College Choices

College Choices

College choices are hard to make. Remember your first trip to visit a college? It is a time when you life is changing and you are making important decisions. It is a college tour to narrow down what you want to do with your life.

Your parents want a great college choice that will keep you focused on your studies. You want a college with a little bit of fun and one that will fulfill your dream career at the same time.

Make it a family bonding time that you will remember. It is already a hard enough time for the parents to let go of their baby, as he grows up and is now going to college. Plan a trip to stay at a hotel with a pool and hot tub. Bring favorite family games to play that evening as you are reminiscing as a family, while making your final college decisions.

From the cost, to the city, job choices, distance from home, friendliness of people, extracurricular activities, dorm rules and set up, etc all make a difference in your college choices.

Keepsake Memories

When the final college choices are made, make it a fun day for the whole family to celebrate. After moving in your child, give a college gift to help them keep communication lines open with you and show how proud of your child you are. It takes baby steps, for you as the parents to let go. Start now, while your baby is still a baby. Set up a college fund to make this day easier, when your baby finally makes their college choices.

Also, start while your child is still very young and put together a Baby Time Capsule. Fill it with mementos and memorabilia from their first year of life. Have family and friends write a “Message to the Future” letter to your baby, making predictions about what he or she will be when they grow up and go to college. What other words of wisdom, stories, or advice would you write about, for your baby to read when they go to college?

Imagine giving this Baby Time Capsule to your now grown child who is starting college. Set up an opening ceremony for the whole family the first day of college when your baby moves in. It would be so much fun pulling out your baby’s first shoes, favorite toy, a newspaper from that year, heirloom items, your journal as a mother, all those “Message to the Future” letters, etc. This is such a heartfelt moment as these memories are pulled out from the Baby Time Capsule.

From Baby to College Time Capsule

Finally, another gift you can give your child to continue this tradition is an “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule to make a College Time Capsule. Start all over this first year of college and collect important memories and items that represent your first year of college. Since you as the parents will be away from your baby now in college, fill this DIY time capsule with a care package to start him off at college. For example, make some cookies, include a phone calling card for when they cannot pay their cell phone bill they ran up, a can of soup for when your child is sick, pens, a notebook, extra cash, etc.

Decorate the outside of this DIY College Time Capsule with any photos you want. You can have friends sign the outside of it with markers. Also, if your college student is artistic, they can decorate it with their own drawing or artwork. Finally, write new “Message to the Future” letters for your their College Time Capsule, making predictions again about where they will live in the future, who they will marry, etc. Put them in their College Time Capsule to open and read on the date of their choosing in 20, 30, or 50 years from now.

What would you put in your college time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie