<p>I appreciate all of your replays - the good ones and the painful ones! I did put myself out there for criticism so I do appreciate it. The reason we went for architecture is my son, since he was little, has always wanted to be an architect. He is a great artist. He has won all the art awards from elementary school to high school. He has always voiced that is the path he wanted to go. When it was application time he said he wanted to go for architecture. He did not do great on his SAT’s but had a really good GPA. He actually got into the architecture program, not the pre-arch, and I was told that it is harder to get in and easier to get out so I kept him in the program.And I did not write his essay. He actually did that.I have backed off now. He knows he has a first assignment. My husband and I told him now that he needs to have the assignment completed by the day we pay for the first semester. If he does not then we know he is not serious and we will not make payment. I know I have enabled him but have completely backed off now. He was the type of kid growing up that would cry and carry on so much if you did not help him and would even refuse to go to leave the house and go to school. Now that he is an adult he does not remember what he put us through, he just tells me I treated him like a baby.Thank you for all the responses.</p>
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<p>That seems reasonable!</p>
<p>pha516 - I think it’s a good plan for him to have the assignment completed before you pay for the first semester. Good job. Now you will see how serious he is about college. Did he take care of the college class schedule? And the roommate information? I sure hope so.</p>
<p>We had a contract with D1 before she went off to college. We told her that she needed to keep minimum 3.0 GPA for us to continue to pay for her school. She was a 4.0 student in HS, so we thought it was reasonable for us to expect that. It’s a lot of money for us to pay if she wasn’t going to take school seriously. We also required her to get a job on campus in order for her to keep her allowance When she decided to join a sorority, my H told her that she had to maintain a 3.5 to live in the house. D1 always knew we were serious when we cut a deal with her and we would follow through. </p>
<p>During D1’s first year, we were on top of her grades more, as in asking how she is doing on each exam. We no longer ask about her schoolwork now she is almost a senior. I don’t think it’s helicopting in keeping a close eye the first year of college because it’s a huge adjustment for young people. Some students require more monitoring, but it doesn’t mean they are not ready for college. D1 has always been very responsible, but I rather err on the conservative side. I have heard too often when parents didn’t know their kid was failing until the first report card. Some parents also do not like the idea of minimum GPA, but I feel at work my employer expects minimum performance from me, so there is no reason why I shouldn’t expect the same from my kid.</p>
<p>My advice is to stop everytime you start to say “we went for architecture” or the use of the word “we” and think about what you are saying. One of the interesting observations I’ve made is that in the family unit or a work unit or any “team” people easily abdicate responsibility if it appears that someone else is stepping up to voluntarily take that responsibility. If you tell your kids that they need to load the dishwasher or run a load of laundry or whatever and they don’t do it once and the parent steps in and does the task pretty soon the kid trys it again and again if the parent does it then the kid thinks it’s not necessary to do because it will get done by someone else. They know they might get yelled at but to them that’s not a big deal…the job got done. </p>
<p>It’s easy to fall into this role because we want our children to be successful. Little kids fall down and get a minor boo boo that requires nothing more than a clean and a bandaid and send them on their way and parents scoop them up, focus on the boo boo and treat it as if they broke a bone and the child wails even louder and louder and and if they forget an assignment going out the door to school our parental instincts are to get it to school so they don’t fail the assignment. It takes so much parental restraint to stop ourselves and tell us that the kids need to learn these little lessons and to learn to solve their own problems one tiny step at a time. </p>
<p>No one can predict if your son will step up once you are out of the picture and take on his responsibilities. By this time, the time they are leaving for college there are many entrenched behaviors. Frankly I’ve seen it enough times to know that it can be a crap shoot. But good for you that you are putting a toe in the sand and drawing the line. Stopping the use of “we” when it should be “he” is a major first step.</p>
<p>In defense, I’m not a huge proponent of pre-college “work” during the summer. These kids emotionally are a mess. They are no longer part of a high school group and they are not yet part of a college group. It’s a really drifty time. If you’ve ever lost your job it’s like that first morning when you wake up and realize you don’t have an office to go to. It can rock your world. Some people will immediately reach out to contacts and start looking for a new job, others will withdraw and need time to find their new reality. Some kids are looking forward to college and others are hanging back emotionally and are a touch afraid. Nothing about college is “real” to them.</p>
