She has been working on them, but says they aren’t done. I thought it was time, but it sounds like she really has writers block. She says she has no problem writing for her classes, but since she thinks this is “important” and so she feels like she has lost her writer’s voice. She says she kind of knows what she wants to say, but is not even 100% committed to that. I have asked to read what she has, have offered to simply sit with her and discuss the prompts, suggested she just dictate the essay and then edit, and have pressed the fact that she should just be herself, since she would not want to go to a school that did not accept the “real” her. I am open to getting a tutor to work with her, but it is really late for that, and I don’t know any tutors. To make it all worse, DH is on her case to finish, and thinks it is my fault that she isn’t done. Any suggestions?
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Sometimes when you are trying to write (or start any project) it is good just to start writing (doing) something…anything…then that will usually trigger something else in your mind that may end up being the thing you end up with.
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This needs to be “her” thing…and not yours. Have her work back from the due dates on when this needs to be done. Also have her factor in games/concerts/homework. When she picks a date, ask what she needs to focus…go to the library? TV off?
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Tell her that finishing the essay on time and applying to the colleges of her choice gives her the most options…otherwise she will be limited to open enrollment/community college.
- Take a deep breath
- Take another
- Tell DH that there can only ever be one bad cop, and that sometimes even one is too many.
- Remember this:
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DD is amazing. She is a better person than I could even have hoped to be at her age. I think she is wise beyond her years, and has a huge heart
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Go read it to her. - Listen to your DD:
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since she thinks this is "important"
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Don’t discount just how big a deal this can be to a student. The essay is their ‘last chance’ to do what, to many students, seems to be the whole point of high school- to get into a “good” college. From her perspective the stakes are super high- and super public. Anxiety provoking for anybody.
Of course, the stakes are not as high as it feels to them, b/c we know that there are second chances and that what looks like ‘failure’ (such as not getting in to a certain college) can often turn out to be a good thing.
Maybe break it down in size: have her pick the college that is the least important to her - one that she doesn’t really think she loves- and finish that one. Get that one done and in and move on.
And remember: she will not be the only student, and you will not be the only parents, finishing these over winter break!
My kids let me review their essays. That said, I asked then to send me a DRAFT for review, knowing it would likely go through a lot of iterations. Creating a first draft was less scary than producing a finished essay. Not sure if the terminology change will help, but something to try. Oh, I gave them deadlines for the drafts, too. I’d say pick one essay and ask her to provide a draft by, say, Thursday. We did almost all of it by email, too – easier for them to absorb feedback.
^^I agree with the excellent suggestions/thoughts above.
The only thing that works for me is to just start writing. There is no two ways about it. Get a general outline with main points, thesis sentence, topic sentence for each paragraph. Go from there. Make sure to stay authentic, which may mean that you deviate a little from the standard style.
I do think the kids feel a great deal of pressure on this issue.
eta: DS is still working on his, too, though many are finished.
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3. Tell DH that there can only ever be one bad cop, and that sometimes even one is too many.
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True. The idea that the DH thinks it’s the mom’s fault that a 17/18 year old isn’t done with essays is ridiculous, and he needs to be set straight with that.
Anyone remember the thread from the mom whose H blamed her for their child’s college rejections? Sometimes parents need to be reminded that once kids hit a certain age, they’re going to do what they’re going to do.
@mom2collegekids - CBH app essay is still outstanding around here . . . 
My son really hasn’t had one application essay where he could duplicate previous efforts very easily. He’s had to create each one from scratch for the most part.
Same issue here, but I’m having some luck asking kid to send me a “first stab” at supplements just to get the juices flowing, and to those I offer up some very general comments along the lines of “good direction, maybe more this and less that.” That seems to help with the initial hurdle.
Also trying very hard to help him keep an eye on the calendar and recognize that having “X days” to do something really boils down to “Y hours” and that those hours could get compromised by further obligations or illness. Just trying to help with pacing.
And to anyone who says they should be able to do this on their own, well, yes. But there’s a first time for everything, and I have no problem with coaching for first-time tasks.
Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird is helpful in this regard, but probably too late to dig that up for a read. But there’s probably a related essay or blog out there that may be inspiring.
If I told my W that it was her fault that our child’s college essays weren’t done or that it was her fault child got rejected from college, I don’t know which option would be better for me, simply back away slowly, duck, or run.
She could always apply to schools that don’t require essays. Many state flagships and directionals and some private schools don’t. If she really wants to go to a school that does require essays, you have to trust that she’ll get to them before the deadlines.
Some of our essay email exchanges on the essays had pretty funny titles. Stuff like: “Version 8 - Entomology Essay Torture”, “Essay of Doom for College X”, “Crawling To The Finish - v6 of Special Place Essay”, “Now I Don’t Even Like College X - v3”.
