My “hounding” (his words) started to put a wedge between me and S26 last year. Together with his therapist, we made a plan that we’d check in 2x a week on specific days of S26’s choosing to make sure he was clear on priorities, due dates, tests, etc. All the other days I was not allowed to mention homework at all. His therapist told me to leave the house if I was struggling with watching him not get down to business when I thought he should. It was so hard. I really did have to leave the house sometimes or lock myself in my room. I wasn’t perfect and neither was he but he got through spring semester with all As too. I’m hopeful for college but still worried as S26 isn’t accustomed to a lot of unorganized down time.
i don’t know if your D26 likes the support you give her or finds it claustrophobic like my S26 did, but I did find that he rose to the occasion as I got used to giving him the reins.
Longer answer:
Each kid is different. What works for 1 kid doesn’t necessarily work for another kid.
The eventual goal would ideally be for the kid to be able to function adequately in the adult world, be able to hold down a job, be responsible enough to do all of the normal adulting things (cook for themselves, remember to pay their own bills on time, go to the doctor when they need to, remember to take their medication as needed, etc.) without needing another person to remind them, call them, etc.
So…
Given your situation, would going ‘cold turkey’ be a good idea? Maybe not. Consider it sort of like teaching your kid how to drive or riding your bike with training wheels first, that sort of thing. COULD you just stop it all of a sudden and say, “Have at it, kiddo”? Yes. But going cold turkey might not work out very well.
There’s lots of time between now and August (when most colleges start their fall term). You could start with smaller things. For example, if you’re still waking your kid up for school every day, stop doing that. Buy the kid an alarm clock and troubleshoot with different alarm settings in order to figure out a solution.
My D26, for example, sleeps like the dead. Won’t wake up to a regular alarm. Bought her one that has this thing you put under your pillow and it vibrates when the alarm goes off. Works like a charm and the kid wakes up on her own w/o help.
If your kid doesn’t do their own laundry yet, have them start to do that. Walk them through the process, teach them, and then the kid is responsible for doing their own laundry. If they forget to wash & dry their clothes, then guess what? You have to wear dirty clothes that day.
When the time comes, buy your kid one of those day planner things that all college bookstores have. They usually have all of the college’s major academic calendar dates printed in it already. Show your kid how to use it…like, when they get their syllabus, they should enter all of the tests, paper due dates, etc. in that calendar. AND put it on their phone calendar, too.
Consider also that going away to college (i.e., not living at home while attending college) involves a lot of intense life change other than just going to classes in a different place than high school. I think we all should expect our kids to stumble a bit along the way. They won’t be awesome at everything all of the time. Yes, they WILL screw up.
What’s important, in my opinion, is that our kids learn to develop an attitude of resilience. Learning how to fail. So when they mess up and make a mistake, instead of thinking, “I screwed up, I failed. It’s because I’m not good at this. I need to quit,” they will think, “Ok, that didn’t work very well. I’m going to try again but am going to handle it differently this next time.”
So the attitude becomes one of “I failed because I made a poor choice” instead of “I failed because I’m not smart enough or not capable enough.”
If my kid had ADHD, would I hire an ADHD coach to meet regularly with my kid? Honestly, probably not. But I WOULD take them myself to the counseling center & tutoring center on campus prior to move in weekend so my kid can learn more about the services there, get information, and learn BEFORE the kid needs the services that help is available there just for the asking.
I’d also teach my kid how to navigate the complicated healthcare system (this applies to any kid, not just ADHD ones), how to book your own appointments, teach them of the importance of taking your ADHD meds regularly…how important it is to NOT forget.
Because there will come a day when you, the parent, will not be here anymore. And your kid needs to learn how to advocate for themselves. Your kid needs to learn HOW to find help when you need help on something. How to ASK for help. Our kids need to learn how to figure something out when they don’t know the answer.
This was me with C26 last year (on literally all of those!), but they have been more proactive this year. It actually got some getting used to at first, haha - going in to ask them about homework and find them actually doing it already! And when they find themself drifting coming to work at the dining table on their own. So even though they did not get straight As (almost though- one B) I can’t complain, it also is their joint best semester by grades but best when you take rigor into account ..so I’m actually so proud of them. It’s been a journey (still is of course).
Yep - D19 was definitely easier in this respect, sometimes it would be last minute after procrastinating but they always got their stuff done without anything needed from us.
This is a concern for me too but I’m hoping the intensity of architecture will kind of make up for this, as well as the fact that they should mostly be doing the same courses as their classmates because of the degree structure and hopefully that will be a passive reminder of what’s due when others are talking about /working on things.
Yes, robotics! We had a good first day and go back this afternoon. Hoping for a good season.
