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Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

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Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Higher education

How often do you text/speak?

27 replies

DorothyL · 18/10/2016 20:46

As the title says... How often do you make contact with your newly moved away child? How often is too often?

OP posts:

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ImperialBlether · 18/10/2016 20:48

Take your lead from them. I had a deal with mine that they didn't have to reply straightaway but that if I wrote saying "Are you still alive there?" then they had to answer asap with "Yes".

I found times when my children were on their own - walking back from particular classes, that sort of thing, and would talk to them then.

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Leeds2 · 18/10/2016 22:58

I tend to Skype with DD once a week (not always).

She will chat about specific things on Whatsapp, but I let her take the lead.

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BackforGood · 18/10/2016 23:08

My ds (now in his 3rd yr) keeps in touch quite a lot. In 1st year there were more "What's my National Insurance number again" or "can I wash that blanket in with everything else in the wash?" type questions. Now it tends to be more chat about trivial stuff - so, for us, we do a bit of a commentary on football matches as we'll both watch those and give each other stick about our teams' performances. We use Whatsapp a lot so he'll post a picture of him doing something, or his view (he knows I love where he lives), or he'll comment on something in the wider family Whatsapp Group.

It's unusual for him to go more than 2 - 3 days without him getting in touch, but that's his personality - he likes to 'chat' and so do I. I'm not expecting even a tiny fraction of the amount of contact when dd goes next year - she's far less of a chatter.

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scaryteacher · 18/10/2016 23:34

Three or four times a week.....he knows I require proof of life at the end of the month otherwise his allowance is not forthcoming.

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stonecircle · 19/10/2016 01:01

DS - 2nd year. I guess we exchange texts on about 5 days a week. Usually I'll just text a 'how's things?'/ tell him about something funny that's happened or send him a photo etc. He'll then reply a few hours later. We generally FaceTime about once a week.

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Coconutty · 19/10/2016 06:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GRW · 19/10/2016 06:50

Once about every 3 days, and speak once a week on Skype. She didn't even let me know for 2 days when she was unwell with the flu. I admit I do check her WhatsApp activity to see when she was last online.

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kath6144 · 19/10/2016 12:50

We have all now got Whatsapp, specifically for DS going uni! We have a family chat with 4 of us (& dog!), then a chat for me, DH & DS, I also have one just for me and DS.

It's rare for him not to message each day, if only that he's alive, or to comment on one of our messages. We had a longish Facetime at weekend, so caught up with lots then.

So, generally we know he is still alive each day, even if we don't find out much specifically that day. But he is quite chatty if there is something to say.

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wholettooth · 19/10/2016 12:54

We have a family FB messenger group (DCs in 1st & 2nd years) and one of posts most days. I mostly send dog photos, they send me pictures of the meals they've cooked. There's a lot of mickey taking which we all enjoy.

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eatyourveg · 19/10/2016 16:39

Dreaded phone calls as I could sometimes detect that he was missing home. Emails on average every couple of weeks but mainly I sent funny postcards as he said he liked to get post and it gave him something to put on his noticeboard.

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MrsBartlet · 20/10/2016 17:54

We have a family whatsapp group and between that and texting we normally have some contact every day or every other day. (I get lots of requests for dog pics wholettooth!) Dd is a second year. However when ds goes, I think we will be lucky to hear from him once a week.

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AtiaoftheJulii · 20/10/2016 20:22

I almost thought I'd written wholetooth's post! Lots of messaging, very little voice conversation. Today's message from dd2 - if I were to write to my MP, should it be the one from home or here?

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GasLightShining · 20/10/2016 22:00

OP -are you worried that you are expecting too much? What contact are you having and by what means?

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DorothyL · 20/10/2016 22:04

I just wondered if people thought a daily short whatsapp was ott

OP posts:

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GasLightShining · 20/10/2016 23:06

Not ott if your DC wants that. If you want it and they don't may be it is.

My DS chooses what he wants to reply to so I can text him and he will ignore me. I then send a text a few hours later about something else and will get a reply for that.

We facetime roughly weekly

Eat you have made me think about when I was at boarding school. Dad used to send postcards and it was so nice to get post. Going to start sending cards to DS

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LIZS · 20/10/2016 23:13

FaceTime twice a week and the occasional messenger exchange in between.

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Vetsandpets · 20/10/2016 23:19

DD & I (3rd year) text/speak once or twice a week.
DS (1st year) provides monosyllabic responses to my texts about once a week

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Chuckie88 · 21/10/2016 06:50

We're face timing every day. Mainly because DD1 and DD2 have always been v close. Is that OTT?

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NoahVale · 21/10/2016 06:55

thing is it is easy to chat, not like you have to pick up the phone and speak.
i must try and encourage dd to whastapp

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GasLightShining · 21/10/2016 13:20

Chuckie What is OTT for one family will be normal for another. It's good that your DDs are close enough to want to facetime daily.

As much as we get on (most of the time) as a family my DS would be horrified and would then ignore my facetime requests if I expected it everyday

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hellsbells99 · 21/10/2016 13:50

My 2 DDs text or snapchat things everyday or they want me to post a picture of one of the cats

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bruffin · 21/10/2016 14:09

We have family messenger where we talk most days, but DS will ring up when he is walking home from somewhere by himself, usually we are second choice to his gf.

Eat you have made me think about when I was at boarding school. Dad used to send postcards and it was so nice to get post. Going to start sending cards to DS

I got the touchnote app on my phone and sent a postcard which a picture of the cat on it, when ds was first away last year.

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Isthiscorrect · 21/10/2016 18:34

We live overseas but I use an app called Postsnap to send postcards to everyone all the time. It's great fun. Ds loves it when he gets a pic of him or us or somewhere we visited. Brings back great memories and like you say everyone loves 'personal' post (not sure about most other post these days). The grandparents love the postcards, always on display and it does make present buying easy. They love a photo frame 😄.

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Isthiscorrect · 21/10/2016 18:40

I forgot to say we also have a family whatsap group. I post stuff regularly without expecting a reply but Ds pops on almost everyday to either chat or just lol or 😮 depending on what it was. But we were always like that before. We also take great delight in sending him pics from home and locally saying guess where I am. It's quite a joke. Today he was furious that he couldn't guess within 2 or 3 go's. Today was the ceiling of one of our local coffee shops. It's very well known but he just couldn't guess. We had great fun sending clues.

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madeinkent · 22/10/2016 20:52

Facebook message as no mobile service where we live. It's varied hugely over the past couple of years, but as long as I can see that little green dot on fb I can see DS is at least alive. I would say, maybe 3 times a week for just a quick 'everything ok?' and one of those may actually turn to a long conversation, and we speak on the phone roughly once a month. However he does try to come back home halfway through each semester for a weekend, which is lovely, or we visit him if he can't.