College student home for Thanksgiving break: how families can adjust to the first visit back

This family is made up to illustrate a common moment; none of them is a real person or client. Picture the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving in a quiet neighborhood outside Grand Rapids. A first-year college student pulls into the driveway after a three-hour drive, drops a bag of laundry by the washer, hugs everyone and heads back out to meet high school friends. At 1:30 a.m. one parent is still awake on the couch, phone in hand, trying not to text again. In the morning the student says, a little sharply, “I’ve been on my own since August. Nobody at school waits up for me.” The parent says, just as sharply, “This isn’t school.” Both of them were looking forward to this visit. Neither expected the first conversation to go like this.

Thanksgiving lands on Thursday, November 26, this year, per the federal holiday calendar published by OPM. For many Michigan families with a student in college, the long weekend may be the first extended stretch at home since move-in day. It can be warm and restoring. It can also be surprisingly awkward, because everyone has changed a little and the house rules have not caught up. Below, we look at what studies suggest about parents and young adult children, why a college student home for break can stir up old patterns, where the evidence has limits, and some ways families might make the visit easier on everyone.

Why can the first trip home feel so different?

Psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett proposed emerging adulthood as a new conception of development in a 2000 paper in American Psychologist for the period from the late teens through the twenties, with a focus on ages 18 to 25. He argued that it is a distinct period, demographically, in how young people see themselves, and in their identity explorations. He also noted that it exists only in cultures that give young people a prolonged period of independent role exploration.

A first semester away can be a concentrated dose of that exploration. A student has been choosing when to sleep, what to eat, who to spend time with and how to handle problems, often without checking in with anyone. Then they come back to a bedroom, a curfew and a family routine that still remember them at 17.

The house may have changed too. Parents who have just adjusted to an empty nest may have settled into new routines, more quiet and more time for themselves or as a couple. Younger siblings may have taken over chores, a bedroom or the role of the child who is always around. In the background to their study of college students who moved home during the pandemic, Ball State University researchers Scott Hall and Eva Zygmunt cite earlier work suggesting that a student returning to an empty nest, where parents have become used to more privacy, autonomy and control, could be especially disruptive, and that bringing an adult child back into a home with other children requires a shift of roles, rules and boundaries. In their own data, though, returning to an empty nest had little relevance to how students experienced life at home. A four-day weekend is also far smaller than a move, but some of the same pieces can shift in miniature.

How close are parents and young adult children today?

The good news is that many of these relationships are strong. In two Pew Research Center surveys conducted October 24 to November 5, 2023, one of 3,017 U.S. parents with at least one child ages 18 to 34 and one of 1,495 adults ages 18 to 34 with at least one living parent, Pew found:

• 77% of parents said their relationship with their young adult children is excellent or very good. Young adults were less glowing: 59% said the same about their relationship with their parents.
• 73% of parents said they text with a young adult child at least a few times a week, and 54% said they talk on the phone or video chat that often.
• 69% of young adults said their parents are about as involved in their day-to-day lives as they would like. About one in five (22%) said their parents are not involved enough, and only 9% said their parents are too involved.
• 31% of young adults said they rely on their parents a great deal or a fair amount for emotional support.

The youngest group stood out. Among adults ages 18 to 24, 79% said they turn to their parents at least sometimes for advice about their financial situation, 77% about their career or job situation and 75% about their physical health. The same age group was also particularly likely to report disagreements about two topics: 49% said they and their parents disagree at least sometimes about their career or job situation, and 44% about their social life.

A few cautions apply. The surveys were not limited to college students, the parents and young adults who answered were not from the same families, and the gap between 77% and 59% compares two different groups of people rather than parents and children rating the same relationship. Even so, the pattern is worth noticing: high ratings for closeness and reports of disagreement are both common, especially in the late teens and early twenties. Disagreeing about curfews or weekend plans does not by itself signal a relationship in trouble.

What does research on students moving back home suggest?

There is little research on short holiday visits specifically. The closest evidence comes from a much bigger disruption. In March 2020, a midsized university in Indiana closed its campus, and the vast majority of students living on or near campus left the area, many of them likely to live with family. Hall and Zygmunt surveyed 323 of those students, publishing their findings in Family Relations in 2021.

Returning home was challenging for most of the students. When the researchers looked at what went along with worse family relationships during the quarantine, the strongest factors were negative attitudes from students and parents about the student being home, the student feeling less adultlike (both in how they were treated and in how they saw themselves) and having low autonomy. Being a first-year student, having been excited about coming home and feeling accepted by parents about being home were among the things linked with differences in how students experienced life at home. First-year students in the study were less excited to come home and generally reported more negative experiences at home.

