<p>Great post, modadunn.
Congrats to ShawbridgeS! (I think I’ll be typing those same words over and over in the future…)
Re: the tedious job. After freshman year, S took a well-paying job in town doing garbage runs, waxing gym floors, mowing huge lawns - old-fashioned manual labor. At the time, he loved it. This year, he refuses to apply there. Which is good, I don’t want him to do it. But I think it may be a display of EDM (evidence of developing maturity) and a realization that there are bigger and better things to do in the world. However, landing an internship has been tough!!</p>
<p>Thanks moda, and everyone else, for sharing your stories. We are driving down to the school on Thursday to meet with folks. I may have to take a little something to control my hostility (esp to the advisor who lucked out by not having her house tee-peed after all.) They are all so quick to act concerned after the grave has been dug.</p>
<p>I went to a large state university. No one knew who I was or cared how I did, but I didn’t need for anyone to know or care. We knew Son needed a totally different environment, so we chose this tiny expensive school that adverstises how close knit and caring everyone is. It’s all words. </p>
<p>Practicing my speech…that I probably won’t deliver.</p>
<p>missypie, the important thing is to look forward and know that as a parent you’ve done everything you can to support and encourage your son. You have done that. Life is a long road with a few detours along the way from time to time. I wish I could be as eloquent as other posters, but just know that I’m pulling for you and your son.</p>
<p>^^^ missypie – go ahead and practice that speech several times. Get out all the hostility, and boil it down so you get your point(s) across loud and clear without sounding “in your face” angry. I’m a firm believer that there are, indeed, times when our children need to have their parents go to bat for them, even when they’re supposed to be pretty much independent. As D & S will attest, one of my favorite sayings is, “Life doesn’t come on a silver platter.” As they got older, I let them fight more and more of their own battles – but there were a couple of times when I did get involved. I “practiced” what I wanted to say so I wouldn’t just be an emotional basket case (which is pretty easy for me when it’s about my children), and said what I wanted to say. You can’t change the past, but you can influence the future.</p>
<p>missypie…will be thinking of you on Thursday and sending you strength, wisdom and eloquence while you have the meeting at the college. Will be a good thing for me to do as I wait for D2’s surgery to finish. Will keep my mind off of her being under. Going to B&N later today so I have something to read. Any suggestions???</p>
<p>H says I need to be like the Sandra Bullock character in Blind Side…tough as nails southern woman who goes in and says, “I want this this and this.”</p>
<p>If I can achieve the right combination of Mom and Lawyer, I can be quite effecive…but I admit that it can degenerate into *****y and hostile.</p>
<p>NM, I don’t remember if I’ve seen you on any of the CC book club threads. Do read *The Thirteenth Tale *if you haven’t already. The *Guernsey Literary Club and Potato Peel Pie Society *was good, too. Outliers is interesting if you want non-fiction. How about Time Traveler’s Wife?</p>
<p>Ahh missypie…I am an avid reader! Have read all of the above. I am in two book clubs. Thinking of picking up some mindless read, you know, a guilty pleasure book. Maybe some type of thriller/mystery/espionage.</p>
<p>D1 is home for a few days and once again she is driving me crazy! Fighting with her sister about use of the washing machine. Does it ever get better??? sigh…</p>
<p>Remember this thread that I started last year? </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/664993-quick-i-need-book-take-me-spring-break.html?highlight=book[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/664993-quick-i-need-book-take-me-spring-break.html?highlight=book</a></p>
<p>I read about six of the books. Surely someone suggested something you haven’t read yet.</p>
<p>Oh…thanks!</p>
<p>I just skimmed the thread and noticed that you had made some nice suggestions.</p>
<p>Everyone I am a few years ahead of all of you in this journey. My son is like many of your children. ADD and LD. We also picked the more expensive choice due to size. My son also had merit aid dependent on a 3.0. He lost that after the first year. We struggled with whether to bring him home. When I looked at the different options I knew in my heart that keeping him home was not in anyone’s best interest. We had many battles. I finally decided to embrace the positive side of his personality. By not being so hard on him we were able to have some good talks on what he wanted and what he needed to do. He had the opportunity to have notes taken for him, extra hours in the tutoring center, a quiet place and extra time to take exams. In spite of his good intentions he didn’t use the tools that the school was willing to give him. My son is one of those kids who thinks he is doing great and when the grades come in he is shocked. Also he is one of those kids who never checked how he was doing on projects or papers or even his final grades at the end of the semester. Spring of his freshman year he blew off a final exam in a class that he was struggling in. He made the decision based on false information that he did not need that class. He was wrong. His other grades were C’s and maybe a couple of B-'s. We sat down with him and asked some serious questions. He wanted to go back. We made the condition that he would have to take out a student loan to cover the lost scholarship money. He agreed.
