<p>Does anyone else have a senior who is driving them nuts? My usually easygoing and loving son has become decidedly lazier, sloppier and short-tempered in the past few months. He continuallly puts off tasks that need to be done (thank you notes, college notifications) and if I am so bold as to remind him, he bites my head off. He has watched more tv in the past three months than in the past three years! His room is impassable. He does his chores begrudgingly. I have read that kids need to separate from their families in preparation for leaving the nest, but we’ve got another 4 months! He still has top grades - he is going to his first choice Ivy come August - he is fulfilling duties at school - but at home he is just so much less communicative and just plain unpleasant, not all the time of course, but more than ever before. I am assuming that the stress of impending college, the intensity of the end of high school, and just plain growing pains are responsible. Am I right? Do I need to be stricter or roll with the punches? I’m probably painting a worse picture than actually exists - but it has been a change certainly. Anyone else going through this?</p>
<p>I think it is normal. Ironically, now that my son has his college all set he is spending more time with the family and is decidedly more pleasant and willing to go to movies, hang out and talk with us. This after barely seeing him for 4 years because he was “too busy”. </p>
<p>BUT…every single one of my friends who has a kid off to college (this and last year) says that their kids are making them crazy and think it is all part of a natural process to make letting them go a little easier. </p>
<p>Beware…they all said the summer after graduation is the worst…</p>
<p>If DS doesn’t get a summer job, I will most definitely be insufferable. I have heard this is a common problem (child insufferability) and I am bracing myself!</p>
<p>This is normal and it will get better, but not until his first trip home from school in the fall – and then you will begin to see your perfect boy again. I thought I would kill our first son before he made it to graduation, and now our second one (a raising senior) is starting down that road. EEK! It is like dealing with a toddler – choose your battles wisely. Clean room? Not a big deal. Breakfast graduation weekend with grandma and other out of town guests? Yes, he must attend. (If he’s anything like mine he will complain bitterly and then completely charm all the guests and show off all his best manners).</p>
<p>One way I got through it was to keep reminding myself that they are still growing kids, that this is a scary stressful time for them, but that they feel loved and safe enough with us to act like total jerks at home. See what a great job you did? You raised good smart kids who feel secure and loved! And what do you get? A lump in front of the TV who won’t clean his room.</p>
<p>My D is finishing her second year. Absolutely agree that the summer after HS graduation was horrible. She had always been a delight, but that summer she turned into a shrew, and we all couldn’t wait until she left. I think there was a good reason. Remember how awful they were when they were little and it was called Separation Anxiety? Guess what! Here it is again. They are nervous, worried, excited, eager, anxious, a whole gamut of emotions, and so are we, their parents. It’s easier for them to imagine leaving, and for us to imagine their leaving if everyone is angry at each other. As weird as that sounds, the anger fuels the ability to fledge the nest. It gives us the impetus to get over the feelings that make the kids want to hide under their covers and that make the parents want to put books on their heads to keep them from growing up. I can practically guarantee you that once the coming summer is over, and they come back the first time, all of the disagreeable summer stuff will fade away, and be a bad memory. You will miss each other, and they will miraculously become even more wondrous than they were before they became awful. It is the natural order of things. We learn the true meaning of ambivalence. We are so happy for them to be taking this next huge step, yet we are sad at their departure (and it also signals that we are growing older as well…). The kids feel this ambivalence also. Try to be patient with each other, and try to relax a bit. This is a very hard and stressful time, even though the decisions of where to go may all have already been made-- it isn’t quite over.</p>
<p>centraleagle, from my experience, what’s happening at your house is pretty normal. I learned from my first child that ‘stricter” doesn’t work well at this juncture, so with my next two college-bound teens, I rolled with the punches. During one difficult moment, I asked my daughter, “Why are you being so argumentative?” She paused, smiled brightly, and said, “Maybe I’m doing it on purpose so that it will be easier to leave you.”</p>
<p>lololu : you made me laugh out loud with your last line! Thank you all for setting my mind at ease. I will TRY to be tolerant and loving - I know he still needs it. And Jamiecakes, I had a feeling it will get worse before it gets better so I will brace myself, and DH and SS, for the summer. Endicott - yes - he must find employment, for all our sakes!