This study has real limits for a Thanksgiving visit. A pandemic lockdown was involuntary, long and stressful in ways a holiday break is not. The sample came from one university and was not very diverse: about 70% of respondents identified as female and about 87% as White. The data also came only from students, not their parents. Still, the themes feel familiar: how welcome each person feels, whether the student is treated like an adult, and how much say they have over their own time.

Why might connection at home matter for a first-year student?

The first semester can be exciting and lonely at the same time. In a study published online in 2022 in Child Psychiatry and Human Development, Maria Calderon Leon and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles followed 101 first-year students at a large public university in the western United States over two months. In reviewing earlier research, they note that loneliness tends to peak in the first year of college compared with later years, particularly for students who move away. At the start, students who reported better relationships with both parents and friends reported less loneliness. Over time, the link between friend relationship quality and loneliness weakened, while parent relationship quality continued to predict lower loneliness two months later. Even so, at baseline friendships accounted for more of the differences in loneliness than parent relationships did, and the friend link weakened rather than disappeared.

The study was small, 80 of the 101 students were female, everything was self-reported at one school, and data collection overlapped the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it cannot show that good parent relationships cause less loneliness. The authors also point to earlier research suggesting that when young adults do bring a decision to their parents, they tend to be looking for another perspective rather than a definitive answer. That is a useful frame for a holiday visit: the parent’s role may be shifting from manager to steady, interested sounding board.

What can families talk about before and during the break?

Every family has its own culture, values and rules, so treat these as ideas to adapt rather than a script.

1. Talk about plans before the car is in the driveway. A short call or text a week ahead can cover the basics: which family meals matter most to you, when the student hopes to see friends, whether anyone has work shifts, and how long they are staying. Surprises on day one can feel like rejection on both sides.
2. Swap the curfew for a courtesy. Some families find it easier to move from “be home by midnight” to something like “text us if you will be later than one, so we can sleep.” That keeps the student’s independence intact while acknowledging that a parent lying awake is a real cost. In Hall and Zygmunt’s study, feeling less adultlike and having low autonomy went along with worse family relationships, so how the request is framed may matter.
3. Expect sleep, laundry and old friends. A student who sleeps until noon and spends evenings with high school friends is not necessarily avoiding the family. They may be exhausted after midterms or eager to reconnect with people they miss. Picking one or two protected times together, such as Thanksgiving dinner or a Saturday breakfast, can feel better than competing for every hour.
4. Ask open questions, then listen. “How are classes?” often gets “fine.” Something like “What has surprised you most about living there?” or “Who have you been spending time with?” invites a real answer. If they bring up a problem, checking first, with something like “Are you looking for suggestions, or just want me to listen?”, may help before offering advice.
5. Name what has changed at home. If a bedroom became an office, a younger sibling took over a chore, or a pet has a new routine, say so kindly before the student discovers it. Younger siblings may also need some attention of their own, since their place in the family has shifted twice in a few months.
6. If two parents are involved, try to get on the same page first. Parents and co-parents do not always agree about how much freedom a college student should have. Talking it through privately before the visit, rather than in front of the student, can keep a disagreement from becoming a three-way argument. Our page on boundaries covers how to say what you need clearly without trying to control the other person.
7. Students, say what you need too. “I’d love to be at dinner, and I also really need Friday night with my roommates who live nearby” may land better than disappearing without explanation. Families may relax once they know they are still a priority.

What if the visit brings up something bigger?

Sometimes a break at home is just a few days of adjustment, and everyone settles into the new shape of the relationship by the time winter break arrives. Sometimes it brings a bigger worry to the surface: a student who seems withdrawn or overwhelmed, grades that are slipping, a parent who feels lost without the daily rhythm of raising a child, or old conflicts that flare up every time everyone is under one roof.

That is when outside support may help. Family therapy can give parents and young adults a structured place to renegotiate the relationship, including expectations about contact, money and independence. Individual therapy may help a parent or a young adult who wants space of their own to sort through it. With this practice, sessions are online and only for clients located in Michigan. Many families work through this season on their own, and outcomes vary. For others, a few conversations with a neutral person in the room may help the next visit home feel easier.

Iryna Morhunova-Sutton, LLMFT, sees clients online, and only those located in Michigan. If a visit home has raised questions your family would like help sorting through, the request form is there whenever the timing feels right, with no obligation.

When someone in your family needs help right now, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline answers calls and texts at 988, day or night. For an emergency, dial 911.