Help deal with my sister over her dd failing final year Physics. (VERY LONG)

[QuintessentiallyQS]

My sister is ambitious. Her grades in school were excellent and she went on to be a civil engineer, and then she was a research scientist within amino acids and fat chemistry, something.

She has always been very proud of her daughter, now 19. She has supported her schooling wholeheartedly, to the point of taking over projects and doing them with her dd, rather than letting her dd do it herself. She has not been able to bear the thought of her dds work being anything but perfect, and if dd did not have the ability, she would take over and help her finish.

My sister has been on disability benefit the last 10 years due to various problems. She is distraught at the loss of career, and feel her intellect is going to pots, and she has no self esteem. I think this is partly why she is so involved in her daughter, and so proud of her. Sh e is always boasting about dds good grades, even to people whose children have not done well in education.

My niece was on track to get A* for everything.

But, there is a bit of a situation. Final year of A levels, and physics teacher suggested a trip to Cern. All the students were keen. In order to achieve this, they started a hefty baking schedule with cake sales once a week and for the pensioners tea dance on Saturday, and home made pizza once a week. So, preparation of cakes twice a week, and pizza once a week. The pupils also had to sell cakes, so half of Saturday since September has been taken up with cake decoration and sales, and cleaning up after selling.

Most of the final year has therefore been taken up with baking. My sister and her dd has baked 6 cakes per week. 3 for Tuesday (usually something simple like brownies, cupcakes, traybakes) for the school, and 3 for the tea-dance. The cakes for the tea dance have been elaborate concoctions. My sister put her life and soul and all her pride into those cakes, Italian creamcakes, tiramisu cakes, cheese cakes, and all beautifully decorated.

Now to the point. In the middle of this, dd has neglected physics. She has not had time to tell her mum, or complain to the school, that they only managed to go through half the syllabus, and that the teacher did not know how to explain anything to the student. DD left midway through her physics exam and got a sick note. She can retake in November. She will not get her leavers certificate.

My sister is a nervous wreck. She is shouting and screaming, crying and hitting herself. She blames dd 100%. The cakes and the baking has nothing to do with the situation. The fact that her dd has never had to take responsibility for her learning has nothing to do with it.
The teacher has been dismissed, and the bad teacher has nothing really to do with it as dd should have been on top of things. How could she? Her dd has always had mum to fight her battles and be on top of things, and she was consumed with confectionary!

My sister says she has waited years for the final day where her daughter would get her certificate and move on to uni. (She will still move on to UNI, she will resit her physics ). My sister is distraught because she has been deprived of watching her daughter get the certificate. She says the trust is gone, and to hell with it, she says she is "done" with her daughter.

I have tried talking to her. It is like talking to a crying screaming harpie.
My niece is moving home to Norway and will live in my dads house, it has a self contained flat. My sister started a kitchen building project that my poor old dad has overseen, and there is a lot of mess in the flat. Too much mess in the flat for niece to come alone and clear it up. Furniture to move and carry downstairs and sell, etc.

My sister says she does not want to go up there. Her dd has ruined my sisters life, she has ruined the summer holidays, how can she relax and rest when her dd has to read physics. And she does not want to be there until november and coach her physics reading.
She does not want to stay behind either, because she says that she is sure she will kill herself if left alone at home in Spain.

My sisters outlook is always catastrophic and pessimistic. Her daughter is more "yeah yeah whatever"

I dont know what to do. If anything.

If your niece is moving to Norway I think she'll stand a bit of mess to get away from a) Physics and b) hysterical mother.... Quite honestly, I would offer your sister the Samaritans phone number for if she's thinking of killing herself and then taking a big step backwards rather than pandering to her screaming harpie act. Maybe your niece would like a lift to the airport?

My sister has not picked up the phone for a few days. But niece is on snapchat and FB so know she is ok.

I have spoken to niece and reassured her it is not so bad. She gets to start UNI (environmental science) and can audit lectures in physics, find a physics student who can tutor her a little, and she herself feels she will be ok.

I am not in the same country as my sister, so cant drive anybody to the airport I am afraid, but my niece knows I am there for her, at least mentally!

Your niece sounds like she is doing fine in spite of her ridiculous, overbearing mother. Bet she won't see her DD again once she gets away to uni.

Oh she will, as dd will live upstairs in my dads house. It is a self contained flat with two bedrooms in my dads house.

Support your niece in any way you can in making the move ASAP. Her mother is clearly suffering with mental health problems, but doesn't see that herself yet, and it will drag your niece down as well.

