<p>Oh missypie - you’re killing me here…your S is breaking my heart…
On a lighter note, good news, everybody! H has a business trip to London and Paris in a couple of weeks and guess whose school has off that week?? ME, ME, ME!!! Oh the joys of the empty nest!!</p>
<p>London and Paris?? Sounds like a “2013” road trip is in order! You’re sure to need on-the-spot advice that only your buddies here can provide.</p>
<p>wow. ahaha. what part of the country are all you ladies from?</p>
<p>Michigan here, but will happily tag along : )</p>
<p>Re hair-deer – I actually know a grower (as in plants, not pot 
who has a very large operation in a very bucolic setting and he is the one who swears by human hair. Gets it from hairdressers. But perhaps the Minnesota deer is hardier stock than the Michigan deer. Or they just like Moda’s freshly shampooed hair ;)</p>
<p>(And for all those gardners who hate deer – I hail from the area that has the highest average of deer-to-car collisions in north america. I sometimes wonder if this fact is connected to the propensity of bulb gardeners here – they have a tulip festival etc.)</p>
<p>I used to bring back the hotel toiletries for ShawD. She did sort them out for stuff she wanted – about 1/3 of my stays are probably at luxury hotel and apparently there’s some good stuff there – and then she would sort it out and bring it each year to a homeless shelter. I do much less of that now, because I try never to check bags. </p>
<p>I’ve got a London/Stockholm trip coming up but ShawWife can’t come on the first trip because she is in South Africa teaching art. I’ve got two more London trips the next month, but she’ll stay to take care of (really, just chauffeur and occasionally see) ShawD. Because I am such a frequent traveler, we had tons of stuff to donate, but we have a large box in the basement full of the little zip/velcro/folding toiletry cases that airlines give their business/first class passengers. ShawWife used several of these when packing for her trip.</p>
<p>In a much earlier era, ShawD used to like me to bring back hotel key cards as she would pretend they were credit cards. At one point, I told her that they weren’t real credit cards and she said, “I know but I like to pretend.”</p>
<p>We’re now dealing with lack of prefrontal cortex in ShawD. She is taking an AP bio course that has a year-long paper project. She handed in the first chapter before Christmas (or in January) and now has to do a second chapter. She’s supposed to interview someone and somehow hasn’t set it up (even though we were at a Seder with three of world famous genomicists, at least one of whom would be delighted to talk with her). Something about it has her paralyzed and she’s socializing and doing lots of other work, but never this because it is not due. Time is running out. The question is, do I just say “no social activities until you actually start doing the work” or do I help her get started or both? She’s agreed that tomorrow she’s going to work on it but so far her work on it (if there has been any) hasn’t produced tangible results of any kind.</p>
<p>Popping in to say “hi”! I’ve been checking on the class of 2010 thread - isn’t it nice to be a year beyond that? And I’ve been dealing with cable problems. Comcast is our current internet/cable provider, but the internet hasn’t been working, so when the ATT Uverse salesman came a-knockin’ I signed up. Then their installer arrived and I don’t have the right kind of cable in my house and the signal isn’t strong enough from their junction box anyway (by the way, according to installation guy, all the sales people are big fat liars). So I went back to Comcast, tried to switch out my modem, but the storefront didn’t have any so the repair guy is coming today. Then I decided to get a DVR, which they gave to me with VERBAL installation instructions. Got home, tried to install and found I was one coaxial cable short. Rummaged through son’s room, found a coaxial cable and connected everything. But - it doesn’t work! Called tech support and yep, it doesn’t work. So the repairman will also work on that today.</p>
<p>I miss my techie son.</p>
<p>Shaw, if she’s like McSon, those LONG deadlines are the killer because he can’t get the adrenalin up, so to speak. We’ve been having better success by creating “false” deadlines to try to pump up the ‘do-or-die’ adrenalin/focus.
Eg. He had almost same situation this term, and also over an interview for a living music project. His subject was on the road and was unreliable due to some extenuating circumstances. I just marked a calendar: shortlist of replacement interviewees by x date; selection by x date; interview conducted by x date; write draft by x date.</p>
<p>This totally worked. His assignment is in on time, online, and now only awaits review and revision. The step by step “hard deadlines” really made a difference.</p>
<p>Now, I do not necessarily plan to CONTINUE to map deadline steps for son, point is for him to learn to “create the deadline by discrete unit” within the long schedule of a term. This week, he has done that for himself with a major project, wherein he’s broken a 16-pg art/writing/finished project down into day-by-day deadlines.</p>
<p>So sure, through her a life raft this time, and maybe that ‘mini internal deadline’ approach will work for her independently in the future.</p>
<p>kmc–great suggestion, I did the same with my d having her determine and calendarize those mini deadlines. she needed the adrenalin rush of a deadline to get her on task, definitely an ADD learning style. She initially struggled first semester but now seems to have incorporated this as a first year…</p>
<p>Fang Jr also has trouble with big projects with faraway deadlines. We sit down with him and break the project into small projects with close deadlines. I’d like to think that he’ll learn to do this by himself, but that won’t happen soon. If he goes back to college in the fall, he’ll still need an executive function coach to help him with scheduling and keeping to a schedule.</p>
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<p>For Fang Jr, and perhaps for ShawD as well, the deadlines have to be for results. Hours allegedly spent on the work don’t count, only results. When you’re helping the child keep to the schedule and she says she’s done X, you can then say brightly, “Great. Can I see it?”</p>
<p>Those of you who don’t have kids with executive function difficulties are now thinking, “Why is she babying her kid? He should be doing this by himself!” Well he can’t. That’s the reality of my world.</p>
<p>OMG - 3 Blackhawk helicopters just flew over my house! The noise was incredible!! H and I thought they were aiming for our backyard!!</p>
