To lose my temper because I can't do every single bit of emotional support in my house?

[Jorah]

I've lost my temper and shouted at dd.

Shes repeating another year in the 6th form because she did so badly on As levels. She's changed subjects. I did all the research, we t with her to see colleges and sixth forms, helped her choose new subjects. She's done well this year but STILL isnt working hard.

DH doesn't get involved at all. He listens when I talk to him but never has any practical advice. It's as if he thinks it's all a ridiculous fuss about njthing.

I took dd to a uni open day yesterday she really liked it. She has done one a level this year and reading brween the lines it didn't go well. She has an exam next week for one of her new subjects and just isn't revising.

I can't cope with her. She has no ambition, doesn't seem to get she has to revise, but wants to go to uni.

When we arrived there yesterday she did t even know the name of the course. I arrange everything. If I didn't she'd literally do nothing.

Because she's technically year 13 she seems to have fallen through the cracks at school and has no idea about ucas timelines. I said she needed to email the head of year and she didn't even know who the Head of year was

DH does NOTHING to help her.

I also have a dd taking gcses next year struggling with skin problems and friendship issues and dd3 hates her new secondary school.

I'm just so worn out with it all. I just lost my temper with dd1 as she said she needed to relax - she's done nothing all day apart from ride her horse.

DH has just come down to say that dd1 has disappeared from her room. She's gone out somewhere without telling us (we are very rural)

But he's merrily tidying up in the kitchen, he's just expecting me to deal with it

Apologies this is a complete rant.

I wish I had someone to share the emotional burden with.

You have two issues:

1. A daughter who is t as independent and self motofvated as she should be; and
2. A husband who isn’t as supportive as you’d like.

Your DD is an adult or near enough. You need to give a bit of tough love. This might mean she fails her exams and she doesn’t go to university when her pals do. Would she need a car for university? I would suggest that you sit her down and tell her that you aren’t going to organise her life. That you believe she is capable of doing that herself, that you aren’t going to talk to her about studying etc as she’s an adult and she either gets the importance or doesn’t. As an adult you now expect her to pay house keeping from her bar job - even if it’s £10. You may want to suggest that if she gets into university and it’s somethig she needs to get there you will make a car available to her for that. Then leave it at that. No more conversations no more help with applications etc. That’s going to be hard for you but it’s better that she fails in a safe environment when it really means a year of repeats than going to university collecting a load of debt and then failing and / or dropping out.

Not sure what advice I can give re: Dh

Sounds like you have my eldest.
Apart him being a boy, I now have left him to it as much as I can bare anyway. I try and think natural consequences.
I must admit I struggle to sit back but my son is so horizontal it’s untrue.

Does she think she has to go to uni, that there is no other route, that you will all be horribly worried if she doesn't?

Because quite frankly (and speaking with my lecturer's hat on) it really does not sound to me as if she is ready at all. Spending all that money on something that may not be right for her (and losing the opportunity of getting a loan later when she may be ready) sounds like a really, really bad idea.

Students do fail at uni, you know; paying the fees is absolutely no guarantee that you will emerge after 3 years with a degree.

To me it sounds like she ought to be doing either what my dd did: take a job for a year or two until she is ready for further plans, or what my ds is intending to do: apply for an apprenticeship.

Ds is the one who seems most similar to your dd, very little ambition and really struggles to organise himself. He is also repeating a year, and doing a BTEC programme instead of his original A-levels. Tbh I can't see him at uni at all, at least not within the next few years. But he might do very well in a more work-orientated environment.

Your life sounds a lot like mine a few years back! I'm afraid the H is now xH, although being mild and meek was not his issue...
Anyway, something that's really helped me with my kids and giving them help/standing back is a book called codependent no more. It's about when you help for your needs, rather than theirs - that sounds harsh and is very simplistic. But its made me reflect on a lot of my behaviours and, gradually, we are all a fair bit less stressed. The exH is still an high maintenance idiot, but I choose not to let that affect me now ( the book also explains why I put up with that for so long...)

Just signing in to say I hear you.

Four kids, all have ASD or adhd or similar.

It's me all the time.

Dh does nothing, attends no courses, asks me all the time how to deal with stuff.

It's crap.

