The Surprising Reason Your College Kid Might Struggle When They Come Home for Thanksgiving

If you’re not familiar with the term “Back Home Baller” then watch this Saturday Night Live skit from 2014. Ten years later, the term — used to describe the swagger a college kid feels upon coming home for Thanksgiving— still holds up.

On TikTok each November, teens and young twentysomethings recreate this iconic sketch, employing their parents as actors and family homes as sets. It’s one of the most wholesome trends out there, and its annual relevancy speaks to an enduring reality: it is weird and funny coming home for Thanksgiving when you’re a college student drunk off of newfound independence. Take it from me: I just graduated college this past May. 

First, suddenly your childhood home is just that: your childhood home. As for being back home for a holiday break? You’re back home, you don’t live there anymore.

The bright side of no longer being a full-time tenant wherever you grew up is, of course, the queen treatment. Per the song: Walk in the door hand my bag to the valet/In case your wondering it’s my daddy/Head straight to the fridge like a boss, yo/Hell Yeah! My mom went to Costco!

The downside? Your college freshman might experience a new feeling of disconnection from life — and friends — back home.  

Facing Friendship Changes

I still viscerally remember my first Thanksgiving break home as a freshman.

My home friends are some of my best friends in the world, and if you ask any of us about the ‘let’s all get together now that we’re back!’ dinner at our favorite local Mexican restaurant, we’ll put our palms to our faces thinking about that awkward reunion freshman fall. 

As freshmen coming home are wont to do, we all came to dinner with something to prove: “My new friends are like this, this sorority is like that, our sports teams are so this, my parties are so that…” I cringe thinking about how competitive we got in between bites of chicken quesadilla. 

It’s pretty obvious in retrospect: in an effort to show how much everyone was “thriving,” we all overcompensated, inadvertently revealing that being a college freshman is HARD and there’s lots to be insecure about and everything is new and strange and different. On top of this, when the one thing you may have counted on — the reliability and relatability of your hometown friends — suddenly seems shifty? Suuuch a bad feeling.

But it makes sense. You have these people who have known each other forever and then they turn 18 and you send them in a million different directions: one to a big state school, the other to an urban campus, another one joins a sports team, the other rushes a sorority… the similarities can feel sparse when everyone reunites in November.

How Parents Can Help

However, what I wish I knew, and what my parents will definitely be preparing my little sister for when she heads off to college in a couple of years, is twofold: one, that your college kid might feel disconnected from everyone at home when they first come back for Thanksgiving; and two, not only is this experience normal, but it’s temporary. 

Psychotherapist and SheKnows Parenting Advisory Council member Zuania Capo explains how parents can help mitigate the unease their college kid might be feeling. 

“College is a time of growth and change, and students often form new identities, interests, and routines that can feel out of sync with what they left behind,” she tells SheKnows. “Parents can help by creating an open, non-judgmental space for their child to process these changes. Encouraging their college student to set aside time to reconnect with friends while also respecting their need for downtime or self-reflection can make the transition back home smoother.”

Once the dust and the glitter of being a college kid settles, and everyone feels that they’ve sufficiently shown off in what ways they’ve changed, the conversations will likely shift to the ways everyone is still the same. 

Now, more than ever, I lean on my home friends for advice, companionship, laughter, and more. The bond of growing up in the same place, and of knowing each other for years, has proven unshakeable. 

If I could tell my college freshman self anything, it’s that comparing college experiences over chips and guac — and noting the newfound differences between all of us — wasn’t a sign of any sort of personal failing, it was a sign of growth. And just because I was growing didn’t mean that others weren’t too, and that later I’d feel lucky for all of the new, fun content to laugh and share and bond about with lifelong friends.

Before you go, check out where your favorite celeb parents are sending their kids to college.