Will a family summer vacation be a disaster? We would like to have some “quality” time together before he leaves - perhaps that is expecting too much?</p>
<p>You all are wonderful - thank you so much for your supportive messages. This helps me so very much :)</p>
<p>I used to pick a fight with my H before he went on a business trip. It was easier to be mad at him than to miss him.</p>
<p>I have a friend who was JUST telling me this about her senior daughter. I laughed, but you guys have convinced me that it’s true.</p>
<p>Baby birds often foul the nest as their flight feathers are growing in. Makes it easier to fly away when the time comes.</p>
<p>Yes, this is normal (not that that makes it any easier for you!).</p>
<p>centraleagle,</p>
<p>Add cursing to the list (I have to call him out on this - can’t let it slide) and you have perfectly described my S with one exception: My S will be the most disagreeable creature on the planet (normally a low-key, water-off-the-back person) then sit right next to me on the couch and lean his head on my shoulder (rubbing his beard stubble into my shoulder to get my attention!) He’s looking for a kiss on the head and a hug, of course. Now that all the decisions have been made, I think the reality of his leaving is starting to sink in. </p>
<p>I’ve also noticed that he is subtly checking to make sure that he can call home anytime from college. Drops little hints like, “Well, I can always call you to find out how to ______.” He also thinks it’s great that there may be webcams on campus so that he can walk by at a designated time to wave to me. I am pretty sure all of this is normal. </p>
<p>I don’t argue with him over the little stuff, but I will throw out the occasional, “Wow. You might want to think over whether your dorm mate is going to appreciate having to walk through an obstacle course to get around your dorm room.” (I’m referring to the piles of books, papers, shoes, socks, etc. strewn all over his bedroom floor.) I then follow up with, “Do you want a dorm mate who throws his stuff all over everywhere?” Or the ever-famous “Just remember you aren’t the only one living in your dorm room. You are going to have to think about the other person and be respectful of their space.”</p>
<p>I’ve also started making him do his laundry, cook dinner for us once a week, (he and his sister already do the dishes and take out the trash), and I have made him clean his bathroom a couple of times, just to teach him how it’s done. I guess my separation anxiety is that I have forgotten to teach him one of life’s skills before he leaves the nest. </p>
<p>I’m glad to hear from our more experienced CC parents that all of this passes with the first visit home. Meanwhile, I figure I’ll continue to act as a guard rail for him, which means that, occasionally, I’m going to get bumped.</p>
<p>I agree with colmom that if your child isn’t ready to leave the nest then this is the time to teach him/her the ropes.</p>
<p>In my family all the chores are shared, so on Saturday we split up the house into four sections and each of us takes a section (we rotate) the boys are responsible for cooking dinner and cleanup 1-2 times weekly, they do their own laundry (starting at age 13) and have daily chores.</p>
<p>My oldest son feels ready for an apartment (although is living in dorms first year) and I know he could handle it.</p>
<p>I always feel a little sorry for kids who can’t cook, clean, do laundry, shop for food, etc. I think knowing how to do the basic activities of running a household makes leaving home much less intimidating.</p>
<p>The nest fouling by seniors before they leave for college is very common, but varies with each kid. I did the happy dance when we dropped my D off at college, and I cried bitter tears when we dropped off my S. Both kids knew that we were available for help as they eased into their new environments, even though our S is 2,000 miles away.</p>
<p>We did everything we could to help prepare them, such as teaching the ropes of checking accounts, credit cards and laundry. Both kids did well in the transition.</p>
<p>Parents may not know, but there is this infamous plague, ‘senioritis,’ affecting all seniors following D-day (April 1). The problem is that we just don’t care anymore. High school becomes pointless, and we are itching to get to college; the motivator that was there, keeping you on your toes like a North Korean gymnast, is long gone (unless you get waitlisted) once decisions come out. Of course, separation anxiety also becomes a factor. Kids in Europe have it so much harder, they get conditional acceptances :-/</p>
<p>And don’t forget that the teens and early twenties is the time of the second largest period of brain development. The first being in the womb.</p>
<p>From another unrelated story on the CNN web site today:</p>
<p>“It’s a critical time for the brain,” said Dr. Jon McClellan, the medical director of the Child Study and Treatment Center at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “It’s the CEO part of the brain that pays attention, makes decisions and filters. The prefrontal cortex, that’s the last area of the brain to develop.”</p>
<p>That, plus senioritis, plus impending college, plus impending moving away from home creates a perfect storm of circumstances that can be tough to ride out.</p>
<p>my wife’s theory is that the sum total of our three kids moods/happiness is a constant so if one is up another must be down … while I laughed it off when first proposed … it actually seems to be pretty much true. So it seems at any one time at least one of my wonderful kids is less than than their best!</p>
<p>3togo, I wish I’d known your wife’s theory sooner, I’d have had more kids in the hope of eventually achieving some sort of emotional stasis!
:-)</p>
<p>ummm…how do you explain this behavior for a junior in college? Same kind of anxiety perhaps but for the next big stage? Summer should be interesting…</p>