<p>She did answer. She said she logged into the school account to see the grade. So presumably, she has online access to her D record.</p>
<p>We just don’t know for sure the extent of the problem. She may have started doing this in the summer or late in the school year. It is presumptuous to think that she is far gone or she is easily turned around by coming home. All these dynamics are good reading and good things for OP to keep in mind, but in the end, it is her and her family task to navigate to get her daughter moving towards the right direction. I think first OP should get her daughter out of NY right now, maybe plead with her to have temporary break from the city and get into counseling and go from there. No heavy pressure and over bearing demands, just get her back to reflect and contemplate on what has transpired.</p>
<p>missypie makes a good point. I guess dd can party all she wants; it’s the lying that gets me as I’m sure she knew her parents wouldn’t finance her real summer plans.</p>
<p>And I can surmise that perhaps the jobs didn’t work out exactly the way the daughter thought they would … maybe she was promised more hours, maybe she had more hours and screwed it up by being late to work?</p>
<p>Maybe maybe … and I wish this was true and grant it might not be … maybe she started out well, the jobs didn’t pan out as planned, and she was too embarrassed to tell her parents? (Meaning, she didn’t intend to lie and blow off the jobs and the summer …)</p>
Of course this is true but I think that’s what many of us are suggesting - that the parents discontinue financing and enabling her excessive partying/lying/thieving. Some of you (and the OP) indicate that you were partiers somewhat in college as well but there’s a difference between the ‘typical’ partying and this excessive behavior the OP indicates the D is doing and therefore needs to be dealt with at the appropriate level. We only know what we glean from the OP’s posts so of course we’re only reacting to that. If there’s additional info and context not posted then we can’t include that in our conclusions/recommendations. It’ll of course be up to the OP to just consider what other posters say they’d do in reaction to the stated issues and then given the context of that particular family and other non-stated details, determine what the OP thinks best for the D.</p>
<p>The D is over 18 so if she decides to just forget about school for a while and live on her own without the parents’ support for a year or two or forever, then that’s her decision and her right and sometimes might even be the best decision. There have been a number of posts from other individuals who took a year or few years break, matured quite a bit, and then went back successfully.</p>
<p>NYC is full of people who will exploit your D, and it sounds like she has really fallen for it. (It’s also a lot of other things, but for vulnerable young people, it’s can be a disaster.) There can be absolutely no good to come out of an “internship” for a club promoter. That is an ugly world. Either your D is too gullible, or she knows what it’s all about and is lying to you about her involvement in it. Bad situation either way. </p>
<p>That said, the problem is not really NY, but your D. There are tons of young people coming to NY for college, to pursue their dreams (a cliche, but still true). She may have behaved similarly (partying, neglecting her studies) at a college in a quiet little town, but there just aren’t going to be the millions of ways of getting into trouble available in NY.</p>
<p>Even though I’ve written about the exploitation here, I just want to add that it’s not NYC that’s scamming and money grubbing, it’s the club/party world. As I said before, there are plenty of young people working hard, living honorable lives here. People make choices.</p>
<p>The amount of lying that the D has done here is beyond the pale. I’d tell her she’s coming home, going to CC, and getting a job to pay me back for the money she blew last summer. If that makes her “depressed” I’d send her to counseling. I’d probably take us all to counseling anyway, to find out why she felt like she could/should pull something like that over on her parents and how we fell for it. </p>
<p>I do not want to throw accusations out there, but when I read the first post about the bottle service, the free meals, and the “internship at a night club” one thing popped into my head: the daughter could be “working” as an escort. I could be completely wrong and I apologize if I am, but this whole song and dance she’s giving her parents doesn’t add up - especially if she’s only 19.</p>
<p>One thing is for sure - she needs to get away from NYC, and away from Pace and her “friends” there.</p>
<p>Have her attend a community college and work a job that will pay back the money you loaned her. And some kind of therapy would probably help too. If you can’t afford more college then just make her work retail for the next few years. Working a real customer service job will teach anyone respect :)</p>
