Home Again: Students and Their Families Adapt to New Normal
April 3, 2020
- Author
- Mary Elizabeth DeAngelis
The Paynter family visits the Lake Campus. The family is adjusting to life in close quarters now that Maliyah 23 and her siblings are home again.
Alan Paynter calls the living room in his family檚 Hershey, Pennsylvania, apartment the frat house and gym.
The ping-pong table at the Sharp home in Jackson, Mississippi, doubles as an office desk.
The Krenzlins in West Palm Beach, Florida, have positioned laptops so that Zoom classmates and professors only see the neatest parts of their house.
And while students from the south returned to warm sunny days, the Voelkers welcomed their two daughters home to a Connecticut snowstorm.
As 91茄子 students fall into the stride of attending classes from afar, their families have shuffled life up to make room for their unexpected return.
Former empty nesters endured long supermarket lines to buy more food. Repurposed guest rooms turned back into bedrooms. And with much of the country under a stay-at-home order to stop the spread of COVID-19, family togetherness is a mandate.
Everyone is naturally experiencing anxiety right now. That檚 normal, said Cabe Loring 93, a clinical psychologist in Spartanburg, South Carolina. 淥ne approach is to employ a team mentality as a family.
Just a small percentage of students remain on campus for reasons such as outbreaks in their home countries, compromised immune systems and family hardship.
The vast majority went home in mid-March.
淓veryone is naturally experiencing anxiety right now. That檚 normal, said Cabe Loring 93, a clinical psychologist in Spartanburg, South Carolina. 淥ne approach is to employ a team mentality as a family.
淣obody saw this coming. We will get through this together and everyone in the family will pitch in differently, Loring said. 淏e sure to validate your children檚 feelings and check in with them to see how they檙e doing. Stick to a schedule and take care of yourselves so you can put on a good face for them.
Amy Rolfes Poag 96 said a little empathy can go a long way.
淭he freedom they once had is no longer there, said Poag, a school counselor in Memphis. 淧arents are back in the picture in a way they hadn檛 been. They檙e listening to the news, they檙e afraid, and they have to put boundaries in place.
淲e need to understand how hard this is for everyone, she said. 淭hen everyone needs to back up and have some grace and understanding about where the other is coming from.
Close Quarters
Students get why they needed to go home; they just weren檛 ready.
Maliyah Paynter 23 cried with her friends when they learned everyone had to leave campus. Her dad and uncle picked her up at school to come back to the Pennsylvania apartment her family has rented since a house fire last year.
淲e have video games, a PS4, blankets and clothes everywhere, Maliyah said wryly about the living room, which her older brother, Christopher, home from Villanova University, has taken over. 淚t檚 just great.
On the bright side, her mom, Jennifer, is a really good cook. And she檚 cooked quite a bit lately for their family of athletes. Maliyah runs for the 91茄子 women檚 track team, Christopher swims for Villanova, and younger brother Jaren, a high school senior, plays football.
淲e eat a lot, we all work out (Christopher in the living room) and we檒l have a ton of food and it檚 gone in a couple days, Maliyah said. 淢y mom tells us we檙e doing a very good job of eating the leftovers.
Good food aside, there are challenges and benefits to the close quarters.
淓very time I go to take a shower, somebody檚 beat me to it. I really miss having the five showers on our dorm floor, Maliyah said. 淥bviously we are spending more time together, and they are my brothers and they like to joke and I can get irritated. But we檙e also getting closer.
She keeps in touch with college friends through Snapchat, texts and Zoom. She recreated her 91茄子 dorm layout in her bedroom. And her dad surprised her by putting the nametag from her dorm room door on her bedroom door.
淢y parents understand that this is very difficult, she said. 淎nd they檙e doing their best to make this as easy as possible for everybody.
Alan Paynter, who檚 also working from home now, says it檚 actually their dog, a black lab named Tobias, who seems to be the most upended.
淗e檚 so spoiled. He and my wife used to have the place all to themselves most of the time, Paynter said. 淣ow he keeps looking at the rest of us with this 業 can檛 believe you檙e all here stare.
Resilience Training
Brent Voelker and his wife, Jackie, now work from their New Hartford, Connecticut home. They檝e set up four different work stations around the house so they and daughters Lindsey 21 and Ally 23 each have a corner to get away to.
The Voelker Family: parents Brent and Jackie, students Ally and Lindsey, and the family dog, Maggie
淭he house isn檛 nearly as big as we thought it was when they were at school, Brent Voelker said. 淲e try to stay out of each other檚 way during the day, get out for walks, then have dinner together.
淎nd the other night we played the board game 淪ORRY! for the first time in 12 years.
Staci Sharp says they檝e moved her husband檚 office from the basement to what used to be the game room of their Jackson, Mississippi, home so that their daughter Addison 21 would have a quiet space to do schoolwork. Dennis Sharp檚 work files now cover the ping-pong table.
淚 wanted to give her some space outside of her bedroom so she could get a little change of scenery, Staci Sharp said. 淭his has been really hard and they definitely deserve to grieve攅specially the seniors.
淭his is now part of their life story, the part they檒l tell to their grandkids some day. They may not have carried lunch buckets 10 miles in the snow to get to school, but this is this generation檚 resilience training.
And like the generations before them who overcame hard times, they will get through this, she said.
淚檓 so grateful that my child is here and safe, Staci Sharp said. 淲e檙e all entitled to little freak out moments now and then. We have them, and we move on.
