out from drinking to facing psychological problems such as depression and anxiety.
For a college student who is among the more than three million teenagers using nicotine through vaping, an attempt to stop upon arriving home for the summer may cause increased moodiness and irritability. If you feel the need to adopt a “no smoking or vaping under my roof” policy, you may want to offer some resources to help your young adult break the addiction to nicotine as house rules are not always enough to get someone to quit.
Young adults who have gotten used to not having to account to anyone else for their behavior may chafe at parents’ restrictions around alcohol or expectations that they will revert to high school curfews or even that they will routinely wake up in their own beds. It can be valuable to lay out clearly what your expectations are at the start of the summer, from “Please let me know if we’re out of milk” to “Just text us if you decide to sleep over at a friend’s” — and revisit them as new wrinkles emerge.
Rules are always unique to each family, but it’s a solid guideline to remember that responsibilities and privileges often go hand in hand. When we ask our older children to carry more of the weight that comes with keeping a household in order, we can reasonably extend more privileges to them as well.
Reconnecting With Parents Isn’t Top of Mind
Parents should not be surprised when returning children seem to care more about attending to their high school friendships than communing with us. It may feel insulting, but it might be a compliment: They trust that we’re not going anywhere, but they often harbor a sense of anxiety, longing or both with regard to their hometown peers.
Mr. Guerra is returning home apprehensive about seeing his high school friends. “I’m nervous about whether we will be able to hang out as comfortably as we used to, or whether they will have met people in college they connect with more.”
In contrast, Ms. Yarinsky can’t wait to catch up with old friends. “Last summer, we spent a lot of time being angsty about college and sad to leave each other,” she said. “I’m excited to be with them without that hanging over us.”
We also shouldn’t be surprised when returning college students rush to visit much-missed hometown spots. Ms. Beach knows the hike she’ll take as soon as she returns to Alaska, Ms. Yarinsky has her sights set on her favorite Manhattan cafe and Mr. Guerra plans to climb a particular bluff overlooking the Long Island Sound as soon as he gets home.
Instead of taking it personally when our adult children are more excited to stop by a beloved pizza joint than join us for dinner, we might take this as a vote of confidence in the strong relationships we’ve built — and maintained — with them.
“I can have a sense of family in other places,” Mr. Guerra said, “but I can’t replicate the feeling of being at the top of that bluff anywhere else.”
