Just went to Facebook and guess who poked me 26 times in a row an hour ago?

But it's a good thing, right? Hang in there, Mom!

(Maybe someone is missing home a little bit?)

Can you call her? This seems excessive.

I would imagine she's a little homesick and missing you. Perhaps you can set some limits, gently?

She is homesick and has asked her brother to come visit. He's too busy with school and work right now to do that. She's only been there about 6 weeks or so and I've been up there four times. Not going again for awhile. It's not like she doesn't have friends up there. She's made new friends and has two guys who she knew from high school.

Homesickness is normal, but it sounds like she has a bit too much time on her hands.

She needs to be more involved. It takes an effort to get the ball rolling. Encourage her to join clubs, student organizations, become a volunteer and find activities. An Intramural sports team is always a easy start if she has a favorite one. Tell her it's OK to join then quit until she finds the ones with the activities and people she likes.

Once she gets established, you'll start wondering why you don't hear from her.

She's already joined two, one I don't remember and one is a volunteer club. She's doesn't do sports.

Oh, my! Four visits! You're right to call a halt if she's ever going to find her college legs.

I presume she's not depressed or feeling overwhelmed by the work load or social pressures. If this doesn't taper off, maybe someone at the school could provide some pointers.

Some people aren't 'ready' for college just because it's the 'next logical step' after HS.

I don't know, I just wouldn't complain yet anyway. Have you asked her how she's doing? If she's o.k.? If she's feeling like she made a mistake?

Keep the communication as open as possible. Don't pussyfoot around if you think there's a problem, hit it head on and hard.

I truly hope she just misses mom and is letting you know and she will find her little corner of comfort on campus.

Well, turns out she didn't join the clubs because they required fees to join. She's having trouble sleeping at night but says she doesn't know why. She just takes naps in the day when she's not in class. Other than that she says everything is ok.

Sometimes growing up has drawbacks ... is hard.

ole joyful

Is she a coffee drinker? Sometimes kids don't think about coffee they drink later in the day which could cause sleeplessness.

Is there a chance she could come home for a long weekend? Is 10/13 Columbus Day a holiday for her, which would make a long weekend? Homesickness is miserable. Have you had a heart to heart talk with her that you are a little worried? (Don't tell her to stop poking you. At least she's reaching out.)

I would wonder about caffeine too. Colas, Mountain Dew, some orange flavored pops, she needs to read the ingredients. Coffee and tea and cocoa too.

I would be concerned. She needs to be getting involved, and it sounds like she is not. Involved in her studies so that she does not get behind, involved with friends and with activities.

Good luck with it.

She doesn't drink sodas, except an occasional Dr. Pepper. She actually has sent me pictures of her friends and roommates too...that she is hanging out with. So, she's not isolated at all.

Send her the money to join the clubs. Maybe that would keep her occupied. I am also wondering about caffeine....Dr Pepper is one of the worst.
Does she eat chocolate? Lots of caffeine in that also.

Something is wrong. If she is that homesick, it sounds like something other than normal separation anxiety. Good luck.

This does seem excessive. Even with friends, sometimes it's the college that is just not the right choice. (I agree with katlan)

I went through this with my oldest. After the first semester, she didn't want to go back, but the she did. She wound up coming back home after the first week. She worked for a semester and then applied to a fashion school. Totally different than what she could do at the other school.

You do say in your first post she wanted a school in NY or LA, so this school really wasn't her choice.

In our town's HS they encourage the students to go to the best college they get accepted to. Oldest was accepted to a high ranked college and everyone was so excited that she ran with it. As mentioned above, it wasn't the school for her. (She is bright and did well in her classes, but that college wasn't the right fit.)

My youngest went to a college that fit her criteria even though she received acceptance to higher ranked schools. She loved her college exoerience.

I would have a heart to heart talk with your daughter. She might have to come home to figure things out. It would be great if she is able to finish a semester, but her well being is what is most important.

It touched me my son liked to call me often when he first went to college in another state. He was in sports and had a full load of classes so not that much time on his hands. However, I did have to work out a payment plan with the phone company due to the increase in my monthly bill. lol

It was about a 3 hr. trip from college to home, but he visited when he could. Once again, his schedule was so full, there wasn't that much time and even if I could've visited him more often, don't think that would've worked for either of us.

Don't know what to say Kath, but sounds like your girl is having a hard time for whatever reason.

