@MaryGJ one would think then that you of all people would be more understanding of a parent with concerns about the well being of a student. I can only speak for myself, but I found your post #28 not only unhelpful but very judgmental - and especailly so coming from a parent who professes to have “over parented” herself.
People can’t hear you when you are attacking them. And that’s a shame because your experiences might actually be helpful.
Indeed. One case I know of is an older HS classmate who moved out and cut off all further contact with her parents at 20 when she grew fed up with their micromanging every aspect of her life…including imposing a ridiculously early 10 pm curfew which caused problems with scheduling college classes and part-time work due to commute times involved.
It has now been over 20 years since she moved out/cut off all contact and despite being happily married and having far better managed finances than her parents, she has refused to resume contact with her parents.
I also mentioend the finances part because her parents’ attempts to resume contact weren’t helped by the fact a large portion of it was motivated by their asking for help to dig themselves out of a financial hole they’ve inflicted on themselves…especially considering they never paid a red cent towards her undergraduate expenses.
Oh, man. There was the time D2 took off and I only knew she had gone when I recd a late night email from the cell co, asking if I wanted to put that phone on a quick Canadian call plan. No one could reach her, we didn’t know if she was safe or if something had happened.
This is a gal is in guardianship, we don’t know the details or the rest of the emotional context. The vanilla advice to leave kids to trial and error, sink or swim on their own, may not apply.
No one can simply call ‘helicoptering’ without knowing more. Not all kids are completely screwed together or able to make rational decisions, in every respect. In fact, if OP had presented a label, some learning issue or decision-making challenge, I wonder if there would have been more empathy.
With D2, we weren’t helicoptering. But nor were we assuming everything was hunky dory because, after all, she was over 18 and made it into a great college. In fact, she relied on the back and forth with me, as she tested herself and her own wisdom. (Yeah, exhausting.)
As for the suicide crack, it may be a sign of immaturity. A fast rebound bolt hurled. Or it could be more. A parent is right to try to engage on that.
Both parties have a lot to lose by giving up on the relationship. An adult child is always allowed to withdraw, minimize contact, etc, but let’s not pretend that only the parents are being “punished”. Even in adulthood, most other adults would enjoy some contact with their parents, and might want to interface with them for the sake of the grandchildren, or family harmony, or even because, by middle age, an awful lot of truly horrible things can happen to one and it can be nice to count on family support. The relationship is inter-dependent.
some folks are being too hard on @exlibris97 . If the kid left town and has fallen behind, someone probably should remind her of the prioroties right now. 18 year olds are still very impulsive. what you are describing doesn’t sound like helecoptering at all. Just caring.
In this country, we recognize this impulsivity and lack of maturity, and don’t just kick kids out at 18. We continue to give guidance and set expectations until they can support themselves.
ignore the suicide thing. My kid used to say that kind of thing to upset me. Just don’t react to it.
“Recently I had an argument with her when I discovered she had left town for several days to visit a friend in another city, cutting all her classes despite being behind in reading for two courses. She then sent me a stream of heated text messages in which I was accused of implying that she wasn’t studying and disparaging her ability (neither was true].”
2 things-
1-The OP, [and any parent whose kids have NOT given them REAL reason to be concerned that they cant hack college academically], is NOT the person that a smart college student is going to heed regarding the consequences of falling behind on reading assignments. She will get the " wake up"
message from a prof when she gets a bad grade.
2- the OP stated the student is “doing fine”, but is, in her guardians words “lazy”.
Apparently not too lazy to get into one of the most competitive colleges in the country!
Id say the OP should re-evaluate her own opinion of the girl. And give her space to make the kind of minor mistakes that young adults have made, and learned from, since time immemorial.
Since the OP is not right there at Columbia, checking on her ward’s “homework” assignments every nite, she needs to learn she has to let go, realize that she has got a very smart, independent ward, and just be available, IF and WHEN her ward wants her support.
You sure draw a lot out of very few words. And yes, really smart kids can also be lazy.
Ever think there is a reason this young adult still has a guardian? I doubt this is incident #1.
Getting in, while presumably living at home, with adults around, is different than being truly independent. We get tales all the time on CC of kids floundering at college, no? There’s no magic just being there. Some need a transition.
my, my, my
you sure can draw a lot of negative conclusions from one post…
Does it matter why she has a guardian? perhaps her parents are dead? who knows?
Bottom line- guardians have no more ability to change a college students [ lazy] study patterns than parents do.
Only the student can change that. And if it hasnt impacted negatively on her academic career, she probably wont until she has to.
Without any further information from the OP, much of this is just speculation. There could be all sorts of background to this relationship. If the OP isn’t interested in commenting further, perhaps this is just a waste of time.
"You sure draw a lot out of very few words. And yes, really smart kids can also be lazy.
Ever think there is a reason this young adult still has a guardian? I doubt this is incident #1."
And apparently, so do you. 
I think OP’s relative is a student at Columbia. If I were her, I’d take the comments seriously. A student who hints at suicide should receive a clear message that those remarks will be interpreted as a call for help and appropriate help will be provided.
The issue is that OP has stated she’s “doing fine” academically. Her only issues is that she feels her Ivy attending D is “lazy” and that she didn’t give her a heads up about taking a weekend road trip and skipping Friday classes despite being behind in readings for 2 classes out of the presumed average load of 4-5.
