Announcer: Listener-supported WNYC Studios.

[music]

David Furst: Once again, it is that time of year, the beginning of the college semester. It can be exciting, inspiring, and a source of anxiety for kids and parents. There's the normal uncertainty of a new semester and all of the work to do, and for parents, dropping off your oldest or youngest child can come with a real sense of loss. I was here guest hosting on All Of It last year for a discussion about the college drop-off, and it was great to hear from so many of you so we thought it was the right time to revisit this topic.

There are a lot of complex feelings to sort through on that move-in day and during the first few weeks of the semester. Once again, to help students and parents navigate it all, we are turning to an expert. Matt Lundquist is the founder and Clinical Director of Tribeca Therapy and has a lot of thoughts on how parents can promote their child's independence. Matt, welcome back.

Matt Lundquist: So great to be here, David. Thanks for having me.

David Furst: It's great to be with you once again. Listeners we really want to hear from you on this topic. Did you drop off a kid at college this fall? What emotions have you been working through? What conversations did you have with your kids before sending them off? What are you feeling emotional about and maybe if your kids have already graduated, what advice do you have for parents that are going through this for the very first time or maybe your child is leaving home for the first time to start a job or to begin military service, or perhaps starting college while commuting from home.

We want to hear from you as well as we talk about these very significant transitions. If you are a first-year student listening, we want to hear your thoughts and feelings too. Give us a call. Here's the number, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Matt, first of all, I have a confession. Our oldest child is just starting his second year at college, and I thought the drop-off and saying goodbye would perhaps be easier this time around, but it didn't seem that way to me.

Matt Lundquist: Yes, I recall last year that he was headed off for the first time. I'm sorry to hear that the second year wasn't so much better. Do you have a sense of why? Was it harder for him or harder for you or both?

David Furst: We'll just focus on me. No, it's all great and it's all exciting, but just the saying goodbye is so painful.

Matt Lundquist: My kids are younger. I wonder, maybe that doesn't get that much easier over time. Maybe you get more used to it being hard.

David Furst: Well, we certainly don't want to just focus on feelings of sadness. This is a thrilling time, and we're already getting calls. Let's hear from Susan calling from Montclair, New Jersey. Susan, welcome to the discussion.

Susan: Thank you for taking my call.

David Furst: Thank you for joining us.

Susan: I just wanted to remark that I feel that there's been so much overwrought emoting about this topic in the last several years. You see online, you see in national forums like Grown & Flown, about how sad parents, especially mothers, just can't get a hold of themselves when their children are going to college. I certainly don't want to minimize anybody's feelings, but I just don't understand all this overwrought emoting. It's normal, it's natural. We all grew up and left our parents' homes, that's why we're in the position that we're in.

I feel like if you don't feel that way, just reading all of this about how sad it is just makes you feel guilty that, "Oh, am I supposed to be feeling that sad?" To me, it was a very exciting time. Yes, of course, it's a milestone, and you always note the milestones, but upset and overwrought about it, I don't see it, and I'm just wondering what in our culture is promoting those widespread feelings.

David Furst: Susan, that's a really interesting thought. Matt, what's your take on that? Susan says it's all a bit too much.

Matt Lundquist: Sure. I think I want to abstain on the question of what's going on in our culture. I think I probably have some complicated answers to that, and maybe Susan's guess is as good as mine. I think what I would say is, even going back, David, to your comment about let's not just focus on the sad parts of this, it seems like your caller is saying something very similar. One thing I like to talk with parents about is not overdetermining your child's experience and not overdetermining your own and so certain experiences that we have in the world there's a certain expectation that's set, and those, as your caller is pointing out, can change over time.

I think you want to be open to the idea that this thing that maybe lots of people are saying is big and scary and hard maybe won't be for you. I would say similarly, and I think you're really speaking to this as well, David, in terms of your own experience, is to speak to parents about this may be really hard and scary for you, maybe it's not so hard, and scary for your young person, and I think it's important to recognize the difference between those things. They may actually be doing just fine, or it may be that everybody has complicated feelings but different feelings, and we want to leave room for that.