I would speak to the college's health department and ask their advice. They have seen a wide variety of what's 'normal' and what needs intervention. This doesn't feel close enough to 'normal' to me. They can also check to see if she's keeping up -- attending classes.

Have you MET the people in her photos? (She could be presenting a brave front.) She's also misled you about joining anything. She says she isn't sleeping at night, but is napping during the day. This isn't good, and it allows her to escape mixing with others.

IMO she sounds like someone who is stressed and feeling 'in over her head' or unable/unwilling to 'connect' with her peers. (This may be as much about them as it is about her.)

Do something now. This could too easily escalate into depression.

I vaguely recall that a plasmid is a DNA molecule - but I'll ask - what is a plasmid when referring to a professor ?

And I agree with the other posters - this is excessive. The napping during the day and staying awake at night is truly worrisome. Have you spoken to her about all of this?

Kathleen, you've been a very dedicated loving and giving mother to your children and I think you've always been very close to Lauren. It may be that she's actually worried about you and trying to compensate for the distance. Her "bombardments" may be a way to keep you from feeling or being lonesome. She will probably mellow out in a few weeks once she sees that you are doing okay and you let her know that you're not just sitting home grieving over her absence. I think you're making a good move by cutting back on the visits for a while. Maybe if you plan more activities with friends that you enjoy and letting her know about them then she will less concerned. Missing her big brother also is very normal in a close family.(Speaking from experience on this point.lol)Also, it might help if you "guided" her toward spending more time outside taking part in some physical activities such as hiking or nature walking and watching. Those type of activities are inexpensive, enjoyable and a huge stress reliever. Plus being good for her health.

I think I'd give her a few months to get really "chilled" about her new life out of the nest and give her a little time. It's a large adjustment for your whole family unit.

I doubt there is anything seriously wrong with her or she'd be crying on the phone with you. Yes, she's from a close family and misses you all, and I agree that she may be worried that you're lonely without either one of your kids at home. My friend's daughter was acting similarly; she didn't want to come home necessarily but wanted to be in contact with her mom many times a day. Do all the activities cost money? Is it possible she could work ten hours a week or so? This is what helped my friend's daugher--she had a place to go at certain times where she felt she belonged. (She worked the desk at the Athletic Center--very social.) The college experience these days is quite a bit different than it used to be and if you aren't the partying type, it can be lonely. My daughter went to a very big, well-respected school and was quite miserable because she couldn't find others with her interests very well, even though she kept trying to join organizations. She plowed through two years there (I was so proud of her for sticking with it since the deadline for transfer the following year passed before she realized she needed to change schools,) and she found ways to cope. She switched to a smaller school in town and was hugely happy! We didn't even see her very often, but she found friends who were more like she. This subject is near and dear to my heart, for this reason. There are LOTS of kids who have a tough time the first year.

Sounds like she's a little homesick. She will settle in..then it will be...I never hear from her anymore. :)

Everyone adjusts to changes differently. I wouldn't discourage her.. There is a need to have frequent contact with you or she wouldn't be doing it. She must value your friendship a lot. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, if there is something making her feel lonely, you would want to know.

This post was edited by Missy_May on Fri, Oct 3, 14 at 16:17

Enjoy Thanksgiving Break, and your "new" child.

Well, I had a very long talk with her on my way home from work tonight. I now know why she isn't getting much sleep. One of her roommates is obnoxiously rude and comes in at all hours of the night waking everyone up, shines the light from her phone in their faces to see if they're awake, etc... They're having all kinds of problems with this girl. Some of it is funny, laughed for about 5 minutes straight when she told me how this girl uses her dishes and leaves them dirty for her to clean up...and has missing utensils now. Sounds very familiar I couldn't quit laughing and I told her it was Karma.

Apparently this girl can't even do her own laundry and her mother comes to do it and came and cleaned the dorm up. There are two bathrooms and she is using Lauren's and her other roommate's bathroom instead of her own and has done some pretty gross stuff, I wont' get into. She also stole a Kroger shopping cart, which is still in their dorm room. I told her to go talk to the RA and go higher up if she does nothing. This girl has slammed Lauren's new microwave so much the door isn't working right. She also likes to sleep nude in their other roommates chair, which is gross. She seems to like to parade around in the room with no clothes on either, which is freaking them all out.

There's other stuff. I told her they are adults and need to handle it, either talk to her directly or go to the RA. I have this girl's mother's phone number, we exchanged it when we moved the girls in. I texted her right after they moved in because her daughter and one of the other girls had a major blow up, Lauren and the other girl were on this girl's side then, but not anymore now that they've gotten to know her. I'm not getting involved and won't be contacting her mother.

