Long-distance Parenting

This long-distance parenting is a little harder than I thought it would be.

First you worry about such things as what is your child eating. Did you teach them enough about balanced meals that she is making good choices? Maybe you should have spent more time having her help and prepare meals while she was at home.

Then you worry about if your child is getting enough sleep. How is she making it to her 7:45 a.m. class when she is staying up until 1 a.m.?

You also find yourself worrying about how classes are going for her and how her grades are. You can't ask too often because she gets really offended if you do. But you really want to ask because you know how hard college can be, especially if you tend to be a procrastinator and you know she used to be when she was in high school.

Worrying about if she is warm enough is also totally legit as your daughter is attending college in Iceberg Rexburg and they already have snow. You know you should have insisted just a little bit harder that she take a winter coat and snow boots, but she just kept saying "I'll be fine." And so you let her go off without a winter coat or snow boots hoping it didn't suck too bad to learn "you should have listened to your mom."

Even with all of those worries, the thing that I find most difficult about long-distance parenting is when she is hurt or sick. Trying to make a good assessment is really difficult through text messaging, but that is the preferred method of communication so you do your best. It is hard knowing that you can't really do anything to make it better, no saying "I'll get you scheduled to see the doctor." Nope, you just have to hope that whatever it is, it isn't too serious and if it turns serious that your child is smart enough to go to the campus health clinic or nearby urgent care center.

But still it's pretty scary not being there and not being able to get a good feel for what is going on, especially if they have a few hallmarks of a rather serious communicable disease (meningitis anyone?). I mean how do you get across to your child the urgentness (is that a word?) that they should seek out medical attention sooner rather than later if she has had the worst migraine of her life for 3 days, can't look down at her belly button without pain, and she "felt like a vampire reacting to the light" when she turned on the bathroom light that morning. YIKES!

Yes, long-distance parenting is hard, very hard.

PS She finally did make it to the urgent care center after I called her and woke her up from her nap to see what they said. I was a little perturbed that she had not gone right away. Anyway, the doctor didn't think she had meningitis, but the migraine lasted until last night.