<p>Here’s my take: You are willing to give her a bed and a roof and food (if she chooses to live at your house). That is more than you have to do.</p>
<p>Does she by any chance have a favorite aunt or uncle or grandma in another town (not the home town, not NYC) where she could live fall semester and work or go to cc or both? Coming home is so hard; if you make that her only option, I think that the hard feelings might be so bad that she will leave. I really like the idea of telling her you won’t support her in NYC, but perhaps there is some alternative to the idea that you will only be supportive of how she spends fall semester if she lives at home.</p>
<p>(I think she should take a one-semester leave of absence from Pace, not withdraw. If she loves it at Pace, knowing that if she shapes up she can go back would be a good incentive for her.)</p>
<p>Our generation of parents seriously needs to stop coddling our kids. Why are we all so worried about how the daughter might react because she doesn’t get what she wants? She should be worried about how her parents are going to react to her lies and deception.</p>
<p>Do we want our young adults to believe that they are so fragile because we believe they cannot handle the consequences of bad behavior.</p>
<p>She has parents who love her, a roof over her head and she will not go hungry. Everything else is a bonus. Hard work and adversity helps build character.</p>
<p>I was once told by a professional that I have a tendency to want to rush in and “fix” things. I am quick to suggest solutions and make lists of details around a project/rehab job. </p>
<p>So much better to tell D that "We are devastated. We are hurt and you have completely destroyed our trust in you. " Then be quiet. Not a word about what could happen this fall or where she will be going or who will pay for it. Let her come to you. If she misses the deadlines, that’s her problem. </p>
<p>Experienced drill sergeants know it can be more powerful to NOT specify punishments. Leave the full range of options out there and unsaid. When she comes to you for money/ride to campus/whatever, then you can say “We haven’t addressed the consequences for what happened this summer.” And be quiet. Let her offer what she thinks should happen. </p>
<p>This can all be very powerful – and it lets you skip the screaming and table pounding phase. My heart goes out to you. . .</p>
<p>I just want to send my sympathies to the OP. This is a hard situation and it sounds like you’re courageously taking it on. There’s lots of good advice here, and I think if it were my D I’d have her home in a heartbeat, taking classes or working or both, but living under my roof. I know some kids would bolt from such a situation-- but some wouldn’t. You don’t say (or I missed it) what her attitude is about the lying…but whatever has gone wrong has gone wrong pretty recently or she wouldn’t have 20K in scholarships. Of course you’re worried sick, and counseling sounds like exactly the next step-- but I really wonder what her attitude is, where the first wrong turn came and how it all went so bad so quickly. Did she lie to you in high school? Was she drinking even before she left for NYC? </p>
<p>The comfort is-- she’s still very young, you’ve caught this early. I think you can turn it around. I hope it’s all much simpler than some here think. And I wish you the very best.</p>
<p>I just wanted to say that personally, I don’t see why therapy or counseling is necessary. She was given an opportunity to do what she wanted (party all night, do no work, etc), and she took it. Don’t let her do it again, but it’s makes perfect sense that she took the chance to do so, it’s not a symptom of some crazy defect she has. </p>
<p>I don’t know how difficult the school is but someone mentioned early on that a 3.0 there isn’t great. The average SAT score is rather low (1080, presumably out of 1600), and she is very smart and received a lot of scholarship money. It sounds more like she did the minimum to keep the scholarships than she really did her best or tried hard. </p>
<p>Some mentioned that you should make her pay the 3K back before anything else. I’m wondering if that’s really important, because if you were willing and able to give 20K/year to send her there, that 3K probably wasn’t a huge loss to you. She would realize this, and this would probably be viewed in her eyes as some hassle her parents are making her do, rather than actually fixing some wrong she caused, which I imagine was the goal of those suggesting it. </p>
<p>No actual suggestions but those are my thoughts.</p>
<p>One thing that doesn’t make sense to me in this case - why would an underaged freshman in college tell her parents the unvarnished truth about her partying lifestyle (bottle service?! an 18 yo?!), and then immediately tell the truth when confronted about the summer jobs? It seems to me that she could have easily continued the ruse. I’d also like to hear your D’s side of the story for what happened with the room - was this the same room that you paid for or a different one entirely? Is one of the issues for you (aside from no jobs) the fact that it got split three ways without your knowledge? </p>
