College Move In Tips & Tricks - E96

Rick Denton  0:00  
Today on the loud quiet college move in tips and tricks. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the loud quiet. It is that season where college move in is upon us. Those of us that are already in the empty nester experiencing it. There's a whole group of you out there that are about to become empty nesters because of this college move in. There's a lot of experience and wisdom that we've had to these college move in. So we wanted to share some practical tips, some tricks with you about the college move in. And these aren't going to be just the tactical. These are kind of your your tactical, your practical and your emotional tricks and tips, because this is going to need both sides of your brain to get through this move in.

Clancy Denton  0:42  
It feels weird. I just thought about that, that this is the first year that we're not moving someone into a new location. You know, last year we were getting Teagan ready to move into our her apartment. So it was pretty much dorm part two, except for the things that we had left out there. So yeah, this is kind of nice this year that she's just taking back pretty much the clothes that she brought with her.

Rick Denton  1:11  
How is it this moment that I'm realizing that because we've

Clancy Denton  1:16  
been moving the other child 40 times so maybe next year will be the year that we don't move anyone anywhere.

Rick Denton  1:25  
So we clearly have a lot of tips and tricks to share, and we've Whitted them down to a more practical list,

Clancy Denton  1:31  
I would say, yeah, the biggest and maybe most important that I think, are the blue bags. And if anyone has moved a child into college in the past, I don't know how many years, probably, let's say seven to 10, the blue bags from Ikea, which you can't get at IKEA anymore in the US, unfortunately, they stopped selling these. Them from Canada, yeah, the zipper rectangle. They're the zipper rectangle ones. They're blue cubes, yes, and they are amazing, and you can get them on Amazon. We will put a link to the ones that we have purchased, yeah, because

Rick Denton  2:17  
there's some crap out there. And we've actually used these, and have found them to be very practical and durable.

Clancy Denton  2:23  
I mean, they are amazing. They can be checked on planes, and they survive going through the luggage. And if you are ever with a child that is waiting for luggage to come off a plane, college move in or coming home from college, you will see several blue bags going around the carousel. You can get all of their sheets, towels, linens, plus clothes all into one. I mean, you can pack so much stuff into these bags. They are amazing. Now, tip with the bag, label the outside of the bag. I all I did was I took little Yeah, I taped them on the outside of the bag, because then I knew if I needed to take them off. So I didn't write on the bag, tell what's in the bag. Because if you are like us, and you are moving children across country, you have to stop somewhere for the night. And it's very nice to see. Here's the electronic bag that needs to come inside the hotel. It

Rick Denton  3:32  
also helps on just simple move in. You can kind of stage it, or if it's sitting in a corner, you know, all right, we're doing linens, we'll grab that bag. Yes. Little bit of an episode throwback, too. These were so important to us that they were the title of the second episode. The loud, quiet blue bags is in the title. So if you haven't heard that episode, head back listen to episode

Clancy Denton  3:50  
two, one of our in our first photo shoot that our lovely neighbor Shayla did for us. We took pictures with the blue bags because have

Rick Denton  4:00  
y'all been beat down. We love the blue bags. All right, next tip, and I don't know, Clancy, I think this might be as vital, but I think I have to agree, the blue bags are the best your kits. And by that, I'm starting off by saying tool kits. That was what was on my mind. But actually, Ginger McIntosh, who I have known since elementary school, commented on Facebook and reminded us of, don't forget your first aid kits. And the idea of this is is not just show up with this and then take it away. No, build a mini version of a tool kit, your basics, your hammer, your screwdriver, your flat head, your Phillips head. And included in that, because you're going to be putting together a lot of annoying furniture, a set of Allen wrenches, a spare set of Allen wrenches, because those that are included with what you get from a knock down furniture store, not so great. And it's nice, actually, to have multiples, because then you can do things twice. Twice as fast because you have multiple Allen wrenches. So that toolkit, ginger, thank you for the first aid kit idea and the allen

