In touch too much? Kids head off to college -- with mom and dad just a text away

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For plenty of parents -- and I am likely to be among them -- the temptation will be great to write a quick email or just shoot a sentence in a text message to a child who’s gone off to college. After nearly two decades, letting go won’t be so easy.

In fact, many parents and students are not breaking their ties the way they did a couple of generations ago. ‘ ‘Good’ parents believe that they must always be involved in their children’s lives and available to them,’ Barbara K. Hofer and Abigail Sullivan Moore write in the book ‘The iConnected Parent.’ But, they say, it’s not the same to be the parent of a child or adolescent as to be the parent of a young adult.

The college students, too, play a role in how much contact -- and what kind of contact occurs between home and campus. The Home section takes a closer look at the relationship this week.

Hofer and Moore suggest setting some goals and ground rules together over the summer. I, for one, will try to keep my hands off my BlackBerry -- at least some of the time.

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The Bond: Why can’t some parents let go?

-- Mary MacVean

Illustration credit: Stephen Sedam