S/o: what are you doing to prepare your kids for college?

[Globetrotter]

Eh, I couldn't wait to leave the house so I certainly never called unless there was a reason, so I envy anyone with a close relationship! Teen Dd and I are close but we tend to text back and forth about practical things. The chatting happens in the car or when we go out for lunch alone. On one hand we are told to keep an eye on our kids and their friends and be available, but not too much. It's hard to strike the balance, but I think we have .

It's not our style, but I don't think it's a terrible thing to be in touch. It's better than having no idea what's going on. There is a lot of pressure on our kids these days so I will worry about her mental health. I've introduced guided meditations and plan to teach both breathing techniques for stress relief.

What I cannot understand is monitoring their work. I have NO idea what dd does unless she needs to buy something for a project or complains about an assignment. I understand some kids need help or a push, but I have a friend who edited her son's papers until he graduated from COLLEGE.
Yes, college.

I learned to be hands off early. Let them make mistakes when they are In Elementary school (though our elem was a pressure cooker and mistakes were not forgiven- but still). Let them forget their books/homework and suffer the consequences. I let them pack their backpacks from kg or 1st, but my kids are organized Irt school. Definitely by 3-4th grade..

Guess what? It doesn't matter at that age. You don't want them to learn this lesson in high school, and they need to be completely independent by college! Some kids will keep messing up and need help with organizational skills, so focus on that.

[MelissaTC]

When in college, I rarely called home. I was the kid whose parents had to call the RA and housing director to find out if I was alive! As I have gotten older and moved away from family, I talk to my sisters and parents several times a week. My DH is not really close to his family and doesn't quite get it. I'm very close with them all and wouldn't want it any other way, except when I was 18!

[TwinFoxes]

I don't know. I went to college in the late 80s, and I knew people who called home every day. I certainly didn't LOL because college was my great escape. But plenty of people did. And with the advent of cell phones, I can see sending a few texts a day. Now, texting for dating advice while at a party seems a little weird.

My MIL and SILs call and text each other every day, multiple times a day.

Same here! I definitely knew people who called home every day. It wasn't the norm, but it wasn't unheard of.

My mom died just as cell phones were becoming super popular, but I talked to her very often, sometimes it'd be a couple of times a day, sometimes a few days would go by, but never more than that. If we could text, OMG, we'd tear it up! Even now, I text my MIL a couple of times a week, or she texts me. She talks to SILs every day. They're all happy and healthy, and non-codependent.

[hellokitty]

Aside from trying our best to instill strong values, work ethic and compassion, and doing well academically, we want our kids to try to stand out in some kind of way. Not in a generic asian (we are asian), play violin, piano and be a mathlete type of way. However, we want them to be passionate about a specific interest and build on it by doing extracurricular or volunteer work around it. I'm also a HUGE fan of leadership opportunities. Although we are not pushing our kids to go into STEM fields, we do feel that it is to their advantage to be strong in STEM, so we do encourage them to explore and become strong in STEM, so if they do decide to into it, they aren't playing catch up. I'd also like to make sure our kids are well traveled, as I think helps to expand their POV.

I grew up with tiger parents and hated it. While I am far from a tiger mom, I still expect high stds for my kids, but I don't believe in over-scheduling them or forcing them to do things that the don't want to do and making them feel like garbage all of the time. I don't want my kids to look like robots who can't think for themselves, and I don't want them to hate us when they grow up, which is something I struggle with regarding my parents and the way they brought us up. I don't, 'hate' them, but I definitely resent them and am irritated now that they yearn for a close relationship that they did nothing, in fact did all that they could to guarantee against the possibility of it, to build a relationship like that. Now they blame my brothers and I for being ingrates, and it's like we're damned either way. My brothers both technically lived up to my parents' expectations, only to realize that my parents are still not satisfied, and by the time I got to college I refused to hoop jump anymore and was burnt out. So, a big part of the way we parent is that we also have a goal to have a positive relationship with our children, PAST childhood.

[sste]

Just saw this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/ed...ml?mwrsm=Email

I think this is a sign of our economic times. My son, who is def. quirky, has been obsessed with college since he was three or four and to this day asks us things like "In college will science be the "special" every day. We are trying to get him to live more in the present!!