Too many faces of Eve

TheGFG · March 24, 2009, 9:59am

Help. My D will be the death of me. Honestly, I care much less about what decisions or plans she makes than that she just make them and then accept the incumbent responsibilities and consequences. But D is like Jekyl and Hyde. One minute she’s Little Miss I’m Going to Harvard and appears all diligent and mature. The next she’s Little Miss Brain Stuffed with Fluff and regrettably, acts accordingly.

For example, yesterday she decided not to vote for herself for a leadership position. This would have been fine and understandable, if indeed she had decided she had no interest in the position or did not “need” it for her resume. However, she claims to really desire the position and admits her resume is very light on EC’s, especially leadership. Hmmm. Then why didn’t she vote for herself? I don’t think it was false modesty, because she has voted for herself in the past. It’s just that this time she didn’t! I don’t think even she knows why. “For some reason I didn’t.” Don’t get me wrong, this is not a big deal in itself, but an example of these odd lapses she has where she slips back and forth between personas. One day she could be super motivated, working ahead on her classwork, and another day she could decide to just blow off a major test in an AP class.

I notice a lot of inconsistency between what she says she wants and what she chooses to do. It’s as though she were double-minded. Maybe she is? I have repeatedly told her that I don’t care if she takes honors and AP classes or not. But if she decides to, then she has to be willing to do the work. Her MO is to say “Yes, I want to take these classes, and yes I understand that means I have to work hard,” and then halfway through decides she doesn’t like having to do all the work. But then the following year she’ll sign up for the hard classes all over again, despite my protests. Or she’ll say she’s interested in College X. College X sends her a response card or recruiting questionnaire and there it sits on her desk for weeks. Meanwhile, she will send back the response card for College Y, in which she claims to have no interest.

I’ve wondered if she’s responding to what she thinks I want for her, but it’s not what she really wants, so she goes back and forth. But I actually want what she wants and have tried many times in many ways to communicate to her that it’s OK to be who she wants to be. I’ve tried reverse psychology, everything! Thoughts?

momray · March 24, 2009, 10:24am

Perhaps she’s young, and the thought and pressure of college is a bit much? Is it her desire for Harvard (at times) or your desire? My thoughts…I’ve always encouraged my children to strive for the best, be aware of all your options, but it is OK to not always push for everything. It’s ok to be a teen, and get off track. Sounds she needs to decide what she wants and then you, as parent, work with her to meet her goals. I didn’t see her age or grade but that could make a great difference. My youngest had no desire for any school during her freshman year. She wasn’t going to college; she didn’t need anything to become a writer. No advanced studies courses for her. By sophomore, she began to thrive, realizing the importance of honors and AP courses. By junior year, she was lobbying the administration to bring more AP courses to her school district. And senior year, she was magnet president, honor society president, all A’s in all AP courses, and just received acceptance to her number one choice. Stumbling blocks build character. Listen to her and see where you can assist, and where you need to let her find her way. Good luck.

Northstarmom · March 24, 2009, 10:31am

My advice is to back off. I’ve got sons, 25, 21, and I have been in your situation. Finally, I realized that if people really want a goal, they will work for it and take actions to help them achieve that goal. If they are ambivalent about the goal or only say they want the goal to impress others or please me (and they may not even be realizing they are doing this), they won’t take actions supporting their reaching their so-called goal.

Since I backed off (far later than you probably will. I had to truly learn the hard way), I have been amazed to see how capable my sons are at getting what they want without any help from me.

It’s amazing how much stress you take off your own shoulders when you allow your loved ones the responsibility of following through on steps toward their goals. If they don’t follow through, realize that’s not your problem. More than likely, there’s something else they’d prefer doing, even if they haven’t yet discovered what that activity or option is.