He's the one they like most; I'm the stressed out bitch dealing with school, midnight texts, anger issues.

I feel for you. You sound extremely competent, resilient and resourceful, and as though you are trying your very best. BUT.

you can’t change anyone else

Please reread that. YOU CANT CHANGE ANYONE ELSE

Not DD, not DH not anyone except yourself.

Stop. And think. Ideally take an hour a day for a month to think.

Why are you enabling Dd1? (I am not criticising, I did this with my DS 1 who was an even less interested student than your DD1) she is not ready to take responsibility for herself, her future and her learning. This is very clear. So, what can you do? Nothing to MAKE her be ready or do it, but you can ease the stress on yourself.

Stop enabling her,

Set some boundaries, and stick to them. Mine are (now) I will feed you and house you but I will not give you money. (He is now 19) nor pay for you phone, clothes, entertainment (except that which I organise as a family). If you want money you must work. And he is finding out the hard way that jobs you can get with 3 GCSE’s are not lucrative, interesting or enjoyable.
I am lucky, I can afford to feed and house him. When he works he pays me “rent”.

This is ok now, but first I sent him away with a company called “projects abroad”. I sent him to Nepal to work, as a volunteer for 6 months. This did help him grow up a LOT and the whole thing has meant that he has now applied to go back to college next year. HE has applied. Not ME.

Good luck

This is ok now, but first I sent him away with a company called “projects abroad”. I sent him to Nepal to work, as a volunteer for 6 months. This did help him grow up a LOT

Yes I've thought of doing this.

She's got another year of school. I'm hoping she'll grow up a bit. It's pretty tough seeing all her friends leaving.

I am hoping her school will help her with ucas etc as she doesn't seem to have any clue re timelines and I deliberately don't want to find out so I am not the one in charge!!

I just reflect t back at dh when he is like this - dh: what should we do? Me; I don’t know , what should we do? If I’m grumpier, it’s more like, I don’t know ask her father. I’m so glad she has two parents to look after her. (Dh is her father obvs).

You really can’t hold your dds hand like this. If she can’t look into it and apply she shouldn’t go to uni. Be more like your dh with you and ask her what she is going to do instead.

Does she want t to go to university to study, or for the social life? Because it sounds as though another direction might be better for her. No use battling endlessly. If she has no motivation and will never do the work. She needs to find so merging she WANTS to do whatever it is.
And a good social life can come from many work places, or a flat share when she starts working, whatever. University isn't the be all and end all.

She wants to go to uni to study and be independent. to be fair to her she was really enthused by the course offered and asked questions and suggested going to a different course talk while we were there. I did test her by going for a coffee and leaving her to sort the different course talk which she did and she even took notes! So that's something I guess. We are going to another open day fairly soon as it is helping to concentrate her mind. This time I am going to stress the finanacial implications!

I know on mumsnet everyone says kids should do all this for themselves, but at our open day I didn't see a single teen by herself, all had parents , lots had two parents! lots looked utterly lost (and very young!) and dd was the only non-parent to ask a qyuestion!! one parent even asked about the quality of food in the canteen! All very un mumsnet

does she think uni is the only way for her to be independent

it does rather seem to me, OP, as if you are stuck in a mindset where it's either uni or nothing at all

but over half the population do not go to the uni and they're not all slumped in front of the telly doing nothing: there are all sorts of other roads to independence that don't require heavy loans

you said she was enthused by the course- have you any evidence that she could not be equally enthused by e.g. an apprenticeship?

I think she needs to grow up before she goes to University, otherwise she may find that the 'sharp shock' of having to be self-motivated and self-studying might just drive her into depression.

Maybe take the uni pressure off (she can always go as a mature student once she's over 21) and let her have some years to grow up properly. Can she do something regarding horse-management? A BHSAI (if those still exist?), Or work with horses for a couple of years? Just to give her time to grow up and learn to be self-reliant. She'll get so much more out of study if she returns to it when she's had a chance to value what she learns.

We've never seen an apprenticeship which looks suitable. Occasionally the school send through details but they always require 3 As!! Some of them specify low income families which we aren't.

I am sure she will revisit the idea if she does badly in the a level she's just taken.