David Furst: Good thoughts. Let's hear from Elizabeth calling in from Rockland County today. Elizabeth, did you just have a drop-off experience?

Elizabeth: I did. I just dropped off our oldest son two weeks ago. In that time, the first week, he ended up having to have surgery on his foot, which I was there to take care of, and now he's home isolating with COVID for a second week.

David Furst: Oh my goodness, that's quite a lot all at once.

Elizabeth: This has been quite the college experience so far.

David Furst: Well, Matt, what would your advice be if a student is having difficulty or some of these health issues? What are the best ways for parents and administrators to help?

Matt Lundquist: One of the things that I talk with parents a lot is this question of when should I be concerned? Often, of course, as a therapist, that's in the category of an emotional struggle, a struggle to adjust, making friends, and certainly feeling a sense of home in terms of being away. I think that can be true with the kinds of things that Elizabeth is describing.

I think that those are real judgment calls. I think one of the things I often encourage parents is that schools understand really well. They're really the experts in terms of supporting young people, particularly their first year, though not limited to that. I would encourage folks to be in touch with their school, with the Dean of Students Office to help coordinate with some of those questions. I think sometimes those are judgment calls. In this case, it sounds like between a broken foot and COVID. Elizabeth did the right thing and brought her son back home to take care of him.

David Furst: Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us, and good luck dealing with that and the recuperating. If you would like to join this discussion, we would love to hear your thoughts and feelings too. Give us a call, 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. You can also send a message @allofit. I'd like to hear now from Francis calling from Staten Island, having a very different feeling at the drop-off this time.

Francis: I couldn't wait, it couldn't come soon enough because my son was a teenager and obnoxious. I had no idea how to deal with a teenager. I remember after Labor Day going back to work and seeing all these co-workers with red eyes and going, "What happened?" and they said, "I just dropped off my son," or "I just dropped off my daughter," and I was so horrified that I had just felt great relief that I would pretend that I was doing the same. I would pretend that I was feeling terrible about it, but actually, I was thrilled.

I have had enough of teenagerism, and I do think that part of why I'm calling in is because I think there is this mantra that we should all be devastated and unable to go on so I want to open it up and let people know it's okay. He's a perfectly fine young man, but at the time, I felt really great dropping him off.

David Furst: Francis, I am so glad you called us today and that you feel comfortable enough to share with us this information. What was that comment, "enough of teenagerism?" Matt, what are your thoughts on that?

Matt Lundquist: Noticing kind of a theme with some of your callers today, but really appreciating it. I think they're speaking to what we, as psychotherapists, call ambivalence, which is the appreciation of the fact that these experiences can contain multitudes of feelings. I think it's important in the midst of what, for some people, can be grief, and maybe we're seeing kind of a more culturally acceptable that also, growing up and establishing independence is also the point of having children and raising children, which is to also see them off and see them become independent of the world and have that separateness, which can also be really joyful and for some people a relief.

David Furst: We're getting a lot of calls coming in right now. If you would like to join this discussion again, the number 212-433-9692, that's 212-433 WNYC. Getting a real range of thoughts here. Karen joining us from Long Island this afternoon. Welcome to All Of It.

Karen: Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

David Furst: Tell us about your experience.

Karen: I dropped my daughter, who's my eldest child off at school two weeks ago at the Ohio State University, which is a tremendous, tremendous school. I've listened to your callers who say they don't understand the overwrought mothers who can't get control of their emotions. For me, I think it's a very complex mix of emotions. Of course, I am proud of my daughter, I'm thrilled for her and excited at all of the possibilities for her future. At the very same time, I am dealing with something that feels very much like mourning.

I'm mourning the loss of the life that we had together, her childhood, which has come to an end. She will come home for vacations and she will come home for summer. She will most likely never live with me again every day of the year. That's fine, but it's a very big mix of emotions. I think the other part of it is hiding that from your child, keeping control of how many times you text or call, waiting for them to contact you, desperately searching their social media just for a little glimpse of their face.

David Furst: Well, Matt, there's a lot to respond to there. Really feeling the milestone, right?

