When Your Child's College Drop-Off Doesn’t Go the Way You Expected

You pictured college drop-off a certain way. Maybe there would be tears, hugs, a meaningful goodbye, and a Hallmark-worthy moment with your child.

But what if reality looks completely different?

What if your child is anxious, distracted, excited to leave, or seems ready for you to go? What if the goodbye you've imagined for months lasts five minutes in a parking lot?

In this episode of Loving That Midlife, we're talking about what to do when college drop-off doesn't meet your expectations—and how to handle your sadness and disappointment without making your child responsible for your emotions.

I'll share a story about a mom who was so disappointed by her son's goodbye that she told him she was disappointed in him. It's a powerful example of what can happen when an unmet expectation becomes a judgment of our child's character.

We'll talk about the difference between unvoiced expectations and unrealistic expectations, why your child's attitude is on them but your response is on you, and how to feel your emotions without asking your child to make you feel better.

We'll also touch on what comes next when the house feels a little emptier—and the surprising realization that your child may not need you less. They may just need you differently.

If you're navigating college drop-off, launching a child into adulthood, or struggling with the emotions that come when reality doesn't match what you hoped for, this episode is for you.

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend!

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You can also follow me on my socials:

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Website: www.loribuckcoaching.com 

Email: lori@loribuckcoaching.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, friend, and welcome back to Loving That Midlife. I'm Lori Buck, Master Certified Christian Life Coach, and I'm so glad you're here. Today, I want to talk about something that maybe some of you haven't considered. Unlike Hallmark movies, college drop-offs aren't always warm and fuzzy. In fact, they can be downright disappointing for some parents. But it's not something a lot of us talk about. So, of course, that makes me want to talk about it today. If you're like most college parents out there, you've either just dropped off your child or you're getting ready to do so in the next week. If you have already dropped them off, maybe you cried. Maybe you didn't. Maybe they cried. Maybe they couldn't get rid of you fast enough. Maybe you had this beautiful goodbye and everybody hugged and cried, and it was exactly what you hoped it would be. Or, like most of us who live in the real world, maybe it was a bit awkward. Or, like I said a minute ago, disappointing. And maybe you drove away thinking, wait, that's it? That's how this huge, momentous occasion ended? This time of year, I see a lot of stories from moms who were bewildered by this. Many first-time college moms imagine a long hug, tears, gratitude. I love you, mom. I'm gonna miss you so much. But instead, what a lot of them get is okay, bye, love ya, see ya, as their child is walking off in a parking lot. And honestly, some moms are crushed by this. So, what do you do when your child's goodbye doesn't look like the goodbye you imagined? Well, that's part of what we're talking about today. I know it's shocking, but your child may not experience this moment the way you do. Your child might be excited or nervous, overwhelmed, eager for independence, focused on getting to know their roommates, worried about how they're going to find their classes, thinking about how hard it might be to make new friends. They might even be trying not to cry, or desperate to prove they can do this themselves. And like we talked about last week in the episode about soiling the nest, that can come across as cold or dismissive, ungrateful, disrespectful, impatient, and even ugly, as the Southern mom and me likes to say. But friend, their behavior is not a measurement of how much they love you. In last week's episode, we talked about how sometimes kids push away when big separation is happening. But now the question becomes: what happens when we interpret that behavior as rejection? And here's a coaching concept that kind of goes hand in hand with that question. And with this particular season of parenting. And in this particular case, sometimes they're not just unvoiced expectations. Sometimes they're unrealistic expectations. If I have this picture in my head of what I want college drop-off to look like, or what I think it's supposed to look like, you know, the movie version with tears and hugs. Maybe you stay the whole weekend and you explore the college town and the campus and you take them out to breakfast, or you have this family lunch and you linger over that, and then you expect them to invite you up to their dorm room, which you lovingly help set up the day before. If I have this big, huge picture in my head, but I never actually tell my child that's what I'm hoping for, I am just setting myself up for disappointment. You know, I recently read a Facebook post that encompassed this perfectly. The mom posted that she was devastated because she dropped her son off and had all of these expectations of how it was going to go, and it didn't go that way. They ended up saying goodbye in a parking lot the next morning after not being invited up to her son's dorm room. And she was hurt. So she told her son that she was hurt. And I'm thinking, okay, that's probably not what I would have done, but you know, that's okay. And then she said, and I told him I was very disappointed in him because we had raised him better. And he should have known that this would hurt my feelings. And I thought, oh boy, that escalated quickly. And honestly, my first thought was a little judgmental. You know, I thought, well, that's one way to get your son to never want to text or call home. But immediately after that, I had a lot of compassion for this mom. She had a lot of pain. And she was grieving this loss and grieving because she thought it was going to be this beautiful moment. And she didn't know how to handle all of those hard emotions. So she put the blame on her son. And this is where I want us to be really careful. There is nothing wrong with being sad and disappointed. Of course you are. That's normal and natural. But turning your disappointment into a character judgment of your child is something else entirely different. Your child not giving you the goodbye you want it is not a moral failure on their part. When we allow ourselves to