Remember you don't have to travel across the globe to grow up: a year working in your local caff can achieve exactly the same thing. My dd had to spend 2 years working as a barrista, partly because the training she had set her heart on is incredibly competitive and it took her 2 years to get in, partly because of health issues that meant she simply wasn't ready for higher education. It was not a tragedy in the end, nothing bad happened, she got a lot of worthwhile experience and was a good deal more together when she finally did go off. I am sure her tutors have every reason to be grateful, and so does she.

What do you mean by "looks suitable"? Are you (or she) very stuck on the idea that only certain things are good enough?

Not wishing to sound harsh, I just hate having students sobbing in my office because they are overwhelmed by the demands made on them by uni life, because they weren't ready for the combination of independent living and rigorous self-regulated academic work, because they've failed to get into a good working routine and can't keep up with the course, because they have been tempted to plagiarism and been found out (which leads to very unpleasant consequences), because they lost their nerve in the exam and won't be able to progress.

DH sees your daughter more clearly than you do. HHPP is who she is. Maybe she'll change, maybe she won't, but at the age of 18 it's all up to her.

Sorry if it's been mentioned but I read article other day about helicopter parents and how we must let our dc fail, not hand in hw because it teaches much bigger lessons.

I know this is more important op. I would literally sit down with her and draw 2 choice paths.

Tell her both are in her power to reach its her choice she is a big girl now. She will choose either path by action or by in action and leave it to that

She has failed!! She's retaking A levels and chose to stay at school and repeat a year rather than go to college and do a Btec which I encouraged her to do although the course was 45.mkns away. So this was her choice but I still don't think she's working hard enough.

If she gets to uni I think she'll be a very hard worker, I think I've said she is good at coursework and she's very diligent and teachers love her whether she is academically up to it is the question. Also she isn't great at exams HENCE the emphasis on courses at ex polys where there is less reliance on exams as assessment methods.

I certaintly won't give up on her and she really wants to go to uni so I guess it's my own fault if I'm emotionally engulfed!

There are PLENTY of kids who go to uni who don't think it through and can't cope, I really don't think she'll be one of them.

Tbh a borderline D/C student going to an ex poly to do a humanities degree is probably wasting their time and money more than someone doing a more vocational degree. The course we looked at has 20% exams and the rest is coursework and assessment. That she is good at! Hence btecs!

So what do you want op? Given you now think you’re only providing suitable emotional and practical support and in fact she’s far more independent than her peers who didn’t ask any questions. (Although I expect they mostly know who their head of year is as honestly how can you not??) My parents wouldn’t have known when you needed to submit university applications or when the open days were, that wasn’t their job. It won’t be mine with the dc either. If they forget that they aren’t ready for uni.

OP, if she rides and enjoys sports coaching, would a year doing an apprenticeship (BHSAI) be of any interest? Wellington Riding (in Hampshire) offer this, residential and they receive a small wage whilst training. It’s available to 16-19 year olds. Just a thought.

I already suggested that, a few posts above you, Draughty. I think it would be a great solution, followed by uni if she still wanted to go as an adult.

Zaph Oops! But yes, they do still offer these courses (used to be Working Pupil schemes). Talland in Glos offer similar too.
OP - This is what my DD intends to do. (And they can take their horse ). It’s sort of a half-way house in that they’re still ‘looked after’ but learn enough independence by being away from home. Although she won’t be going until she’s 18/19 as they’d currently eat her alive. My DD has been diagnosed with very poor working memory too and end of term exams are a complete nightmare. She’s very disorganised and says ‘whatever’ an awful lot. I don’t enable her, and it’s actually made very little difference to her poor attitude. I feel your pain.

Four kids, all have ASD or adhd or similar.
It's me all the time.
Dh does nothing, attends no courses, asks me all the time how to deal with stuff
Given that ASD/adhd etc. tend to be inherited, do you think that your DH has it too and therefore that's why he's little help? Not a case of him not giving a toss but actually of it genuinely not occurring to him?

I would do the two pathways together with dd and dh as a group conversation with your dd discussing with both of you what she hopes to do. Even if dh doesn’t contribute he will be part of the decision making.

Then list everything she has to do to get there. Delegate dates to dh and ask him what parts he can help with, can he support revision sessions with her testing her on what she had revised - of course he can.
Include dh in everything. He may have got used to you doing everything, but can change.