Is this helicoptering?

Parents Forum
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<p>I do want to offer one other perspective, since another thing that stood out in the original post was the indeterminacy of your situation...</p>

<p>My family has some very close friends with boys the same age as my sister and I. The father was diagnosed with ALS some 5 years ago, when the boys were just headed into HS and college, respectively. He's been repeatedly told that he won't live longer than a few months, but the family has always chosen to live 'life as normal'--keeping the older boy away at school, even during large parts of the summer (as necessary or desired for internships and summer school), and moving the younger son to another country for sports (next year, he'll also head away to college). When they made their decisions, this particular family had no way of knowing whether they were doing the right thing, but the fact that they all kept 'on track' allowed the boys' father to see both of them graduate + to see one drafted into a pro sports league...three things that he very much hoped to experience with his family. It was against all odds that this worked out, but it did. It's a difficult and confusing situation for all involved, but one that they're currently handling without regrets.</p>

<p>I know that this anecdote is no more representative than any other, but the important point is that there is simply no right or obvious answer in times like these, and the indeterminacy factor is no help at all. </p>

<p>Best wishes to your family as you work through this.</p>

<p>ETA: It's important to remember that we don't actually know where the daughter prefers to be right now. Anyone who's ever known a young girl knows that she's probably feeling a million different things, none of them crystal clear even to her. Despite struggling and wanting to be with her family, she may also feel that school is the best place for her at this time...</p>

<p>E(again)TA: Cross-posted with OP.</p>

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<p>Well, this makes things clearer. I hope the dean and/or advisor can steer her toward help or be the help she needs to get through this. My heart goes out to your family. My Dad was 54 when he died after a month in a coma. It's just hard. Some in the family stayed there the whole time-- some had to get back to their lives--the coma could have lasted months or years.</p>

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<p>Wow, this is just so sad and incomprehensibly hard to imagine this road you are walking. I've been thinking about you and your family and daughter all day long.</p>

<p>One thing I wanted to add is that during the very dark and confusing episodes of grief and loss I've experienced, I found it very useful to not operate as I usually do; that is, to not operate with a "master plan". I think so many of us (and I imagine your daughter might be this way too), are so used to being able to think far ahead with plans, implement and stick to them. As if there is one long straight road and you just have to get on it and go. </p>

<p>And what I learned over time is there are times when life calls for a VERY different approach, one that requires working with a tiny time horizon. When I realized this- that I really only had to worry about THIS week, or THIS month, it really was liberating. This is because every day brings something different, both events, and feelings, and you learn as you go how best to cope. </p>

<p>So I guess what I'm saying is can you find a way to liberate you both by embracing a see-how-it-goes approach? You talked a lot and decided to try school. From what you write, however, it now sounds like that route may not be working <em>right now</em> for her. So maybe now would be a time to try coming home, and wear that on for size for awhile, to see if its better. By that I mean what she wants and thinks is best for her, not what others want or expect from her- it is uniquely her grief and experience and she needs to be where she wants to be). </p>

<p>It may be the case that it's not 'either/or' ; there is no right way to go, or certainly not one right way for the whole path through. What feels right this week or month may not be right the next. Especially when we have so little experience with such tragedy and complex feelings. </p>

<p>I understand it is so hard to 'play it by ear' with the constraints of a school semester and being a continent away, but some examples might to try to come home for the remainder of this term, and see if that works better for her. Or drop some classes to give herself space to cope. Or say she'll finish this term and then try a term at home. Or some other creative variation. </p>

<p>My only real point is keeping as short a time horizon as is humanly possible and <em>give oneself permission to change one's mind</em>, and change it again and again, as one's self-needs arise.</p>

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<p>Lost in tranlat, like many on this thread my advice will be to let her come home. What you and your family are going through is very hard. </p>

<p>As a person who once went through a similar situation, I feel it is in the best interest of everyone she be allowed to come home. It took me years to accept and let go my guilt that I did not take the right decision to go see my mother before I lost her to cancer one spring. Until I did, I had this constant anger against those who adviced me to wait a few months until summer. </p>

<p>It looks like even if you keep in touch with her, it is not going to help her to concentrate on school work. Look into the school rules to see how she can take an incomplete this semester and then come back to finish it later. If withdrawing this semester causes financial strain now, it can be resolved. </p>

<p>Your daughter needs a hug and you need it too from her. Take care. My prayers are with you.</p>

