One of the unexpected experiences of sending a child to college for the first time is discovering the college parent Facebook group. 

I joined one recently, partly because I wanted some practical information and partly because I was curious about what other parents were experiencing as their kids started college. 

There’s a lot of genuinely useful information in these groups. Parents share advice about move-in day, dorm supplies, transportation, campus resources and all of the logistical things that suddenly become important when your child is living somewhere you have never lived. 

And then there are the questions that make you stop scrolling and think, ‘Wait, is this something my college student should probably be figuring out for themselves?’

There has been a lot of discussion lately about some of the more over-involved questions parents post in these groups, and I have to admit that I have had some pretty strong reactions myself. 

There are questions about roommates that seem like they belong in a conversation between the student and their resident advisor. There are parents trying to figure out how to intervene when their child has a disagreement with a professor, or asking what they should do because their college student isn’t answering their texts. There are questions about dining halls, class schedules, laundry and social situations that occasionally leave me wondering how some of these students are ever going to make it through a Tuesday without parental assistance.

It’s easy to make fun of this. And if I’m being honest, sometimes the questions are pretty funny. But the longer I think about it, the more I understand where some of it comes from. Underneath the over-involvement is something I recognize very well: a parent who is worried about their kid.

For 18 years, we have been practicing a particular kind of parenting. When our child has a problem, we help solve it. When they don’t know what to do, we help them figure it out. We make the appointment, email the teacher, find the missing cleat, bring the forgotten lunch, mediate the sibling argument and, when necessary, spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to locate the exact sweatshirt they need for tomorrow morning.

Then they go to college, and suddenly we are several hundred miles away and the problem is that our parental nervous system does not move out with them.

We still wake up wondering whether they’re eating, sleeping, making friends, going to class,and generally doing okay. We still hear something in their voice over the phone and immediately wonder what we’re missing. 

The difference is that now, when something goes wrong, we can’t simply walk into the room and see for ourselves. Instead, for better or for worse, we have phones, texting, FaceTime and Life360. And, of course, we also have an entire Facebook community of several thousand other parents ready to help us investigate the situation.

Which makes me wonder: Just because we can intervene, does that mean we should?

I think there is an important difference between being available to our college-age kids and being responsible for solving their problems. If your child calls and says they are having trouble with a roommate, there is nothing wrong with listening, helping them think through their options, or asking what they have already tried. You might even help them figure out what they want to say. But if your first instinct is to find the roommate’s phone number, contact the resident advisor yourself, and start drafting an email to the dean, it may be worth taking a breath.

One of the hardest parts of parenting older children is recognizing that sometimes our child is capable of handling something that we are not particularly capable of watching them handle. There is a difference between “My child can’t manage this” and “I can’t tolerate watching my child struggle with this.” Those can feel remarkably similar when you’re the parent sitting at home imagining everything that could go wrong.

Our kids are going to have difficult roommates. They are going to do poorly on exams. Someone is going to hurt their feelings. They will make decisions we don’t understand and occasionally decisions we know are not particularly good ones. They will miss deadlines, have awkward conversations, get rejected, get lost, get overwhelmed, and discover that some problems don’t have an immediate solution. 

Some of those experiences will be genuinely difficult, and sometimes they really will need us. But some of them are simply part of learning how to navigate adulthood.

Our job isn’t to make sure our children never struggle. It’s to make sure they know that they don’t have to hide their struggles from us, and that when they need help, we’re still there. We talk a lot about “letting go” when our children leave for college, but I’m not sure I love that phrase. 

I’m not trying to let go of my child. I’m trying to figure out how to hold on differently. After 18 years of being responsible for so many things, I’m learning how to be responsible to my child instead: to listen, to be available, to offer perspective when it’s wanted and, sometimes, to sit on my hands while they figure something out for themselves. 

Our kids don’t need us to stop caring when they leave home. They need us to trust that all of those years we spent helping them navigate the world have actually taught them something. Maybe that’s the real transition of college drop-off: We aren’t letting go. Instead, we’re stepping back far enough to give them room to see what they can do, while making sure they know exactly where to find us when they need us. 

Even if, occasionally, we have to resist the very strong urge to ask the Facebook group what we should do about it. 

Nanci Ginty Butler is a Newton parent and clinical social worker. You can email her with parenting questions at asknancigb@gmail.com.