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My 18 year-old daughter has just returned home from her freshman year at college, and it got me to remembering the fall, and the separation that I felt when she left home for her first full year away.
Although she had left home for camp, and certainly other points of her childhood for sleepovers, and separations simply to go off to school, I couldn’t help but think of the similarity in some ways, between an 18 year old and an 18 month old! Strange as it sounds, the job of parenting and the job of kids ‘growing up’ and ‘away from us’, does bear some components that while they look and manifest differently, are aspects of the same issue of separateness and connection.
In the therapy “biz,” 18 months is characterized by toddlers moving away — literally ambulating away from their moms or dads, and returning back, to “refuel.” I always loved this term; anyone studying developmental psychology has probably watched dozens of tapes of little tykes toddling after the ball, or after whatever has caught their imagination, but then returning back for a cuddle, or a nuzzle, to literally “refuel” on security. Literal “love fuel,”; security, home base.
Not sure things are different for our 18-year-olds going off to college.
Their leash, or their range of mileage away from home base is certainly a lot longer, but is there anything really different in what they need from us?
Hopefully they have internalized lots of that love and security, but they still need to refuel! Maybe it’s in the way of cash, (symbolic of that security and real too!) but they still need to come back and know that we are still there. Sometimes they will need to connect by fighting, creating strife; it’s still better than indifference and a lack of contact! Kids do it in different ways, but they all do it. They all need to connect, refuel, and then move away, do their own thing. Practice being on their own. Back and forth. Just like the toddlers.
But, for those of you with kids going off to college for their first time after the summer; (and these next few weeks go fast!); as you are approaching this very bittersweet, poignant moment in your lives, keep that memory of them toddling off and away from you, and always coming back.
For they will be back. Whether by text, a phone call, Skype, or a visit, they still need you to refuel.
Happy Parenting and Congratulations to all you freshmen!