S22 could have graduated this May, while we were either at robotics or on senior prom if we don’t make it to the championship. Since he’s in the accelerated masters program until May 2027, he pushed 1 class off until fall and will graduate in December instead. It made my life much easier. I am glad yours are 2 week apart! I will be glad to be done with high school for this too. I think fewer conflicts.
So D26 is done with applications! Felt quite momentous to be done with it all. She still has a LOCI to write and some prep to do for an interview (and anything else that a college might randomly ask of her in the next couple of months), but all-in-all, she’s feeling pretty good! She hit the little celebrate button on Common App a few times (and I did too, lol!)
Thank you guys for all of the advice and commiseration!
So far there’s been minimal friction between us, and D26 is mostly grateful for the support. (I’m sure I annoy her, but she also recognizes that she needs it.) But I agree that pulling back in baby steps is the way to go. D26 is actually quite organized – she’s a pro at using Google Keep and making extensive lists of what needs to get done (thanks to big sis who showed her this method). Will she then look at said lists and do the things in a timely fashion? Debatable, lol.
She might get a crash course in managing her life this month and next, though, as I am flying back and forth to FL to deal with my parents’ situation. (DH will NOT provide the same sort of support I do.) And ALL the things are happening between now and the first week of March, when she has the next giant piece of her massive STEM project due.
I don’t know what Google Keep is, but I’m going to have D24 look at that. She struggles with getting things done and keeps looking for that perfect way to be organized. Right now, she uses a Google Sheet with all the assignments sorted by date, a checkbox for when it’s done, and it emails her daily with what is due in the next few days. But she is still looking for something else it seems.
Wait, what’s this button? C26 didn’t say anything about it. And congrats!!
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In other news, I found a budget hotel for reach school possible admitted students day, via booking .com - still seems to be very loaded vs their normal pricing but it is within what I consider reasonable for a nightly rate (some little discount from booking genius level too) and there is a bus direct to campus so won’t have to deal with traffic /parking. Have stayed at this brand once before and it was fine, basic but clean and like the hotels Jack Reacher uses, it had everything we needed and nothing we didn’t. Now C26 just needs to get accepted lol. Cancellation policy is one week so we will definitely know by then. I haven’t breathed a word about this booking anywhere except here because it feels like jinxing it. (The only thing I appear to be superstitious about is college admissions!)
Ditto not knowing what google keep is but will look. C26 just uses canvas now for planning but their school is very good at making sure everything due is on there, and I don’t know that that can be relied on at college.
I also don’t know what Google keep is but it seems like something that might be worth looking into for my son (29). The trick would probably be getting him to use it. My daughter the queen of organization. We never even have to check in with her about anything. She’s got it covered.
I also ended up doing this for one of D26s reaches. And I’ve got a little reminder to myself in my calendar to cancel it the week before. We’ll see if it gets used!
You guys are so well organized! We will probably see how things go and make a plan in March for spring break visits. With D22, we went on a little whirlwind tour of Macalester, UMichigan, and Kenyon in late March, and literally days before we left, she was accepted to UCLA. We kind of knew we weren’t going to pay for Michigan when UCLA was an option, but it was still fun to see it and look at the others, too. Then we drove down to UCLA at the start of her spring break and she loved it and we were done. I’m sure I paid a mint for the hotel bc I booked like a week out but it was all fine. I’m kind of a last minute travel planner so I think we’ll just figure it out once we have more results and S26 feels more sure about what he wants.
I’ll have to look into Google Keep. D22 loves being organized and makes spreadsheets for her spreadsheets so I was never concerned about her exec function when she was in high school or college. (Last year, while we were on a wonderful spring break vacation in Costa Rica, her spring quarter syllabi started coming out and she happily started her assignment and reading spreadsheets while lounging at the pool one afternoon). I admire her love for order and organization… I’m a lot more like S26 and have learned to cope and play to my strengths in my career and life.
A few years ago there was a story going around tech circles of a junior engineer doing their first performance review and the manager realized the engineer’s dad was sitting off camera commenting to his son. The dad then joined the performance review with the manager who wasn’t quite sure what to do.
We all want to protect our kids specially from dumb mistakes we see them do over and over again. But at some point they have to learn from failing. Otherwise you’ll end up at their job making sure they submit the TPS reports on time.
College is the time to learn not just academically but also how to be an adult, manage your money, go get an oil change, date, learn to not lend Mike $100 he’ll never pay you back even though everyone knows he has money now.