Clancy Denton  5:06  
wrenches. Another thing I would add to that list is a door stop. Oh, yes. And while you're probably thinking, why do we need a door stop, college dorm room, doors are very heavy, and they do not stay open, and they're they're probably meant to be sure it's

Rick Denton  5:24  
a fire safety thing or privacy security thing. So

Clancy Denton  5:27  
two fold, you have the door stop for the day of move in, because then you're not opening and closing the door, and you're not trying to find something in your room heavy enough to put up against,

Rick Denton  5:38  
because you'll trip over. Yes, anything big enough you're going to fall over. It is

Clancy Denton  5:41  
also very good for the kids to have those because the first couple of weeks, or even all the time, people like to leave their doors open. Certain people like to leave their doors open if you want to be social. That is something that how you meet people, yes, and having your door open with the door stop is a key. And I did not come up with that idea. I saw that one right before we moved one of them in on one of the parent pages. And let me just take a moment to speak to the parent pages. Every college has a parent page. Some have very good information. Some do not. Some posts you're just gonna go what? Some of them are a little bit silly and helicopter parent II. But then some of them have very good tips, like the door stop I did get from that before one of them went off to school. The next one, that is also important, and especially when we were moving children into Arizona in August, when it was 113 degrees outside.

Rick Denton  6:56  
No, you understated it. It was 117

Clancy Denton  7:00  
117 when we moved Tanner and water. Have just the 24 pack of water bottles so that you can just grab. Yes, we all have our refillable ones, but trying to find some place to refill, no, just get the big old pack of water and snacks, because there are times that you're gonna say, okay, yes, we'll stop for lunch, and you just can't, you just can't, or you just don't want to, because you're almost there, you're working on something, and so yes, just make sure you have snacks and water available.

Rick Denton  7:38  
It's kind of in the same vein of kits and tool kits, you will not be able to buy enough extension cords or power strips if you think you have enough, you don't get more. It is stunning how many devices and chargers and lamps and computers and fridges and how it all adds up, or the plug in the dorm is in the wrong place. And these are the kind of things that get easily forgotten, because you think the stuff, but you don't think about powering the stuff. And so getting even a variety of length of extension cords, getting a variety of Okay. I want a six strip. I want a 12 strip, whatever it looks like. Make sure that you have more extension cords and power strips than you could possibly think that you need. Say the receipt if you don't need them, return them.

Clancy Denton  8:32  
And you're going to get there and realize, Oh, whoops, we didn't bring the power cords or the extension cords. So we need to go to the store and buy those Target and Walmart find the ones that are not closest to campus. If you're in a city that has multiple locations, the ones that are closest to campus, and we've been to those two unless you are on a mission, and you know the thing that someone can drop you off, you can run in and get it go to the ones that are a little bit further away, because they're not going to be so populated with the college move in people. It

Rick Denton  9:13  
was in Phoenix that we learned Yes, and it was sort of almost accidental, because we continued to go to the one that was close to campus. And as we made multiple trips, because you will make a lot of trips, inventory started getting absent. And so we found ourselves having to move further and further out on that ring. And there's one specific story that I think of in mind that we went in there, and while you as the parent and the kid moving in, think that the entire world is revolved around college move in, the moment that you get to a city even the size of Tucson that you get out of the college ring, people don't even know it's going on, and so it's just a regular day there. And it was so nice to step into that target and be able to get what. Ever we want, without the crowds, without the fear that whatever we needed was going to run out.

Clancy Denton  10:06  
And one thing we used with Tegan find out where the Amazon lockers are, if, again, that is available where you are. We use that several times with her. And you know, it is almost now, just like going into one of the stores, because it gets there so quickly. But yes, if you find out where the Amazon lockers are, then you can order some things that you're like, oh, you know, we forgot that. And again, when we were moving our kids in, we were there for multiple days because they were so far away. So yes, I understand we had a little bit more time. I know there are some people that are doing, you know, the same day move in and drive back.