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<p>In continuation to my previous post, I din't get to read your last post before posting it. (I had started it a while earlier and ended up finishing it a few minutes back). Since she wants to be in school, see if you can be in touch with a close friend of her at school. You will get to know how she is coping from a peer's point of view too. Take care.</p>

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<p>No, student615, that was not silly at all. I've been thinking, "Skype" since I read the OP and all the subsequent posts.</p>

<p>Lost in trans, it would be my hope that, if communication were easier and more commonplace, it would become less stressful.</p>

<p>Please do all you can to take care of yourself. You are carrying a sad and heavy burden. It also gives you credibility as you urge your daughter to seek the support she deserves and needs.</p>

<p>You are absolutely not helicoptering. You are actually behaving in a very restrained manner. It does appear to me, after reading your posts, that the time for more involvement or intervention is at hand. As others have suggested here, the time may also have come to reconsider the decision to send her to school. While she may not be able to "help" her father, she may need your hugs and to help and support you. She may now believe that coming home is some kind of failure and that she needs to "see this through." In her young logic, this makes sense. I hope that counseling will allow her to give yourself permission to change her mind.</p>

<p>Bless you and your family.</p>

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<p>I agree that things might improve if you could communicate on a more regular basis, so that a call does not panic your D. Do you ever use SKYPE or JAJAH? They are so easy to use, and with jajah, you can initiate the call via the internet, but then speak to each other on regular phones or cell phones for pennies. If you have a cell plan with free incoming calls, it is pennies a minute for calls even to/from Europe. A regular phone call might help, even if you just make small talk about her day, your day, etc. You could gage her mood, etc. And a set call every 1-2 days or every 2-3 days might be a pattern that would lessen some stress. </p>

<p>If your D wants to stay in school, and if her dad is in a coma with no know prognosis for the immediate future or otherwise, I agree with your periodic communications with the dean and her advisor. It is NOT helicoptering. You are dealing with an unfortunate and unpredictable situation. </p>

<p>My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I think you are dealing with this in an extraordinary manner. You are a good mom. Get rest when you can. And come here to relieve your own stress when you need to!</p>

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<p>Lost in translat, you have made up your mind, but the suggestions from others about communication changes are very good.</p>

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<p>You should absolutely contact the Dean of Students at your D's school. This is what he/she is there for . . . to help students through a crisis. The Dean (and staff) will help your D get the support she needs and will check in with her regularly. And when the end comes, they will help her deal with the necessary arrangements.</p>

<p>Call the Dean today!</p>

<p>And my best to you. I can't imagine the pain.</p>

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<p>Lost in translat, you are doing your best to be a good Mom to your daughters under terribly painful circumstances, and should not be second guessed. Feel free to come back at any time to vent, share, muse, whatever you need.</p>

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<p>You've contacted the deans appropriately and are considering Skype. You also asked her what she wants to do and got a clear reply, so I'll only add this.. </p>

<p>I took this group of sentences from your last posting as important:</p>

<p>
[quote]
She truly does not want to leave college this semester. She just feels that her work is not up to standard, especially her father's high standards. Were she home, there would be little for her to do except fret, and wait.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Perhaps, then your role is to support her as much as possible that her decision is okay. If things were normal, she'd be achieving to a high standard, but things aren't normal. So teach her to adjust her expectations of herself.</p>

<p>My favorite phrase to people in such situations is, "Sometimes, to survive is to triumph." </p>

<p>Under the circumstances, if all she does is manage to hang in there for the term (that's her choice, as you said) then it doesn't matter what are the grades. The "proud of her achievements" dad would certainly understand that simply continuing on is a worthy "achievement." </p>

<p>I'm thinking you have to give her a way to accept her academic performance level and not beat herself up over THAT. Just bring down the expectations, or think of times when the Dad also recognized someone soldiering through when it was tough. She needs to tell herself that her Dad would be proud of her, regardless of the grades, this particular term.</p>

<p>My heart goes out to your entire family.</p>

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<p>Absolutely spot on, paying3. Very, very wise, insightful, and helpful.</p>

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<p>Yes I do need to vent and am incredibly grateful for your presence on this forum as well as advice. D's advisor wrote back a very insightful mail about D. In his opinion, it was the right choice to send her back from college. He says that she is/will be getting help not only from professionals but also from her peers, and that he is keeping a close eye on her. He told me that one of her fears was of losing her merit scholarship and that he has managed to set her mind at rest on that subject, and all her profs have told her that she can have extra time if needed for assignments.
As many of you have said, the most important (and difficult for me) is to come to terms with the fact that this is not a time for thinking or planning ahead, but just trying to get through each moment as it comes. I've made sure that D has enough money to get a plane ticket, and she knows that if she needs to come back, for whatever reason, she will be welcomed home.</p>

