Torturing mother as an extra-curricular activity

Parents Forum
1

<p>So my son is a rising senior whose approach to the inevitability of the college application process looming ever-closer in his future seems to be a combination of denial and avoidance. The latest chapter in this saga presented itself when our family just returned from a weeklong vacation in Europe and I apparently made the mistake of asking him whether he had checked his June SAT II scores yet, which I knew would now be available onine. Of course, he refuses to check them and started scream at me that it makes no difference whether he finds out now, or 5 weeks later, when he returns from a summer program away he is about to leave for. This makes me think he bombed the tests, or why would he avoid finding out the results? I am still unclear about exactly how important they really are anyway.</p>

<p>Anyone else have a similarly recalcitrant kid? I keep hoping he will deal with the process, but although he has seen a couple of schools he liked a great deal and I think would be a good fit, we cannot seem to get him to agree to visit anywhere else. He is a good student, talented, artistic, quirky, curious... but he is driving me crazy!</p>

2

<p>Similar problem, but he's coming around a bit now that we have visited a few schools. He gets what I was trying to tell him about how some schools are different, and realizes that the visits were helpful. I think that the whole process is very stressful for kids. He probably doesn't want to know his scores because he doesn't want to think about college at all right now. When I was in high school we certainly didn't think about applying until the fall of senior year. It's not too late for him, and no matter what college he attends he will be fine if he is a good student.</p>

3

<p>It may be a little late to suggest this, but the best $3,000 I ever spent in my life was hiring the college counselor. We slavishly visited the colleges she recommended and very few others, then I let her nag my prograstinating daughter to work on her essays over the summer and stayed out of the process (other than proofreading and commenting when asked). </p>

<p>Even if it's too late for the college counselor, I'd stay out of the application process as much as possible. What I found was that once the school year started my daughter's friends all put pressure on each other to do their applications. All I heard about all fall was who was applying where, who had interviews, who had to stay up all night when the UC server crashed, etc. To my very great surprise, Ms. Procrastinator got all her applications done before the deadlines!</p>

<p>And if he doesn't get his applications done or doesn't get accepted anywhere? Worst case he has to live at home and get a job and/or go to the local JC - painful for him, painful for you, but a great learning experience. Bet he won't let those deadlines go by a second time!</p>

<p>I was going to Al-anon meetings during this period because of a niece, and I found that it really helped me with my own kids. You can't do anything about his SAT scores (only he can, and he has to want to), so why ask? Sit down with him, tell him that you will totally support him in any way he asks during the college application process (including perhaps hiring a counselor to help him make a list of colleges to look at), but it is his responsibility to decide where to apply and to do the applications in a timely manner. Then stay out of it. So easy to say, so hard to do!!! We'll see if I can hold to it with my rising Junior, a boy.</p>

4

<p>My son was also avoiding the process. We just got back from a college visit trip where we visited 4 schools. He really liked 2 of them. That's a great start! He's actually willing to engage in discussion about the process, and plans to start taking action (writing essays, etc.) this summer. I think I might have to (quietly) stay on top of him to make sure things get done in a timely manner, but that's a typical Mom thing anyway :)</p>

5

<p>Waiting five weeks to see his SAT II scores will not matter. If he decides that he needs to take the tests again, he won't have missed the registration deadlines. And if he is involved in a full-time summer program during those weeks, he wouldn't have time to study anyway.</p>

<p>So I say let it go. This time.</p>

6

<p>Some of the confrontational attitude that my son had with me disappeared when I had the following discussion with him (except I had this discussion more than once, starting in about the 9th grade).</p>

<p>I told him to look around (our home). I told him that this is the home that my husband and I had created, that we have already "done our thing", that in another few years, he (son) will be out on his own, and our lives will go on. We will still be living our lives, doing our things. Son, on the other hand, will just be starting out to create his own life, his own home, his own family. We can no longer do those things for him like we could when he was a kid. Then I told him that my advice, my reminding, nagging, whatever, was NOT FOR MY BENEFIT. After all, I will continue living in this nice place, going on vacations, enjoying my life, even if he screws everything up for himself.</p>

<p>I think it struck home with my kids when they realized that I am not in the equation as far as their future lives are concerned, except to HELP. Up until I had this talk, I really think my kids saw me as somehow wrapped up in their lives as much as they were. When it finally hit home that son was doing all this for HIMSELF and not for ME, he started taking initiative.</p>

7

<p>Doubleplay, this is definitely good advice and a conversation well worth having, as I don't think my husband and I have spelled this out quite so explicitly. I know that if I began to see my son take more ownership of the whole college process, it would be much easier for me to pull back. Part of the unfortunate dynamic, however, is that he is well aware of how anxious he is making me by his refusal to be more involved and i think that gives him some kind of twisted pleasure. It would just be so hard to see him screw up when a happy outcome here is really well within his reach.</p>

8

<p>My D was always a highly self motivated and self reliant kid. The college selection and application process was difficult for her. I think it is hard for kids to make decisions and take actions for things that are months into the future. She was also in a bad position. She needed parental help but she wanted to make her own decisions.</p>

<p>We tried to give her as much freedom as possible, but provide help when needed. That did not always work and we were sometimes in a strange mode of nagging about deadlines. I had a tough time with a couple of her decisions, but tried to say as little as possible. She took some practice SAT exams and scored considerably higher than for the actual SAT. She refused to study for the SATs and take them again. It was worse when she listened to the advice from others who I thought were wrong. She had a great essay for the common app that needed some minor editing. Her english teacher helped the students with hints about writing essays. After a few rewrites the grammatical errors were fixed and the structure was improved, but the individuality and life of the essay had been killed.</p>

<p>Best of luck with this difficult time. My only advice would be to remain silent as much as possible and only become involved when absolutely necessary.</p>

9

<p>First, I have to say I LOVE your thread title!!! :D</p>

<p>After reading the first post but before getting too post #3 by MarinMom, I was thinking to myself.....Ahhh, the beauty of being a college counselor is that I don't have the emotional stuff with the teenager that a parent has with their own child. All of that is removed from the equation. No angst. Parents will even comment to me, "she/he will listen to you, but not me!" I know what they mean as I have two teens too. It is so hard to work with your own child! </p>

<p>That said, I like the idea that doubleplay mentions.....talking to your child that it is HIS process and what he does now impacts things later and it is in his hands. You can say you are there to help but he is the driver of the process and if he wants to reach X goal, he'll have to do certain things to get there and that is up to him but you know what it will take to get there. Finding out the test scores now or later is not something that will impact the process. So, I am not sure I would fuss too much about that. But you can outline other things that if not done, WOULD impact the process and mention those and then see what he does.</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
Part of the unfortunate dynamic, however, is that he is well aware of how anxious he is making me by his refusal to be more involved and i think that gives him some kind of twisted pleasure.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is astute of you to notice. Did you hear about that animal trainer/zoologist who began to adapt her animal training techniques on her husband and that it turned out they worked really well?</p>

<p>One of the lessons she learned was to ignore troubling behavior. They do this with the animals. You are apparently feeding your son's behavior by paying it attention.</p>

<p>Spell it out for him like the person who had the "conversation" did, let him get swept up in the melee of applications at his school as the other person said, and consider going on a tour of relevant colleges when he is ready.</p>

<p>People here have given some great advice.</p>

11

<p>From a kid:
He isn't avoiding it because he failed or because he wants to nag you. He's probably scared *<strong><em>less, no matter how confidently he came out of the test. He could've make all 800s, but there's still that looming possibility that he skipped a bubble somewhere and his answers are all off by one and he got a 500 instead. It's teenage fear, and we don't know how to communicate it. When I was recently waiting for a transfer decision result from Virginia, I was going nuts, *</em></strong>ing everyone off because I wouldn't shut up about it, but then decision day came and I almost refused to check it, even though I knew I had a great shot (to make matters worse I was at Virginia Tech and couldn't use classes as an excuse to blow it off because classes were prety much cancelled after 4/16). It's just how we react.
Now, in remembering my days of applications and such, atleast he's visiting colleges. It's the first step down a scary road, as applications = end of high school = whole new life in a teenager's life. Frankly, it's the next four years of their life, on their own. So, he's going to try to avoid it. But don't try to pressure him and ask why he hasn't done anything, because that'll make it worse. Instead, my mom always casually asked by bringing up other postive points, such as "oh, i'm more proud of that A than any college will be...by the way, which ones are going to have to fight me to love you more" or some dumb corney statement like that. It usually made me laugh and feel connected to her and I opened up a bit more. It's wayyy easier, on both of us. My dad was always "why arn't you applying here" or "why on earth are you applying there" and alwasy grilling me and it sucked. Hence why I never applied to Princeton/UVA/CalPoly, ect, because after he spent weeks grilling me about applying to UT, I just began to shut him out. And obviously that wasn't good because now i'm going to UVA and wished I had listened/could have listened to him! gahhh...anyways, just be nice. It's tearing him up inside knowing that he's got to start deciding where he'll be spending his life without you and the rest of the comforts he's grown to love in the last 18 years around. Niceness/humor goes a loooong way :)</p>

12

<p>Ditto everything said for my son. Procrastination is his middle name and ADD his nick name. In addition, he doesn't usually have strong preferences.</p>

<p>Two things made a tremendous difference: 1) Common app. site. Once he took a look at it he randomly starting filling it out on line. This had many advantages: he was on computer, which he likes; he didn't have to actually think about where he was going yet; and he could do it watching South Park, a real tranquilizer. 2) Found essay topic he felt comfortable with. He asked what he should write about and I suggested he write about whatever he loved most. It turned out to be STAR WARS. He was shocked when I supported him writing about that. he wrote 1,000 words, humorous and serious, and had great difficulty editing to requisite 500. I think the boyness of the topic counterbalanced his overall dorkiness (Latin, Bach, violin) nicely, plus it was certainly his authentic voice.</p>

<p>All worked so well he became college counselor for other procrastinating boys. Acceptances had happy ending, too.</p>

<p>P.S. Tonight is prom!</p>

13

<p>I repeat this every summer for the newbies-- love the kid you have, not the kid you wished you had. For every parent tearing their hair out that their son (it's usually a son) is sitting on the couch watching Law and Order or Simpson's reruns instead of studying for SAT's, leafing through college view books, or curing cancer (preferably all at once!) there's a parent dragging their kid to therapy for some un-named anxiety disorder, meeting with the social worker who finds rehab placements, or trying to get a kid to just go hang out at the mall instead of obsessively taking yet another practice test since he "missed" three questions on the SAT 2 bio and plans a retake in October.</p>

<p>Go check the kids boards for a reality check and see how unhealthy the college mania can be for kids who can't separate who they are as people and the decal on the minivan.</p>

<p>Take a deep breath- your kid will be fine and so will you. Spend this summer looking at him crossways to figure out what makes him tick; try to find things to do together that don't involve "his future" i.e. mini golf, ice cream, reading Vonnegut together, and let the pieces fall together when he's ready. If he's a good student, he'll do fine even if he wakes up at the eleventh hour. </p>

<p>My kids were cursed with parents who have some control issues (duh!) and who are, to be honest, unhealthily organized. So, I approached the college search like General Patton. Files, spreadsheets, folders, deadlines, punch lists, tasks assigned (Kid-- do basic research on U Chicago... does it have an engineering school, email the departmental administrator for a tour. Mom-- find cheap flights to Chicago, priceline cheap hotel, etc.) So- we fly to Chicago on the cheapest tickets known to man, get upgraded at a decent motel to a really nice room with a fridge, free popcorn for the microwave, everything going great, only to discover when we show up at admissions the next morning that kid forgot to check to see if there's an engineering school (there isn't). We loved Chicago anyway; school clearly a great fit even though the only kid-induced absolute non-negotiable criterion was missing.</p>

<p>What is my point? At the end of the day, much of the research, visiting, planning, spreadsheet making is pretty pointless except to make the parents feel better. I know kids who did everything right and ended up unhappy at college; I know kids who nearly missed every critical deadline and ended up sublimely happy-- you just can't control the outcome with meticulous planning, even if you think you can.</p>

<p>So- go love your kid. I'm sure he did fine on his SAT 2's, and realizing that bugging mom is a great EC is one of the joys of adolesence.</p>

14

<p>^ Great, great post Blossom. </p>

<p>Really, the kids' threads are getting more and more alarming IMO. It's way out of control. A little part of me is even sorry I bugged my boys as much as I did. In hindsight, I know they just didn't care that much and probably would have done just fine had they applied to, and been accepted at, way fewer schools. </p>

<p>Momoschki: I know it's easier said than done, but, really, chill mom. Give him some clear deadlines (with consequences) for the basics (a little rope to hang himself) and then enjoy life. :)</p>

15

<p>blossom said it well, I second that advice. Hindsight is always so much clearer...</p>

<p>The only thing I insisted on for S#2 was that he absolutely positively HAD TO no questions asked get that application to one school in the mail with the recommendations by Jan. 15th, since there were a lot of perks one could be considered for if the application was in by then. He reluctantly allowed himself to be shoved into finishing everything and getting it to the post office a day ahead of time. Good thing, too: not only was he accepted almost immediately, he was offered a huge merit scholarship award for which only those applying by Jan. 15th are considered. He will be attending in the fall.</p>

<p>There are a <em>few</em> deadlines like that which I'm not sorry I pushed at him, but overall it would have been easier if I'd backed off a little and trusted him to know himself.</p>

16

<p>I had to chuckle when I read the title of this thread...a friend who has a rising senior jokingly told me his #1 extra-curricular activity was detention :) ;)</p>

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<p>I have a S like the OP's except he is a VERY average student without any real interest in anything academic as far as I can tell. He has no idea what he would like to do or where he would like to go so sees no point in discussing it. I think he's waiting for someone to turn the light on, lol. </p>

<p>We have given him doubleplay's speech many times about how whatever he does after high school is totally up to him because we'll be busy making retirement plans so he better figure something out because he will not be lolling around here doing nothing. </p>

<p>Right now he's at a friends house, had to rush right over when he got the call that some girls they know had baked brownies for them and were on their way over....college discussion? You must be kidding.</p>

18

<p>Great thread! Thanks to the OP for starting it. Lots of good advice. Shoebox10 said what I was trying to say. The kids are stressed out, and us asking them about scores/decisions, etc. just makes it more stressful. I'm glad my son is away for the summer so I'm not tempted. It's going to take all my willpower not to start nagging come October when he hasn't even started his essays (which I'm pretty sure will be the case).</p>

19

<p>Also, momosochki,
You have to keep reminding yourself (and him) that he will be thankful one day, after all your pushing and nagging and fighting, for what you did for him to encourage him/push him to get into a good college. I've heard of plenty of kids who resent their parents for not caring, or not letting go, not letting them go off into the world, not letting them go 'away' to college, and do their own thing. I've NEVER heard anyone resent their parents for pushing/encouraging their kids to be the best they can be, go off, do their own thing, make their own way....Not one.</p>

20

<p>This is a great thread! Annoying me has been my son's major EC since, oh, I think birth (but he's a good kid anyway). I keep reminding myself all my friends with older kids say that the last year of high school was the worst. Looking way, way back to my own senior year, that was true for me, too. The biggest fight I ever had with my mother (to this day) was when she (gasp!) asked to read my college application essays. I was unbelievably offended.</p>

<p>My S is a rising senior and quite thrilled about it. He has a list of colleges picked out (with research help from me, which he welcomed), and we're still visiting. But I dread--and I mean really, really dread, to the point of wishing I could leave the country--the late-summer, early-fall period when he really should be getting his applications in to those major, competitive state universities with rolling admissions. Someone will have to duct tape my mouth and lock me in my room.</p>