Getting parents past goodbye.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Lynn Franey

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Bobbie Lodes isn't as bad as the mother who called her daughter five times the first afternoon they were apart.

Or the mom who stayed in her freshman daughter's dorm room the whole first week of school.

Or the one who had to be physically removed by security guards from a registration line; she insisted her teenager couldn't possibly know what classes to take.

But like Lodes, many parents of college students today are so tightly bonded to their kids_having watched over all aspects of their lives, from sports to school to social activities_that they can barely let go.

To keep hyper-involved baby boomers from smothering their children's chance to grow up, more colleges are using extensive parent orientation sessions to head off unwanted meddling. They also try to channel parents' desire for involvement into positive things, enlisting them to plan family weekend events, hold student recruitment shindigs or donate money for scholarships.

Rockhurst University's programs for parents helped smooth the transition to college for Lodes and her youngest child, Mary.