SIOUX CITY -- As excited as Lisa Taylor was for her college-bound daughter, Lauren, the sunny Saturday they spent together in Sioux City was also tinged with sadness as she prepared to leave her daughter at Briar Cliff University.

Taylor was handling it well, but knew things could change as the 150-mile drive back to Lincoln edged nearer.

"I know I will cry if she starts crying," she said of her daughter, Lauren Monroe. "I'm gonna try to be strong."

Mother and daughter, along with a family friend and little brother, Isaiah, and approximately 240 other students were preparing for the pivotal moment in Briar Cliff's student welcome ceremonies: the farewell to parents.

Monroe, 18, expected the day to get more emotional when her family left, not only for her and her mother, but also for Isaiah. She thought the fourth-grader, who is autistic, might not realize his big sister wasn't coming home with them that day.

"I'm excited right now," said Monroe, 18. "(I) might be sad in a couple hours when they're gone."

As the ceremonial speeches rolled on, reality appeared to set in for some students, whose expressions changed from the nervous smiles they wore during the picnic into more pensive, subdued looks. Parents and students wiped away tears.

Briar Cliff President Bev Wharton said Saturday wasn't only about helping students settle in to college life, but also their parents, who also must begin a new phase of their lives.

It's hard to tell who takes good-bye the hardest, students or parents, but Wharton said studies show students from this generation, the millennials, are more connected with their parents than generations past.

"Saying good-bye today is probably different than it was 20 years ago," she said.

Tina Henry, already wiping away tears prior to the ceremony, knew saying good-bye to her son, Andrew, was going to difficult. She would know. Last year, she and her husband, Mike, of Yale, Iowa, said good-bye at Briar Cliff to their older son, Brandon.

It wasn't going to be any easier with her youngest son.

"I'll hug him, I'll tell him I love him, then I'll go to the car and cry for an hour," Henry said.