My daughter is wonderful and has dedicated her life until recently to excelling in school so she can succeed and be a passionate elementary school teacher. She is still (just?) around the top of her class and has one more year of A-levels to go, but has mentioned that she may drop out and work at burger king or some such job the rest of her life, because she can’t continue on with things. she is not clinically depressed but due to massive identity/faith crisis she has been stuck for the past 3 years and is not one step further. at age 15 she had a year-long soul-mate relationship with her 1 1/2 year older best friend who has borderline personality disorder. this caused identity problems because until then she always knew who she was - strong, passionate catholic faith through philisophical discussions, etc. with me while growing up. now she thinks she’s going to hell but feels there is absolutely no possibility of change or choosing one way of life over the other or trying to have her cake and eat it too - accepting a middle ground of starting from acceptance of imperfectionl for the past 3 years she has completely cut herself off from human interaction at all except for the most superficial, absolutely necessary daily interaction. she was in crap therapy for over a year at children’s mental health and on antidepressants for a year, and not one single ounce of good it did her. now will not try any therapy again,. i am going to make another appointment with her school and explain that the situation is getting critical because there is so much to do. i need to do my back years of income tax returns that i never got around to since living in the UK, so that I can figure out how to fill out the FAFSA forms, and I need to send her SAT scores to 4 more unis, and decide which ones to apply to. i need to register her for the sat subject tests, which she had planned on since her favorite uni was williams. i need to figure out a couple of safety schools that will let ANYbody in so that they don’t care that she has no interest anymore.
she cares VERY VERY mucg down deep, but it is all broken dreams as far as she is concerned and she just can’t face any of it. she just can’t do ANYTHING for herself anymore. ESPECIALLY when the FUTURE smacks her in the face. a gigantic black wall just slams down in front of her.
are there any unis that i could have a discussion with who might take her on the strength of her past awesomeness?
11 A*s at GCSE level
so far looks like she was heading for same at A level but her AS level exams last month she started having problems due to all the black wall looming up. so who knows what the next year will bring. … never mind… i suppose she will just have to get some sort of crap job and maybe i can force her into more useless therapy… maybe some day she’ll come out of it. but after 3 years i am having difficulty coping myself!
I am sorry your daughter is struggling. You are asking the wrong questions, though. It does no good to apply or get accepted at colleges. Your child is in crisis, and your immediate concern should be finding the right therapy/counselor who can help her take her next step back to a more normal life.
Read through these forums, there are many parents who tell stories of unique ways their child has gotten from Point A to Point B in life. A college degree can be started at age 25, it can be done over 7-10 years, or it can be interrupted by work experience when the motivation for college academics is just not there.
Maybe your daughter does need a year off to work and do nothing else. You can impose house rules and require some discipline and responsibility, but not focusing on academics might actually improve her outlook.
Imagine that you read about a child who was in a car accident, had broken bones, was bleeding profusely, and had a head injury. But the parent, instead of trying to get the child to the hospital for emergency medical treatment, was trying to patch the child up so she could go to her school’s prom that night. The parent might be asking for help with a dress that would cover up her wounds, or a bandage for her head that matched her outfit. You would immediately see that the parent was completely off base. Yes, it is sad to miss your prom, but the priority is saving the child’s life.
Your child is in crisis. She has had a traumatic “accident” and she is crying out for help. College will be there forever. It can wait. Your daughter needs you to focus on saving her life. Even if you get her to college, you can not make her do the work. She is in no condition to get any benefit from college right now. She may not even be able to complete high school.
Hugs to you as you search to find the right help for your child.
Is she going to ready to attend a college of YOUR choice and she will decide to get mad at you?
You are the only person who will know that! I would take one step at a time. Take care of whatever crisis is going on and then college application. If time runs out, not much you can do. There are reasons for everything in life, college application is NOT the life top priority!
I think you should and you can apply to colleges for your daughter, if she is willing to cooperate in the efforts and enroll. Change of scenery should be good for her. I would also find another therapist for her to talk to now. Parental opinions/suggestions matter very little when a teenager is in crisis.
Sorry about what you call “crap” therapy. Your daughter is in crisis and so you need to get her some more help. Don’t give up on this. There are excellent therapists out there that can help you. I wouldn’t even bother with the college stuff right now. You need to get your daughter mentally healthy. It’s your first and utmost priority IMHO. I agree with @powercropper
I agree with most of the posters that you should wait until your daughter is emotionally ready to think about the application process. This may involve finding another therapist, trying different medications, or perhaps just time (though after 3 years I doubt that time alone will solve the issues). I think that kids really have to own the process for college applications and, more importantly, college life itself, to have a successful college experience. I wish I had waited for my S15 to be more invested in the process, rather than me being the invested one. Maybe your daughter will improve more working at a “crap” job for a year or longer than in rushing to go to college. I know my son loves his job flipping burgers at McDonald’s and getting to know his co-workers, whom he says are a lot less shallow and more interesting than many of the academic crowd in his high school class.