Hopefully they'll find a new place for this person.

I'm glad you found out the problem. This girl seems mentally unstable. I would see if my daughter could be moved, or have the girl moved.

Back to my oldest when she attended her original college. She was in a suite that shared a bathroom and kitchenette. Her roommate was Korean and was not interested at all in socializing with my daughter or others who were not Korean. She had her own social circle. My daughter was disappointed but could have lived with this situation.

It was the roommate on the other side that was the problem. She was gay and became interested in my daughter. She would not take no for an answer. There was no way I would allow my daughter to live under this stress. She was moved out right after we found out.

How your daughter's roommate is behaving is just not normal. The other girls should not have to put up with this behavior. They need to find a single room for this girl. Within the first month or two kids drop out and go home, so there will be space.

Sorry, to me this to me is not one of those "grin and put up with" life lessons. It can and should be corrected.

There are many students that shouldn't be in college. My youngest shared a suite with three others. One was 23! She also was a bit odd and wound up leaving after a few months. But, she didn't offend or make the others uncomfortable. It was just strange for a 23 year old to be in a dorm with 17/18 year olds.

At my oldest's college, a student went around stealing everyone's jewelry, money, designer items etc. she as caught and the items were returned.

I'm going to let them work things out...if the school won't move her then I will call. She needs to at least try. I can't keep doing everything for her.

Good for you for letting her figure it out. Waaaay too many helicopter parents out there today who do everything for their kids once they are adults and it's not doing the kids any favors, that's for sure. It's one thing if your kid is in danger but those are relatively rare situations.

Roommate sounds odd but almost every freshman going into a dorm has these issues. Stories may also be a bit exaggerated. :) My first roommate and I did not get along at all but we survived. I think it's good to learn to deal with different situations as an exercise for the real world with coworkers and neighbors you can't always pick!

Glad you got more of the full story.

I may sound overly cautious about following up when your college freshman is upset. It's not always about *your* kid. This is a stage of life and an age when previously latent issues can become apparent.

The daughters of two close friends erupted into full blown schizophrenic behaviors after they started college. That's *extreme*, but other disorders also show up after kids leave their 'nests'. Your DD's roomie' mother can't continue to try to normalize for her. The girl needs help -- and to be removed from your DD's suite.

Exactly Chisue.

Kaths, you know your daughter and we don't. I hope things work out.

I just think it's sad to have one girl ruin the dorm experience for the rest of the girls.

I also feel that that if you can help your child navigate through unusual or difficult situations, then why not? In this post, I still feel the girls behavior is abnormal and should be addressed.

I worked at a student health center in California. Kids who were mentally ill and on meds would be sent away to college and then stop taking their meds. Their roommates would have to put up with all kinds of problems. The psychiatrist would sometimes call the parent after talking with the troubled student and suggest the kid drop out of school and return home to attend a nearby school and live at home so the parent could monitor the meds.

She and her roommates need to talk with their RA quickly. The longer she waits, the harder it will be if she needs to change rooms or get this girl out. My youngest son was an RA for 3 years, they are trained quite well in dealing with conflict and are a great asset to new students. Unfortunately new students are generally reluctant to go to their RA.

My oldest had very similar issues with his roommate. It was a nightmare for awhile until RA helped resolve it with both parties. Worked out fine after that.

Oh my Kathleen, your job isn't done. This is a learning experience but I would be making sure your daughter talks to the RA ASAP !
Of course she should be friendly, thoughtful and all that but she doesn't need to start her college year troubled by this enormous pain in the butt. One of them has to go. Someone sitting on my chairs naked, ha, no.

A friend doesn't ignore a friend in a time of need and neither should a parent. You are here to guide her, she can do the talking and the ground work, just let her know college can be a wonderful time between class and homework. When the drama dies down, both of you are going to feel better.

I tried to tell her to go to the RA, she says she hasn't had time. She also said she(the RA) probably wouldn't do anything since she was supposed to come talk to them all after the big fight between the two girls earlier last month. The RA still hasn't made it to see them. I guess they all made dorm room rules together and they were supposed to discuss them.

It's been my experience that RA's do very little to nothing with roommate problems. Boyfriends staying over? Tough luck to the roommates. It really ticks me off that some kids have to put up with so much.

Personally, I would talk to the RA for protocol, but then I would go to the school.

