Never give a doctor your social security number. They may ask, but you should never give it. Identity theft is rampant. Health insurance companies stopped using SSNs for member ID numbers about 20 years ago for this very reason. The only ones who are entitled to your SSN are financial institutions, the IRS, and the social security administration.
I created a manila envelope for my kids just for health & dental care info. I put all the needed cards in it, and typed a document with what to do in different situations (emergencies, dental care, urgent care, etc). It is complicated to find doctors that take your insurance if nothing else. But that is a good thing for any student, not just this particular one.
Kchendds, I haven’t heard mention so far of a current therapist for your daughter, nor have you responded to the idea of setting up therapists for her at Carleton (whether it’s through the school or independently). It makes me concerned that she isn’t currently seeing a therapist or mental health professional of some sort. Please tell me I’m incorrect.
I have several friends who speak English as a second or third language, and, if anything, their grasp of the language is much more precise and careful than my friends who are native speakers. So I’m not buying it, sorry. Your command of the language is superlative to many people who’ve grown up writing it.
Try harder. I’m pushing you because of your daughter, not because I’m being mean. Step outside of yourself for your kid’s sake.
Ditto. I was going to make this same comment. I would feel a lot differently if you could state that a therapist who knows your D well has given their blessing to your plan.
Otherwise, staying so involved unconsciously telegraphs to your D that she cannot handle herself.
Speaking as a former anxiety sufferer and mother of a D who is Dx with severe anxiety and depression.
I have skimmed this thread because I found myself in a similar situation five years ago with my child who loved Carleton and thought she wanted to go there. We also live in CA, and she also had extreme anxiety about being so far from home and our family. I encouraged her as best I could. It was a very good fit for her and had everything she wanted and I felt, and still do feel, that she would have loved it. Eventually. But in the end she chose to stay very close to home and attend our state flagship, which happens to be a fantastic school, and she felt very lucky to have it as an option. She doesn’t have regrets choosing to stay close to home and had a good four years and is in grad school now. Looking back, I feel enormous respect for her for knowing who she was and what she wanted and not being afraid to make the choice that she felt was right for her despite lots of outside pressure. She really didn’t have to trade off academic excellence to do this as the school she attended is certainly a peer school of Carleton, so maybe that made the choice easier, but sometimes it is good to let the kid take the lead and to listen. I think you know your child better than strangers on the internet and if she gets comfortable in her new environment slower or later than others students, so what. And if she needs you to help her, I can’t see why that is a problem. She will get there eventually.
I think it is a conflicting message to stay in the general area but that you won’t rush to her side. I would pitch the rest of your trip as “dad and I have always wanted to tour the Midwest” rather than “we are hanging around the Midwest just in case you need us.” Either you’re going to be available on a dime or you’re not, in which case it doesn’t matter if you are in a hotel somewhere in the Midwest or back in California.
I am also wondering if the D is seeing a therapist. The therapist should weigh in on the situation.
I’m a class of 2016er who also has an anxiety disorder though very well controlled. You are never going to be able to be there for all of your D’s anxiety or panic attacks. She will learn to manage them herself with help from a therapist if needed. Plus even if CA you are only a text or phone call away if she needs you.
Staying within range for a month is way too much–it would be best if you were very far away. She needs to be jolted in a new place and to see that it’s actually fine.
I feel inundated with random info. I spent my Sunday afternoon at the local hospital, listening to speakers from my #2 charity. I was so sad to learn that our local U has 16 counsellors , but the state U has 1 counselor covering 4 campuses. My point, gather info from your DD U, what they offer, their list of private providers on the Plan, and have a family session before you go off.
