Daughter's apathetic life
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| Wed, 03-28-2007 - 3:57am |
Our 17yo jr has decided that she doesn't care about anything at all. She still will go out with her friends, but doesn't care if she's grounded. She'd like to grad from the prep HS that she's attended for nearly 3 yrs now and go on to college, but she's not willing to put any work into any real college prep. She's missed several assignments and some classes her grades are dipping. She's had one real close best friend for nearly 2 years, but recently had a falling out because of the other girl's sneaking around, lying to parents, etc and started hanging out more with another group that she occasionally went out with. These problems predate the change of friends. I very strongly doubt drugs or even drinking. She may have had a tried drinking at one of 2 sleepovers, but never coming home. She always has and still does sit down on the couch with me when she comes in and talks, never hids or runs off when she gets in. Her relationship with her mother (my wife) isn't good. They are like cats and dogs, neither realizes that they are nearly identical in so many ways. Our relationship is very good. We talk about most subjects with ease, even having a lot of the same interests in music & sports. Our most difficult conversations are about guys and sex, but we are able to talk about it.
She told me that she really doesn't care about anything. Not her friends, school work, college, her family (including her littlest brother who's only 4 and she seems to usually adore, and also me- the person who usually helps her negotiate her mother and we get alone so well). She didn't turn in an assignment this week so my wife grounded her this weekend. Her reply was to make it 2 weekends, who cares.
Somebody help! does she need profressional help? do I need profressional help? It kills me that this (seemingly) smart, beautiful young lady (that I adore) doesn't care about herself or anything around her.
Obviously this troubles me or I wouldn't be awake posting at 4 am.

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Welcome dadfor6!!!
Have you had your daughter evaluated for depression? It sure sounds an awful lot like depression to me, the apathy, the lack of interest in things she enjoys, the "who cares" attitudes that are new for her. A visit to her doctor could help sort things out, maybe counseling? Six months or so of an anti-depressant medication could do wonders for her too. Where she's had the falling out with her best friend and has a turbulent relationship with her mother - all of that is enough stress to be depressing for a teen.
BTW, I gotta tell you - your comment about DD and mom being so much alike - my hubby always reminds me of that when my DD and I aren't getting along. "If you two weren't so much alike, and both of you too stubborn for your own good, you'd get along a lot better!" I'd like to smack him when he says that, but he's right! LOL
Rose
What about hobbies, a job or extracurricular activities? Is she involved in any of those? If not, I think I'd encourage her to try something that will expand her circle of friends and her boost her self esteem. I think this age is tough, as our kids see everyone else around them making plans for college and excelling in other areas, and if our kids view themselves as being not quite up to par, they might feel like failures and give up.
Grounding her for a weekend because she didn't turn in an assgnmt seems like a bit much, but when DS17 was slacking off for a while, I might have done the same.
Counseling for her or for the family is definitely worth a try, especially since time is running out--just one more year until she's an adult. When our DS was severely depressed after getting in trouble last fall, counseling did help him/us. Basically, the therapist told us we need to ask him what we could do that would make him feel we trust him, and give him lots of positive strokes. He seemed to think that even though we had told DS that we'd made mistakes, too, that we still love him, that he's still a good kid even though he did something wrong....DS needed to hear/see a lot more of it. (If the punishment the school doled out hadn't lasted 3 months, I think fewer of our positive strokes would have been needed. Even though he knew we loved him in spite of his mistake, I think he still felt ostracized by the school.)
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thanks for the quick reply!
-Joe
I agree with PPs. I would suggest starting with a trip to her doc to check her out for depression. Sounds to me like she is probably depressed. Medication will help if she is. Counseling for her might help her. What happens when you talk to your wife, alone about how harsh she is. Is she a good kid? Does she get into real trouble, sneak, lie? Is it just slacking in school? If she's taking honors classes, she may be stressed about the grades/keeping up. Is there any way you could get your wife to see that she really needs support right now, and not the added pressure of being grounded all the time. It isn't working anyway if she doesn't care? Has your wife ever been depressed? If yes, then she would be able to remember how that felt, if not, tell her of your concerns. It might also be beneficial for the 3 of you to do some counselling together for a bit. Agree also with PP as it's only another year and she's out on her own, so you really need to improve your relationships with her now. Is there something she likes to do, wants to do? Get her into it.
Best wishes!
Sallie
Passive aggressive way of showing her ambivalence about going to college?
Have you discussed other options? Perhaps taking a year off or attending a community college? Part time?
Was she planning to go to college with the friend she has now split from?
