What to Expect at Family Weekend: A Little Advice from Someone Who Gets It 

Family Weekend is exciting—but it may look a little different than the movie playing in your head. 

You've missed your student. You've had the countdown app running since move-in. You've pictured the perfect weekend: quality time, meals around the table, a little shopping, maybe some slow-motion hugging on the Quad. 

Then you arrive…and your student already has plans. 

With other people. 

People who are not you. 

Take a deep breath. That's okay. In fact, it's a good thing—even though it feels a little like getting stood up by someone whose diapers you once changed. 

One of the beautiful parts of college is watching your student build an entire life based on the amazing foundation you gave them. Those friends? You helped raise the kind of person people want to be friends with. That independence? You spent 18 years preparing them for it. That confidence? You helped build it. 

So if your student doesn't spend every waking minute with you during Family Weekend, don't take it personally. Take it as a compliment. You did your job. 

Family Weekend gives you a chance to guest-star in the life you've spent years helping them build. And the good news is, there's a genuinely packed lineup of things to do together, so “your student has plans” doesn't have to mean “you're on your own.” 

It might just mean your plans now include five college students you didn't give birth to. 

Give Them a Little Freedom (and a Schedule Full of Options) 

Your student may want to spend the whole weekend glued to you—or they may want to sprint off after the Pep Rally because “Something Is Happening” and you were, tragically, not on the invite list. 

Let them go. 

Family Weekend doesn't require 72 consecutive hours of eye contact to count as a win. 

The beauty of this weekend is that there are enough things happening that you don't have to manufacture togetherness—you can simply show up to the same places. 

Bring Their People Into Your Weekend 

Here's a power move: invite the friends. 

All of them. 

Yes, even the one whose name you can never remember. 

Saturday's Tailgate on the Quad is basically built for this. There's a Taste of the States Parent Tent, a New Student Tent, and plenty of student organization and Greek life tents. 

If your student says, “My friends and I are grabbing lunch Sunday after church,” the correct response is not a wounded sigh. 

It's: 

“Great! Bring them.” 

Take their friends to lunch. Invite them along for an activity. Let them pile into your car. 

You may learn more about your student's world over one long lunch than you will through a dozen carefully constructed questions in the car. 

And don't panic about accidentally adopting the entire dorm over lunch. Your student is running quality control on that guest list. 

They know exactly who's earned a plate. 

Let the Weekend Be What It Is 

Maybe your student wants to give you a tour of Hodges Chapel because you've been asking to see it since move-in. 

Maybe they want you to finally meet their new best friend, their Big, their fraternity brothers, their sorority sisters, or the person they've mentioned approximately 47 times but you still can't quite place. 

Maybe they want to work on their paper that is due and meet you for dinner. Probably not, but it could happen, 

And maybe—statistically, almost certainly—there will be a Target run because no college student has ever survived a semester without an emergency restock. 

Whatever version of Family Weekend your student offers you, take it. 

Don't measure the weekend in hours logged. Measure it in moments: the Bulldog Walk before kickoff, the unexpected quiet of Sunday's Hymn Sing in Reid Chapel, the cookie you split at the Tailgate, the conversation that happens when you're walking across campus, the hug goodbye that lasts one beat longer than usual. 

This is the strange, wonderful, occasionally humbling season of parenting a college student. 

You're still 100% their parent. 

Even if it feels like you've just been quietly reassigned from Chief Scheduling Officer to Guest Who Bought Lunch. 

That's okay. 

Come to Family Weekend with a flexible schedule, an open heart, a good sense of humor—and maybe a little extra room in the car. 

Let them show you their world. Meet their people. Buy them a meal. Take the picture. Laugh at the stories. 

And when they inevitably say, “Okay, Mom/Dad, I've got to go…” 

Smile. 

Because the kid who once needed you for practically everything is becoming the young adult you prayed they would become. 

You helped get them here. Now enjoy being here with them. 

Trust that God is at work in their life, even in the moments you aren't there to see. 

So come ready to celebrate, reconnect, laugh a lot, and make some memories—including, perhaps, a few with five college students you didn't give birth to. 

Family Weekend is your chance to pause, soak it all in, and enjoy this incredibly fun season of watching your student become who God created them to be. 

We can't wait to see you on campus!