It’s only natural for parents to miss their kids when they go off to college.
Dalton Ross, a senior at Belmont University knew how much his Mom, Susan Talley, was missing him, so he jokingly thought he’d send her a life-size cut-out of himself while studying abroad.
He thought it would give the family a laugh and it even included a note saying “You’re welcome” and “”I thought maybe they’d put it in the living room corner until I got back to remember I exist.”
Mom had other plans. Once the cut out arrived she posted a picture of it on her Facebook page and commented “Look what the UPS man delivered – hahaha, I love it!!!! Just when I was starting to miss him REALLY bad. Stay tuned because I’m going to be posting lots of adventures with this Dalton while the real one is in Europe.”
As she sends the pictures of the cut-out-Dalton to the real Dalton, he uploads them to Imgur
Thus far it looks like she’s taking good care of her “son”.
She’s clearly making sure that he’s eating well, spending quality time with the family and even made sure he made his six monthly check ups with the Doctor and Dentist!
There are other ways of dealing with your child going off to college.
Here are a few tips to help you cope when your child goes off to college or to study abroad:
- Go with the flow and take their lead. You have more experience, but this is their moment. Put your needs aside and let them find their own way.
- Try to set up a communication schedule with your child. While you don’t want to suffocate them with calls, it helps to know how often you should expect to hear from them.
- Get Skype –If you haven’t already, download Skype onto your computer. It makes things so much easier to stay in contact regularly.
- If your child is going to study abroad, get contact numbers of someone who you can contact if something goes wrong or if you lose touch with your child.
- As much as you will miss your child, try to concentrate on the many benefits of the journey on which your child is about to begin. It will be a lot easier for you to relax if you focus on how much your child will gain from this new venture.