I would not simply ask "you want to go to college, dont you?" It's easy for them to say 'yes' when this has been the same type of expectation as going from 4th grade to 5th grade.
I would 'assume' she has doubts or even wants a break from school and broach the topic that way. "Sounds like this school thing is getting old for you. Have you thought about going to work after graduation?"
Smile on the outside ;)
Listen
Even bright kids get bored with the details required in high school. Maybe the curriculum is getting to her??
The grounding for the weekend came about for several reasons. a-wasn't the first time, b-went from 1st honors 9th & 10th grade to failure warnings in 11th, c-had no explaination for missing the assignment, d-didn't care she missed the assignment, e-continued to state how nothing we do will have an effect on her performance. Myself, I stopped giving punishments when I was mad. I usually tell my kids that I'll get back to them with the punishment when I've calmmed down. I'm not sure that I would have grounded her myself for the whole weekend, I might have offered her an out for one night if she meet some other condition, but I do support my wife's decision now that it's been made.
My DD gets more positive attention from me than anyone else in the house. I know she does more than a lot of 17yo's are expected to do. Between her own work, and helping with her younger brothers (nearly 15, 13 with ADD, my 11yo straight-A & self sufficent athelete, 7 and 4) she has a lot on her plate. She's also a beautiful, fit young woman. She gets a good bit of deserved attention from guys, but rarley gets too involved with any guy.
As far as consuling, I'm concerned that suggesting she is depressed and needs help might make her withdraw more. I don't want to make a bad situation even worse by basically saying that I believe there's something wrong with YOU and YOU need to get help. What is the better or right way to do this with out making her withdraw?
My DD is a great kid. She shares most of my feelings on a lot of issues of teen behaviour. I'm realistic, I'm sure she does some amount of small lies. Hasn't really been caught in anything bad. The only thing I can really say she does that she knows I don't want her doing is drives around most of the weekend instead of having a destination and plan for some thing to do. Driving around leads to boredom, which leads to dumb ideas to keep busy. She knows I don't like her driving around, so she tells me they hung out at so and so's house, or they went to dunkin donuts and hung out and had iced coffees or whatever. Later she slips and says they we driving and blah blah happened. I just roll my eyes and laugh, because she is so close to being "an adult". Her biggest problem is the slacking in school. I remind her that THIS is her job now. To do good, to get into a good school so that she can get a good job and THEN relax a little. The only reason she is grounded is because of the slacking in school and the "I don't care" attitude. We're paying big bucks to help her achieve and get the best possible college with the most possible aid, and she's putting minimal effort into it. This is the first time she's been grounded in a long time, so she doesn't have that as a constant pressure anymore than any other kid.
Interresting you ask this as I thought this myself last night. I went to one of the premier prep school's in our region and basically wasted 10k before I dropped out of college before returning later. I think a year off in the "real" world, even if still living with mom and dad's safety net could do her good. But I still want her to finish HS with the grades that will keep a school interested even after 1 year off.
As far as the friend, possibly. The friend was thinking of going to a very science/technical based university for possibly an engineering degree (interrestingly, the same college that I wasted my dad's money on initially) and although my DD stated that would be fun to stay together, she admitted she didn't think she would do very well in that school. Her academic passion is foreign languages (taking 2 now, 3 next year), so I doubt there would be much of interrest at that school.
As far as going to work straight after HS, that would be interresting. She would love to work at a her favorite clothes store, but can't stand folding clothes or organizing things for that matter. lol. She can't do anything with food (even coffee) because that would be gross. haha. As my grandfather would say, she's too much.
Maybe some of this is being stressed out about her future and school and being apathetic is a form of denial she is putting up to deal w/ it? Like if I just don't turn in my HW and I fail, it's better than actually doing it and not getting a good grade? Just a guess here.
My DD is a high achieving senior, top 10% of her class, was accepted at all the colleges she applied to. Last fall she was having a meldown from stress--5 honors classes and 1 AP, a part-time job and having to fill out college apps. and deciding where to go were just getting to her. The decision of where to go to college and what to major in is really the first big decision that teenagers have to make by themselves and it's very difficult. Before that, the big decision was like, should I take French or Spanish? Doesn't matter that much, but they figure that their whole life is going to depend on what they decide about college. As adults, we can see that it doesn't matter that much in the long run.
BTW, I majored in languages in college and now I'm a lawyer--totally unrelated, but I also had a double major in Sociology. I realized that my dream of being an interpreter wasn't going to be realized cause I'm not a native speaker and I didn't want to be a teacher. The funny part is I studied Italian, Spanish & French and now I work in a place where all the foreign people I deal with are Chinese.
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