Someone (or several someone's, friends and family) need to talk to your sister and tell her outright that this behaviour shows signs of mental health problems, especially if she is making threats to her own safety she can't really deny it! But the whole control/freaking out/hitting herself/hysteria over something like this which is not all that serious and getting fixed by your niece, is very worrying. She needs to see her doctor urgently. If she refuses, all I can suggest is you have to detach yourself from the drama, but try on a regular basis to talk her into going to the doctors.

the world is full of people who screwed up at school and college, my sister being a prime example, a* student, pretty much perfect until she discovered bloke and booze aged 17, flunked her a levels. Got a fairly run of the mill job.
Fast forward 30 years, She rang yesterday to say she has just been made a VP of a huge retail outfit in the USA, she's on squillions of $$$. People generally come good in the end.
Your sister sounds unhinged.

Your sister has helped screwed up her daughter's education by doing her work.

No one has any clue what level she would attain alone.

She can't live her life through her daughter and needs to step back before she ruins any mother/daughter bond that is left.

I have been telling her she cant keep doing her daughters school work, whats going to happen when she is in Uni? Or start working?
I have been telling her that her daughter needs to learn to work and prioritize and plan her work independently, as she is doing her a great disservice not letting her learn this. But she has been saying "it is only to get her through secondary so she can have the world at her feet with good grades".

And now that her daughter has not planned, prioritized, and my sister dropped her ball due to a "cake high", she blames her daughter, and dont see her own part in it. It is so frustrating.

I am sure niece will do well in the end, she just needs to learn from her mistakes before she is too old!

I don't know what to say other than I feel so sorry for her DD.

I would leave her to calm down for a bit, then slowly introduce the realities of the situation that both her and her teacher have set up. The pair of them have done your niece a disservice, its lucky she has her head screwed on and even though she's had her mother to rely on, at least she has seen the amount of work and commitment needed to pass and so has an idea of what she needs to do.

If your sister continues with the disowning her own daughter track its possible it will destroy their relationship and they will never see each other beyond a few awkward and hostile interactions. Both could easily arrange schedules to be at your fathers place at differing times and for your niece to decide to stay with friends when her mother is due and so on.

It was never going to be just for high school though was it? Your sister had a life plan all mapped out for her daughter and is blaming her now its changed. Each time she starts up gently remind her of her part in this and how she needs to find something in her own life she is as passionate about rather than living it through her daughter and then dropping her once she does something outside the plan. At least its happened now over something relatively easily sortable if not left to fester for too long. What would have been her reaction if your niece wanted to start a family soon or pursue a more vocational career rather than academic?
Its a lot harder to take harsh words back when others are involved (partners or DC's). Hopefully they can get over this hump and forge a closer relationship with redefined boundaries.

*the teacher not her teacher.

Sounds like you have done all you can to help. Your sister's behaviour is awful but I do feel sorry for her as she clearly has deep rooted issues, and is now seeing her world collapse around her. It must be a very painful place for her to be. However, it is one of the defining traits of narcissistic people that they overinvest in their children and live their lives through their children's success.

If I were you, I would send them both a card. It's a one way communication, which can be read at their leisure and chewed over in their own time.

To sister: We are very sorry that you are feeling so awful at the moment. We love you, and don't like to see you suffer. We know that we can't help dn improve her Physics grade, but please do let us know if there is anything we can do to help you, albeit from so far away.

To neice: Please know that we are really proud of you getting a place at Uni and starting the next phase of your life. We hope that you have a wonderful time, and that your recent hiccough at school will be just that: a bump on the path to your future, but nothing that will hold you back - good luck in whatever you go onto do. Be happy.

3 cakes per event - 6 cakes per week? And being present at the sale from 11 am till 5 pm every Saturday. It meant she was baking 2 out of 7 evenings per week, and cleaning up after, and selling cakes every Saturday. The pizzas were made from scratch, making dough, etc.

She did do schoolwork. Just not much physics, because it was difficult. She concentrated on the easy subjects, like Biology, English, Chemistry, Spanish, etc.

According to my PIL my DH was to be an engineer, he did engineering at uni without leaving home under their supervision.
He really wanted to be a fireman, he left home and applied to the fire brigade and they disowned him.
They have never got over the disappointment of him choosing to be a fireman, and tell everyone that hes an engineer.

Sorry for your dh. Luckily my nieces has been really interested in biology since she was a child. (Her dad has a phd in .... grass) Her course is focused around arctic biology and conservation, but from an environmental perspective.

Goodness, how many subject was she doing for A levels?

And if she already has a university place, why does her physics A level matter?

From the sound of things, the sister and niece are not in the UK at the moment? Talk of A levels seems to be mixed up with some Leavers Certificate, multiple subjects - surely not 5+ A levels - and talk of Spain and Norway. Difficult to work out what country we are talking about? If this is the UK, how is she going to going to university if she doesn't have a full set of A levels - and if she does get in without Physics, what on earth would be the point of repeating the subject?

The whole situation about cake baking sounds mad. Surely other parents and students put their foot down about spending half the week baking for a physics trip? And if everyone was baking cakes for a year, wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay for the blooming trip in the first place? However, it's done now.

More generally, your sister obviously has more general problems than just her dd's Physics. I suspect she has used her dd's studies (and the cake-making) as a means of avoiding other issues in her life. When her dd leaves for Norway, she is going to have a heck of a time coming to terms with it. I would try to focus more on getting some support for her to broaden her horizons after that departure.

She has gone to a Norwegian school, so followed the Norwegian curriculum and if they are ill on an exam they get to resit, and she will get her preliminary grades based on her overall mark for the year, which was A. If she fails physics, she will have to leave UNI, and retake. If she passes, she is fine, she wont need a high mark, just a pass.

From what you've said, your sister is almost certainly a narcissistic parent. Narcissism is thought to develop in early childhood, most often subconsciously. Narcissists have got their self worth from acheivments because of not having had their emotional needs met and so being loved for what rather than who they are. They are subconscously hiding fro a secret shameful feeeling of low self worth.

Your sis sees her daughter as an extension of herself snd she is currently displaying textbook behaviour of narcissistic injury.

If you google narcissistic mothers, I would be suprised if you didn't recognise your sister. Both of them would benefit fro therapy your dn to stop the harm of being anadult child of a narcissist and your sister to become more psychologically whole, likeherslf more and accept that who she and her daughter are are more than good enough

Thanks. I have googled, and read, and there are not too many bells ringing. My sister has studied psychology too, and occupational psychology as a part of her second career (she retrained after marrying) and always used to say that her ex husband was a narcissist. My sister is very damaged having had to take her baby and flee dv, mostly mental. She says he broke her utterly. She also says she does not believe in therapy, she had loads after she left him. She says it made it worse, she went through some regression therapy that brought up false memories. It is really complex. She accepts she is depressed, but wont take ADs, she does not want to try CBT. I cant suggest anything in terms of therapy, or doctors, as she knows it all and has a good reason why not.

I dont know how to help them both!

Niece has had so much shit from her dad and his side of the family. DH and I have tried to be the best aunt and uncle possible for her. Dh is the "fun uncle" who take her skiing, swimming, he taught her to swim, to ski, and they go on mountain trips just the two of them. Now she is older, she has taken our kids to the cinema for "cousin treats". She really is lovely and I feel so sorry for her.

The cake situation is very odd. Shame nobody picked up on it but by the sound of things your niece has done brilliantly regardless.

People fail exams all the time, that's what resist are for, doesn't make it less of a pass. I would emphasis this as much as possible, although it seems your sister has lost all perspective. She clearly is struggling with her mental health. Is that associated with her disability? Could she seek support from anyone not directly MH related if she anti therapy etc?

I strongly suspect if things had gone to plan she may have decompensated anyway now that her life focus has come to an end. I've seen this a fair bit in a professional context.

I know, the cake situation is absurd. I was thinking my sister enjoyed engaging herself in something, and she put all her soul into it fueled by all the positive comments about her fab cake baking skills.

Her disability is mainly the cause of her depression, along with a very complex heath situation.

She says she would never have engaged in this baking if she knew her daughter had a subject that was problematic, she would have engaged herself, learnt the syllabus, and spoonfed her dd like she has in the other subjects.

It turns out that the teacher could never answer questions in class, always told the students to just read their book. She never used other examples than those in n the book. In class, she was reading from the book, or the students were reading from the book, and then she used the teachers edition to verify answers for exercises. I Niece said that she was wondering why their teacher kept asking other teachers to explain the text book to her. But because she was nice and friendly, felt bad about complaining. They now have a retired physics teacher who has stepped in and is trying to get through the rest of the curriculum at least, but the exam was last week. They could still get an oral physics examination - the draw exams at random.

It is a series of events that are unfortunate, they both just needs to deal with it, learn and move on.

There seems to be a lot of blame heaped on your niece here, but the school have dismissed the teacher and he/she had only taught half the syllabus? So with the best will in the world, WTF was your niece to do?

The cake thing was clearly barking and again I would say the school was at fault for such a ludicrous schedule of fundraising for the trip to Cern (did that ever happen?). Your niece may have suspected something was wrong but knew her mum would go off-the-charts ballistic about it and decided to keep schtum.

Sounds like your niece has a gutful of her mum and is glad to be away. More power to her - she may find returning to Norway (has she ever lived there?) quite difficult to adjust to, but far better than staying at home.

I agree with PP, your sister is going to find her dd's absence a huge change, particularly given the unnecessarily acrimonious way she's ended things. I'm not sure what you can do if she 'accepts' she's depressed but refuses to do anything about it. Is there anyone local to her who could keep an eye on her?