When your first-year college student (finally) comes home for Thanksgiving — Dos and don’ts for excited parents.

Fireside board games, anyone? Or how about a family cookie-baking session?

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, sending first-year college students home after two or three very long months, visions of family togetherness are dancing in the heads of excited parents.

“I think sometimes parents might have that expectation, ‘Oh, it’s going to be like old times,’ ” said Kamau Grantham, a clinical psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Maybe that’s the case,” he said. “But maybe your 18- or 19-year-old is into other things now.”

That’s not to say that your reunited family can’t have a great Thanksgiving break. But experts say it’s important to remember that this is a time of transition and growth for your child, and — as in so many cases — communication is key.

“The bottom line is, it would be really smart for parents and kids to spend a couple of minutes having a conversation about how things have changed, how people have changed, what are the rules and how are we going to exist under the same roof together for the next couple of days?” said Tim Dohrer, director of the Master of Science in Education Program at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.

The conversation doesn’t have to be long — maybe five minutes — but Dohrer suggests doing it early in the visit, say on the way home from the airport.

You might say something like: “Let’s sit for a second and just talk about how things are going to run for the next couple of days.”

Keep in mind that this is a transitional moment, Dohrer said, the first time your kid has come home after living on their own, likely with more freedom and fewer rules than ever before.

“You want to think about, how do I acknowledge that?” he said. “At the same time, I don’t need my kids tramping in at 2 a.m. and waking the rest of the family up — including me.”

It’s also important to remember that your child has changed in some ways, big or small.

“I think they’re going to be going through a lot of changes in terms of figuring out who they are,” said Grantham. “For a lot of folks coming here to the University of Illinois, for example, they’re going to connect with some people that they wouldn’t have come in contact with before. You’re going to meet people from all over the country, all over the world. And people are getting exposed to new ideas and new things.

Dohrer strongly recommends giving your child the space to connect with old friends. On the other hand, your needs count too.

“It’s OK to say, ‘I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to spend as much time with you as I want, or I’m worried that you’re not going to be here for this family event. What can we do to meet in the middle?’ ” he said.

And while your child will likely want to do things that don’t include you, they may surprise you in other respects. They’ve gone through a lot of change in a short period of time, and they may actually be looking forward to some tradition, continuity and consistency, Dohrer said.

Maybe even some board games.

nschoenberg@chicagotribune.com