I don’t think me staying there is an issue for my daughter. If it wasn’t for her sport and the coach, she would have stayed in CA for college. I would be as close as I am from the distance to and from Northfield when I am in town. It’s actually my attitude and her wish to overcome the issue and which had already been addressed and fixed years ago from away camps. She knows I am a very firm “No” believer for her running away from problems and she handles problems very well since then. It is the uncertainty of the future makes her nervous and I am afraid anxiety will attack her hard this time. She had refused to share her recent attack with her doctor, lucky enough my husband and I found a way to talk her out. She finally told the doctor. She was already 18 for the last visit and I can’t speak for her without her consent anymore
I am not stopping her grow or to become an adult and she is already a very successful young woman. She is the only female scholar athlete of the year and ranked 8 for her class of 613 students. She is leaders for a lot of things and has earned quite a few character awards and recognitions from different places. She has barely played her sport for four years and she got herself recruited. All I did was to pay for the recruiting website. She planned for her own life. She has achieved a lot already. It’s the denial of her actual medical concerns that alarmed me from the last visit.
She doesn’t rely on me and doesn’t like to do so. She wouldn’t let me read her college essay until she was accepted. I am just worried about the turning 18 and I think I am okay idea and it scares me a lot.
You will never understand how terrifying to see you own child having an anxiety attack. I do appreciate advice from people who have experienced this themselves or have had family they have handled before.
She is under good medical care and husband who is also a doctor has already located specific doctors in the area 2 months ago.
I just want to add that all that wonderful stuff about her winning awards or being resourceful and planning her life, while important, does not have any impact necessarily, on how well she will cope with a panic attack. Only her toolbox of learned skills can effectively get her through a bout of anxiety.
It is extremely common for an anxious person to have a “safe” person or a “safe” place (hence agoraphobia) and I would be cautious that you do not become your daughter’s safe person. It is also common for an anxious person to practice avoidance. It is a very common inappropriate coping mechanism. So you need to be careful that you are not making it easy for your daughter to avoid anxiety-producing situations.
And to be clear, and I think you are clear, there are anxiety-provoking situations and then there are anxiety attacks. One does not necessarily precede the other. If you are staying in the area to help lower your daughter’s overall measure of discomfort,then perhaps that is a good strategy. If you are staying there to help prevent her from experiencing an anxious situation, then that can be a problem in the long run.
Again, you have not mentioned a therapist specifically, just a “doctor.” I think it is important for her to have a professional to rely on in her toolbox.
A counseling professional who specializes in this age group, is attuned to its concerns and patterns. The right ones match the young person and her needs, not necessarily those docs the parents initially think are good. We learned this the hard way. It’s why so many of us say to see what list the college has.
OP, you say she has anxiety disorder, but other posters have distinguished between common teen anxiety and a diagnosed problem. There’s an important difference between the two. Has she been diagnosed by an independent doctor, not family?
@surfcity you are right on when you said I was trying to lower her overall measure of discomfort even it has already sin effect now in CA. She is always calmer when she knows we are her support system. It sucks that it is a must for
someone who has anxiety disorder to have a safe person or two. It is their destine that they are not supposed to handle it alone and the chance of turning into depression is very high if they have nobody to turn to. I look up information and have been doing it since 15 years ago.
It’s not a character building problem that’s why I brought up her achievements. It’s a medical problem, like a diabetic patient and the insulin.
I don’t think anyone on here has questioned your daughter’s character, suggested she was a ‘baby’ or somehow wrong or at fault or weak for having this condition. We understand that this is how she is and it’s no more blameworthy than a diabetic is for having a pancreas that doesn’t produce insulin.
It’s really important to know that any of her achievements -whether in school or in sport - pale in comparison to her mental health.
My DD has anxiety. Like you, we realized this while she was in HS.
We took her to a therapist and got her on medication.
That has made a great deal of difference…going from “not being willing to sing with the choir in front of the student body (she did sing for the parents at the choir concert) to voluntarily asking if she could sing a song by herself over the intercom to the whole school.”
Make sure she sees a psychiastrist before she goes to school (for possible meds)
Then make sure she has someone to see and a method to get Rx at school.
