Monthly Archives: May 2008

Summertime

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Whenever I hear the song Summertime, I cringe. While Lena Horne croons that the “livin’ is easy,” I find myself making flow charts to track the work and play schedules for our family.

I know that summer is supposed to be a time when life slows down, but every year I brace myself for the complications that come with the summertime.

Some observations from the front:

  • Why am I the one who ends up without the automobile? When there are four adult drivers and only three automobiles, it is I who ends up begging rides from coworkers and standing on curbs waiting for my husband or sister to swing by. Why is that?
  • Why do fast-food profits spike in the summer? Some speculate that it is because of vacationers on the go. In my heart I know it is because of desperate mothers swinging by the drive-thru in an attempt to multi-task by doing a carpool and feeding the family dinner simultaneously.
  • Why do college students go out for the evening at 11 p.m.? This is particularly puzzling. I am putting on my pajamas while my children are getting dressed and spraying perfume in the air.
  • Why do family dynamics shift so cataclysmically when students return for the summer? We have long established roles in the family (i.e., the whiner, the helper, the helpless, etc.) but those roles shift when the kids come home in the summer. The middle child who had a particularly good year in college comes home bursting with self-confidence and energy; the extrovert who had a tough year academically is picking fights with siblings.

Armed with the reality that summertime living can be anything but easy, parents may wonder what they can do to prepare themselves and the family for the return of college students to the family fold for the long summer months.

The best advice is simply to be prepared for the changes, to communicate with all the children, to set some ground rules and to perfect the art of negotiation.

Talk to the younger children at home about having to share a room or a bathroom again. They will be resentful that what they now believe is “their” space is being taken up by a “foreigner,” a person who is quite different from the one who left home nine months ago. When my oldest, Annie, left for college, she magnanimously willed her third-floor nest to the next in line. Then, when she returned home in May, she spent the summer lamenting that she had given up this prime piece of family real estate. Her brother Daniel, heir to the space, hung strong and ignored her protestations.

Perhaps the smartest thing I did when my college-age students came home to roost was to sit them down and talk reality to them. This took the form of serious negotiation. I had to figure out first what was absolutely crucial for me and what could I give in on? In other words, was a curfew important? For the first few years, the answer was yes. Then, I found that I was losing so much sleep fretting over Daniel’s benign but persistent ignoring of his curfew that I decided to give it up and negotiate on more important items, like keeping the house clean and carrying their weight with other chores. I also liked to force attendance at a weekly family dinner, but after nine-months of eating out, they think of this as a gift not a duty.

Automobiles are always sensitive issues that can easily cause tension. When Annie left for college, Daniel didn’t have his license. By the time she came home in May, Dan had gotten his license and had begun to think of the third car as his own. If there are more licensed drivers than there are automobiles, a written schedule is the only way out. Map out all the times people need to get to work, buy groceries and attend church and then give the car to the child who volunteers to run all the carpools and do the grocery shopping (this is known as the wisdom of Solomon).

The best advice I can give, however, is to never let resentments fester. If the dirty towels on the hardwood floors are driving you crazy, invite your student for coffee and chat about your concerns. If your younger child is resentful of the prodigal child, sit them both down for a conversation (and feed them food while you talk. Food always facilitates negotiation!).

Remember, the adjustment to home is as hard for your child as it is for you. Your job as the adult in the equation is to look at the shifting family dynamics as an opportunity for family growth and a chance to break away from bad habits. And always cling to the knowledge that summertime is fleeting. It will be September again before you know it!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Tracy Gottlieb, Dean of Freshman Studies and Special Academic Programs, at gottlitr@shu.edu