Recreating a closed thread from past CC because now my oldest is a Junior and I’m living the frustration…
My super student who knew what she wanted to do with her life… is now second-guessing everything. Not sure she wants to go to college at all, let alone one that would be a bit selective or $$$. Gets zero sleep. Except when she naps through dinner and then snacks at 2:00 am because she fell asleep as soon as she came home. Says she’ll flunk out of college anyway, so we should save our money, lol. (Hey, can I get that in writing? ) She applied willingly and was accepted to a precollege this summer but now acts that it was only to please us – and doesn’t want to go after all.
She is otherwise having an exceptional year in high school. Found a teacher-mentor who has been a wonderful influence on her. Top GPA, etc. but more importantly, doing really interesting things & making her own path. Getting noticed.
Please tell me this is normal teenage rebellion. I know I need to practice reverse psychology and seem uninterested in the college search. But that takes mental energy and I’m exhausted too, with 3 teenagers, and have always been a terrible actor anyway. Yes, I trust her and No, she does not check her email.
College is going to be a BIG investment, and guess what: I care.
At one point I had 5 teens, #5 didn’t make it through first semester freshman year in college, he’s playing Xbox right now. My oldest said I had a good run (and I did).
It sounds like the summer academic program may not be the best idea. Can she work, or volunteer? Does she like animals, or is she interested in hospital volunteering? Would she like to work and make money? Any arts or outdoor interests that might have summer programs?
She is only a junior. In early senior year I told my son that he did not have to go to college (he was not showing interest in visits etc.), left and when I came home he had made a color coded chart! So that reverse psychology does work when the timing is right! (And I meant it). He landed at what some might call a top college.
Your daughter does not need to know what she wants to study or what career she wants at this point. Many colleges (not UC’s!) don’t require a major until end of sophomore year. Undecided is fine.
Is she burned out? Sounds like she is still doing work. But that does not exclude burnout.
I don’t want to scare you and have only seem a brief post with scanty details but some of what you wrote MIGHT, and I emphasize might, be an indicator of a mental health issue. Lack of sleep, loss of interest, changes in attitude and chaotic schedule of eating. I would first help her get her days and nights on a more stable schedule.
Does she have extracurriculars that lead to her staying up to do homework? Is she working into the night? Or is lack of sleep not related to work?
Help her with a stable “circadian rhythm” and if you continue to be concerned you can find someone to talk with her if she is willing,
This may be just fine but since you are posting here with an apparent gut feeling, I would trust it.
Oh she definitely has mental health struggles but has made a lot of progress with counseling and medication. That is totally spot-on. The darkest time came during Freshman year and she made HUGE strides after that.
What is the precollege program this summer? Is it something that she is interested in? My D22 did a summer writing camp for high school students on a college campus (sleep away) and I think that really helped her get her head around what college might be like, living in a dorm, going to the cafeteria to eat, taking different classes. I would definitely encourage something like that and probably back off on any other college tours, or other talk of college, etc.
Selectiveness I am completely over. Both my kids have clinically diagnosed anxiety disorders. We were very challenged with getting my oldest (class of 2019) to even graduate high school and then COVID happened and everything went to heck-in-a-handbasket. After stay-at-home-time for a year of COVID my oldest just decided to get a job. Was done sitting in the house with us. This was pre-vaccine. I was very nervous about it, but it has been great! I have seen so much maturity. This kid went back and did some Community College classes after swearing off ever going back to school ever again!!!
So, if your D23 is not wanting college right now, a gap year might be a good option. The forced COVID gap year watching Netflix on the couch with mom and dad and little sis really helped with ours.
My D22 got a job last summer and has kept it during the school year and that has also been great for her. I think the combination of that summer sleep away pre college writing camp and the job really helped her get her head around what she might want. She did have lots of different wild ideas junior year and I tried to get her to think about college like starting her Common App essay over the summer without much success. But about the second week of her senior year she started to think in more practical terms about what she wanted and then was willing to visit some schools and she found one she fell in love with.
I did a spreadsheet that I shared with her in Google Sheets. Might’ve been more for me than for her. It just had a bunch of schools I thought she might like that had programs that she had expressed interest in. She was not that interested in the spreadsheet, but she did find one school on there and said it seemed like it might be okay. I asked if she wanted to visit and arranged it and after we toured she said, “I am definitely applying here.”
Fall of senior year kinda sucked up until the Early Action deadline of Nov 15th, but then once that first acceptance rolled in it started to feel a lot better.
You are not alone. Being a teenager is a lot harder than in our days, and I think the impact of the pandemic cannot be underestimated for our kids. You may want to check out the HS Class of 2023 thread, there are others struggling there (including me) and also some with major ambivalence or disinterest in college.
I also believe that it is still early and things will work out. We are taking the pressure off but still gathering info (about college, in case/hopes my S DOES want to pursue that path). I would say to let her lean in to the things that are going well, there is time for college search discussions later and maybe this summer will be a good refresh/reset for our pandemic schooled kids.
I think Junior year is the hardest year of high school. Classes ratchet right up and at the same time, students are realizing their lives are going to change in a huge way the following year. And, they are old enough to start realizing that getting older isn’t all sunshine and roses. To put it mildly, it’s a lot.
We spent a lot of time with D20 reminding ourselves, this too shall pass. We are now in the thick of it with D23…ups and downs of Junior year. Thankfully we’ve done this once and so we are also saying, “Trust the process.” in addition to “This too shall pass.”
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Yes, she has done sleep-away precolleges and regular summer programs before (including some in middle school) and loved being away and independent, doing her favorite things. I know she will love the program once she’s there. She is just a stressball right now.
The funny part is she is actually going on a spring break trip with a good friend. Her family is flying her and everything. THAT she is very excited about.
I also think you should cease college talk for at least a month or two. Maybe she needs a gap year, or maybe she just needs to not think about the thing that might be causing her secret stress.
When my oldest was headed to college, I didn’t realize that I was making things worse by talking to her about all the new things she would be doing once she got there. She was actually feeling nervous and the reminders from me about all things NEW was not helpful to her. Your D could be experiencing a similar thing now, so maybe let her bring it up when and if she gets interested again.
Well maybe that will be good to get away from home, then!
I found the Google Sheets spreadsheet very helpful for me. I could do research and not have to tell her every little thing I found. I put which schools had majors she might be interested in, what kind of area they were in (urban, small town, rural, etc), deadlines for scholarships, how much they cost, etc. Helped me have a place to dump all that out of my brain so I felt like I was a little bit organized and gave me the illusion I had things a little bit under control.
You might also like to make a parent account on the Common App so you can see how that works. I found that helpful too.
And I would totally give her the option to not go to college. But walk her through what that might look like. Something like, “Y’know, you seem really stressed out lately. I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to go to college if you really don’t want to. You could get a job. Starbucks is usually hiring. You could still live here with us. Or you could take a gap year and work and then go to college next year. Think about what you might want to do. We are willing to help you with educational expenses if you ever want to go to college.”
This is pretty much what I told my oldest. And I really was not sure they were ever going to go to any sort of post-secondary schooling, but co-workers at the job were leaving to go back to school and become nurses and go to law school, etc, and seeing them do that was influential and worked a lot better than me saying something.
My friend’s son graduated as valedictorian two years ago. The year before, his junior year, he started talking about not wanting to go to college at all. He had a rough year and a big existential crisis. He pulled it together and happily went off to a prestigious school. I think it’s just a lot of pressure and in many ways, junior year is the pinnacle of that. I’d just wait it out and back off college talk.
) She applied willingly and was accepted to a precollege this summer but now acts that it was only to please us – and doesn’t want to go after all. 