Rick Denton  10:54  
That still works, though, even with that context. Because when you're sitting there and you're on the floor, and you realize that, oh my gosh, I forgot this one thing that I don't literally need this second, like we have to stop down and go to a store, but I need it. You can pull out the phone sitting on the floor. You don't stand up and just order it to that locker, because there's no way that you're going to have that confidence on day one that whatever mail arrives to the dorm is going to be delivered in the way you want

Clancy Denton  11:21  
it to. And I think one of the things that we ended up having to get through that, and this goes back to the cords, is if your child is bringing multiple types of computers, which Tegan was, make sure they have all the charging cords, because they're not all universal.

Rick Denton  11:41  
Ooh. And you know what? Let me let's add to that. Go ahead and buy duplicates. Go ahead and have a home set of charging cords and a college set of charging cords, then they don't have to worry about transporting them back and forth

Clancy Denton  11:56  
or call you and say, Is this cord in my room.

Speaker 1  12:01  
Why? Yes, it is. And you

Clancy Denton  12:05  
know, back when we were in school, if you needed that, it had to be put in the real mail and charged. How much ever now, you know, yes, we can just get it there with Amazon. So that is just another tip that we I didn't even think we would be talking about. But yes, just make sure you have all your chargers and cords and all that kind of stuff. The last practical tip, and this one, goes out to the moms who are the organizers or the dads who are the organizers, coordinate with the other mom or moms in the room, especially if you have a son. When Tanner moved in, there were four of them. The boys talked all summer, when we all showed up, all of the moms had went out and bought every cleaning supply. So we had four times the amount of cleaning supplies. And when they moved out, I'm pretty sure most of it was still unopened.

Rick Denton  13:10  
So that's what, if you coordinate with the dads, we would tell you, don't even bother the cleaning supplies. Just don't even worry about it. So that takes us out of the practical. And if that's all you get. Great. But the reality is, this is a really emotional time, and there's a lot of things that we experienced that looking back, there's some things we did, right? There's some things we did. I know there's a lot of tips that we're talking about, and we're going to keep talking about, we have a newsletter that comes out each week. This is going to be in that newsletter. If you aren't already on the newsletter, head over to the loud, quiet.kit.com/sign, up, or that's in the show notes, and you just click the link there. You sign up for the newsletter. It'll drop in your inbox each Thursday, and that's how it's going to be each week. There will be some element, some nugget of empty nest, living wisdom or fun to share, and as others share ideas with us that'll make the newsletter as well.

Clancy Denton  14:01  
These tips will be the ones that tug at your heart a little bit, and probably tug at your child's heart as well. Let them wander like wander down the halls. Meet the people that are out in the halls. You're going to be building stuff out in the halls and then moving it into the room, if you have a traditional dorm room. So let them go around and meet people. I know it can be frustrating as a parent sometimes, because you want them to be doing things, but give them this time to meet the other people on their hall and just explore a little bit, because

Rick Denton  14:46  
whether they learned how to make a cabinet or not is going to be a lot less important than if they make a relationship there. And while everything that we have talked about is always no helicoptering, they got to learn to do it for themselves. They. Got to be responsible. And a lot of this is going to be talking about that. This is one of those cases where it's okay to step in and just put the stuff together. If you see that they're wandering and truly go wander, take off. We'll see in a bit, and that works out just fine. And I think that that fits in well with the next tip, and that is, help as much as they want you to help putting stuff together. You're involved with your kid and that sort of thing and helping them do that. There was a specific thing with Tegan and her roommate where I was starting to put that together, and she and the roommate just started working on it without me. My help was not needed, and every part of my instinct was to get in there to show them to here's maybe a faster way to do it, or whatever. They were learning their way through it. They didn't want me to help them, so I didn't help them. The flip of that is, anytime that they needed the help, we were available to offer it, but it was almost be asked to help before you actually choose to help.

