How often do you visit / plan to visit your child at uni?

[Whatsinaname321]

My child is off to uni this year. The uni he plans to go to is a 4 hour drive away. It would be difficult to visit and drive back home in the same day, the train is horrendously expensive and staying over will obviously be expensive.
His terms are long to be 8 weeks long so he will have a lot of opportunity to come home and with a student railcard it will be cheaper for him to come and visit us rather than us go and visit him (because we are more than one person travelling and we don’t have a student railcard).
We will have to really limit the visits to him.
Does anybody else hardly/ never visit their child at uni?

@Abraxan My point was that I'll leave it up to them. Of course I'll go and see them more often if they want me to, but mostly I expect that it will be them wanting to come home now and again, not just to see us but to catch up with local friends, sleep in their own room for a few nights etc.
I studied in a different country from where my parents lived (they moved away) and no, they didn't come and visit me more than a handful of times. Largely because I didn't have anywhere for them to stay. I went to stay with them for at least part of most holidays, so spent plenty of time with them half a dozen times a year, sometimes bringing one or several friends (and with time my boyfriend).
I really feel that visiting them once a week or even once a month would be helicoptering, but appreciate that every family has different needs.

I generally left them to their own devices! Visited one and two a couple of times.Number three I visited in first year but hoping to in June as well.
They are all home regularly so it doesn’t really matter TBH.

@Sunshine4Ever2

Driving there at the start and end of each year, otherwise they'll be coming home when they want to. Seriously? They're 18! Once a week? Or even once a month? Are we trying to raise adults here?

Agree…I am guided by my children and their personalities. Two oldest I did visit very occasionally…the youngest is not bothered! I just take the view that if they are happy they really don’t need or want our visits.

Just do what's right for your child.
We visited more regularly in the first year and went up for the weekend about a month after she started. She went out with friends Saturday night which we encouraged but we saw each other during the day.
I think it's important to arrange a date when you will next see them before you drop them off for the first time.
DD comes home to see her BF ( more than us!) and we go up 3 or 4 times a year

Good lord, my parents only ever visited me if they wanted somewhere to stay when in the (big) city where I went to university, which wasn't that often really (we lived in the countryside).

Let your DC grow up a bit. It's character-forming.

My DC were busy with their friends. It’s a very different dynamic to visiting elderly parents. DC will invite you if they want you. We always took them (and their stuff) at the beginning of term and collected at the end of the year. They came home to go to school friends’ parties occasionally. They had boarded so no issue being away from us.

I start from the point of only ever expecting to see mine in the 3 main holidays. That is with normal length terms, not Oxford ones.

Then it depends a bit on if their University is somewhere nice. If they are by the sea or something, then going and staying in the area for your holiday week means you can pick them up a couple of times and spend time together or go out for a meal. Other than that though, I wouldn't expect to visit them at all.

He definitely won't be unusual if no family visit him in term time.

In the country I grew up in as well as the country I went to uni it's very much the norm to go home every weekend. Certainly in the first year.