think that way, we are painting an incredibly painful story in our brains. Your child's attitude and how they act is on them. But your response to their actions is on you. And honestly, if this woman was one of my clients, I would tell her as gently as possible: your child does not have the responsibility of making this transition emotionally satisfying or easier for you. That's not their job. Your child is responsible for how they speak to you, whether they're being respectful or not, how they handle their own emotions, how they communicate with you, their choices, etc. Your child is not responsible for what you make their behavior mean, aka the story you tell yourself about it. You are responsible for how you respond, whether you regulate your own emotions, whether you guilt them, or whether you pursue them when they're trying to pull away, whether you withdraw emotionally, whether you make them responsible for making you feel better. That doesn't mean that you don't get to have feelings about how they treated you. Of course you do. But having a feeling and handing that feeling back to your child and expecting them to make you feel better, two different things. And that's an important distinction that we need to remember. Some of you, along with that mom, might be thinking, but they should know how much this hurts me. Or you might be thinking, after everything I'm done for them, they could at least act like they're gonna miss me. Or maybe even, I just wanted them to appreciate this moment as much as I do. But I'm gonna be honest with you, underneath all of those thoughts is this thought. I need my child to respond differently so I can feel better. That's the emotional trap. Your sadness is real, your grief is real, your disappointment is real, and they're all natural and even healthy. But your child is not responsible for making those feelings go away. We have to be careful that our grief does not become their burden. So, what do you do if drop-off didn't go the way you wanted? If your child was cold, don't immediately decide they don't care about me. Instead, you can think they're having their own experience in dealing with their own emotions in this transition. If they were impatient, you can think, I don't really like how that felt, but I don't need to turn it into a bigger story inside my head. If they didn't cry, their lack of tears is an evidence of their lack of love. If they seemed thrilled to see you leave, you can be thrilled for them too. They're supposed to be excited to begin their adult life. That's a good thing. Their excitement about leaving doesn't mean they're excited to leave you. Those are two different things. But what about your grief, right? That's a question you might be asking. And I will tell you, I am never going to say, don't be sad, be emotionally mature. No, I will always tell you you have permission to grieve, because this is a loss. Not necessarily a loss of the relationship, but it is a loss of that daily at-home living with one another relationship. It's a loss of the family rhythm, the role you had, the noise, the ordinary moments, being needed in the same way, knowing what everybody is doing. And honestly, a huge loss for me was just having all of my children under one roof. And if it's your last child, there may be an even bigger layer. It's the end of an era. You can, and I think should grieve that. You don't have to, and you shouldn't try to talk yourself out of grief. It won't work anyway. Instead, you should feel it. Cry, journal, call a friend, go for a walk. I think sitting in their empty bedroom is a good thing to do when you're feeling that grief. Or looking at their pictures. Let yourself think or even say out loud, I miss my child. But don't turn, I miss my child, into my child needs to make me feel better. That's the important distinction that I want you to make. Feel the feeling and process the emotion without trying to outsource that process. This is what I call emotional leadership work. And it's what coaching teaches you to do, to lead yourself through the hard stuff without expecting others to do it for you. So what happens after the drop-off, whether it was quote unquote good or bad? And what happens after you process those emotions? Because I'll tell you, lots of moms may immediately think, What am I going to do now? And then there's this temptation to fill that space immediately with new projects, new routines, or maybe shopping and travel, or even wine and chocolate, or cleaning the entire house, or even checking the Life 360 app approximately 47 times in one day. Or even obsessively texting. How are you? How's your roommate? Did you eat? Did you make it to class on time? Are you okay? Are you sure you're okay? How do I know? Because I've used several of these tactics. And they don't work. Instead, let yourself experience the transition. An empty or less full house does not constitute an emergency, even if your brain is telling you it does. Friend, you don't have to immediately reinvent yourself. But you also don't want to make your child's absence the center of your emotional life. So, what do you do instead? Well, launching a child can expose a question that was probably already there. One that maybe you were trying to ignore for a while. Or what is my life supposed to be now? Maybe you've spent the last 18 or 20 years organizing your life around your children. And suddenly there's this space. And that space can feel like grief. But eventually it can also become a possibility. And I would be careful not to rush that. You do not have to turn your grief into a five-year plan by next Tuesday. You can simply begin noticing. What do I enjoy? What have I missed? What's the next thing I'd like to learn? Who do I want to spend time with? What do I want this next season to feel like? What parts of myself have been waiting for just a little room to grow? I do want to remind you of one more thing. The launch is not the end of your parenting journey, it's a relationship transition. Your goal is to build a relationship with your adult child now. We aren't raising children anymore. We're creating relationships with adults. So things do need to change. You want your adult child to think, my mom misses me, but she's not making me responsible for her happiness. My mom loves hearing from me, but I don't have to constantly reassure her. I can tell her about my life without worrying that every story about college is going to make her sad or anxious or trigger a lecture. I can leave home and not worry about having to manage my mom's emotions. Now, we want our kids thinking this whether they realize they're thinking