VeryHappy · March 24, 2009, 11:16am

I agree, unless they are depressed, but that’s a different thread.

anneroku · March 24, 2009, 11:34am

Your daughter sounds like a normal teen – mature in some ways and immature in others. I don’t know her age or grade, but she will change a lot in the next few years. It sounds like you have a good attitude and are not pushing. I would pay more attention to what she does than what she says.

jonri · March 24, 2009, 12:31pm

The (IMO) reality is that your question is a Rorschack test for parent posters. We (myself included) will tend to “read” our experiences with our own kids into your question. However, your D is NOT our kids and our experiences with our kids don’t necessarily given us any insights into ALL kids. They certainly don’t give us insight into your D.

So…doing what I warned you about…
My own D was erratic and I went gray trying to force her to redo her priorities. Did it work 100%? Absolutely not. But did it work at all? A little bit. And, I think that little bit helped later on. It let her do what she wanted to do a year or two later. By that time, she was ready to face college and succeed. But a year or two before she left for college, was she ready? Nope, not by a long shot. And that’s where a bit of pushing worked.

When you are a junior in high school, college seems a LONG way away.Moreover, for most kids, there’s a bit of fear in the whole thought of college. Few of them are willing to voice it, but the idea of going away, of losing the friends you have, of having to start fresh in an envrronment where nobody knows you is both exhiliarating and frightening. So, one minute you focus on what you need to get there and the next moment you want to push the whole idea of leaving the world as you know it out of your mind and not think about it at all. You tend to get annoyed if during the “I don’t want to think about it” periods, the other people in your life raise the subject.

My recommendation to you is to reframe your pushing to the extent you do it in terms of things unrelated to college. Your discussion should not be “You’re wanting in the kind of leadership positions colleges like, so why did you blow a chance to get one?” to “Gee, I thought you’d like doing X next year. That’s the impression I got talking to you anyway. Was I wrong?”

I don’t think this is the time in your D’s life to step back and make her own decisions about everything and let the chips fall where they may. I know NSM and others will disagree with me…but part of the reason is just that we have different kids. Mine just wasn’t mature enough at age 16 to always stay on track and do what needed to be done. A year or two later, she was.

A year or two later, she was glad that she had options that she would not have had without a not so gentle push. I do not regret the pushing that gave her the options.

So, push when you need to but don’t make the reason college would be my advice. And don’t expect a high school junior to KNOW what she wants–or to want the same thing now and next week.

Northstarmom · March 24, 2009, 1:05pm

"I don’t think this is the time in your D’s life to step back and make her own decisions about everything and let the chips fall where they may. I know NSM and others will disagree with me…but part of the reason is just that we have different kids. Mine just wasn’t mature enough at age 16 to always stay on track and do what needed to be done. A year or two later, she was. "

I actually agree with you. I think that senior year is the time to step back and let the chips fall where they may. In saying this, I’m assuming the parent has taken their kid around to colleges, also has given them any family guidelines for college applications (eg. things related to cost, distance, etc.), and has helped their child know about the college app process. I also assume that the parent has done what they could before to help their kid learn how to succeed in high school.

If a kid can’t get it together themselves to finish college essays on time or to get decent grades senior year, I think it’s far better that they not get into college, and then have to remain home for an additional year than go off --courtesy of a parent’s shoving – to college and then flunk out and/or get into major trouble due to immaturity.

For this particular OP’s situation, I don’t think the mom should take on the responsibility of forcing her kid to do actions to support kid’s alleged interest in club leadership. Talking over with kid things kid can do to support their interest: fine. However, leave it up to the kid about whether to do those things. To me, a clear sign that this particular kid wasn’t ready for leadership is that she didn’t even vote for herself.

I went through something similar with younger S, who claimed to want to be NHS president. Looking back, I think he was pushed into running by his friends, who justifiably thought S would be a good prez. However, S did nothing to support his goals. He didn’t even prepare a speech, so was blown out of the water when the other candidate solicited votes in advance and did a very impressive speech. It ended up, though, being for the best. S ended up switching schools – on his own initiative and for a good reason – and becoming head of a countywide organization, doing an excellent job with that – a job that resulted in his learning great skills, having a good impact and winning a countywide award.

