Thanks everyone. Sorry for the slow reply, I ended up with a doozy of a migraine that kept me awake half the night.
Do you think your daughter would cope with a "clean sheet" conversation? "Suppose we forget all about choices that have been made so far and start fresh. What would you most like to be doing with your time over the next month / year / 5 years? What do you need to feel good about yourself?" Maybe this needs to be introduced as something for her to do on paper, maybe she'd prefer to talk it through. Perhaps the idea of this exploration can be mentioned but actually do it once she's got her results next week?
This is great advice, thank you. I think from further conversation/run ins with her late last night, she's way more stressed about impending A Level results than I realised. Up to now she's insisted she was okay. Didn't expect to fail anything, but did downgrade her likely grades to just scraping by, but with the extra Uni points gained from doing this A&D course, she would still have plenty of options Uni wise, so she sounded quite level headed about it. Clearly not the case last night though🤦♀️
Being told you have exceptional promise brings pressure to live up to this. It sounds as though she has developed a fear of failure and has decided that the only alternative open to her is not to try at all.
You've absolutely hit the nail on the head there, I think "you're so scared to fail, you won't even try, how is that sensible" has practically become my catchphrase with her.
Though the pressure is all from her. We have always said that trying your hardest is the number one most important thing & any success is just a bonus. We've always played down the G&T bit & concentrated on effort & she mostly wasn't aware of it. Though obviously she was at times with school if she was out of class doing G&T enrichment stuff.
She's always been fiercely competitive though, but not to win over on others, she just sees anything less than the highest marks as failure & puts ridiculous pressure on herself.
She received an offer from Oxford and turned them down? Is that right
Sort of. Her teacher had contacts there who she had discussed DD with & they were apparently very keen to see her with view to offering her a place. DD was horrified & felt it was a really bad fit Uni for her. I kind of got her point as she's very alternative in her style & very left leaning in her political views & she's listened to our friend who went to Oxford say how much she hated her time there for those same reasons
I don't think this is so uncommon though, as our friends DS had a similar offer, even had the private interview booked & then turned it down & refused point blank to go & went camping with his mates 🤦♀️ He did end up at Oxford a several years later though.
We've had a bit of a breakthrough last night, though I could have done without the heavy 3 am chats when I was up with a stonking migraine, but thankfully I managed.
She started off very confrontational yesterday, but thankfully did calm down when we pretty much did the clean slate thing.
She's told me she is going to the college, but if it's too much she's dropping out. I know she won't do that as it's not her personality. Even though she's hard on herself, she's like a dog with a bone with gaining useful qualifications, so I think once she starts the course & realises she isn't as out of her depth as she thinks she is, she will buckle down.
She has convinced herself she's out of her depth & she's seeing immense talent on the college group chat & she can't draw/paint like them. Of course she can't when she's barely picked up a pencil since primary school & it requires practice, but she won't practice as she expects to be able to just do it
Turns out she knows exactly what she wants to do for the projects. This allowed me to point out that she's already nailed the design part of it & she might well find those who are best at drawing, don't always have the best ideas & it's an art & design course, not just art, so she isn't starting off as behind as she thinks she is, plus on my own course, most couldn't draw as well as you'd expect, but still did well because they had great design ideas
She's also started work on the project... in a fit of peak after our first run in 🤦♀️ as she'd already owned up to both DH & I that she hadn't started anything. Of course now she's saying she started days ago bollocks & our asking just annoyed her as it's non of our business now she is nearly 19 & she isn't telling "mummy & Daddy"😏 anything as she isn't 3 & we have to let her grow up... I got a big sarcastic lecture on that 😏 even though we really don't do much of what we are accused of & what we do is just common decency rules, like not loudly rolling in at 3 am midweek when people have to get up for work
I reminded her it's all about communication & that she might think that telling us absolutely nothing & leaving us worrying is grown up, but it's actually pretty childish & a 21 yr old would understand they need to communicate better to be seen as a full adult, than her nearly 19 yo self does & used examples of friends older DCs that she couldn't argue with. That did actually seem to get through, but we'll see
She's did give me a run down of her plan of action, but has said we won't see any of it & she wants to be left alone to do it, a bit sad when either DH or I could help her with techniques etc, but we have to respect that she doesn't want our help & hopefully she will use YT tutorials as I suggested So 🤞🤞
She's also owned up to how stressed & upset that she is that several of her friends are heading of to Uni soon & wants to make the most of the time she has left with them, so that's making her very anxious too
She also tried to take the opportunity to dig up another argument about removing built in furniture in her room to allow a double bed, which we don't want to do, especially not at this stage as there's no way it won't be damaged by removing it, & it's useful & she uses it everyday, & nothing is gained in useful space & the bed fits in fine without, she just has a bee in her bonnet about it & won't budge 🤦♀️ I just kept repeating "we've already gone over that several times & the answer is still no, I'm not having this conversation again, as it won't change the answer" that sent her off to bed in a strop, but she seems in a better mood today, so 🤞
Thanks again