<p>I love the Gilmore Girl’s analogy. Because we knew all the characters well when this happened, we knew it would be short lived and was just a teenage rebellion.</p>
<p>Patience, I think the whole cousin thing has thrown you off and not let you focus on the real issues. Why is this kid who obviously did very well in HS having such a hard time in college?</p>
<p>Earlier you told us DD made some changes prior to college. Sounds like she was determined to do better socially and reinvent herself like many do in college. My guess is that this was harder than she thought, she didn’t have all the tools and maybe lack of success on that front has derailed her.</p>
<p>Patience, your D’s social behavior with her peers sounds reasonable to me. She is involved with groups and has a few friends. It’s easy to see why she would be attracted to your cousin with all the wooing and instant intimacy suddenly available to her. There’ none of the hard work of making friends of your own. It’s certainly not unusual for freshmen to have trouble finding their own social circle, especially for those who are not into alcohol. My own D, a freshman, is contending with this right now. Even though she is socially adept, she is having trouble finding her “tribe” – she doesn’t drink, and she is also thousands of miles away from home in a completely different social milieu. Of course, I don’t know whether your D’s social problems are within this normal range, or whether there is real trouble there, but I would agree that your counselor is the best person to go for advice.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think it’s fair to call you an overly controlling mother. To me, you don’t come across that way in your posts. I realize this is as much conjecture on my part as any other opinion offered here, just wanted to point out that there are other pov’s.</p>
<p>Given your tangled family history with your cousin and your own sense of moral ethics, it may not be so easy for you to disentangle yourself from her. I would worry that she would indeed ask your D to be medical power of attorney if you refused. It doesn’t sound like she has many options, especially in the family. You might consider that even though it would be incredibly onerous for you, at least you are an adult with far more experience and self awareness than your 18 year old daughter and far better equipped to handle such a responsibility.</p>
<p>Sounds like your cousin has a personality disorder. H and I have had to deal with some “problem” relatives–you have my sympathy. I hope your D will figure it out for herself.
I don’t really have any advice, but the grade drop is a bad sign. I’d talk to your D about that.</p>
<p>" would worry that she would indeed ask your D to be medical power of attorney if you refused. It doesn’t sound like she has many options, especially in the family. You might consider that even though it would be incredibly onerous for you, at least you are an adult with far more experience and self awareness than your 18 year old daughter and far better equipped to handle such a responsibility."</p>
<p>I don’t think that the OP should accept the responsibility to save her D from doing it.</p>
<p>Medical power of attorney is a very serious role, and one should think very seriously about its ramifications. It’s not the OP’s fault that the cousin lacks close friends. The OP doesn’t herself seem to be emotionally close enough to the cousin or to share the same values so as to be a good person to make such decisions for the cousin.</p>
<p>Because it’s such a serious issue that most young people don’t have to deal with, seems to me that it would be reasonable for the OP to bring the subject up with her D, and let her D know what the ramifications are of accepting such a responsibility. I don’t think, though, that the OP should feel responsible for preventing her D’s taking on that role if the D decides to do so and the cousin asks her.</p>
<p>Patience–I think backing off your relationship with your cousin is appropriate–you don’t have to call and see her everytime you visit D, nor should you. And you don’t have to take all her calls. You’re angry with her, so pull back, I say. Someone posted, and I agree, that cousin is obsessed with both of you. Keep us posted.</p>
<p>Regarding the grades:
Mid term grades were 1 A, 2 Bs, one C+. I have talked to my d about academic progress and grades during the winter break and even more recently. I explained that it was important for her to figure out what she could have doine differently regardless of whether she passes, gets a D or gets a C. So that she can plan how to handle next semester. She admitted the following: that procrastination was the killer in the 2 large freshman classes which had much reading but no regular assignments- just midterm and final. Letting all that reading go caused a serious backlog from which it was almost impossible to recover. She also skipped a few lectures in each of these courses because attendance was not taken. </p>
<p>She also indicated that the two other courses had regular assignments or such a small precept that it would have been obviously humiliating if she had not kept up with the reading. It was clear that she had done some real thinking about why she was in this position. For next semester she is signed up to take courses that have either regular assignments that “force” you to stay on track or very small seminars that will involve a lot of writing and discussion of readings. She feels that this will be a better line up for success for her. She will, however, have to take a few more of the big courses to satisfy core requirements, but hopefully her habits will be better ingrained by sophomore year when she will be taking them. </p>
<p>She is only required to take 4 courses per semester. She has signed up for 5 next semester (one of which is a music performance course). She will also be working in the cafeteria in addition to orchestra. I questioned whether this extra load was wise- she maintains that the busier she is, the more on track she will stay. She said she was “deceived” by how easy things seemed earlier this semester, since there wasn’t a lot of regular work required and allowed herself to fritter away a lot of time that should have been spent reading and prepping. She said that a lot of the “fritter” was either time spent on facebook (which I can attest to)or hanging out after dinner chatting up other students.<br>
