A big school decision.....

[Pablo]

I have a 14 year old daughter. My wife and I have a big school decision to make. I will try to distill this down to highlights...ask if you want more detail.

In 2006 (end of 7th grade school year), we took my (then 13 year old) daughter out of regular local public middle school due to the conditions there. Hippy left wing teachers, alcohol in the girl’s bathroom, cattle learning conditions, you know - the usual. For 8th grade we enrolled her in an open, less structured small public school in another school district. This school includes grades 6-12 in different programs. Pretty neat way to learn, but they aren’t big on deadlines. She did OK there, she let us and to some extent herself down with some very poor decisions, mostly social decisions that directly effect her school work. Things like she simply quit going to her elective ASL class, because the deaf teacher simply would not use the spoken word after a certain point for the students, or she would fall behind in her not so tough math class.

She used to be brilliant, she was always in advanced math. She has always had emotional issues. Then she turned 14. She got this loser boyfriend at school who has no real concept of reality. She sees him as a “help” in everything in her life…..we can’t ban her from seeing him, but she knows we do not approve of the relationship…..which only makes it worse (for us).

Next year she will start high school.

Our choices are:

A) Remain in same school. She will do better there. But loser boy is there, and the lack of hard deadlines bothers us. It’s a TOTAL hassle for my wife to drive her there for her varying schedule. My wife can’t hold a full time regular job because the driving and the cost of gas/transporting her is eating us.

B) Attend close by high school and get back with the same stupid loser crowd of blackies. Worse school performance can be assured, even though the school is not so bad for the average student.

We have had long talks with her. We have asked her what she wants, we have told her why we would chose one over the other (in much more detail than above). Ultimately it is our decision, but she needs to know why.

On the sketchy info given, I would appreciate your input.

 

[Matt_S]

This may seem like it's coming out of left field, but I'll say it anyway: fully embrace the loser boyfriend. This is not to say you should lower your expectations for her, but if you fully accept the relationship in spite of your feelings for him, you'll have a lot more leverage to work with your daughter to make sure her school work meets expectations. What's more is that your unconditional love for the both of them will remove the stigma associated with the relationship, which may be why she's pursuing him in the first place. If there's nothing to rebel against (she is of that age, don't forget), she may lose interest once she sees that he's holding her back.

 

[CivicFan]

What's a ' stupid loser crowd of blackies'? Goths?

 

[Pablo]

Matt S - good advice and we are slowly trying it.

Civic - no, the true goths are another crowd, these just the mini-goth wanna-be's. The kids wear almost all black 24/7 but not full goth - - - - - - and music. They claim they are "not Goths".

 

[TooManyWheels]

Have there been discussions about her goals and direction for her life? I know it is way too early for her to know the details, but it is probably time for the point to be made that the choices made now will impact her entire lifetime, and that those impacts will ultimately be born by her, alone.

The point I'm getting at is that discussions of any issue are fruitless unless you define the context and parameters, because there is no common point of reference between the parties. Specific to the immediate problem, if she doesn't know where she is going she has no way to know when she is off course. Once the goal is defined, the options for achievement become more obvious.

Again, I know it is too early for the details to be in place in her mind, but the sooner you start the better. I believe the necessary brain structures for this start to form at about this age.

Just a long distance suggestion, hoping I haven't belabored the obvious.

 

[buster]

I am not a parent (yet) but I have a sister who is 17 years old. I've watched her go through this period. I always said that I won't be overly strict with my kids because I've seen way too many times how kids can rebel and things get MUCH worse. I can't stress that part enough. My stepmom's brother married a woman from Columbia who was so strict with her kids that she essentially ruined them. These kids are effed up.

I have no idea how you parent Pablo, but I agree with Matt. I can only say that most of the Catholic school kids that came to our public schools rebelled the hardest and usually it was later in life. I'm not surprised by this but many parents that fork out the money for these schools end up worse for some odd reason. You have to let kids be kids. They will grow and change but they also have to go through the "teenage years".

My parents were born in the 60's and were not strict at all. If i wanted friends to come over and drink when I was 15, I probably could have. But because they were so cool about all that stuff, I never had the urge to try it and rebel. I used to laugh at how retarded kids got with alchohol/pot in school. My parents laid it out and said look this is what this is and this is what it does. Just try and do well in school or you will end up working at McDonald's the rest of your life.

My sister is an honor student and is one of the top marching band people in the state. She also is top notch in other music/performance areas. Band geek basically. She got into West Chester University outside of Philly. Private College. $30k a year.

And this is coming from a school that has drug problems. Not bad but not great either.

It's good for kids to see the REAL world IMO. It's hard to be a parent and a friend of your kid. You will be both at times but don't expect much love until they get out of that phase of life. It's a rough growing process.

