<p>My daughter finished her Freshman year at Pace University living in the dorm, she did well with a 3.0. She did tell me and her father about partying in nightclubs, having "bottle service" and free dinners at restaurants. We have told her this is very dangerous in NYC for a young girl.
She told us last spring she was going to live with 3 other Pace school friends, and she did not sign up for Pace Housing. The apartment fell through and was not really with Pace students.
She talked us into paying $3000 for a dorm room this past summer because she had a full time secretarial job at a Wall St real estate office and another internship (no pay) at a upscale night club, helping with promotions.
I went to visit and found her living in a pig stye of a room with 2 other girls. She also was not registered for school, and has lied to us about the jobs. There was no internship at the club and the real estate job is just a couple hours every week. She basically has been partying every night and sleeping til 3pm.
She just registered for school and wants us to lease her an apt.
We are having her come home, and we are undecided whether to let her attend school this semester and live on campus or just have her stay home this semester and go back in the spring.
Any words of wisdom or advice would be appreciated.</p>
<p>If my mother caught me doing this, I would not be going back to college. At all. I would be transferring to either a local school or my community college until she deemed me mature enough to handle living on my own again. And then she’d dictate where I could transfer too. </p>
<p>I agree you should pull her out for a semester because that would be the ultimate punishment it seems, keeping her away from the new “party NYC” lifestyle she’s cultivated. Maybe it’ll help her shape up.</p>
<p>Edit: My mother also says that she would make me pay back everything she gave me for the summer housing and living because i lied. I agree with her.</p>
<p>Well…you could pull her out for the semester saying that the money for that semester was already USED for her partying summer and she needs to EARN the money to repay you OR pay her own costs for the spring term.</p>
<p>If my kids did this, they would not be returning to college on my dime.</p>
<p>A friend of my roommate freshman year was very heavy into partying. Her mom worked for the university, so she wasn’t worried about tuition, and she partied every weekend and was getting terrible grades (minimal enough to keep her 2.0 to not get kicked out of school). One night she was so bad that the police had to be called, because she was extremely sick from alcohol. Her parents were seriously considering pulling her out of school. I know they did allow her to stay in school, but they did keep a closer watch on her. She still partied, but she knew she had to balance it with school.</p>
<p>How far away from your daughter’s school do you live? I know my mom has made it clear that I have to pay for my insurance and gas and toiletries and anything else I want on my own; she provides me with food when I am at home, though I have to buy my own food when I live up on campus. I also live at home on school breaks and have chores to do when I am living at home.</p>
<p>I would say the best thing is to set guidelines. Living on campus would not be bad, so long as she has a decent group of friends; if she hangs out with partiers she will continue partying. See about jobs offered on campus as well. Make it clear that she has to start taking responsibility and that you and her father will not be a safety net forever. Eventually, in the next couple of years, she has to take care of herself.</p>
<p>It sounds like she was able to balance things her freshman year when she was living on campus, though, so that seems to be a good environment for her.</p>
<p>I hope that helped, and I really hope things get worked out. Good luck!</p>
<p>Find another school that she can commute to from home.</p>
<p>Hugs to you, OP. Having had to cope myself with a partying older S, I know this is a rough time for you.</p>
<p>Before you pay for any more college, your D needs to repay you for the money that you’d spent for her to party all summer. If she chooses to live at home while not going to college, she needs to be paying rent since she’s a grown adult.</p>
<p>If she doesn’t choose to live at home, she needs to be supporting herself. My guess is that she’ll threaten to move out and will act like you’re a terrible person for expecting her to repay the money you spent for her partying summer, and for not funding college until she repays you. She probably will be able to flop with friends for a while, but at some point, even partying friends will expect her to pull her own weight, which means getting a job and paying her share of the rent.</p>
<p>She either will mature by getting a job, paying rent while living with her friends or she’ll mature by coming back home getting a job, paying rent, and repaying you for your costs while following your house rules.</p>
<p>I would not pay for her to return to Pace, but if she repaid me for the summer costs, I’d be willing to pay for her to attend a college that she could commute to from home.</p>
<p>It’s not the partying so much that bothers me, she told you about it to some extent, and appears to be a only a little more excessive than most college Freshman, and she kept her average at a 3.0 so that says something. It’s the lying and stealing (that is basically what she did this summer - she stole the rent money from you) that is of greater concern.</p>
<p>What does she have to say for herself? She was totally disrespectful to her parents, took them for chumps or suckers or whatever you want to call it. That is what is unacceptable. I think having her miss one semester of school is definitely called for. She can take one or two classes at a community college but mostly she needs to get a full-time job (like the one she “had” over the summer) to compensate for stealing from you. You can review the situation right before she needs to let the school know about the winter term.</p>
<p>I’m a pretty easy-going parent, much more laid back than many on this board, but I cannot tolerate the ultimate disrespect of lying and stealing. There is no excuse for it. I don’t think your daughter is a “bad” kid, I think she experienced what many do when “free” for the first time but she took it to an extreme when she conned you this summer and that is what needs to be dealt with.</p>
<p>Are you sure she has a 3.0 GPA?</p>
<p>If she were mine, she’d be a commuter student spring of 2011 and living at home and working full time fall of 2010. </p>
<p>Your post resonates with me because I have a rising HS senior who has a very long leash. Sometimes I think she could be totally lying to me about what she does and with whom and I’d never know. She, also, wants to go to school in an urban setting. So far, she hasn’t given me a reason not to trust her, but I’m so aware that it could happen.</p>
<p>Hugs to you!</p>
<p>pstauf, excellent question.</p>
<p>What is “bottle service,” and how does one get free dinners in restaurants in New York?</p>
<p>I don’t mean to offend, but you could use some blunt advice. Your daughter is screwed up. Normal, happy, healthy people don’t construct elaborate lies in order to impress people and get money from them. You have a serious problem on your hands.</p>
<p>Don’t give her another penny. Bring her home if you can, and require her to go to a local school until she proves that she’s worthy of your trust. If possible, get some individual counseling for her and family counseling for all of you.</p>
<p>Also think about yourself, your parenting style, what you’ve taught your daughter, and ask how she came to believe that this deception was either acceptable or necessary. Was she trying to impress you with the lies? Trying to live up to a standard you’ve set but that she can’t achieve? Is she trying to escape psychologically from some trauma or just a troubled home life? (I’m not implying that this is true; only you can know these things.) While we’re at it, could she have a substance abuse problem?</p>
<p>None of us raise our kids in perfect environments. We all make mistakes, including mistakes that we’re not even aware of until something happens that forces us to reconsider how we relate to our kids. This should be one of those moments for you.</p>
<p>I sincerely wish you good luck and hope this turns out for the best.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to say this, but a 3.0 at Pace is not what I would call a huge accomplishment.