Does the college have a good orientation program?
We picked her college because it wasn’t too far from home (1 hour) but not too close, had a week long orientation program before classes started, and had Community Advisors that they met during orientation so she always had someone she could easily talk to. They also did many orientation activities with her dorm floor, so she got to meet those people as well.
I haven’t read all the other posts-only some of them. But, I’m writing this for the sake of others now applying: If your child has an anxiety disorder consider choosing a nurturing school close to home. That is more important than any other factor. If I had such a child, and the choice was a no-name school close to home vs Cornell or Penn, I’d encourage my child to choose the no-name school.
All over the country colleges are experiencing difficulties associated with young people with mental health problems who were able to get excellent high school grades with all kinds of supports, multiple attempts at standardized testing with accommodations and who on paper appear to be well adjusted high achieving kids but who were highly dependent on extreme (but appropriate) levels of support through high school-often with professional help and parents who micro-managed every aspect of academics and the child’s social world-parents sitting with the student while completing home work, etc. Then these kids are accepted by competitive colleges that are not clued into the young person’s disability status (so they don’t know that the school is a poor fit for the student) until the student presents in crisis-having been essentially dropped off at college by parents thinking that the school’s resources will provide continuity with the support that they have been giving the student.
This is a harsh post but that is what appears to be needed for those parents whose own aspirations and/or the aspirations they have for their offspring are inappropriate in light of their child’s temperament and/or abilities. Colleges should and do provide various supports. But competitive colleges will not become not competitive for your child once he/she arrives. If your child would do better in a non competitive environment, and I can’t think of any young person with an anxiety disorder who wouldn’t do better in a not competitive supportive environment, then strongly encourage your child not to apply to a competitive school regardless of how prestigious it is or what a great academic fit you think it is. I’d go so far to say that there is no good academic fit for an anxious student in a competitive school. And there are tons of students who thrive in competitive environments. It is unfair to them to insist that all school take a more nurturing stance. The school won’t change to fit your kid. There are plenty of available schools with nurturing not competitive environments so pick one of those. And close to home is obviously important if your student is dependent and anxious.
I am sure people will view this post as not supportive. It is supportive but it is direct. There is a mental health crisis in US schools and it is not caused by these schools being insensitive to mental health needs of young people. It is caused by lack of attention paid to the appropriateness of the school to the temperamental and mental health status of the student by parents who may be well meaning but who are unrealistic about their child’s needs. If you encourage your kid to go to a competitive school it will still be a competitive school when they arrive there in September. Most of the other students chose that school because that is what they wanted. There are tons of excellent not competitive schools out that nurture the academic interests of each student. Some don’t have the prestige value that can accompany the hyper competitive schools-that’s because part of the prestige of those hyper school is linked to the fact that they are so competitive. But if you have an anxious kid, a nurturing school will be a better fit.
Yes many anxious students make it through competitive schools-but why would you subject an anxious student to that?
This is not true. YOU can tell the doctor anything you want. He or she just can’t tell you anything. What I’ve done is call and say, “I realize that because of HIPAA you can’t tell me anything about my child, but I want to let you know what I’ve been seeing.” It’s CRITICAL that the doctor know everything that’s happening.
Good post, @lostaccount, but I need to point out that many anxious kids do well in a competitive environment or with a busy schedule. The focus sometimes helps them cope. This is very YMMV. Obviously, kids with performance anxiety fare differently than those with other fears. We have to know our kids, as best we can, not only their apparent strengths and weaknesses, but what does get them through. Life, for all of us, is like that. And for our kids (who aren’t always easy to read,) a good counselor who knows the age group, knows what to look for, the signals, as well as how they conceal. It’s not DIY.
But as parents, we also need to know when to let them take certain steps on their own, so they learn more about themselves and what works. The “life lessons.” We can “be there” for them, have them know we will catch them, without needing to always be their shadows, like Peter Pan, stitched to them.