<p>I think the plan that the son needs to complete the assignment by the day that the parents pay is perfect, especially if that means that if he does not complete it, the parents will not pay.</p>
<p>The consequence makes a lot of sense, and isn’t vindictive or pushy, but practical. If he is not ready, things will work out eventually, and if he is ready, this gives him a chance to show it before he leaves.</p>
<p>None of us can really judge what the other has done, because we don’t live with the particular teen being described. I think this poster has gotten her son to this point of opportunity, whether appropriately or not (and I would lean towards acceptance of whatever reality she was dealing with) and by posting here, is showing a good awareness that from here on in, it is up to him.</p>
<p>Often a parents actions are determined by the personality and status of the child, not the other way around. </p>
<p>It sounds like this family is making a lot of progress in figuring this all out, and I wish them good luck!</p>
<p>I, for one, cannot imagine spending the major bucks for tuition, room and board, for a kid who is “immature and disrespectful.” My child had to earn the privelege of a college education by making good HS grades, working part-time to share expenses, and following all house rules. And she can tell you that we almost did not pay her tuition deposit because of a major curfew violation. We had a serious discussion with her of the “as long as you live under our roof and we pay the bills, you will follow our rules” type. But - I did help her put together a summer time line of what was due and when. It has helped her stay on task.</p>
<p>You said your son is immature, a lot of 18 year old boys are. Nursing him through this, which includes sending him to a mental heath care professional, will only prolong the problem. He needs to fail and then learn to rely upon himself to pick himself up and get back on his feet. If he gets back on his feet because you or some psychologist eased him along then he isn’t really getting back on his feet on his own. He has to do it on his own to build the self-confidence he needs to independently navigate through life. </p>
<p>Do you really want a forty year old son living in your house filled with resentment toward you because he is dependent on you?</p>
<p>pha516…I really don’t think what you are going through with your son is that unusual. For a lot of kids, college is an abstract concept until the day you drop them off. My son is currently more interested in socializing with his friends than anything else. It’s really their last remaining time to be together before they all scatter and it’s also a scary time for many. They will be leaving the only people with whom they have ever lived to go off to a new place, where they know almost no one. The summer before college can be rough time for many kids. </p>
<p>My son is a master procrastinator. I didn’t do his applications for him but I nagged, threatened and cajoled every step of the way and looking back it was really all about me and my anxiety, not him. He got all of his applications in by their due dates and got into one of his reach schools to boot. He’s done this all of his academic career - waiting until the last minute and then rising to the occasion and getting it done and done well. If that’s your son’s standard operating procedure, I wouldn’t worry too much. The nice thing about going away to college is it forces a lot of kids to sink or swim and many of them find they can swim quite well on their own once the water-wings are gone.</p>
<p>"I think the plan that the son needs to complete the assignment by the day that the parents pay is perfect, especially if that means that if he does not complete it, the parents will not pay.</p>
<p>The consequence makes a lot of sense, and isn’t vindictive or pushy, but practical. If he is not ready, things will work out eventually, and if he is ready, this gives him a chance to show it before he leaves."</p>
<p>Sounds like a good plan. The mom now needs to completely back off from nagging S about this, and she needs to stand by her decision.</p>
<p>If the son completes the required assignment, I strongly suggest that the parents impose a minimum college gpa for the parents to keep paying for his education, and I suggest that they expect the son to earn some money during the summer or school year or to take out loans to help pay his way.</p>
<p>I had a son who was similar in that while he said he wanted to go to college and was a very smart student (though he had mediocre grades), I was the one who did all of the work to find a college that met his needs. I stood over him to make sure he got his applications done in a timely way.</p>
<p>He went to college – partied hard (He had never partied before. He didn’t like the students in our city, so he had had no social life in high school) and flunked out with a gpa of below 1.0.</p>