Clancy Denton  16:01  
It's too bad that cooperation didn't continue throughout the year. If you'd like to go back and listen to some of those episodes, they're pretty colorful. For those of you who have been listening to us for a long time, you know what we're talking about.

Rick Denton  16:13  
To clarify, not cooperation between Tegan and me or her and her roommate, freshman roommate, did not work out so well. But there's some episodes if you want to go hear

Clancy Denton  16:22  
about that. So with the helping, like you said, again, you know, Tanner was pretty much ready for us to drop and go. And I said, No, you're gonna want your clothes to be hung up. You're going to want and in the end, yes, he did realize, because otherwise those things probably would have still been on the ground at the end of the year.

Rick Denton  16:43  
Okay, so how did you balance that, though, because the tip we're saying is help them only because as much as they want us to help. That was a case where you overrode that. How did you know that balance?

Clancy Denton  16:53  
Because my mom instinct was, if I don't do this now, like I just said, it's not going to get done or it's going to take us four hours longer to get out of here than and there were times that we knew that, okay, we forgot this. We'll go out and get that Tanner. You stay here and hang out with your buds and and y'all try to unpack some which, okay, that didn't happen. Now I will say with Tegan, that child will take the help and wants you to organize everything, to which I did. So here's another extra add on tip, maybe write down or draw a map of where you put things, because I was getting texts in, you know, to the first couple of weeks, Mom, where did you put my extra sheets? And where is my jewelry box? And so I was just organizing everything, which she was very appreciative of, because she was doing other things. But then I realized, and I did give her a little orientation, but they're not paying attention. So there you go, just just another little extra tip. And again, if you have multiple children, you know all your children are completely different. So as the mom and the dad, you kind of know what your boundaries

Rick Denton  18:23  
are. Something else that is really challenging as a parent, that this is the moment to be able to start doing it is they lead the way on campus. This is for many folks, unless you're an alum, maybe the first time you step foot on campus, or spent real time on campus, especially if you're the one that has that kind of internal map. And in this case, that's me, there's a temptation to say, well, this is the way we get there. This is the way, or even to step in front and lead. This is the chance for them. And I mean, at that level of they're deciding where someone walks. They're deciding which places to go to next, which things to do. And that's hard to do as a parent. You know, even when you head over, to quote, the bookstore, there are things that you as a parent might be like, you know, we need to get our books, although kids don't do whatever it might be, or, Hey, let's find out where your cafeteria is. Well, if they don't care about where your cafeteria is, that's their choice, and it's those kind of, those of us that have done college or have kind of memories of how it sort of works. It can be tricky to just stay silent, and that's not easy, especially especially at that where do you walk around campus, kind of thing? Because in my brain, I'm like, Well, it'd be a lot faster if we went over here. Nope, doesn't matter. They're leading the way

Clancy Denton  19:52  
as you're walking around campus. And everything is so school focused, move in focused if you. Of the time, try to find something that is non move in related an activity, whether that's, you know, one of the things that we loved in Tucson was, is to go play at the mini golf, go to a movie. If you don't have time for those things, go to a sit down restaurant. Just don't pick up Jersey mics, because it's easy and it's convenient. Try to find something that you can go and sit down and really talk about, something other than move in, which I know is impossible and that's all you're going to be talking about. But if you can just get them away from campus for a little bit, I think that's another good idea.

