<p>Wise post Modadunn.</p>
<p>In our Boy Scout troop, we had a policy of “controlled failure:” the boys planned their own activities, such as overnight/weekend backpacking trips. As adult leaders, we controlled the circumstances so that no one was in a life-threatening situation but we allowed them to fail. If the boys forgot rain jackets or tent poles (which actually happened), or did not bring enough food, too bad. They were miserable but they learned from their mistakes. It usually did not happen again.</p>
<p>My son has been readmitted to the same school (big CA public) 3 times. They have given him all kinds of chances! It is totally up to him what he does with them. I am no longer paying the bill! Lets hope that 3rd time is the charm:) I keep saying he has had more classes and more of an education than his friends who have already graduated! And he has a good job already, and his friends who have graduated don’t so I just have to hope everything will turn out.</p>
<p>I think first semester freshman year is a tough transition far beyond the academics, but if all we, as parents, have to go on is the final grade we may not see how they faired with the rest of it. While I do believe in holding kids accountable, I don’t think not helping them to stay in college is the same as saving them from their failures. Now, if a parent starts writing papers or other work, that’s a different story. Not sure helping your child set up a reasonable schedule or find the academic resources available to them is the same as saving them from their failure. In fact, especially for a freshman still navigating their entry into higher education it might be necessary. However, Accountability in this case would be some agreement that they will assure you they are meeting with their professors, advisors, going to the writing center or other academic supports to improve enough to be in good standing.</p>
<p>I’ve taken a great deal of comfort from reading this thread. I can’t talk about my situation…I’ve tried about ten times to post it here but I always delete it. I just wanted to say that I know what we all want for our kids is to live up to their full potential, no matter what it takes. Sometimes you just have to let them make their own mistakes and sometimes they make more than one mistake. Sometimes they choose a path that is not the path we choose for them. They will all have trials, even the ones who get through college just fine may find that they don’t have what it takes to get into law school or med school or they have trouble finding a job when they get out.</p>
<p>I know when I was a teenager that not everyone went to college…even though I grew up in an Ivy League community. Now it seems we are forcing everyone to go to college. Not everyone has to go to college…and many will be successful in their own way without it.</p>
<p>My sister got her college degree at the age of 47. There were a couple of really bumpy *decades *in there. She is now teaching at a community college. She loves it because she can truly relate to many of the students who aren’t on the straight and short path to academic super stardom.</p>
<p>I also appreciate this thread. </p>
<p>My own step-kid has been causing me heart attacks since I married his mother when he was in seventh grade, and probably her before that. Seriously, it is not a matter of whether he will go to some upper level school, but whether he will go to a CC or even graduate high school. (The main reason I’m on CC is for general interest and because of volunteer college help with students at our church).</p>
<p>Believe me, we tried everything there is to try, including couseling, etc. He’s a senior now, and about a year and a half ago, after a big time altercation, I decided I would help him if he asked, but I couldn’t face a near aneuryism every grading period, let alone every time an assignment was due. Since then, he’s done better actually, but I still wonder what he’s going to do next year. I’ve given him a few options, he wants to join the military (which his mom is completely against and I’m staying out of that). His own dad has never even met him. He’s a nice kid, but hates school, and isn’t inclined to listen to me. So I have just decided to stop killing myself over this. </p>
<p>I figure he’ll come around or not. I had a little bit of a circuitous route myself - basically dropping out after three years in school because of surfing and drinking (not in that order). But I eventually went back, got a couple technical degrees and a business type masters, and have had a good career. One good thing I have learned is how much heartache I must have caused my own parents during my little “detour”. </p>
<p>My opinion is that yes, we have to help and guide our kids to the best of our ability. But ultimately they have lives and so do we. And we won’t be much help if we are dead from the stress.</p>
<p>My husband’s sister flunked out of college, returned to college about a dozen years later and got stellar grades and went on to get an MBA. Many people who aren’t ready for college at ages 18 and even much older return and excel after they’ve matured.</p>
<p>I also taught college, and some of my top students were those who had flunked out initially. When they returned – typically on their own dime – they took college seriously and throughly appreciated the academics as well as the opportunities to pursue ECs related to things that interested them. Even though some were working as many as 30 hours a week while taking a full courseload, they still tended to be at the top of their classes.</p>
<p>Flunking out of college doesn’t mean a person will not succeed at other things or at college later in their lives.</p>
<p>Here is another thread [thread]849019[/thread] that has encouraging stories of people who took an “academic detour” or were “academic Lazaruses.”</p>
<p>Bovertine,
It sounds like your approach will be much better for your relationship with your stepkid. As you know from your personal experience, he will figure things out in his own way and own time. I suspect the stepkid is wondering what to do next year as well–should be interesting to see how it all plays out.</p>
<p>Being the “guide on the side” can sure beat being the “sage on the stage,” that no one listens to anyway.</p>
<p>Bovertine a nice “compromise” might be the Coast Guard or the Merchant Marines. The Coast Guard has some excellent opportunities both in terms of enlisted folk and those with college on their minds now or later. It’s alittle easier to “take” for moms and those that fear the activities in the Middle East and the Army/Navy/Marines.</p>
<p>^^^
Thanks, I’ll suggest it to him. Of course, assuming he graduates and they’ll take him. Problem is, he’s 18, so I don’t know if he’ll take my suggestion.</p>
<p>A couple other ideas I’ve thrown at him (and of course I’ll subsidize these things as necessary) -
- Go stay with his grandma in Lima, Peru for awhile. He seems to like it there on vacation, but after seeing how tough survival is down there, may decide to get more serious.
- Go work on his uncle’s farm for a while.
- Go work at his cousin’s restaurant in New York.<br>
- Try out community college, or a trade school of some sort.