<p>Personally, I think I"d have brought her home at “bottle service” and upscale club “internship” with or without the issue of the rent. However, cnp55 asks a good Q - was the misrepresentation about the jobs an ongoing one, and is it possible that things changed from the way your D thought they were going to be? Knowing what is going on in NYC real estate offices right now, people, including staff and attorneys are being fired, not hired.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure they’re worried she’ll become an “escort” or get otherwise involved with the sex industry, which is a pretty legitimate concern, IMO, given that she’s already so embroiled with the hardcore party crowd. “Hard work” is not the only way for a pretty young girl to make money in NYC.</p>
<p>You can take the line of “Well, it is the daughter’s own fault if she gets involved with that” and maybe that’s true. But that’s also a very, very dangerous world. Personally I would rather compromise if it were more likely to set my D on a safer path.</p>
<p>XU: you have given very thoughtful advice and shared your perspective from a students point of view in a very well thought out manner.</p>
<p>I do not want to hijack the thread. My point is that when someone does something wrong they should be given the opportunity to make things right again. If we always bail out our kids because we love them so much they will never know that they can overcome their problems on their own. </p>
<p>Her mom had to earn an extra $4000 to have $3000 to give the daughter for her summer housing.
Who knows how many hours of work her mom had to put in to save that much money. Her mom is working two jobs to afford her daughter these wonderful opportunities. That is not a rant. Just the facts.</p>
<p>So sad. Please don’t label her; no productive result comes of that. Is she a “liar” or did she blow her opportunities soon into the summer? There’s a difference, actually.</p>
<p>Maybe she had the promise of some upscale work at a club (she or they dubbed it an internship) plus a paying secretarial job at the beginning of the summer. If she began partying too much, showing up late or hung-over to the secretary day-job might have gotten her fired, with or without warning. At that point, the club “work” became her hangout and it went downhill from there.</p>
<p>Pig-stye apartments can be lived in by kids with very good jobs, so I wouldn’t focus on that. </p>
<p>To me, the conversation of “liar” depends on whether she never had the opportunity in the first place… or blew it by her poor choices and lifestyle this summer. The first one is lying; the second one is naive, immature and so on. If you let her return to Pace as if nothing had happened, then you turn her naive, immature choice into a reward. </p>
<p>If she continued to pretend by phone, on a weekly basis, that she was going to her daily office job and earning a salary, then yes, she actively lied to you. Short of that, she dodged you, avoided you, hurt your feelings and all of that. She was not truthful or forthcoming when things changed significantly.</p>
<p>Either way, I feel as though you have to be sure the story ends with a consequence (pay me back; no Pace, as others suggest above) because, sadly, New York City won’t punish her for the summer she just experienced.</p>
<p>There are many posts this year with parents struggling to determine what’s up with their kid who has gone astray- drugs? drinking? goofing off? missing class? stealing? lying? </p>
<p>There have been many posters who shared their stories. </p>
<p>One problem is that even if the OP takes our advice- be that tough love or not so tough love, this is the first time they have gone through this and they have not seen it on the other side to get a good idea of the plans that work and those that don’t or at least a list of signs of improvement to watch for.</p>
<p>Perhaps a visit to a counselor who works with drug & alcohol affected college aged students would be able to give the parents some solid advice as to how to determine what the problem really is. Until you know what is going on, really going on- drug addicted? partier? lazy? This could be serious or just sad.</p>
<p>I would suggest you find a resource to give you some guidance as to how to determine the real problem; how to best address it?; how to enforce the plan on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Tough love is fine, but what exactly does that mean if she moves the kid home for a term off and the DD acts depressed? Does she wake her up for work or let her struggle? Does she let her sleep all day on her day off or wake her for chores? What grumpiness does she tolerate? Which rules stand firmly and which guidelines are flexible?</p>