Connecting with Your Child in College

When my first child left for college, I was determined to find new ways to connect.

So, when we got invited to join an Auburn tailgate with other parents in our community, we said yes.

Keep in mind that Harry and I are huge Alabama fans. We live for game day. We don’t even do an Alabama tailgate, yet here we were, signing up at Auburn in hopes of spending time with our college-bound child.

Oh, the things we do for love!

In hindsight, it was comical, especially the vision I had of us tailgating with Ella
for hours before every home game.

I envisioned our family reuniting under the big white tent.

I was willing to sacrifice some beloved Bama games to make this happen.

And I was open to starting new traditions (while keeping my team allegiance, of course).

The reality, however, was that game days looked totally different than I expected.

They never played out the way I planned.

While we enjoyed this tailgate and getting to see friends, we were lucky if we saw Ella for 5 or 10 minutes after the game.

We didn’t realize that she’d go to games with a date or with friends—and in both cases, they’d be a fraternity house, not a tailgate, beforehand.

And we failed to consider that her dates would be pledges. They had tight schedules and early game day arrivals, which made seeing her unpredictable.

After a few game days with quick interactions (Hello! I love you! I’ll call you later!), Harry and I decided this wasn’t the place to get quality time with our girl.

This tailgate would be for us—a place to socialize and enjoy other adults—and if we saw Ella, it’d be a huge bonus. We’d be thrilled with any time we got.

Because the truth was, this was her turf. We’d invited ourselves into her world, and rather than insist on connecting on our terms, we had to work around her schedule. We wanted our meet-ups to feel fun and natural, not stressful and hard.

If we were Auburn fans, continuing this tailgate might have made sense, but for us, there was a better strategy.

A strategy that allowed us to enjoy game days in Tuscaloosa and visit Auburn at other times.

Because the #1 Rule in connecting with your college child is this:

You’ve got to be flexible. That means being creative and willing to pivot your plans to spend quality time together.

Here are 5 ways to do that…