My Dd17 is currently spending a scholarship year in China studying Mandarin - it's a stand-alone scholarship she applied for during her final year of school and she's due to come home next summer. She's having a great time and has a boyfriend (one of last year's scholarship group who has been given a further 4-year scholarship).
She has applied for 2 courses for next year, one a vocational arts course and the other a languages course at a local top uni. I think gettin on the arts course is 50/50, but she has a very good chance for the languages course.
She broke the news to me yesterday that she's looking into applying for a full degree scholarship in China. I'm very upset. That would mean her leaving home at 17 and spending 5 years in China, with only a short trip (maybe 2) home every year. I was/am prepared for her to leave home for Uni, but this is so much more than that - effectively she's emigrating and I don't expect that she will ever come home to live. I wasn't ready for that and I regret giving her permission to apply for her current scholarship.
There's no guarantee that she'll get the scholarship, but she's pretty lucky and works hard so she probably will. I told her that I won't support her at all if she goes ahead. She did say that if she gets into the arts Uni (it's a Conservatoire) she'll come home, but she would rather do the languages course in China. I'm pretty sure some of this enthusiasm is coming from a relationship that's only a few weeks old.
How do I stay sane and do the right thing?