<p>Looking back, I realize that his reasons for wanting to go to college were immature. He wanted to go to college because although he had always hated school, he felt college was necessary for a good job. He also despised our city and state, and wanted to live away from home. He had no academic reasons for wanting to go to college, and that should have been a big red flag about how seriously he’d take his education.</p>
<p>As for your son’s wanting to be an architect: There’s a difference between dreams and plans. People who have plans will take the actions to put those plans in place. Maybe your son dreams of a fantasy life of being an architect without including in those dreams the actions – including working very hard in school – that are necessary to achieve that dream. Lots of young people have those kind of dreams…</p>
<p>Your son sounds like a good candidate for a gap year in which he’d be expected to live at home paying rent or live on his own while working a job that he himself finds.</p>
<p>My younger S – who was a smart slacker in high school – took a gap year as an Americorps Volunteer after high school after he never got around to applying to college (I had learned my lesson with older son, so didn’t stand over younger S to make sure he got applications in). </p>
<p>He chose to live at home and pay rent, and learned a great deal about himself and the work world. He’s now a rising senior in college ( He did all of the work for applying to college during his gap year) and is a Dean’s List student there. He also works summers and during the school year and has taken out some loans to help pay his way there. Having some skin in the game also helps students take college seriously.</p>
<p>Good luck with your son. He is like a bunch of other kids that don’t realize what they are getting into when they start college.</p>
<p>The good news (or bad news) is that the achitecture curriculum and ridiculous demand on time for projects will cause him to get focused in the very first semester. So, he will either get with the program, or he will realize that architecture is not a good degree plan for him.</p>
<p>If it’s any consolation, it’s not unusual for half the freshman students in architecture and engineering to change majors very early in their college careers.</p>
<p>Proud_mom is right about letting your son fail. Sometimes, failure is a good teaching tool. I can point to something that happened last year to my youngest son. He was taking a Spanish I class as an eighth grader. The teacher always assigned homework, but rarely collected it. So, one night, he didn’t do it. The next morning, she collected it. He got a zero. That zero cost him an A that marking period. That hurt. Now my son does all his homework. </p>
<p>Kids mature at different rates. As a teacher, I have seen some students ready to handle college when they were high school sophomores and juniors. I also have seen some decide that they need a year or two at community college to develop better study habits or learn to juggle a job and classes.</p>
<p>The idea of giving your son some good organizational skills will be invaluable. My son, who is a rising college sophomore, asked that we purchase a new dry erase unit that has a calendar, a place where there is a to-do list and a cork area to pin up something. He always seems to have a to-do list going. He likes the visual – as he finishes, he checks it off. Sure, there are times I still remind him of things – like he had to e-mail housing the other day about something. Perhaps if you and your son go shopping, and you let him select some items that will help organize his world better, things will go better for him. BTW, my youngest son selected a dry erase unit, too. His is a little more simple, but it works for him.</p>
<p>There are counseling center workshops in most college campuses that teach organizing skills.</p>
<p>Both of my sons have ADD/ADHD as do I. When we want to be organized, all of us can figure out tools and other things to use in order to be organized. </p>
<p>It is amazing how focused and organized younger S became in college. He loves his college. He loves his major. He loves his friends. He wants to stay there. He knows he won’t stay there if he drops below a 3.0 because he’d lose the merit aid that allows us to afford that college. </p>
<p>As a freshman, he compensated for having the partying roommate from hell and living in the dorm known for partying by spending lots of time in the library.</p>
<p>Where there’s a will, there’s a way…</p>
<p>If your son isn’t up to the challenge, that will indicate he’s not ready for college, and needs to be in the workplace supporting himself.</p>
<p>Time will come when your son become interested in college or his life, but it does not seems to be NOW.</p>
<p>I was totally disinterested in acadamics in my Highschool. I had a tought time trying even to get a passing grade. I had to repeat my first year of highschool and had to make up some grades just to graduate. In the country I came from, we had to take college entrance exam in order to get into colleges, trade schools included, I manage to get a zero in Math, as a result, I was not able to get into any of those 100 colleges or trade schools. I took the exam twice and to no avail, when I was 20, I had to be drafted into milltary as a PFC I, yes DRAFT. The draft lasted two years, but my parents were still optimistic about my future, so they sent me to a college in the USA. When I arrived, I had two suite cases and tuitions paid. I was alone in middle of NYS and no where to go, no friends. I had to start from scratch. From then on, I realized I had to do good to survive. I managed myself very well in that no-ranking LAC and many times I was on the dean’s list. I graduated in 3 years with honor and worked in many great companies such as HP, KPMG, ABC TV and GE capital to name a few.</p>
