How often do you expect to hear from your child away at uni?

[CrikeyDozes]

My eldest hopes to go to uni on the other side of the country this autumn providing she gets the A-level results she needs. I will miss her so much.

Shes not great at texting and calling when out but I’m keen to establish a good contact pattern while she’s away. I don’t want to put pressure on her though - my mum wanted me to call daily and it used to feel a lot sometimes.

How often do most people hear from kids at uni and how do you gently establish good patterns of contact?

I generally get/ send up to 2-3 how are you messages a week, and get a video call about every 3 weeks.
She's then home for a lot more than you realise- from about 20th December to the end of Jan, most of April, and shes finished so home for the summer to mid September any time now. The September - December block feels the longest, and year 1 can be a bit hit and miss with that- depending on if your teen is out partying like crazy, or struggling to find their feet and missing home.

We try and visit October and February- ish, but at 3 hours away with a 4 year old it doesn't always happen.

DD went back in the 90s so no mobile phones and no email. Phoned once a week from a call box. I these days I think I’d be grateful for a what’s ap a couple of times a week. My mother was very upset that DD didn’t write to her every week and I pointed out that it meant she was too busy having a good time. My DC both went round the world without modern technology. I heard from my son 4 times in 6 months. Let them fly!

Weekly communication like a text would be plenty . It doesn’t need to be regular or set in stone.

We also have a family WhatsApp chat group which the uni kids dip in and out of perhaps posting once a month but I know they do see what is going on.

You may find they just contact you to give you news or say that they need something ( like money or a lift) .

Time to release the apron strings !

We have a video call about once a fortnight, and most weeks swap a couple of messages.

I would obviously be happy to chat more often but dc is busy and seems happy so I don't push it. Agree with previous poster that holidays are long too.

We hear most days on the family WhatsApp group. We're on BeReal so get to see pics everyday (if I can be bothered to post!) Dd loves to cook so sends us pics of what she's been cooking. The good thing about the family chat group is we post day to day stuff and silly memes so it just feels like casual chatting so no pressure with huge texts or phone calls.

My DS’s - about once every two months ! I try to encourage more but msgs go into a big black hole. Having said that when I have a phone call with my younger DS we can chat for 3 hours non stop - !!!

I think she’s unlikely to spend the long summers with us. This summer she’s secured a job on a sailing boat in the Med and I expect she might do that every summer as it’s fun and it pays.

I think you need to be led by them. Dd is in her third year and both of us absolutely hate phone / video calls but we text a lot, most days several times just random stuff, usually short messages. Sometimes even a meme or a joke. She gets annoyed with her nanny and Dad (we’re not together) because when they message they send what she calls “an essay” and she finds the pressure to send an equivalent text back irritating. Sometimes we don’t text at all for a couple of days and I just assume she’s partying etc. You have to be very laid back about it all I think.

Sometimes I don't message for coming up to a week, and she will send the first message- and I completely feel the guilt over it! But then I remember we're moving into an adult relationship, not just mother and daughter, and it does her really good to realise that she has to put in some effort too. And it's really not the same as when we were young, where time had to be set aside for an hour long phone call catch up. Video calls are instant, so I'll often get a 5 minute one while she's putting on her make up for something (normally at an inconvenient time for me!), and what I wish we had done and might set up now is try an ongoing family chat, where we try to chat unpressured stuff- films or programs we're watching, pictures of the dog, etc. One thing is the chat has become centred on me and her, and not her stepdad included, so it becomes lots of feeding information rather than informal chat. And when it's just the two of you, sometimes it can be a bit information driven- how are you, how's your assignment going, did you call the dentist, that sort of thing.

DS usually does a video call about once a week (we did phone calls every day for the first couple of days until he was settled). We might do a couple of texts in the week (usually about football). He has so far come back at least for a part of reading week each term. We haven’t been more than about five weeks without seeing him so it’s been ok.

We have a family chat which gets used occasionally. Her sister & her keep in contact on snap chat . I will send a morning text sometimes it’s responded to with a chat sometimes just morning back.

We have a family WhatsApp chat but it’s currently mainly logistics: whose collecting who, what do we need from the shop, has someone walked the dog, is someone stuck at work late. I doubt she will want to be bothered with all that and she might mute it.

I hadn’t even thought about her younger siblings messaging her separately on SnapChat etc but of course that will likely happen. I expect they will message her a lot more than she replies but it will all add to her perception of how much we contact her.

Daily on the family group chat. Mainly photos of the cats from us, or some drama from her street from her (bin fire, next door's dogs). Often just a heart or thumbs up, but still nice. Try to video call once a week, but often skip one. We see her about once a month. I work one day a month in her uni town, so we do dinner afterwards, and DH takes her for a walk with the dog during the day.

DS usually messages at least once a day - normally in response to something on our family chat. I call him Wednesday and Sunday.

He's not a million miles away though, so we do see him quite frequently, usually every 2-3 weeks

I talked to DD once a week. We usually would chat on a Sunday. It was good enough for both of us

Video call once a week, plus one or 2 WhatsApp messages during the week

I think if you try to establish an expectation then she will call you less as you will feel like an obligation to her. So I would definitely be led by her. I think it massively varies depending on the personality of the child. For example, my sister and I have quite different relationships with our mum. She would ring her about every two weeks whereas I'd be calling every day -- sometimes multiple times a day! This was the case at uni and is still the case now in our thirties. I think you just have to go with it!

My DD is also starting university in September. We're thinking of setting up a separate family group that is more "chat" than the current one we have which is mainly practical things, like yours.

I also expect DD's brother to contact her separately, but do expect her to distinguish between contact from sibling and contact from parents, with the former being more like being in touch with a friend.

daily video call which is initiated by her. She's happy at uni. I don't want her to feel she has to call and encourage her not to think about us,'just enjoy herself, but she calls daily

I'd just let her lead it. We had a lot of contact initially as she was homesick and then it slowed right down as she settled. So no news became good news.

She sends me a daily Snapchat and tends to ask to video call once a week. Then every few days she or we will text with whatever news we have.

DS is a first year. I'll probably get text communication a couple of times a week and then also a couple of facetime calls a week. Depends on whether he wants something really. He is 3 hours away so we tend to see him once a term (1 x 11 week term and 2 x 10 week terms) in the middle of term. The first term we went to visit him, the second term he came home and this weekend we went up to see him again (he has five weeks left). So he will actually only have been home once this year mid term. The other 21 weeks of the year is university holidays.

With both mine, we tend to have a proper catch up once every 3ish weeks, but there's no set schedule. During the time between, there will usually be the odd WhatsApp message, or photo or something.

To be honest, I'm happy that I don't hear from them more often. DD had a previous attempt at uni which really didn't work for her and I was getting multiple messages and calls a day. It was exhausting. After she decided that she was going to suspend her studies and cam home, I had to change the ring tone on my phone as the anxiety I got every time it went off was unbelievable.

Happy to say her second attempt has been far more successful, and we're back to sporadic calls interspersed with cat memes and photos of her dinner!

Once a weekish. If she hasn't rung/messaged me I'll send her a text saying how's it going,? And she'll text back or ring. We've got a family WhatsApp group and share pictures of what we're up to.

We facetime once or twice a week most weeks and we all put stuff in the family WhatsApp. There’s no pressure though, I just say we’re here if you want/need us but if you’re busy that’s fine. He FaceTimes his younger sister separately too and sometimes games online with his dad.

In the 90s mum told me not to contact her for a couple of weeks so that I could get used to being away from home. Then I would ring once a week.

DD is going to uni next year. I hope to hear from her about once a week but we'll see.