That doesn’t sound very characteristic of a floundering student.
Incidentally, why does she consider OP to be “lazy” if she’s doing fine so far? And if she’s actually not fulfilling academic expectations, why did OP say D’s “doing fine” in college academics in OP?
She didn’t say she expected a heads up.
And c’mon, a kid can be doing fine and still shirking the effort. What’s fine?
Point is, this is her child, not some abstract. We have little info to go on. Guardianship after 18 can mean there are issues related to independence. There may be some critical reasons to monitor the daughter’s judgment.
Many CC parents have kids who, with various diagnoses, needed great support though hs, got strong grades, got into a great college, but are not perfectly “there” yet, in terms of maturity and/or functioning. Do we jump to the extreme and say they’re helicoptering? Do we predict dire outcomes because we knew someone? Or wait to learn more?
Well said, lookingforward.
That’s also heavy speculation considering OP said nothing about health or issues which may impede independence.
I would be more convinced if OP’s D was a first year at Columbia.
However, OP’s D already has one year behind her and is well into her second year and “doing fine” academically. In that case, I’m willing to give OP’s D a bit more credit in the independence and getting her academics squared away departments.
And like another commented noted, the guardianship could have been assumed for reasons having nothing to do with D’s independence or health related issues such as loss of parents at an early age or parents being found ill-suited to care for her as a child.
No speculation that this is her child. Nor that guardianship usually ends at 18 and it takes various concerted legal efforts to continue it.
Separate “academically” from other issues that affect kids. I can speculate a host of reasons OP may continue to have concerns. I went through it. Many of us parents have.
My issue is posters jumping on OP, assuming.
"Do we jump to the extreme and say they’re helicoptering? Do we predict dire outcomes because we
knew someone? "
The OP said her ward was “doing fine”. I read nothing else in her account of the argument between them to doubt that.
What she was upset about was that she was basically told , by her ward, to " bugger off" when she tried to lecture her about skipping classes. I understand her worrying about that, and being hurt by her ward’s remarks, BUT there is nothing that she can do to when a young person, away at school, who she reported to be “lazy” , but otherwise doing fine at a tough college like Columbia, decides to “break a rule” and NOT read every assignment and NOT go to a few classes. . How is it that she even knows that her ward was behind in reading assignments? Possibly because her ward trusted her and mentioned it?
Once again- the person that needs to learn the consequences of breaking the rules or making a dumb decision that affects her academic performance at a highly competitive college is the student. It did not sound like she is struggling , missing a few classes lol, rather that she is stretching her wings a bit.
The guardian certainly does not need to swoop into town and rescue her ward at this point, based on the information given.
I think the kid was standing up for herself and telling her guardian that she does not need as much “guarding” as she once did. She did it in a very rude way, but sometimes parents or guardians have to be" strong-armed" in order for them to get the message. .
She is growing up and wants her guardian to have confidence in her ability to make some decisions on her own, without having to ask for permission first.
Its a hard lesson for any parent or caring guardian to learn.
just my 2 cents…
Yes, I think I can/do still parent my 20 and 21 year old children. Yep, I can pull financial support and D#1 knows I will (I don’t support D#2 financially), but I can also pull other support - emotional, financial aid/tax help, advice, companionship. I don’t think that is’ a really dumb move’ and if they don’t want a relationship with me, that’s on them because I don’t think my conditions for support are unreasonable but they also aren’t negotiable once they are set. That’s not how we work. We respect each other, but I’m the parent and in the end, I’m in charge.
I also have control over how I allow them to treat me. D2 tried sending me snarky texts in high school and things didn’t go well for her.
My kids do not miss school to go visit friends. That’s a habit from k-12 (they rarely missed) but if they suddenly did, I’d say something. Maybe OP’s ward is so successful in school because OP was setting conditions like not missing school, keeping up on reading, getting a lot of sleep last year when she was still in high school. We all know kids who got to college and ‘woohoo, anything goes, I can stay up all night, skip classes, and I’ll still get good grades because I’m invincible!’ My kids aren’t invincible and still need some reminders of the boundaries and how to spend time and money now that they are college juniors.
My kids are shocked by how other children speak to their parents, demand this or insist on that. My brother’s girlfriend has an 18 year old who swears like a sailor, doesn’t listen to any adults, and my kids think is a nightmare. They do not want to be like her even though she has a trust fund for college and no money worries. She is a miserable person and has no friends. I love when other kids provide real life examples of how not to act to my kids.
OP may not have a long relationship with her ward; they may still be in a push/push back learning curve with texts and contact in college. If OP is concerned about the suicide text, it is probably out of the norm for their relationship and thus cause for concern. However, I think she needs to be consistent on how she allows her ward to treat her through texts. Part of being an adult is knowing how to talk to other people, and this student has not learned that yet. A mature response would have been “I decided I could miss a class and I’ll be fine with the reading by the end of this long weekend” not “You know there have been suicides.”
OP’s D wasn’t in HS last year. Instead, she completed her first year at Columbia, is well into her second year there currently, and is doing fine academically according to OP’s own words.
OP’s D isn’t someone who was just out of HS. She’s someone who already has 1.5 years of undergrad under her belt and “doing fine”.