<p>I cannot say I am successful in a sense, but the morale behind my story is that a person has his time to attain maturity, give your son a little bit more time and let him go FOR NOW.</p>
<p>I had a slightly different take on the original post. Isn’t it possible that this is just a kid who wants to take ownership of this? I really think if I were in his shoes with my mom bugging me every day to do a college assignment, it’d be the absolutely last thing I’d be doing that day.</p>
<p>Have you tried letting go? Let him do the assignment when he wants? Let him take the consequences if he doesn’t get it done? Maybe he just wants this to be his experience and not yours.</p>
<p>^ I agree with this post and with others who have argued about letting the son have the chance to fail. I completely disagree with pulling him out, threatening to cut off his financial support for college, etc., simply because he is clearly resisting the parental nagging. Let him fail his first semester. Just be sure to inform him in advance – and in writing – that if he flunks out the first semester, you’ll reconsider the whole college thing.</p>
<p>This situation sort of reminds me of a useful article I read when my kids were little. The author said that if you want your children to learn to clean up around the house, you have to let them clean up. This means, that if you want them to sweep the kitchen floor, you have to let them do it in their own clumsy, inefficient way. The longer you put it off, saying to yourself, “They can’t do it as well as I can,” the more you drill into them that you’ll always do the work for them, that they aren’t capable of being independent.</p>
<p>Simply back off. Stop talking about college altogether. If you want to be helpful, you could simply print up a list of due dates and leave it at that. If he’s ready on the day he has to leave; great. If not, send him off and let him tell you what needs to be shipped.</p>
<p>I would not have done what you did, nor do I advocate it to any parent, but I do know a number of parents who did the same thing, and their kids did fine once they went to college. Did what they had to do, just as in high school, and grew up enough in the four years to be more proactive and independent. So… so much for conventional wisdom. Not to say there are not kids who just flunk out from disinterest when parents have done this sort of thing, but the kids I know who did not make it through college did a reasonable amount of work and participation on their apps. They just fell prey to the many pitfalls and temptations at college.</p>
<p>I was more proactive than I wanted to be with my kids, being mindful of deadlines, and making sure that certain things got done, though I did not DO any of the stuff. Did a lot of nagging, threatening, pleading, reminding… but that is just the story of my life for anything and everything with my kids. I did worry that they were not going to be independent enough to get through school, and there were occasions when my fears were realized and we had some bad situations. I don’t think filling out the whole app and doing it all themselves would have prevented those predicaments. More to do with opportunistic situations. </p>
<p>Sadly, the kids who do the worst in college, with the highest flunk out rate are the kids whose parents are the least involved, not the most involved.</p>
<p>". If he’s ready on the day he has to leave; great. If not, send him off and let him tell you what needs to be shipped. "</p>
<p>Let him know that if things need to be shipped due to his disorganization, you will ship on your own schedule, and you’ll expect him to pay for the shipping costs.</p>
<p>OP, I hear you. You are not alone. Some college freshmen are more ‘ready’ than others. I may differ from other posters in this opinion, but I think now is the time for you to push, as you have, to get him to college. Then it’s hands off, his responsibility to succeed or fail, but somewhere in the process, he’ll grow up. Oldest was in the same boat. We spent some $ that first year OOS and it didn’t pan out for his major (be prepared for a change), but he grew up and it was worth every penny in our book. He’s a little older, wiser, and knows what it takes now to succeed.</p>
<p>Well, I researched the colleges, drove myself to all the campus tours, filled out all the FA paperwork and was the first in my family to attend college. You think I would have been totally invested in my success, but no at 17 I was still into partying like a rock star and was not asked to continue into the final 2 years of the program.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until I had an infant and a toddler(just to make things really difficult) that I went back to school and paid for it myself by working at night, that I graduated summa cum laude with the highest gpa in the class. I think it was both the fact that I was paying for each class and the fact I wanted my kids to have a mother that graduated college that I was finally able to motivate myself.
Just sayin… it’s a crapshoot sometimes.</p>