I am a single parent with several children, the oldest of whom is a high school junior. My children’s other parent developed severe mental illness that manifested as domestic violence among other things. We are currently safe, living in a different city from the other parent, but things were pretty scary for a while.
C26 would like their other parent to have nothing to do with college application process, and would very much not like to write about it in the application. But unfortunately that’s not an option, as we’ll need to submit the restraining order and court documents, as part of our request for a non custodial waiver. The school counselor has also told us they’ll need to use their letter to explain why C26 doesn’t show up on any of the school’s website (e.g. they write under a pen name for the school newspaper, they aren’t listed on honor roll, even though their application will include school newspaper and honor roll). C26 also hopes to change their name once they’re 18, so we’ll need to explain that.
Anyway, my question is how do we handle all this in the app. I have a few concerns.
One is that if we only talk about the danger (e.g. the restraining order, the need to hide our identities) but not about how we’ve increased our safety) a school might worry that having C26 is a safety issue.
Another thing I worry about is that we talk about the trauma, but not about how C26 has responded to it, that it will make them doubt C26’s mental health. In reality C26 has done a lot of therapy and has come a long way.
Anyway, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on how to walk that line between protecting C26’s privacy and respecting their right to tell their own story, and not hurting his chances.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
And yes, I know that C26 could write an amazing essay about rising from trauma, or about lessons learned and increase his odds. But I think that’s their choice to make.