- Get a job around our house, although not that easy these days.</p>
<p>Anyway, his mom still tries to insist on him studying. The one thing I do is try to tell him how hard life will be if he doesn’t even graduate high school, especially since he is this close. So first goal is just to get him through that. If he doesn’t grad high school (if he flunks a class or something) I’ll have to figure out how he can finsih up or get a GED or something and suggest that. I’m hoping and praying it doesn’t come to that, it would be a shame.</p>
<p>After that, we’ll have input, but since he’s 18 and doesn’t require our signature for anything anymore, he may just do what he wants.</p>
<p>Don’t mean to hijack the OP’s thread.</p>
<p>Bovertine,
Merchant Marine Academy in CA has become increasingly selective since they’ve had LOTS of applicants. That’s what they told us in 2005, when we toured with our S (who had NO interest). I understand many branches of service have also raised their standards since the economy has caused them to have increasing #s of qualified applicants.</p>
<p>It sounds like you’ve come up with quite a few good options. If worse comes to worse, your stepson will just have to learn the hard way & perhaps get a GED via exam. It does seem a pity, but I have known others who have come very close only to stop putting in the minimal effort to get the diploma & have to work at it afterwards so they could get on with their lives.</p>
<p>OP, I know you are shell shocked and still trying to figure this out, so maybe you are already rethinking this part. But I am dismayed at your suggestions that you try to sweep this under the rug with the next college he applies to and not mention it. Pretty much all college applications ask about previous colleges attended, and it would be an out-and-out lie (and unfair to the other applicants) to leave this off. This is part of natural consequences for your S. A painful lesson, but he is going to have to rebuild his academic credibility (much like rebuilding a credit score), and he is going to have to start much lower on the academic ladder to do it. It certainly can be done; as many posters have suggested, a year or two of strong academic performance at a community college or less prestigous local college could set him up for a transfer in a couple of years. But it would be unethical to not report this semester as requested by future college he applies to.</p>
<p>The other issue is that if a college does happen to admit a student & finds the student lied on the application, there can be sanctions, including having the student leave the school.</p>
<p>If you did IB in high school you wouldn’t be worrying about dropping out of college. You’d be worrying about why the a lot easier workload still does not get you above a 3.9.</p>
<p>A bunch of american high schools have complete BS AP classes that does nothing to prepare the student for college. Then they do well in AP, go to a top college, finds out it’s a different game, and dies. The guy in IB worked harder, actually did college work, and, even though has a worse GPA and couldn’t get into a top college, will ace the state school he goes to. </p>
<p>So, yeah…If you didn’t do IB in high school and is now crying at a top college because your high school’s APs were a joke and you cruised through with easy As i’ll just laugh my ass off. You probably would’ve flunked out in IB anyway despite your overinflated ego in getting your overinflated grades. And you probably didn’t even deserve to go to that top college.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>This isn’t IB elitism. I’m only referring to schools that have sucky AP programs that are super cheap and lands people in top schools because of overinflated evaluations of academic skills.</p>
<p>I disagree, Melin. I know a young lady who did IB in high school and went to a great university and nearly failed out because she spent all her time partying. It can happen to anyone. I worked with her last summer and she told me that the biggest problem for her was that IB meant she had no time for normal social activities in HS so when she got to college she went a little crazy because she could have social life.</p>
<p>As for your obvious angst with others, just remember, living well is the best revenge…go out and do the best you can with what you’ve achieved and don’t worry about what others say and do.</p>
<p>And another comment for dealing with kids who are not making it in college, I have a friend who told his sons when they approached HS graduation that they could choose from among the four E’s: Education, Employment, Enlistment or Eviction. I love that line. :D</p>
<p>^^^
great line</p>
<p>To the OP - it seems people are jumping all over you and I think all you are doing is thinking out loud. Someone said it really nicely on here, we celebrate in the spring getting into all these wonderful colleges and then reality sets in and kids struggle at college. Many kids struggle their first year. Some change colleges and some don’t. My advice: Give your kid a hug, tell him you love him and have him take some courses at a local CC. College Confidential is not reality, it is the super elite with kids with 4.0 GPA’s and 2370 SAT scores. There are many of us out there that have kids who are not the super elite and struggle with college work. That is the norm, not maintaining a 3.9 through college. Chin up!</p>
<p>^^Great advice, Collegedad. That’s what we did when S1 resigned military school within the first 48 hours. It wasn’t easy because initially I really wanted to slap him: S1 had been accepted ED to his military college but had his acceptance revoked in January when I listed “childhood asthma” on his medical forms. Who knew that asthma is a career killer in the military? I spent two months helping him with an appeal because he had outgrown the childhood asthma. We received a medical waiver and his acceptance was reinstated in March. </p>
<p>So when S1 resigned, I was more than devastated after working so hard to help him stay in. Picking him up was one of the most humiliating experiences in our lives. S1 was marched out of barracks and handed over to his parents in front of all his assembled peers. Humiliation for him pre-empted the anger, and all we could do was hug him - after we had driven away from the school, of course. (I have since been told by colleagues in the military, including instructors from the military academies, that dismissing students in front of their peers is NOT standard practice.)</p>
<p>This was a shattered kid that I registered at community college & sent off to classes 3 days later. I will be forever grateful to the CC counselor who looked him in the eye and said, “Son, I know that you will do well here.” And he did: S1 picked up the pieces, graduated with a 3.7 gpa, and transferred to our state flagship university. He is happy, his confidence has been restored, and he is set to graduate in May. </p>
<p>But collegedad’s advice was spot on: after failure, hug your kid, tell them you love them, and help them pick up the pieces no matter how much you want to smack them.</p>