Parents of College Students

DDs 18th birthday is next week followed shortly by Christmas. Then next May there will be graduation. This seems like a huge year that should be filled with memorable gifts. What gifts did you give your child their senior year?

DS17 (also a sr) is likely getting a new car stereo for Christmas (he has an old car with an ancient stereo).  I won't do the computer yet as I don't know what he'll need, and the school will have better prices than we can get, once he's formally there (he's been accepted but I don't want to get one this soon)

Sue

Dd17's birthday was last week and we did the same thing we do every year- tickets to a show with dad and mom. We have done that since second grade. We've never given her a traditional gift; this is just our thing. I can't remember what we did for dd19 senior year. That was her sweet 16 and I think we took her someplace as well. For high school graduation, we gave dd19 a laptop. We'll probably do the same for dd17. For dd19s 18th birthday, we did do a big gift-very outside the norm for us. we gave her $1000, because she hadn't been able to find full time work that summer and had very little money at the start of her sophomore year (we don't give money during the school year-they're supposed to work over the summer and save). For dd17s 18th, we'll probably take her to NYC for a show (we live near Chicago, and the furthest we've gone is to Madison last year to see "Avenue Q")

It is a big year, but with college apps and stuff I feel like we're spending a lot more too!

Theresa