Thank you for all the suggestions and support! I particularly enjoyed the titles of your child’s essays, @intparent! I know that DH is really just worried, but it is still not helping anything. I have been the main one helping with this stuff, since he tends to get angry when deep down he is really just anxious, and that just doesn’t work well for DD. I think he wanted me to be the bad cop, but I just don’t have it in me, especially for this. He was really pushing for her to do ED, but she really has no favorite, and we should compare financial aid offers, so it did not make sense, and I still can’t convince him of that. Now he knows some of her friends are getting their acceptances, and she is still struggling to get this process complete.
DD has already applied to 2 schools that do not require essays, and 1 is a real safety. The other seems very likely, given the scattergrams on Naviance for our school, and is a great school, but not exactly what she might pick for fit…too large, too much Greek life. I think the ones that remain on her list are better in that way, and I know she wants more options. I am just sad that she is stuck. She is super busy, and is taking a really hard load in school, but she is managing all of that really well, and I know she will feel the weight of the world is off her shoulders once this is done. She has said what she really wants is a break. She wishes she could just stop time for a few days and regroup, and I am afraid that even winter break won’t be that time for her.
Essays aren’t a problem for D, but sometimes getting going was. Since she is excellent at sitting down and doing homework when she gets home before doing anything else, we decided together that just picking a day and doing applications in the same way would be the approach. I also reminded her that she could always start an essay and go back the next day or so and reread it/edit, etc. That seemed to work well. She also split up her essay apps with easy, no essay apps between the longer ones.
So far she’s been successful getting into both types of schools, but the turn around has been faster with essay-free apps. Maybe get your D to do one of those for a quick acceptance to spur her onto the more “important” ones.
I am a big fan of Maria Montessori’s teaching to ‘follow the child’, and I think it might make sense here.
Assuming the deadlines in question are Jan 1 and beyond, what about saying “college apps are done until 72 hours after winter break starts” and just put them aside? instead of pulling the band-aid off slooooowwwwwlllyyyyy and painfully over the next 10 days, leave it on, and then pull it off in one go. No reminders until then, ban college conversation unless she initiates it, just be in the moment: finish the semester with a flourish, then do some holiday things that are old favorites- back up and have some just kid time. Let her thinking percolate a bit. Then, at a day / time you all have agreed she treats it like a job: sits down and gets to it.
Why not?
So senior year for both kids, we tried to have a low key winter break. No travel, limited engagements. Anything you can do to “clear the decks” a bit for that window would be good.
@collegemom3717 I would love to do that, but I am pretty sure it won’t work because DD is not one to really let anything sit. She was really tired last night, and I told her nothing good was going to come of her trying to do anything, but she still struggled with just resting, and I am pretty sure the whole issue never left her mind. In addition, while I have already asked/told DH he is not good at just letting things be. The joy of living with 2 people with anxiety issues! I, by contrast can take a big dive into complete denial at any time, so just letting go of things for a while is no problem for me!
Has she tried freewriting? Wikipedia has a fairly good [description](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing):
Most college writing instructors I know (including me) integrate this into most or all of their assignments. Most students encounter it in high school, but the better writers often discount it because they find their writing assignments are easy to complete without a lot of preliminaries. Then one day the work gets harder or they get blocked, and they forget all about it.
Anyway, if she hasn’t tried it, I suggest giving it a whirl.
“Why not” is because it takes a lot more than one day (or a couple of days) to get them done. 
@intparent, overall I agree with you, but I think it depends on the kid, how much is already done and how many there are to do. It sounds as if she just has a few (2/3?) to go, and has run out of steam / hit a road block. 5 days, esp. on winter break, is not unrealistic for that.
Of course, it varies a lot by the kid, and the OP feels her daughter won’t be able to let go enough to give herself a useful reset.
This is why I made my kids apply EA to schools with essays! My oldest was the worst. He’s a shy kid, hated the idea of putting himself out there and has never enjoyed writing anyway. (Total comp sci nerd.) Luckily he’s actually a decent writer, mostly because he reads so much. In the end I had to sit in the room with him to keep him on track. Eventually the main essay actually came out of one of his procrastination behaviors. He wrote a program that combined a bunch of online exemplary essays. The results of that program became the intro to his essay. Somehow starting with something silly and off the wall helped get him over the hump.
I agree that “[expeletive deleted] first drafts” are often the best way to go. (From Anne LaMotte’s Bird by Birdone of the best books I know for aspiring writers.
Younger son wrote several essays that didn’t work for the main prompts, but in the end got worked into answering other questions. “What’s your favorite EC and why.”