it or not. That is the kind of relationship that creates connection instead of obligation. And that's what we want to build now with our adult children. Because friends, when you reach that point, it is a beautiful place to be. So I want to leave you with three final thoughts to remember. Number one, let yourself grieve. You don't have to pretend this isn't hard. Number two, don't make your child responsible for your grief. Your emotions belong to you and you can handle them. And number three, start building the next version of your life. Not because you shouldn't miss your child, but because your life is still yours to live. And friends, it's the only one you get. So make it count. Your child is allowed to leave. You're allowed to miss them, and you're also allowed to build a beautiful life in the space that's left behind. And if you need help navigating that transition, I promise you coaching can help. This is one of my favorite things to coach both moms and young adults through. So if you or your young adult child are struggling with this area and you need coaching, you can find me on laurybuckcoaching.com or on social media at Laurie Buckcoaching. So, what's mid about the midlife this week? Well, how about realizing that all that worrying and grief you had over your kids not needing you anymore was actually maybe a bit premature because those young adult kids keep calling you up, asking for help. That's what. This weekend, Jeff and I will be loading up a truck and a trailer and possibly a Volvo SUV full of stuff and driving it three hours east to move our college daughter into her apartment. And let me just tell you, we have actually entered a new phase of college move-in. When you have three kids who've all been to college, you get pretty good at that move-in routine. The dorm room, the twin XL sheets, the mini fridge, some storage bins, a flag on the wall for the boys, some artwork for the girls, and you're done. And then they move into that off-campus apartment, the one that has the furniture that an elephant could sit on and not break. So you just kind of maybe buy new sheets or some new storage bins, and you're done. But apparently we needed to save the unfurnished apartment experience for our third child. After she had us co-sign for her lease, she casually mentioned, oh, by the way, the apartment is unfurnished. And so now we have to move furniture. Furniture she's purchased off Facebook Marketplace. Furniture we are loading into a vehicle. Furniture that we are driving three hours east. Furniture that we are then going to carry up one or two, or dare I say three flights of stairs. I'm not entirely sure how many yet, because honestly, I've been afraid to ask. And set it all up in her apartment. And I have to laugh because you spend so much time when your kids are little thinking about the day they won't need you anymore. And then you launch them and you realize oh, actually, they still need me. Just in a different way. When our oldest son and daughter in law moved into their house. A year or two ago, they needed help painting and moving. A few months later, they needed help rebuilding their deck. And guess who they called? Jeff Buck. Because apparently, there are some things in life that require a dad who owns lots of power tools and knows how to use them. And when both of our oldest kids needed help putting together a resume, they also called their dad. Having started and run an internship program at his company for 10 or 15 years now, he has literally read hundreds or maybe even a thousand resumes. The man is good at resumes. And when they have relationship trouble, whether it's friendship or a romantic relationship, they call me. And sometimes their friends call me too, which I love, by the way. I love coaching 20-somethings and giving them these tools that they can use to help navigate their life. I feel like they're 10 steps ahead or more of where I was at that age. But anyway, Jeff and I actually joke, sometimes it feels like they need us more now than they used to. Not all the time, obviously. But I've literally been in the middle of practicing piano or cooking dinner or in a Pilates class, and my phone will ring. And it's an SOS call. Not an actual physical emergency, thank goodness. It's usually an emotional SOS. And honestly, I cherish those calls. It feels like sacred work because it's a reminder that my mothering job didn't disappear when they left home. It just changed. Funny story. I remember being in my 30s and saying to my mom, Well, at least you don't have to worry about me anymore. And she immediately said, Honey, not only do I still worry about you, I now worry about your children. And I laughed because I thought she was being a little ridiculous. Why should she have to worry about me? I was married with children, doing really well. But I get it now, because being a mom doesn't go away. It just changes shape. And maybe that's one of the things we're grieving when we launch our kids. We're not just losing the child who needed us to pack their lunch or drive them to practice or dance or make sure they got their schoolwork done. We're losing a version of motherhood that we've known for years. And that can hurt. But there's another version waiting for us on the other side of their childhood. A version where our kids call us because they want our advice, or because they need our help, or because they trust us with something they're struggling with. Or because they need a dad who knows how to rebuild a deck, or a mom who can remind them how to regulate their emotions. Or because they need two parents to drive three hours with a truck full of Facebook marketplace furniture. And honestly, I wouldn't trade this version for anything. Because they're becoming adults and I'm getting to know them as adults. And honestly, they are some of my favorite people I have ever known. So if you're sitting in an empty house this week wondering, what am I supposed to do now that my child doesn't need me anymore? I just want to remind you, they may not need you in the same ways, but that doesn't mean they don't need you. Your job isn't over, it's just changing. And sometimes that's the beautiful part of letting them grow up. Well, friend, that's all I've got for you this week. If you haven't yet, would you please go rate and review this podcast on your app? It really does make a big difference on people finding it. And if you're struggling with this parenting transition, reach out for coaching. You can find me on my website at LaurieBuckcoaching.com or on social media at Loribuck Coaching. That's L-O-R-I-B-U-C-K Coaching.com. I'll see you next week.