 

[TooManyWheels]

Teenage rebellion is not bad, no matter how it looks from the outside. It is a normal part of children deciding who they are, and what values are important to them. I am more worried about teens who just blindly follow "the norms", without question. On the other hand, when teens get seriously into drugs and liquor, those are very serious problems.

But goth or goth-lite wouldn't worry me. My mom freaked because I wore my hair long and listened to the rock of the sixties and seventies (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, etc). She doesn't worry anymore.

I think the most important thing is to respect your daughter as a person. Try to engage on her terms, not imposing yours. Try to figure what the boyfriend is about, if you haven't already. He may be pretty sharp, once you get past the typical problem of odd appearance. Allow her to work out her problems, with your help. Remember, change is a process (over time), not an event.

Take this with a grain of salt, as I am not a parent. But I do remember the issues of growing up, and work in the field and study the psychology of guiding change. Good luck!

 

[Pablo]

BTW - the boy is 17 and quite immature.

 

[Gary Allan]

Tough situation. If she was brilliant ..she still is. Surely this acting out is some passive aggressive manifestation. Even the most advantaged can feel oppressed ..for whatever reasons that they can manufacture.

Tell her how you feel (the concern, pain, and suffering/anxiety) and not just give her your visceral response to the situation. Also get to the root feelings that she has and attempt to understand them. This behavior is a symptom ..the problem is something else.

If you're committed to "fixing" this thing, then don't let it be tempered by the juggling that's required to make it happen. What's the price tag on a child's future and emotional wellbeing in terms of human or material capital?? Keep in mind that hindsight is a very cruel reminder later on.

Definitely lighten up on the boy friend. When you get to know him.. he may not be that bad. You may also get to the point of passively challenging his perceptions. That is, alter his "having no clue of reality" ..to having a clue of realty via exposure to a non-hostile exchange.


As far as school selection? I don't know. My daughter's high school is chuck full of losers. I assume that it's not unlike any small urban school district with eroding working class origins. My daughter still made the National Honor Society and managed 10th (or was it 11th?) in a spread between her and the top 10 that was expressed in x.1 differences in grade point average. She was a 10th in a group of 1%'rs.

That is, I think the home environment has more to do with success than the school does. Having said that, I'll also point out that we can all do nothing wrong (ie: all the right actions/choices) ..and still fail to succeed.

Good luck. My throwing of the dice and odds playing was very kind to me in results. Everyone's mileage may vary

 

[TooManyWheels]

Showing your daughter this thread might be a good conversation starter.

 

[SLM]

Quote:

---

She got this loser boyfriend at school who has no real concept of reality. She sees him as a “help” in everything in her life…..we can’t ban her from seeing him, but she knows we do not approve of the relationship…..which only makes it worse (for us).

---

The more you hate that boyfriend the more she will like him. No two ways about it. I would send her back to her old school, she's still young, this guy will slowly disappear. As well your her parents, you have the most influence in her life, not some teacher. My parents tried shoving me into advanced classes during middle school, I only struggled. When I went to high school, I only took regular kid classes, graduated and have finished up at a University. I knew kids who only took AP classes and were going to community college. I would send her back to her old school. She's 14, has no concept of the real world and won't for a few years. When I was 14 the future was tommorow. It changed over time

 

[The Critic]

The lack of deadlines at her current school is a huge issue as it does not prepare your daughter for the real world. Perhaps you can elaborate on how the school isn’t “big” on deadlines…are the teachers just very accepting of late work without penalty?

If your daughter was formerly brilliant and is now falling through the cracks, something is wrong, evidently. It may be beyond your reach at this point as a parent to intervene. Have you looked into professional counseling? I’ve had friends who have gone through professional counseling in such situations and it has helped them a lot.

The boyfriend issue isn’t one that I’d be terribly concerned about. Whether you accept the relationship or not, is a non-issue. High school relationships rarely last. At most, they last two years. Usually they last less than a year. At this point in her life, it’s likely that your daughter has just begun to enter the world of dating and I can assure you that she’ll be sampling other guys. Let’s just hope that her next boyfriend will be a more responsible person.

Given your daughter’s current academic standing, is it still possible for her to enter a program at your local high school that prepares students for entrance to a university? If one even exists, that is. I wrote about this specifically in my college application essay, but my experience (and personal experience) is that a good college preparatory program can greatly help a student academically by putting them in an academically competitive atmosphere. When your daughter enters such an atmosphere, she’ll become pressured to do well in school and ultimately, hopefully that is, begin to associate herself with better people.

