"I have it under control MOM"

Parents Forum
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or maybe not! My youngest wants to show me so badly she can handle things responsibly and maturely – somewhere along the way she decided she wanted to live at college (she was adamant about commuting for the longest time). She is a rising senior who will study nursing.

So she is taking an ACT prep – its an online class. The first day is just taking the practice test. She doesn’t read the emails or the directions about what to do, when to do, and the need for firefox browser to upload results. NOPE she just plows right in and of course it is a disaster. She ends up because of technical issues with a 17 (her real test she got 24). We have a chat about being prepared and reading directions and such. Tuesday is the first class online. I come home from work and she has her neighborhood friend there in her room while she is taking the class. At the break they order pizza. Call me fussy but having a friend in your room while you take class is not appropriate focus.

OYE so far the under control is a fail in mom’s eyes – 8-| heck I have 5 kids, and I WANT her to go live at college but I am not going to send her if I don’t think she has the maturity to succeed.

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I’m a hs teacher and I see this as kind of par for the course. Some kids will do better at studying/ learning with a friend beside them. And the not reading instructions thing is a learning experience. Have a frank talk about what evidence of maturity you expect to send her off to college.

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If you’re paying for the online course, you should set some parameters. Unless her friends are also taking the course with her (or trying to benefit from it), I would insist that they be out of the room while she takes it. It’s her life, but it’s your money, and you get to decide how it’s spent.

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@Massmomm I agree!! I was out of town for work, so I didn’t know until it was happening or believe me it would not have happened.

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@bouders thanks for the feedback, we did talk about the not reading instructions thing – and she tends to OK me a lot. I try to tell her something she should know – and she just says OK and isn’t actually even listening. The ACT instructor actually sent out an email (and copied me too) and I saw it was a paper test that she had to upload the results. I pointed that out and got OK’ed and in fact she didn’t read it AND she didn’t listen to what I was saying. That kind of behavior isn’t new (she admits to it often) and doesn’t bode well for success on her own.

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A lot of young people don’t read email and lot of people in general don’t read instructions, manuals and so on.

I wouldn’t worry so much about her ability to do college while living there. Make sure she is aware of deadlines, that kind of thing, and support her but none of this is terribly unusual and young people with much worse problems still go to college and live there.

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I don’t disagree @compmom that people don’t read directions … this child is especially young for her grade, she is a rising senior and has a bit until she turns 17 – my step daughter was 18 as a senior as are many of my daughter’s peers-- I worry about how young she is as often times it really does show. Maybe I am being hyper vigilant because of that.

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One’s chronological age doesn’t necessarily dictate maturity. An example of this is a college classmate who was mature enough to easily pass for normal among his college peers even though he was young enough that he was still 17 when he graduated from our LAC a couple of classes ahead of me with highest honors.

There was also a 16 year old college junior who had far more maturity and sense than many 21+ or sometimes even 50+ aged “adults.”

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@cobrat I know it doesn’t ALWAYS, but having raised 5 kids I have seen a huge difference a year makes at this age more often than not.

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Let’s just say that a lot of us can relate and sympathize :slight_smile: So didn’t mean to minimize. And I think age can make a difference for some. She doesn’t have ADHD or anything right? Is she thinking about going to school far away? I do think some kids need training wheels so to speak, and I suppose nowadays that doesn’t have to involve geographical closeness but I did find it helpful with one of mine. Also, sometimes the need for support continues but there are ways to transfer it to someone other than ourselves (advisor, tutor, etc.)!

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No she doesn’t have ADHD or anything – just teenageritis!

She is lucky to have a great alternative close to home where she can live there or not – or move there after her first year or what have you. I don’t know WHERE she thinks she wants to go honestly.

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I think the so-call “maturity” mostly comes from experience, or better yet, training. I also believe the family is the most important training ground for the kids (actually, also for the parents).

What do your family discuss during dinner? In my family, the discussions are mostly on what we did during the day, at school or at work, who we interacted with, and what we learned. Most of my career so far has been running training/tech support (customers are hardware design engineers) thus I have many stories to share.

Since my D started talking, we encouraged her to ask questions. At first, if I knew the answer, I explained it to her. If I didn’t, I’d tell her that I’d have to learn and get back to her. We never let a question unanswered. And then when she started reading (about 4 yrs old), I stopped answering her questions. I instead told her, “Why don’t you find the answer to that and teach me so I can learn with you.” And then she found books, magazines around the house “suddenly” opened at articles related to the issue :wink:

We taught her how to type (properly) when she started 1st grade. She also learned how to search the same year, first in the cd-rom encyclopedia (I think it was Microsoft’s Encarta), then on the internet.

She started taking on-line classes at 7 and started communicating with classmates and instructors via email and chat room. For the first few years, none of her messages went out without our approval. Even though not native English speakers (we migrated into the US in early 1980s), we were very diligent in checking spelling and grammar. That effort leaves a profound effect. Even today in text messages, every sentence my D sent out is a complete sentence, no abbreviation, no short cut (she types very fast, probably 80 wpm, which helps a lot).

When my D was 8 (3rd grade), we were buying a mini-van. We brought her along in all the test drives, and would ask for her opinion afterward. With her participation, we compiled all the likes/dislikes in a table to select the finalist. When she was 11, I was buying a digital SLR. I asked her to do a research to find the best camera in the pre-set price range. She came up with the brand/model matching what I intended to buy.

In general, she participated in all family decisions, from what microwave oven to what kind/color of flooring we would get.

My D started college at the age of 16, and her PhD program at 19.

I’m sorry if it sounds as if I were talking from a soap box, but I just want to share my thoughts and my experience.

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Pentaprism, the experiences toomanyteens describes reflects the norm for many families, much more than yours. Your child may be gifted. I would not suggest your approach for the majority of children: too much too early for most.

The teenage brain is under construction, literally. Just picture workers on ladders and a big sign in there saying “caution, under construction.”

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I learned early that “I try to tell her something she should know” didnt work. Mine are out of college and it’s still iffy.

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@lookingforward LOL I know, there can be some brick walls in there right??

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She’s a teenager. Teenagers know everything and think we parents are all dumb as dirt. This might be an occasion where you need to step back and let her fail - or perhaps she’ll rise. Let her learn from her mistakes. It’s far better to do it now during a course than during the actual test.

Isn’t there a saying somewhere along the lines of how we don’t recognize how much our parents know until after we’re grown?

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There is a quote attributed to Mark Twain, although it’s unlikely he wrote it since his father died when he was young:

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

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I would just tell her that you are trying to over-parent but even taking the ACT requires you to carefully follow instructions…I had a friend whose kid’s ACT was invalidated because he turned to the wrong part of the test when it wasn’t the time for that part. Also, obvi, if you want to be a nurse you have to follow directions.

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“I have it under control” – if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that lately …

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@tutumom2001 Yes – dumb as dirt LMAO. I talked to her last night. I agreed not to nag her about it anymore and in return I told her she needed to own the result whatever it is and not make stupid excuses why she couldn’t blah blah blah… because she is pretty good at telling you later why it just wasn’t POSSIBLE to do A, B or C… And I told her she needed to be realistic about where she was going to college given her current stats and our financial constraints.

I also made it clear I would NOT pay for a crappy nursing school (without appropriate opportunities for clinicals and jobs which is of course the END game of all this) just so she can ‘not go to school in NJ because too many kids from her high school go there’. I put the onus on her to find reasonable alternatives to Rutgers-Camden which is a very good program, that she can get into, and we can afford AND she can either live at home or there. OYE the last one just has to make me crazy right??