<p>CF – I would suggest that MOST kids have real difficulty with huge, long-term projects. I’ve noticed that even at D’s college, professors have taken to requiring intermediate work products be turned in on a series of preassigned dates. I’m not sure that they’re closely graded, but it does push kids to keep moving (or at least to move in spurts) on these bigger projects.</p>
<p>And, if it makes you feel better, H’s company started using a different project management methodology called Agile – there’s a Scrummaster who helps the team set up two week sprints, and there are very brief daily meetings to verbally check in on how each team member is doing against their specific tasks, and a detailed end of sprint meeting to analyze what happened. Then the cycle starts again the next day with a new planning meeting. H says that he’s been very surprised to see that a lot of the engineers who weren’t too effective at getting bigger things done on time are doing really, really well with these smaller chunks and much shorter timeframes.</p>
<p>CF – I say this with love and I recognize your experience, but try not to be so defensive. I dont think it’s babying as lots of people have personal assistants to keep them on track. As long as you are not doing the actual work for the kid, you are not babying. While I think sometimes the parental relationship isn’t the healthiest way to go about it all the time (from a mental standpoint since it can be complicated, to say the least), I recognize the need MANY, MANY people need help with long term projects, especially those with soft deadlines throughout the process.</p>
<p>S is meeting with the Dean today. I don’t know what time and the agreement is that he will follow up when he’s finished. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous.</p>
<p>^^^ No, no woody – that was just the advance team checking to see if your yard was big enough to land in so when it’s time for the road trip to Paris & London, all of us here on the 2013 thread can be dropped off. :)</p>
<p>You’re right, Modadunn. I’ve received nothing but support from people on this thread. Thanks, everyone.</p>
<p>D2 is on her way home for Easter! Yay! Her executive function abilities are skewed the opposite direction CF. She is almost obsessive about getting projects done immediately, hates having anything hanging over her. She is nervous and worried sick until the project is finished. Surely there must be some happy medium! </p>
<p>Moda…sending positive thoughts and prayers to ModaS! Bet he charms the Dean! ;)</p>
<p>Fingers X’d for ModaS that he realizes that the difference between a minor prank and a major screw up can be a fine line that he doesn’t necessary see!</p>
<p>My guy is home for Easter break (a nice thing about Jesuit schools - he has a week for spring break to go play and 5 days at Easter to come home), and he is a dream to be around. None of the surlyness I lived with the past 5 or 6 years, he’s back to the sweet boy I remember, just all grown up and with muscles. We went out to dinner with my brother and S’s cousins last night, and they invited him back to hang out and spend the night. He actually said, “mom, is that okay with you if I’m not home tonight? I know I only have a couple of days.” And gave me a big hug.</p>
<p>I guess it’s true what they say, no matter how non-communicative and withdrawn a teenage boy can be (I did see a strong resemblance between my son and the teenager in Little Miss Sunshine), they DO come back human at some point!</p>
<p>arabrab—agreed, most kids do have difficulty and it’s helpful to note that whether our kids have ADD, LD, a processing disorder, Aspergers or anxiety issues for that matter, they will need support at times to break thru the procrastination, or stuckness, feelings of being overwhelmed/overloaded, scared etc. </p>
<p>we all know our own kids best, and I believe we help them best by using our understanding as parents of young adults—reminding them that this issue or pattern is one they struggle with and we are here rooting for them and able to provide guidance…parenting is an art and we do our best to listen and motivate and love our kids for who they are. sometimes that means pushing and challenging and sometimes that means hugging and understanding. the wonderful thing is when we push when we needed to hug or hug when needed to challenge we can change the brush stroke midstream and get it right…</p>
<p>especially because…the application and acceptance process are in my past!!</p>
<p>[‘The</a> Most Selective Admission Process in the University’s History’ - Head Count - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Most-Selective-Admission/22227/]'The”>http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Most-Selective-Admission/22227/)</p>
<p>I think I like the Dean. She seemed to impart an appropriate level of concern and compassion. She had somehow come to find out exactly how he was doing in all his classes (pretty much in the A to A- range overall) and so I think that helped his “case.” She did note that his suite has come to be known as the party place - which she didn’t seem to think was such a bad thing overall since the RA’s and first year counselors, as well as Public Safety said that he and his roommates were known to be nice, cooperative and welcoming to pretty much all students. So… She seems to have focused on his potential to lead and suggested he get more involved in Res Life, pointing him to some avenues on how he and friends could go about being more official with their party planning (and keeping public safety happier) and how he might consider a larger role in the years to come (RA’s, First Year Counselor etc) which definitely surprised me slightly. Would love to know more, but we didn’t talk long because “all the kids are playing outside” and he wanted to get shorts on to join them. All in all, a positive encounter and she managed to connect with him in a way that he knows he needs to step up big time, but is seen as more than capable and feels supported. </p>
<p>I will be writing him an email and using exactly CPeltz’s wording of recognizing he difference between a minor prank and a major screw-up. I just feel like there is no time for the organic conversation with my kid… which is definitely weird. So if I ask a lot of questions, it bugs him. If I only listen, I end up with too many questions. So needing a happy medium here for sure.</p>
<p>Well, isn’t that great, moda!
You know I think my comment about the blackhawk helicopters over my backyard were mistakenly taken as a joke about helicopter parents. This is not true! I was scared to death!!</p>