(this is coming from someone who has hired college graduates for decades)</p>
<p>You should have her move home and go to a community college. Tell her that she must get straight-A’s at CC and THEN you will consider letting her transfer and pay private school tuition.</p>
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<p>I guess it could be parenting style, but I wouldn’t be quick to blame yourself, OP. My sister and I were only a few years apart in age, raised by the same parents, in the same house, under the same circumstances. She lied about so much; I lied about nothing. She lied because she wanted to do things my parents didn’t approve of, plain and simple. I was the kid who was involved in church and school ECs. She was the kid who liked guys and drugs.</p>
<p>I will say that she was not allowed to go away to college (assuming she could have gotten in anywhere.) She registered for classes at community college, my parents paid for it, bought books, etc. She didn’t go to class but didn’t drop them, so earned a 0.0 in her one and only semester of cc. (So you can be lied to even if your child is under your roof.)</p>
<p>She finally got her degree at age 46, while I graduated with honors from law school 20 years earlier. I think individual personalities was the difference - not parenting style.</p>
<p>I agree with everything that’s been said. You have my sympathies. Luckily, now you have a better idea of what you are dealing with, and you can give your daughter the opportunity to taste the consequences of her behavior.</p>
<p>“I guess it could be parenting style, but I wouldn’t be quick to blame yourself, OP.”</p>
<p>I agree: Don’t blame yourself, OP. Much of what determines behavior is inborn. Your parenting style may have helped your D achieve as much as she did in order to be able to attend Pace. If you’d had a different partying style, she may not even have graduated from high school.</p>
<p>For some people, growing up means choosing to make choices very different from how their parents taught them.</p>
<p>So, OP, please don’t wallow in misplaced guilt or blaming yourself. Just deal logically with helping your daughter appropriately experience the consequences of her own poor choices.</p>
<p>suzuki could have a point. A substance abuse problem could be an issue here. Only she knows how much she has been consuming, though at a certain limit, alcoholism is a very real possibility, and that needs more than just parental discipline, it needs professional help. Show your daughter you are concerned for her, but do a little research on approaching potential substance abusers first. You do not want to make her feel cornered or picked on if she has a problem, but you want her to know you care and want to help her.</p>
<p>It really sounds like she could potentially need and benefit from some form of counseling.</p>
<p>If my child did this, the next money paid for her tuition would be her own. I would encourage her to commute to community college for the upcoming semester (or the earliest semester for which she could earn or borrow the necessary funds), but I would not be paying another cent for her college until she cleaned up the partying act and did well for at least one semester on her own dime. I would probably also require that she see a counselor.</p>
<p>I agree with the other posters. She should go to CC this fall. She needs to get away from the party environment that she’s made for herself there. And I would find a different school for her after that; I think it would be too easy for her to slip back into the old scene.</p>
<p>I agree that I would pull tuition money - especially given how she lied to get funding for her summer of fun. I would also likely require a good faith effort to repay the money she had duped you out of - even if it was small increments that would take a while to repay, I would want to see dedication and commitment to doing so.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Thank goodness you visited and found out what was really going on–better to find out now than later. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t pay for her to go back to college right now. I would give her the option to come home and live with you as long as she adheres to the conditions that you set. She should spend the time home working at a job to pay the $3000 back and to pay some rent for the privilege of living in your home. Once she has paid back the $3000 and proven to you that she has grown in maturity, renegotiate the college plan. When (and if) she does go back to a college in the future, she should be responsible to pay for some of it.</p>
<p>By forcing her to come home and not get counseling for her would be useless. She would run away to NYC to stay with her (older) friends. Nothing is free in NYC, why would those strangers give her free food and drinks. As a parent, why did you believe she could get a job at a night club when she wasn’t even 21? </p>
<p>I know we shouldn’t always blame ourselves, but most of us know what our kids are like. If I thought my daughter was a bit immature or attracted to material goods, I would have monitored her spend and questioned her life style earlier on. A young person maybe naive, but we shouldn’t be. It would have been a huge red flag to me if I knew my daughter was getting freebies and going clubbing all the time.</p>