Soph year he did better. No D’s or F’s. Mostly C’s and B’s. He just checked his grades this term. 1st semester jr year. He ended up with 3 A’s, 1 B+ and 1 B-. The B- was in Photography. How hard is that. My son said the grade was a reflection of the teacher being frustrated with my son. He still only has a 2.7 at this point. Not enough to get the money back. But the maturity is there. I call him and he is in the library or in the art building working late into the night. He made the choice to live not with friends since that would be too distracting. He still doesn’t give himself enough time. He has a hard load next semester. He knows he is going to need to use help and meds.
One thing that we talk a lot about is where his friends are who stayed home. I know if we had brought him home he would be no where near where he is now. He can still frustrate the **** out of us. But he is learning and he is growing. We needed to give him the space to fall. All through his school years I was the one pushing him. Making sure he got things done, keeping track of exams etc. driving him to the tutor. I finally had to walk away. Obviously if he had continued to fail classes we would have brought him home.
One thing that helped my son tremendously was working with a therapist/psychiatrist who helped my son dream big. It was not my style but it was the right style for my son. He convinced my son that he had value and was good at things. He just needed to find the things that were his passion. It is hard for these kids who for so long thought they were stupid.</p>
<p>Computers suck! TYPEWRITERS!!!
(pay no mind to the fact that im typing this online.)</p>
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<p>Did you find the therapist on your own or through the school? We’ve had no luck finding a good psychiatrist. It may be a regional thing, but no one talks about seeing a psych or therapist around here…hard to get a recommendation.</p>
<p>I think that THEY are fighting over the washing machine is a huge testament to their independence. Yesterday D16 said to me that she likes her t-shirts folded when I brought her clean clothes into her room. I dropped them on the floor and said, go for it. 
I know - a tad spiteful.</p>
<p>Older D went to a school that promoted a similar philosophy Missy. Thing is, she never asked for help and didn’t realize she had even dug a grave until she was 5 1/2 feet under. By then, the prospect of asking for help would overwhelm her and shut her down. Ask early and ask often…is my motto. better to hear, you’re half a step behind than you are a flight of em! I will imagine your son’s school will outline the help that is available and encourage your son to take the reigns to follow up. I would make his checking in with his professors or other support mandatory and require he follow up with some sort of communication with you. It takes 100 days to form a habit on one’s own. By all means I would practice my speech as both lawyer and mother as often as necessary. In fact, if it were me, I would write it. Write it with as much passion as you can muster and repeat it as often as you can until it loses the raw emotion in your mind. It will still be there, and too… an edit is never a bad thing. Vent and err… practice away!</p>
<p>As you sit in their offices, just imagine all of us standing behind you.</p>
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<p>as the kids like to say, true dat.</p>
<p>Hi everyone - my what a chatty group this is!</p>
<p>Still haven’t received S’s grades, but he did finally fess up after seeing them on line. Not good. Not a good idea to sleep through an exam or to not notice that a major paper is due. Otherwise, he would have done pretty well. He’s pretty ashamed of his grades, so I’ve been working with him on causes and solutions (with a healthy threat of transferring to University of Houston thrown in).</p>
<p>D is now on her study abroad program in Mali, S leaves on Monday, and I’m ready to have my empty nest back.</p>
<p>Fireflyscout, I was just on the phone with one of my Houston partners. He said it’s cold there, too.</p>
<p>Shawbridge – I really liked the battles you picked; pretty much the same round here. Whether you know it or not, the stories of Shawson are really helping me work with McSon re: going through the psych assessment and accepting some accommodations (something he was stubbornly adverse to for so long, but now needful of). In some cases, McSon is a little like ShawSon (eg. the determination, at times over-effort and exhaustion in some of his courses, and the “twice exceptional” phenom of LD with gifted) and in other courses/times, he’s just clouded by magical thinking and not quite methodical enough to put the magical thinking through the “practicality processor” to arrive at discrete steps to success! In your note, you referenced the “picking your battles” and then later, “strategic approach to grades.” McSon and I discuss the strategic approach frequently as a FORM of “pick your battles”. In his case, since he has a very focused/specialized degree that is professional in terms of studio work, he continues to chose to focus on that which is what he wants to DO daily, as opposed to being a fabulous generalist. But that only works if you really have determined what the vocational calling is. And in McSon’s case, his approach might not normally work for future graduate acceptance/competitiveness, except that his will be portfolio based. Don’t know if that’s a useful .02, but just a thought for ShawS, eg. out of five, pick one area that’s your passion for A+ work, two that are solid support for As (or 1) and 2 (or 3) that are A- material, eg. peripheral knowledge/support or gen eds to what you love the most. In place of the all out As, include a healthy, social balancing reward that will make for an interesting employee/partner/vendor/thinker/hobbyist/well rounded human. You get what I mean I am certain, because it’s how you “sound” to me : )</p>
<p>Awesome posts, moda, mom et al. And missy, we’re sending you the light for that incisive, effective request that a certain non-tp’d prof produce his/her head from that very dark place known as one’s @#* ; )
Cheers!</p>
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<p>Shame on you. </p>
<p>You should have thrown them at her.</p>