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<p>Lost in Translation:</p>

<p>I have just found this thread and want to say how very very sorry I am about your husband and the rest of your family. What a very sad and stressful situation for you all, compounded by distance.
You did absolutely the right thing to contact the dean of students (or whoever). Most of the time, professors are very willing to cut some slack for students who are experiencing personal difficulties, knowing very well that they have to have an effect on academic performance. With her mind at ease over her scholarship, your D can concentrate on just doing what she can--it may not be what she would be capable of doing in ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. She should not beat herself over a less than stellar performance. To put things in context, I had a terrible time in my first year in college, but managed to right myself sufficiently to be admitted to grad school later.
Like your D, I had a plane ticket available. It was very comforting to know that I could use it if I wanted to. Knowing that I had that escape hatch made it easier for me to concentrate on doing better one step at a time. I hope your D feels the same way.
Your whole family will be in my thoughts.</p>

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<p>Lost in Translation,
You and your D are handing a very difficult situation well.
My thoughts are with you.</p>

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<p>My mom died of an aneurysm when I was eight, she was in a coma for the days before she died and I will never forget those days I spent by her side just holding and kissing her hand and stroking her hair and touching her face and telling her how much I love her and that I will never be bad ever again when she got better. I am almost 18 now, but a part of me is still and will forever be stuck at eight years old. I don't know what your family believes, but it's in times like these that you realize what you think matters in life really doesn't matter. And it's in times like these when there is absolutely no hope that you can realize that hope is really the only thing there is. If you cry out with an honest and broken heart I promise He will answer.
Things are obviously different when you're eight years old and lose a parent and when you're in college facing that possibility. When you're eight your parents are your life, when you're in college you're finally starting to build your own. But a child is still a child, and there is nothing that can replace the last moments you spend with your parents, even if it's just watching them breathe on a hospital bed.
The guilt you carry when your parent dies is immeasurable. And no matter how much you know that nothing is your fault, that you have nothing to be guilty about, it still haunts you. I think your daughter is torn between wanting to do the “right” and noble thing and stay at school, to believe that that is what her father would want her to do, to fulfill those expectations he had of her. She closes up because she doesn’t want you to see her pain, she wants you believe, to make herself believe, that she is fine. But she is distressed and obviously not fine. I never got to grieve the loss of my mother because I instantly became the strong one for my family, I did the “right” and noble thing and held it together. I didn’t want to be selfish and let myself fall apart when everything else around me, my family, was falling apart too. The effects of this have echoed throughout my life, in ways I could never have imagined. Deep rooted issues is all that can come of it. I know things are more intense for me because I was so young and it completely shaped my entire character, but when you don’t get to properly mourn, pain that you can never let go of becomes etched as a part of you. Tell her that you want her home, because you need her there. Because you miss her and you want to spend time with her. Let her be a hero in disguise. No matter what your daughter says, I would say, baby, you’re coming home.
Let it be a blessing. Let your daughter have time, not to wait around and fret, but to love and reflect. Let her find herself in the midst of her family, where she belongs, not at school in another country. Don’t let her get lost, in her school work, in her guilt, in her pain, because if she stays at school that will be the only way for her to cope and carry on. Let her be selfish in her pain when you’re allowed to be, when you’re supposed to be, so that she can properly mourn, properly build herself up again. Otherwise, years down the road, she’ll find herself wanting to be selfish in her pain and carrying it forever like I do.
You can be victorious, even in death. Life is beautiful that way.</p>

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<p>revolcgirl, I know that your post was very meaningful to me and I hope will have some insights for the OP.</p>

<p>I do want to express a bit of a different experience re the death of a parent (respectfully, as I hope you will understand). My father died when I was in college. I did not feel any guilt about his death. I think this may well be the difference between losing a parent as a very young child, as you did. And losing a parent as a young adult.</p>

<p>As you say, we are always "children" to our parents, but I think your experience of immeasurable guilt may not be the experience this daughter will have. No way of knowing if her experience will be more like mine or more like yours. But I wouldn't want Lost in Translation to worry that her daughter will of necessity feel immeasurable guilt. She might not. She will mourn, I'm sure we all know that. Whether guilt will be a part of it, I don't know and can only hope not.</p>

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<p>That was a beautiful post, revolcgirl.</p>