Alternatively, I would ask your daughter to considering running for the leadership/student government class at whichever school she attends. Leadership classes tend to have good students and they tend to foster personal growth in a positive way. Many of my friends who are in (or were in) student government have grown both academically, personally, and socially after being given opportunities to demonstrate their responsibilities and abilities.

 

[Pablo]

Quote:

---

Perhaps you can elaborate on how the school isn’t “big” on deadlines…are the teachers just very accepting of late work without penalty?

---

Exactry.

Quote:

---

If your daughter was formerly brilliant and is now falling through the cracks, something is wrong, evidently.

---

She's pretty much a slug, except the only energy she has is for social loafing. That's typical teeness. Sleeps all day if allowed....can't go out to party at night....
she reminds me of some girls I knew in China.

Leadership? No offense, but you have NO IDEA. She (unlike you at that age) doesn't have anything together.

Last year she wanted to be a tattoo artist. Now she want to steal from a rich guy (I'm serious).....stay tuned.

 

[MarkC]

P, have you thought about Bellevue Christian?
Probably expensive, and doesn't solve the driving problem for your wife, but I'll bet there are no Goths, Blackies, Emo's or anything else around there... other than rich white kids. But I think the academics are excellent. Your daughter might very well resist, and might not like the obligatory religious component, but it's a thought. That no deadline stuff is not so great.
I doubt the choice of school will affect her very much anyway, my parents sent me to such a school for a year when I was about 13, and I turned out....well-- as you know.
Seriously, the extra discipline only encouraged resistance, so you're pretty much doomed if you do, cursed if you don't.

 

[Pablo]

MarkC gets it...the hazards of parenting.

Wifey and I took a long walk and came to a decision. We are sticking with the alternative school - she does learn there, which is the weird thing.....let's just put it this way, the girl just isn't going to ever have a "regular" job anyway. And no college....saves me a bundle....

 

[MarkC]

Well, you could introduce her to the idea of
"where do you think the money for you to live and have nice things, and do interesting stuff is going to come from?"
She's still young, things may very well change.

 

[Julian]

If you’ve already made a decision, then I’ll just nuke what I was going to say, but let me chip in and expound on something that a few other people have mentioned. I don’t think they’re totally wrong, but I don’t think they’re totally right either.

My two cents on playing cupid is that helping the person see their love interest for what they are does not mean the insight you provide focuses exclusively on (what you perceive to be) either bad or good traits of the potential relationship and the potential sweetheart, REGARDLESS of where the perceptual biases of the person you want to “aid” lay. If you focus completely on negative traits, you invalidate every legitimate reason they want to be with the other person, and if you focus completely on positive traits, you do the opposite.

Sometimes people won’t believe how bad the bad news is until they are sure you can fully appreciate what you are telling them to give up. Everybody has flaws. The issue with a relationship is “total package”. Your assessment of the relationship’s negative traits has absolutely no weight unless your eye is equally trained on the reasons the relationship is beneficial, and vice-versa. Neither matters in this instance unless your daughter knows you have a very good handle on both, and remember that most people can’t read minds.

You can achieve effects that are exactly like the effects of lying simply by telling someone the truth, albeit judiciously selected. All that needs to happen is for the person to believe your primary intention in sharing information is to coerce them. You can be as “factual” and “honest” as you want with the information you selected, it doesn’t matter. If you’re going to be “honest” in a situation like this, you might as well go all the way and make yourself an open book... unless you happen to be biased yourself.

He’s a poor, mushroom-eating Muslim who uses the wrong grade of Mobile oil in his run-down jalopy isn’t he? Admit it.

 

[Pablo]

MarkC - yes we've been over that many times....

Julian - I have been selectively looking for his good points. Here's a few: 1) He doesn't have a drivers license. 2) He eats NOTHING but pizza and an occasional ham sandwich. I can't think of anything else.....

 

[Kestas]

I just wanted to chime in and defend the Catholic high school system. Mine was a good experience. So was the experience of all my friends who went to other Catholic schools. I shared those years with some top-notch people. My school did an excellent job of preparing me academically and did little in the way of "screwing me up". And they continue to do a good job to this day, having to turn away many applicants that want to get into the school. Contrary to what most people may think, the school would not accept or retain any student that didn't want to be there. It was an expense for my parents and I've thanked them many times since then for sending me there.

 

[webfors]

My girls are 3 and 1, so I have a few years before I need to worry about what you're going through Pablo. I can say from my personal experience that support, compassion and unconditional love go a long long way. No matter how bad I screwed up (which was many a times), my parents were always there for me. Just knowing that probably saved my life on occasion.

What kids go through may seem silly, immature, or downright ridiculous to us 'adults', but they are very real and emotionally loaded from a kids perspective. I have faith that you'll do just fine Pablo