Applying to college and going to college are different things.
Not the top to do at this point, but not a bad idea to do some apps for your kid. Especially since an acceptance can be deferred for a full year at most schools with no/few questions asked.
If you decide to keep the kid in HS for senior year, then go ahead and do something now so you have some options 1-2 years from now. Who knows where your kid will be then.
Probably tough to really do the highly competitive apps without the kid’s input. But a few safety schools that use the Common App would be very easy for you to do. If you do some early action apps to safety schools, you could have a few acceptances in hand before any possible senior year slide shows up on the transcript.
The decision as to when to SEND the kid to college is another matter. But doing some apps now in no way requires you to send the kid at any particular time.
DO NOT apply to schools for your child. Ever. Aside from the fact that it is illegal (unethical, at the very least), it is her life, not yours. She needs to live it. If she is in a place in her life where other things are taking precedence in her mind, those are the things that must be dealt with. Concentrate on helping her get to a place where she might be ready to apply to schools. My nephew had a breakdown in his last semester of college - he has not yet returned, and it has been more than 5 years. He has spent that time healing, trying to figure out what he wants to do, making a few mistakes, and generally living his own life. He may or may not return, but it is his life and his decision.
If your D cannot even complete a college application, she sure as heck isn’t going to be able to handle being on her own, away from home, at a school she didn’t even apply to.
I am so very sorry for your situation, and I encourage you to put all your effort into assisting your D in dealing with her issues - and in supporting her in ways that meet her where she is today (rather than trying to get her to where you think she should be).
I absolutely would not apply to colleges for her. While you say she is not clinically depressed, she certainly SOUNDS depressed from your description of her. Perhaps the therapy she had wasn’t a good fit. But keep looking for the right one. Her life depends on it-not whether or not she goes to college right now-if ever.
My closest friend suffers from depression. It took YEARS for her to find the right combination of therapy, medications, meditation, etc. to even get to a point where post-high school studies could happen successfully. Perhaps your D’s situation isn’t that dire,but she most certainly needs your help.
The analogy of your D being in a car accident is a good one. You want your D to be WELL, not shuttled off to some college YOU picked, YOU applied to and YOU decided she needs to attend (never mind the illegality of that). Being far away from home while mentally ill is a recipe for disaster. Just ask some of the regular posters here who have dealt with that situation.
The good news is that if your D becomes well enough to attend college to become a teacher, she will not need to attend a highly selective school. There are many, many colleges that offer great teacher education programs which do not need SAT 2’s. Some are even “test optional”. My D will be applying to college this coming year for teacher education so I’ve got a pretty good handle on what’s needed. But all that will come later for you-right now you need to insist that your D make another attempt at therapy-interview different therapists until she finds one she likes. My older D resisted when she was going through a rough time, but having a therapist she liked and trusted made a world of difference. Good luck.
I agree with @lookingforward that something is amiss with this story. On another thread you said she is not an international student but is coming from Northern Ireland with dual citizenship and:
If she is going to do a gap year, then time is not running out. It seems a gap year would be a good option while you and she work to resolve her crisis. You mention in that other thread that she may be targeting Harvard. Right now, she is in no shape to be targeting any colleges, much less the likes of the most selective U.S. schools. Focus on getting her back to health; college will take care of itself when she’s ready. Good luck to you both.
Help her find herself again. If she was excelling in school, she should have few problems finding a school later that will be a reasonable path to become a passionate elementary school teacher. Few of those schools require excellent students although we desperately DO need them. It is by far the easiest education to obtain in the United States.
Your daughter legitimately believes that she’s going to suffer for eternity and has been unwell for what seems like a few years and you’re worried about college?! That should not even be in the top 10 on a priority list right now. College will be there for your daughter in a few years, but there is no guarantee that your daughter is going to be around at this rate.
Can you ask a priest for help? If she thinks she’s going to hell, then she is clearly religious and may listen to a priest or other religious official.
Great idea to consult with your priest. And the priest may also have some recommendations for therapists/counselors that are more familiar with your faith and might connect well with your child.
Even assuming for the moment that you could find some acceptable, very lax college that required no essays or interviews from its applicants, so that you could do all the work necessary for an application except signing it (which your daughter could manage, presumably) . . . you would do far more damage to your daughter’s educational prospects and her future by forcing her into a situation where there was a high risk she would not be successful in a college once she was there than by waiting a few years until you and she are confident she is ready to do her best there.
If she is a dual-national, and has been educated outside the US, then before you pick a college for her, she needs to think long and hard about where it is she wants to work. Different educational systems expect different things from the teachers that work in them, and getting an education degree in one country does not mean that she will be able to be licensed to teach in another. If her goal is to work in the US, then she also needs to know where in the US she wants to find her first job because teaching certification can very quite a bit from one state to another.
Is there any chance that you think your daughter would be well served by a “new” life and new therapist in the US? If so, then you should think about moving the family back to the US sooner rather than later.