You have given her a path to take care of the roommate situation. She says she *doesn't have time*??? Maybe this isn't the whole story or even the real problem.

Has she stopped the constant messages to you?

It's not as bad the last couple of days. I decided to take a trip up there this Saturday. Bring her one of those storage containers with stuff in it...food, Halloween candy, facial scrub, etc... maybe take her out for lunch and talk about the problem again.

Roommate and dorm problems are a typical problem in freshman year. It'll run its course. She's had time to send you how many messages per day week after week but not to talk to an RA? If dealing with it isn't a priority to her, then it's not a problem. If it is and she's chosen a passive approach, it's a good lesson to learn that decisions have consequences.

I think the best thing you can do to help her is to stay home. She should be spending weekends with her schoolmates, not with her Mom. By your count, this would be your fifth visit in seven weeks? That's no less excessive (to me) than her message count.

Good luck.

Having three girls, I would guess "haven't had time" is her way of telling you it would be waaaaay too embarrassing to discuss this with an RA. None of my dd's would have done so either. :)

For a change I agree with Snidely - you shouldn't be visiting her. My granddaughter's roommate was a pill too and spent her time in the room sleeping when she didn't have class. When we went to visit and to see her dorm room we had to be quiet because the roommate was sleeping. Granddaughter thought she had some medical problems as she had noticed perscription pills on her shelf. However, granddaughter made friends easily with other girls on the floor and never did anything socially with her roommate. After the first year she has rented a four bedroom house with three other classmates and they call themselves "the Tribe." Two of them graduated, so this year are two new members, a boy and a girl.

First trip was moving her in. Second was taking a book we rented from Amazon to her and buying the remaining books she needed. Third trip was picking the Amazon book back up when she dropped that class, to send back before the deadline and not get charged.

Maybe I missed it somewhere along the way but how far of a drive is it to her school? If it's really close then I can perhaps see why you might have delivered the book. But honestly she could have returned the book - all she needed was the Amazon return label which you could have emailed to her. Is there some reason why she couldn't pay for her books in the book store? Does she have a credit card or debit card for her purchases or a school account?

Some RA's are more helpful than others. You mentioned that there is a third room mate - does she have the same complaints as your daughter? Have the three of them had a discussion about this. Your DD is going to have problems like this all through college and she needs to learn how to handle it.

omg it's to bad that freshman are stuck in the dorms...next time you go up, take her a locked box of some sort so the girl can't get into things like the microphone...sounds as if this girl had major problems..as for the sans clothing ? wonder what she'd do if the girls just tried really hard to ignore her and pretend she's fully clothed?( you know... a big yawn when she goes commando, lol...)

There are four girls in this room. Poor set up, no privacy. The only doors are the front door and the ones to the toilet. There isn't even a door to the showers, only a curtain. They all sleep in the same room, which is open to the "living room". She requested a cheaper room which had four sharing a quad but two girls shared a bedroom which had doors. They were filled already.

So, she's still poking me on Facebook, although not every day now.

Yes, all three girls have problems with the one. One of them had a screaming match with her the first week or two of moving in. At first Lauren and C. (the one she gets along with the most), thought it was the other girl with the problem. M. (the nudist) moved into her brother's apartment for a couple weeks and all was quiet. She apparently got into a fight with her brother over something I'm not going to post here and moved back to the dorm. She has since been acting like a slob and being inconsiderate of her roommates. The 3 girls have morning classes, M. doesn't so she can stay out late at night and come back in the early morning waking them all with her loud banging around. Like I said, I'm going to let her handle it and if she doesn't go to someone about it then she will just have to put up with it. I'm not going to march up there and demand they fix it. She and the other two girls need to speak up.

It's a 2 hour drive. I didn't want to pay $110 for nothing. She has no vehicle and who knows how far the nearest UPS was from her dorm. I did it so I wouldn't get stuck paying for the rental. (I should say she has a vehicle, but the transmission is out and it's sitting at her father's waiting for him to fix it.)

I think this trip is a good idea, provided you meet with the other roomies and get their stories. After that...it's on them to take action. (No Moms.)

Good luck to you. I remember a friend's daughter had a miserable roommate. When she arrived and saw all the black decor and the horse skull, that was her first clue. When the date for no more dorm refunds was close at hand, they made a point of reminding this girl of that date's proximity. That did it. She moved out the day before the deadline.

But before that date, the friend's daughter found someone with a vacancy in her dorm room and arranged to move in with that girl.