Matt Lundquist: Yes, for sure. I'm appreciating Karen's effort as we were just talking about in limiting how much she expresses concern to her daughter so that her daughter can be free of that and work on this really important transition of being a college student, establishing that independence. I'm also really appreciating the word mourning. In some ways, we often think of mourning only in the context of something bad that's happening. I think that mourning may be better understood as something that we experience and work through during periods of change.

What obviously is happening for Karen and her daughter is a unquestionably very significant change in their relationship. I think it's important to look at mourning as a process that we go through, which at times feels bad, but generally speaking, results in arriving at a new place where we're more at peace with things. For now, I think making room for those hard feelings is really important.

David Furst: Let's hear from another caller. This is Lisa in Westchester. Lisa, you wanted to talk about how all of these emotions are normal.

Lisa: All of these emotions are normal. Thank you for taking my call lying. Long-time listener. First-time caller. I just want to say that in full disclosure, I'm also a licensed mental health counselor in New York State and a licensed professional counselor in the state of Connecticut. I work with parents to help them transition from being a very hands-on parent style to one of evolving the new relationship, which I think you both just touched upon of what's evolving once the child goes to school, once the child goes to college.

It's not something that can be done in a day or two weeks. I take six months to help prep the parent for the drop-off and to remind them that this is part of their process of a job well done. Sometimes some parents get identified too much with being an on-hand parent. There seems to be sometimes an unwritten contest among parents, like who could cry more. The real issue now is, is to really evolve the relationship to one of, this is not a child. She will always be an adult child of yours, or he will be an adult child. The schools know what they're doing.

Also full disclosure on, I'm a former academic counselor for freshman students making the transition from high school to college and many colleges have this down to a science almost, where there's lots of activities for the students to partake and be a part of, whether they're first year, second year, it doesn't matter. It's becoming part of the new learning community and community in general so that they have a place where they can feel comfortable.

David Furst: Having a lot of activities.

Lisa: Parents should feel comfortable also.

David Furst: Well, thank you.

Lisa: Oh, tremendous. Tremendous. I have a parent right now just trying to call three times a day to the student, and I have to say that's inappropriate

David Furst: Well, that's a really interesting point. Matt, I wanted to ask you, this was something that Karen touched on earlier that is how should we manage our texts to not be sending too many, I think is what we're concerned about.

Matt Lundquist: I think it's helpful to have a rule of thumb. One of them is, am I texting to make myself feel better? Am I testing to relieve some of my own anxiety? In which case, I think texting a friend and texting other people who are there to support. I think it's also understandable and also important from the child's perspective that parents be in touch and so there's an arc to kind of identifying that balance. I think one critical question is, am I doing this to make myself feel better? Am I doing this because I want to make sure my child is feeling supported and this feels appropriate?

David Furst: Well, I want to get to a couple more calls before we're totally out of time here. Let's hear from Kathy in Chatham, New Jersey. Joining us today, my town. Hey, Kathy.

Kathy: Hi. How's it going?

David Furst: Welcome to All Of It.

Kathy: I'm enjoying your show. Thank you. I just really wanted to say my younger son, we took back to school in August for his second year. He's very far from home and of course, I miss him, and I'm missing all his friends and the lively energy they brought to our home but I'm so happy for him. He worked really, really hard. He found a place that is his fit and he's found his people. What I love now is he will text me and say, "Hey, you want to come down for a weekend when all the other parents are coming? We can have dinner and a party and you can meet all my friends."

I think to myself, "Good for him." He's lonely at times too. He misses me cooking him his favorites, but he's making a life for himself. I'm so proud of him. I'd love to see him more often, but realistically, this is what we were supposed to be teaching them I thought. [crosstalk]

David Furst: Thank you for that comment. Matt, do you have a last thought on that?

Matt Lundquist: Yes. Appreciating that Kathy is working through all of the big feelings, the missing, and the joy. I think both are wonderful in these moments.

David Furst: Matt Lundquist, founder, Clinical Director of Tribeca Therapy, thank you so much for joining us again at this time of year.

Matt Lundquist: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.