Mary Jane Hurley Brant

 
 
It’s August, and your child or grandchild is leaving for college.  Yes, I know it brings up many feelings and they are often mixed.  One minute you’re laughing with them at Target and the next minute you’re dissolving into tears.  The thing about being a parent or grandparent is that when we finally master one stage of development with our kids or grandkids, they’ve already catapulted into the next.

Leaving for college is a huge transition for a family.  For many parents this separation feels like a small death.  In a way, it is the end of the original family and extended family construct.  Think about it, for years the focus was on the child’s grades, extracurricular activities, getting along with classmates, talking about what subjects to study, filling out applications, researching prospective colleges, visiting the schools, writing essays, and meeting deadlines.  Then the anxious wait for acceptances to arrive begins.  Everyone’s a complete wreck waiting for the daily mail delivery when future hopes and dreams are realized or crushed by a single letter. As a grandparent, I was as nervous with the waiting time for our grandson’s acceptance as I was with our own two children. Hopefully, your son or daughter or grandchild got to tear open a thick envelope announcing that he or she was accepted into college -and maybe even their first-choice. Grandparents take the leaving a little better - unless the grandchild is going far away – because they see the transition as growing up to enjoy their young adult life, the adventurous part of it.