The start of university is always tough. It is a time to psychologically adjust to independence, reshape identity, find fresh pursuits and ponder goals in life.

I refer not to the teenager now gadding about as a bright young fresher, but to the parents who are left behind. According to Family Lives, a UK charity that runs a counselling helpline, the beginning of term brings an increase in calls from anxious mothers and fathers, struggling to cope now that their child has skipped off to university.

“We get seasonal spikes in calls and the start of the academic year is one of them, without question,” says Jeremy Todd, chief executive of Family Lives. He says the parental cries for help tend to fall into two categories: anxiety about a child’s coping abilities while away at college; and worries about marital or relationship breakdown, especially if the youngest child has left.