Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
or will it just not work. My daughter is going to be 18 next week. I really want her to be successful in life and go to college. She enrolled in community college which is fine by me. The problem is that I had a sneaky suspition she was not going. I called the counselor and the instructor up to find out she hasn't been showing up. The other classes she signed up for are on-line and off campus. I confronted her and she still is telling me that's not true and she has been going. She still lives at home and I told her if she wants to stay home, she needs to go to college. I've taken her car and cell phone from her. Are there some kids out there that just aren't resdy to go to college? How do I handle this situation. I'll be damned if I'm going to have her stay at home and do nothing! She is just the type that never follows throught with things. She gets a job for a couple months and loses it b/c she stops showing up. She's at the stage where she just wants to hang out with her friends and do nothing else. I know this isn't the life I want for her, but I have to understand she is an adult now and needs to make decisions on her own. Any suggestions???
Give her one week to either produce a note from her teachers that she is indeed attending class or get a job. Tell her if neither is done you will help her pack her bags. Then you have to follow through.
Some kids are not ready for college right away. There is nothing wrong with getting a job and finding out that you don't want to work for minimum wage the rest of you life. There is something wrong with sitting around Momma's house all day doing nothing. One or the other -job or college. No excuses.
My personal opinion is that if she is ready to go to college, she will want to go. I don't think you should force your child to go to college; you can't force someone to learn if they don't want to.
That being said, I also don't think you should encourage her to continue living at home and not going to school/working full time. When I was that age, my choices were: go to school full time or work full time (I did both) if you want to live in this house. My parents also would have charged me rent to live there if I had chosen to work and not go to school.
I think you were right to take away her phone and car, she should have to work for those privileges. I don't think it is showing her how to live in the real world if she is just able to hang out with her friends all day and doesn't have to work toward being a functioning member of society.
I know this has to be hard on you as a parent. It is not the life that you would have wanted for her. Unfortunately, I think it is important for kids, especially at 18, to sink or swim. Good luck!
Well, if she is too immature to follow through w/ college, I would have serious concerns about telling her to move out!!!
I believe I would do as others have said and demand she produce evidence of her college attendance . . . and if she can't do that, I would give her xx days to find a job. I would help her w/ the job search, tho.
Just b/c a teen turns 18, it doesn't mean they magically become resourceful, motivated, etc. Perhaps she needs more time living at home while benefiting from your guidance. Your job just may not be over yet - and so you may need to do some things WITH her - to help her w/ her confidence level, learn how to approach a problem in a systematic way, be organized, etc.
I do not subscribe to the sink or swim method as a blanket rule for all kids, b/c I honestly think not all kids are gonna be able to swim and so they make bad decisions while floundering.
I have one child and helped raise four step/kids (they lived w/ us fulltime). They are all over 25 now. They each matured at a different rate . . . and each needed different things (and approaches) to help them get grounded and stable b/n the ages of 18-25.
My personal opinion is that if she is ready to go to college, she will want to go. I don't think you should force your child to go to college; you can't force someone to learn if they don't want to.
That being said, I also don't think you should encourage her to continue living at home and not going to school/working full time. When I was that age, my choices were: go to school full time or work full time (I did both) if you want to live in this house. My parents also would have charged me rent to live there if I had chosen to work and not go to school.
I think you were right to take away her phone and car, she should have to work for those privileges. I don't think it is showing her how to live in the real world if she is just able to hang out with her friends all day and doesn't have to work toward being a functioning member of society.
I know this has to be hard on you as a parent. It is not the life that you would have wanted for her. Unfortunately, I think it is important for kids, especially at 18, to sink or swim. Good luck!
You're parents did a good job.
To the thread poster:
I agree. It should be the choice of the 18 year old to go to school. Did SHE choose the classes? If she did, she's obligated to go for the sole purpose of repaying you for the opportunity to choose something she wanted. If YOU chose, maybe she just isn't interested.
She really needs to understand that in real life, to be an adult, you take adult responsibilities. She can't expect to ACT like a child (living in your house, eating your food, watching your tv, generally being irresponsible, etc.) and think that she can be treated like an adult (independence, making her own choices, being left alone).
She can't act like a child and be treated like an adult.
I'd say your daughter needs to find herself an apartment, a job, and move out if she doesn't want to go to school. She'll quickly learn that in order to hold on to an apartment, she'll have to hold on to a job. And since that minimum wage for the job will almost equal the rent for that apartment, my guess is that she'll be happy to go to college and make some kind of future for herself.
Well, if she is too immature to follow through w/ college, I would have serious concerns about telling her to move out!!!