My sophomore year I took a crazy amount of workload, Honors multi variable calc, organic chemistry, extended physics with lab and bio chemistry. Plus I was working part time. On top of it all I had no time management skills, I had always studied a few days before exams and done well. That semester I failed spectacularly, was put on academic probation for having a sub 2.0 GPA. I had to go meet my academic advisor who looked at my grades looked at me and said “you are the dumbest smart kid to walk into my office this week, don’t do this again. Take 2 hard classes with 2 easy ones.” I had to meet with him again the next semester where I had straight As. My GPA never recovered but I learned a valuable lesson.
Grit was making the rounds a few years ago and if there’s one skill I’d want my kids have outside of time management it’s perseverance. And college is the best place for them to learn it. They need to fail to find their limits, build skills and get better.
Now mental health is a different thing and if my kids had some thing that needed to be treated I’d do everything I could to make sure they had a framework to support them. If I thought the first year they couldn’t handle it on their own and a coach was going to make the difference I would 100% get them that. What works for one kid won’t work for another and as a parent you’ll know your kid best.
It feels less like organization and more like juggling tbh. If c26 is accepted at the reach hopefully we can tag an admitted student visit on at the other college (where they are already admitted) that uses the same airport (they have them on Fridays and Mondays afaik but haven’t released the calendar that far ahead yet so, maybe maybe not; there is a big admitted student event this month but it’s not logistically feasible for us…there will I assume be another one after RD results are out). If not in at reach or not offering that week will try to add that one in during spring break. But there may or may not be one that week for the other major decision they are waiting for, and (with Passover slap bang in the middle of spring break) I don’t think we can fit 3 schools all a plane ride away from each other. In other words a pile of unknowns that make actual “organization” impossible at this stage. All I’ve really done is book hotels at the smaller college towns where they may run out of space or financially reasonable options. The other school above is in a big city and hotels shouldn’t be an issue at shorter notice.
I’m not wild about potentially having 3 different flying trips in the space of a few weeks but I also look at it as, the cost is pretty insignificant vs the cost of a 4-year college degree and worth it to try be as sure as we can that C26 is choosing the right place to be.
Okay I want to cry just thinking of one of those classes, much less all of them together.
Google Keep is mostly just a checklist and sticky note app – but, it’s helpful to have all the lists in one place. I use it on both my phone and on my Chromebook, and they sync. For instance, I have daily to-do, weekly to-do and monthly to-do lists, and I can look at them side by side. It’s easy to do checkboxes or just notes to self.
I also have grocery lists and meal plans, the whole family’s frequent flier and TSA pre-check info so I can easily book flights, books to read and shows/movies to watch, all kinds of college info for D26, grad school info for D22, a checklist of health strategies, marching band mom tasks (which I can delete after I pass them on to the next band mom!), short- and long-term home improvement projects, travel plans, and like 50 other notes to self about various things.
It’s sort of like putting all the open tabs in my brain into one app.
We all have those nightmares where the test is tomorrow and you havent studied at all. That actually happened to me. I misread the syllabus and there was a business law test the next day and I hadnt even cracked the book. I barely got a C in the class. Im not even sure how that happened.
I still have that nightmare once in a while, I am in a class or college that I am not prepared for and all of a sudden it’s exam time ,I can’t believe the stress of exams has followed me this far. I know a few friends also have the same nightmare occasionally.
Had a fraternity brother who was taking something like 18 credit hours (with approval) as a physics major, one class he attended two sessions for and absolutely didn’t want to take it with that specific prof. So he met with his advisor to look at other option for like a 3 credit hour course, they reviewed a bunch, so he picked up a different course and dropped the other one. Except it wasn’t dropped.
He found this out when he went in three weeks before the end of the semester to register for the -next- semester, and his advisor looked at him and asked how in the heck he was taking 21 credit hours that semester…the advisor had submitted the add request with special approval ( to take more than 16 credit hours) but had failed to submit the drop request for the original 3 hour one.
It turned into a thing where the student had to have the advisor generate a request submission to both the professor of the class and to the associate dean of the college to have the course officially ‘dropped’ with like 2 weeks to go, not withdrawn because some programs penalize you for that…
He was having nightmares he was going to have to cram a semesters worth of study for a final in a class he’d gone to twice…
I’m really glad that students can access all of their registration, courses etc online now.
I had a college friend who was in a fraternity. They had a Luau party and my buddy’s job was to dispose of the bamboo afterwards. Bamboo is not easy to get rid of so they loaded this truck and tried to dump it in a remote area. Unfortunately, the bamboo was falling out the back of the truck and eventually, the police tracked him down.
They threw him in jail and unfortunately missed his calculus test. He contacted the professor explaining that he missed the test because he was in jail. He got a zero on the test. He eventually got a job at Compaq Computers.