I also don’t recommend sitting on one’s hands when one’s freshmen-juniors are failing in school. Certainly, do what one can do to help them including using loss of privileges, parent conferences, tutors, anything else other than doing the work for them. However, to me, senior year is sink or swim time because of the kid can’t make it on their own through senior year, far better for them to have to spend more time at home than to be off on their own in college. If they couldn’t handle high school without parents carrying them through, it’s unlikely they’ll be ready for college right after high school.

TheGFG · March 25, 2009, 11:32am

Thanks to all for the thoughtful responses.

To answer your questions, D is a junior. She is definitely more put together than she was her first two years of high school, so I hope it is just a lack of maturity. I subscribe to the same parenting philosophy as jonri, in that I believe it’s my responsibility to help her maximize her opportunities and preserve her options while she’s in HS or until such time as she’s old enough and competent enough to fully take charge.

To answer the other question posed above, Harvard was her idea. H and I were never fans, and older S did not bother to visit or apply. But prestige aside, Harvard offers what D is looking for athletically and is strong in her proposed major. Same with Stanford and a few other schools, though D mostly talks about Harvard. Frankly, I wouldn’t care what her school choices were so long as they were reasonably appropriate to her academic ability. And actually, I’m not sure Harvard fits the bill–may be too far above her.

To clarify, the issue that frustrates me is the overall dissonance between what she states her aspirations are, and what she does to further them. If she said to me, “I don’t want to work that hard in college, so I’m not going to apply to HYPS,” that would be just fine with me and tons easier to deal with than this double-mindedness.

Northstarmom · March 25, 2009, 1:11pm

“To clarify, the issue that frustrates me is the overall dissonance between what she states her aspirations are, and what she does to further them. If she said to me, “I don’t want to work that hard in college, so I’m not going to apply to HYPS,” that would be just fine with me and tons easier to deal with than this double-mindedness.”

What you’re hoping for, however, won’t come for a couple of years. She’s still in the age of magical thinking. It’s wonderful for her to think of the prestige of being in a place like HPYS, and she’s not yet at the point to realize that to get there would require more than hoping, and perhaps a type A-filled place like HPYS doesn’t suit her more laid back personality anyway. What will help her get beyond this way of thinking is when she experiences the reality of achieving her dreams – which may be when she doesn’t get into the kind of colleges that she now believes she wants to gain acceptances to. Another thing that may happen is that she visits those colleges and realizes that she doesn’t like the way the students act (i.e. they tend to be Type A people who love being intensely involved in academics and ECs) or she realizes that she does want that type of college, and will have to step up her game to have a chance of being admitted to one.

At that age, I was hoping to win a local music competition. I thought it would be great to get such a visible honor, but at the same time, I wasn’t willing to practice the piano as intensely as it would take to reach that goal. Somehow, I thought that I could make up for months of lackadasical practicing by practicing very hard the day of the competition. Of course, when I competed, I made many errors, and didn’t win anything except embarrassment at my blunders. From doing that – a couple of years!-- however, I did learn some very important lessons that after I was older, I was able to take actions to apply to my goals.

Your D does sound very much like my S did at that age. He “wanted” to be NHS president, but did nothing to achieve that goal except throw his hat in the ring. Didn’t even practice a speech, so, of course was blown out of the water by his opponent. Truth was, he was very ambivalent about being NHS president – for good reason: It would have been his first time heading an organization, and he still was shy

A few months later, though, he became president of another organization after demonstrating some skills that he had learned in a leadership training that to his surprise helped him realize that one needn’t be perfect to lead. When he became president of this organization, he was really interested in the job, and he was far more psychologically ready to take that task on than he had been before, when he had done so little to help reach what he had said was his goal.

Too many faces of Eve

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