When Kids Come Home from College

It’s prickly, tends to roll into a tight ball when agitated, sleeps all day, runs around all night and is living in my house. Yes, my son is home from college. It’s been a couple of weeks now and his schedule consists of rising somewhere between 1 and 3 p.m., working out, eating, going out with friends and slinking back in sometime before sunrise. I have said every day at about 2:30 p.m. for the past week, “Please put on pants, my first student will be here soon.” There are 19 days left until he goes back to school.

Most college winter breaks last about 5-6 weeks, which is too long to be laying around the house like a lox and too short to get a job. I was trying to remember back when I was in school if the break was this long and, since I have no memory, I couldn’t so I looked it up. I found out that winter break wasn’t
always this long. Back in the ‘70s, when many colleges were having financial problems, they found if classes began in late August and had a longer winter break, they could reduce spending and save on heating costs. Good for the school, but not so good for the students.

In an effort to utilize the weeks between semesters, most schools offer one credit winter intercession classes. This sounds like a great idea, but there is one small problem, all campus housing is closed. I asked my son about it and he said he didn’t know of anyone doing intercession classes at school or among his friends at home. I know it’s a little late, and I truly wish I, and/or my son planned ahead, but there are some alternatives to having your kid turn into a sloth during winter break:

• Seasonal Jobs (for next year) — There are some out there with retailers (I used to work at a sporting goods store over winter break), restaurants (one of my students was parking cars during holiday parties), babysitting and shoveling snow (if the weather cooperates) to name a few.
• Volunteer Work — Aside from the many volunteer opportunities at home, there are tons of “volunteer vacations” where students can go abroad and do some good. I Googled “Winter Break Volunteer Opportunities” and got pages of information.
• Look for a Summer Job — This is prime time to begin looking for a summer job.

As for my own kid, when he isn’t foraging for food in his boxers, he is doing some administrative work for me, filling out summer camp applications and trying (in vain) to motivate his brother to weight lift with him.

Today he honed his life skills by having me teach him how to make tuna fish and he even allows me to take him out for lunch one or twice a week to fill me in on his life (see first paragraph).

So, it hasn’t been a complete waste of time, but you can bet next year will be a whole different story.