I believe I would do as others have said and demand she produce evidence of her college attendance . . . and if she can't do that, I would give her xx days to find a job. I would help her w/ the job search, tho.
Just b/c a teen turns 18, it doesn't mean they magically become resourceful, motivated, etc. Perhaps she needs more time living at home while benefiting from your guidance. Your job just may not be over yet - and so you may need to do some things WITH her - to help her w/ her confidence level, learn how to approach a problem in a systematic way, be organized, etc.
I do not subscribe to the sink or swim method as a blanket rule for all kids, b/c I honestly think not all kids are gonna be able to swim and so they make bad decisions while floundering.
I have one child and helped raise four step/kids (they lived w/ us fulltime). They are all over 25 now. They each matured at a different rate . . . and each needed different things (and approaches) to help them get grounded and stable b/n the ages of 18-25.
Problem: If Mom and Dad have had 18 years to instill in daughter responsibility, and daughter has not learned it, do you think another year or two is going to make a difference?
There is a window of opportunity between necessity and habit. It was necessary to live at home while in high school. It is habit to live at home after high school. After something becomes habit, it is more and more difficult to break.
Living on her own doesn't mean the guidance has to stop, it just means she will have opportunity to learn by her own mistakes and to make better choices. Moving out and being responsible for herself while learning to benefit from her mistakes, is a good thing.
My husband is in agreement that we shouldn't force our children to go to college. At first I couldn't relate because I grew up in a country where everybody strove to go to college, with parents mortgaging themselves to the max or selling the farm, literally. I've come to accept although unwillingly, that some children won't want to go to college. The same rules apply--full time work if no college and rent has to be paid. Mom and Dad are landlords too.
In anticipation of that possibility, although remote at the moment, is to start planting the seeds of thinking for college right now. My daughter is a high school freshman. In the last couple of weeks, she had been asking how much funding we had for her college. Yesterday, I pulled up some material for state scholarships where we are. She seemed enthused that the incentive for going to college on a scholarship means we fund her gas and insurance money instead of her having to work to pay for that.
We regularly discuss with my kids why it's not a good thing to not go to college, or even vocational school right after high school. Hopefully, all this talking and incenting and coaching now will enlighten them on the benefits. Regardless, I still believe that we can only lead the horse to water, but can't force them to drink.
Last edited by BagongBuhay; 09-11-2008 at 02:03 PM..
Reason: spelling
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,774,074 times
Reputation: 7185
Quote:
Originally Posted by beckycat
or will it just not work. My daughter is going to be 18 next week. I really want her to be successful in life and go to college. She enrolled in community college which is fine by me. The problem is that I had a sneaky suspition she was not going. I called the counselor and the instructor up to find out she hasn't been showing up. The other classes she signed up for are on-line and off campus. I confronted her and she still is telling me that's not true and she has been going. She still lives at home and I told her if she wants to stay home, she needs to go to college. I've taken her car and cell phone from her. Are there some kids out there that just aren't resdy to go to college? How do I handle this situation. I'll be damned if I'm going to have her stay at home and do nothing! She is just the type that never follows throught with things. She gets a job for a couple months and loses it b/c she stops showing up. She's at the stage where she just wants to hang out with her friends and do nothing else. I know this isn't the life I want for her, but I have to understand she is an adult now and needs to make decisions on her own. Any suggestions???
It sounds to me that forcing your daughter to go to college at this point will just result in poor performance in college, which is worse than deferring higher education.
I think you're going in the right direction, though. "If you want to live here, you have to do X, Y and Z. Otherwise, you're more than welcome to find your own place." Make it clear to her that you will help her with advancing her education whenever she comes around to Mama's way of thinking (and she will, she just needs to get her nose bloodied by the world for a little while).
It's a shame that 18 year olds have the opportunity to make mistakes that will impact the rest of their lives, but all you can do is warn and counsel. It is frustrating to see a kid reject learning "the easy way" but lessons are best learned otherwise.
Some people are never meant for college, some people just need a break before they are.
You can't force her to go. Are you paying for it? If you are, you can tell her that if she chooses not to go, it's her choice, but she will be reimbursing you for the tuition costs and all other fees you have currently paid (books, etc).
I'm not of the "go to college or get out" thinking, but if she's not going to school, she needs to be working 40 hours a week and paying you at least some form of rent. Maybe she just needs a full time job and a year or two before she's ready for college. Tell her that if she won't go to college, and she won't work full time, she has a month before she's going to find herself thrown out.
What sort of student was she in high school?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