In a way, I can almost see her trying so hard to make social contact that she overdid her social attempts to the detriment of her academics. Then we have the time spent away with my cousin and we have little time to figure out how to manage the courseload. </p>
<p>I had recently read an article that I shared with her that indicated that college students should be doing 40-50 hrs per week on average in academic work throughout the semester- this includes classtime. Obviously most of the time spent working is outside of class. She seemed to find that info helpful as a way to help her plan out her study time. </p>
<p>This would seem that it is an academic transition thing- that no matter how much prior explanation was given to her about how college work is different than hs work, she really didn’t “get it” until she experienced it. </p>
<p>I had expected the difficulty transitioning from hs to college type work and time management. And I think it does account for a lot. However, the situation with my cousin undoubtedly exacerbated it, although my D did not indicate that time spent with the cousin was a factor in any way. I think it is part of the issue, but my D has not yet admitted that.</p>
<p>It seems to me that your daughter is showing insight into her grades, which I don’t think were so low as to guarantee a high degree of concern particularly since they were midterm grades first semester of college. Her idea of taking a slightly tougher course load and working so as to be inspired to organize her time better also makes sense to me. The more I did in college, the better was my gpa.</p>
<p>"However, the situation with my cousin undoubtedly exacerbated it, although my D did not indicate that time spent with the cousin was a factor in any way. I think it is part of the issue, but my D has not yet admitted that.</p>
<p>The same thing, though, probably would have happened if your D had done the partying that many freshmen do particularly first semester. They also tend not to let their parents know about how their partying affected their grades, but the ones who were highly motivated, high gpa students in high school tend to see their midterm grades as a wake-up call and then get back on track. It’s normal for students to not admit at all to parents how much their socializing caused lower grades than their abilities would have predicted.</p>
<p>If she’s taking a music performance course with a group – chorus, orchestra, band – she’ll also probably make friends through that group, and combined with the performances will probably reduce the time she spends with her middle aged cousin.</p>
<p>Patiencema…I’ve just got caught up on the whole situation. Lots of good advice here. Listen to your therapist, let the chips fall where they may. It sounds to me like your cousin will be suffocating your daughter before too long and your daughter will grow uncomfortable with the “Fatal Attraction” scenario and will distance herself. It does sound like DD is keeping busy and that’s encouraging. When you get too overwhelmed by it all pray to St. Jude, and hang in there!</p>
<p>The only question I have not yet broached with my D about grades is this-
since mid term grades were something of a wake up call (she really hated the C+) , then why is she now even lower at the end of the semester? Why didn’t she change her ways after midterms- why did she actually seem to get worse (C+ to D) regarding the procrastination?</p>
<p>She has already made good friends with her music course mates- it is a chamber music course for which they had to audition. She organized the group- found them, selected music, rehearsed with them for the audition and will spend the next semester very close to them. She is the only girl in the quartet.</p>
<p>Oaks- St. Jude and I are real close already! He never fails me!</p>
<p>“She has already made good friends with her music course mates- it is a chamber music course for which they had to audition. She organized the group- found them, selected music, rehearsed with them for the audition and will spend the next semester very close to them. She is the only girl in the quartet.”</p>
<p>This sounds really good. If she ends up hanging out with them a lot, too, she may taper off on the cousin on her own.</p>
<p>As for the grade, the “D” could have been due to an unusually difficult exam or one that included lots of info from the first part of the course.</p>
<p>No further discussion is really required with my D about grades and how to better herself for next semester. She has already identified procrastination and time mgt issues and has a plan to address her weaknesses there for next semester. In addition, she is already aware of the sliding scale payment consequences for falling below certain benchmarks in GPA. Since she is highly motivated by money, the boundaries and financial scenario we have put in place is bound to help. It’s fair, appeals to her motivating interests, and makes perfect sense. </p>
<p>The big issue now is that both my D and my cousin are hiding things from me. The goal is to alter the situation, if possible, to allow them both to feel as if they have nothing to hide. The way to alter the situation is me and my approach. Even though I have backed off and not said much to either one throughout the semester about this issue, I am nonetheless the bad guy in their eyes. Even though my cousin is the one making me out to be the bad guy, I have to be the one to change. The way to change this dynamic is to openly say that I have no problem with their seeing each other and to find some positive things to say about my cousin’s actions. This will encourage my D to talk more freely with me about their times together so that I could then be in the loop and if necessary gently probe the healthiness of the situation with my D. On the cousin side, my OKness will allow her to open up more and not incite her to try to get my daughter to hide things. If she does still encourage hiding, my D will not be likely to want to continue it if she knows that I am OK with their getting together. I should also consider whether I can in any way be “nice”, “sweet” , non threatening and more involved with my cousin rather than the pulling away I have been doing. I understand the value of this last point, but cannot get there until I get through the anger I still feel.</p>
<p>nsm- no- my D admitted that she let the reading go all through the semester, not just in the weeks before midterms. The final only covered the second half of the course.</p>