Rick Denton  20:42  
And having that kind of mentality that getting your brain right, walk into it with this feeling of, be prepared, be flexible, this is going to be an incredibly chaotic time. And if you walk in unprepared and not an actual plan, this is how we're going to move in. This is where we're going to go. Try to understand where the parking is or the flow. Different campuses have different things that help you as a parent go through all of that activity, and be just as willing to realize when it all blows up, to just go with the flow of what that all blow up is if your plan was that the sheets were going to be on the bed by 1015, bed by 1015 and you look up and it's 130 and you don't even know which bag has the sheets inside of them. That's o k, be prepared. Be flexible,

Clancy Denton  21:33  
yes, and with being flexible is be ready for every emotion, every every emotion, from you and from your child. This is a very like you said, chaotic time. You're you're on a time crunch, because at some places, you only have a certain amount of time to get them moved in, or you only have a certain amount of time that you get to have one of those rolly bins to pull everything up. So it's very, very activity fast. And then there will be picking at each other. There may be some raised voices, and then you have to be ready, because there will be tears, and there will be tears on both sides. And depending on your child's emotional state, some will be more than others, and it's getting me emotional, just thinking about because I can, I can picture when we said goodbye to Tanner and and I was actually talking with my parents this weekend. My mom said, you know, I can still remember your dad is like, I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. And she's like, he cried. Of course, he cried. You know you are you are leaving your child somewhere that and for some of us in cities that we didn't know, and it is very emotional, and sometimes they don't know how to express the emotion that They are trying to express. Just Just know that everyone goes through it. You're going to be walking around campus. You're going to see families. We saw families arguing in the middle of the quad. We saw families arguing on the Sun link. I mean, everyone is going to go through every single emotion again. Someone

Rick Denton  23:39  
just abandoned the suddenly, like, that's it. I'm not

Clancy Denton  23:42  
talking, yeah, the daughter just got off of this, which is the little train that goes on campus at Tegan school. She literally just got off the train and said, bye. So that's one way to handle it.

Rick Denton  23:56  
That's exactly it. It catches you off guard. And I think in spite of what we're saying, I don't think there's anything we can say that anyone listening could still be prepared, other than just know it's going to happen. Yeah, yeah, it's going to happen. And everything that is felt or said is pretty much okay.

Clancy Denton  24:16  
And you're going to feel like, you know, Tanner was emotional when we left, but, you know, he was pretty much like, All right, see, it like even the night that we left him, we're like, Well, do you want to go to dinner with us? No, they were all ready to go to a frat party, you know, and so, which, in the end, totally fine, you know, you me and Tegan went to dinner. We were like, Okay, well, this is odd.

Rick Denton  24:42  
That's the beginning of that next phase. So even the things that feel wrong are helping to build the things that are going to be right.

Clancy Denton  24:51  
It makes you feel like you said. It's stung at the moment, but then it makes you feel okay. So he's ready.

Rick Denton  25:01  
Can I add a bonus one there? And this is another one that'll be in the episode that airs next week after this one, look for the moments where your kid blows you away and they're gonna sneak up on you. The one we'll tease a little bit that Tegan showed us how responsible and how grown up she was and how well she's got things as we were leaving her in the dorm that night, that one really caught us. And being open to observing that would be the sort of bonus thing that I'd say here, and that is, look for that moment where your kid is actually they got it. And

Clancy Denton  25:44  
if you want to hear that story, tune in next week. Well, we hope that this has provided some inspiration and just maybe even a little comfort for those of you that this is going to be your your first one that you're taking to college, or maybe it's your last one that you're taking to college. But for those of you that are going to be new college parents, it is a fun, fun season, I would just say, enjoy it as much as you can, and realize that, yes, it is going to be hard and the emotions will be high, but just enjoy it as much as you can.

Rick Denton  26:24  
And for those of you that are new, exactly everything Clancy said, come join the community. Come join the loud, quiet, emptiness, living. It's a Facebook group. This isn't just about the podcast. This is about collecting empty nesters to share wisdom, to share stories, to share tips, join the loud, quiet, empty nest living

Clancy Denton  26:44  
and if you would like to find everything all in one spot, if you go to our website, www dot the loud quiet.com that will have the link to our newsletter, as well as the Facebook group, we'd love to have you and thanks for joining us on another episode of the loud quiet.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai