Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / January 2006

What would the consequences be?  Sometimes acceptance
to college is dependant on maintaining a certain grade point
average.  You might want to check that out.

Also, how low are they dropping?  Is she in any danger of
not graduating?

If the answers to the above are that her college acceptance
is safe and she's not in danger of failing, I'd probably just
stay out of it.

Bizby

Last year my niece graduated from high school.  She was accepted to a state
college in April of her senior year. Given her grades her last semester they
withdrew her acceptance.  She is now doing junior college part time while
working retail.  She is a very smart girl, but it's hard to dig out after
getting accepted and rejected.

I had severe senioritis in high school.  My calculus class grades reflected
that.  I went from A's at the beginning of the quarter to F's at the end.
Luckily, that averaged out to a C and I passed.  My grades had been good
until then and I had already been accepted and the acceptance wasn't
withdrawn.  I agree with Bizby.  If the acceptance to college is not in
peril, stay out of it.

Unless she really seems headed for self-destruct, since she's managed
herself so far, try to trust her to continue to manage herself.  If
things seem really bad, since she's not taking advice from you well
(which is pretty common at this age) you might see if you can get her to
sit down with someone else who is skilled at working with older
adolescents -- a few sessions with a therapist who works with
stress-reduction techniques might be helpful.

I'd add two things:

First, since she's viewing you as critical right now, as much as
possible, you might try to stick to only really affirming sorts of
statements.  Things like, "I know things are really stressful for you
right now -- but I have every confidence that you'll get through this."  
I know how hard it can be to do that -- but it's important.  (Of course,
there's always the chance that she'll just view that as more pressure.)  
As long as you let her know that you are available for help if she wants
it -- it may be that she just needs you to listen to her, in which case,
that's all you can do.  Under some circumstances, I've been known to ask
outright:  "Is there something I can do to help, or do you just need me
to listen to you right now?"  (And if the kid says, "I just need to
complain to someone," I accept that and just listen.)

Second, since she's already been admitted to a college, she's ALSO
getting ready to leave you.  It's pretty common for kids in this
position to start the process early, by fighting with their parents.  I
know my son was pretty difficult to get along with once he knew he'd be
leaving.  At a moment of calm -- when we were getting along -- I told
him that I knew part of his job was to make it easier for me to let him
go away by making himself hard to get along with, but that I wished he
weren't so good at it!  (This made him laugh -- you have to know exactly
what you can say to each kid.)  Then, whenever he started to fight with
me, I'd just remind myself (quietly) that he was just doing his job.  
And he eventually developed a sense of humor about the whole thing, as
well.