How can i help my 18yo daughter?

[Whatdoidonow96]

In short, she is really struggling with college, exams and life in general. Things came to a head and she had an emotional breakdown, and asked me to take her to the doctors. She was a straight A student at gcse, but has hated college and is not doing as well as she could be. She has always wanted to go to uni and this still seems to be the plan (she sits her a levels in June). She is great at procrastinating and making lists but has barely started any revision. They are not revising at college as they haven't completed the course content yet. We went to the doctors and whilst they admit there are issues they are reluctant to take any course of action as she will probably feel worse before she gets any better and her first exam (a retake) is only a month away. She agreed that she would talk with me and let me help her where i could, with time management etc. The first day was great, she even did some revision, but she came home from work yesterday in a bad mood (i dont know why), and basically shut herself with her bf in her room and cried all evening. She wouldn't speak to me at all and i knocked at her door but she didn't want me to go in. Tbf, this is not unusual and has happened 4 or 5 times over the last month. I assumed it was bf issues but she assures me not. She had things she should have done last night - get money from machine and deliver to a friend about 5 miles away, for a festival ticket, finish the unit revision from previous day, eat with bf family, none of which she did. Unfortunately i took it all personally and have been an emotional wreck myself. I feel she has let her friend down, let her bf mum down by not turning up when she had cooked for her, let me and the doctor down for saying she would let me help. On the one hand i want to shake her and shout, but i know i shouldn't. There is absolutely no pressure on her to go to uni, that is entirely her choice. Fwiw, she is 18, an only child ( and yes, quite possibly spoilt), she has a stable family life with her father and me, she has a bf (same age), she drives and has a part time job. She doesn't take drugs, she occasionally gets plastered - less so now that she has discovered vodka turns her into a not very nice person! I have always been quite close and she has she would usually talk to me about any problems. I just don't know how best to try and help her if she is just going to shut me out and not let me.

Stop worrying about her letting other people down over trivial matters. She is clearly under a lot of pressure and you need to take a step back and support her - which means doing anything and everything to help ease the burden of daily life, including running her errands for her and not disapproving when she doesn't live up to your usual standards.

She cannot "let the doctor down" by the way. You are judging her by standards that are impossible for someone under exam pressure. How about you finding a therapist to help you relax and learn to support your DD?

Wow, i really didn't mean it to come across that way, i do absolutely everything i can to help her and she doesn't really have any pressures put on her by us, she does very little around the house, i took snacks and drinks up when she was revising, i helped organise 4 days away for her last week which i was apprehensive about, being close to the exams but hoped it would help her calm down and she promised to study for the rest of the holidays. If she needs to go somewhere and its not suitable for her to drive i am taxi....

Why is she doing a PT job over exams?

It is a job she has had for 2 years and that she likes doing. It never crossed my mind to suggest she give it up, but if she wanted to she could and she knows that

Sounds odd to me. We would not want our DC to have a PT job during high stakes exams.

I think you should stop framing your DD's behaviour in "what will the neighbours say" terms and make it all about her and what she wants - which is to go to university. You sound quite ambivalent about that, too.

My dd is the same age, and has a friend who is in a similar state. Friend has become a night owl - stays up til 3am most days and then struggles to get to college. Failing subjects, not vetting assignments in on time. The college are providing some counselling which does help,plus she has gone onto antianxiety meds. But nothing is really helping.

So what is helping - both dd and friend- is working through past papers and then going through the marking scheme to see what the examiner wanted. Then revising that topic specifically and then finding another example of that question/topic. Basically getting some confidence in one bite sized piece before moving on to the next bit.

Because its more proactive revision, and its a small section, it has helped.

I am obviously appalling at putting onto words concisely what i was trying to say. I would love her to go to uni, it is what she has wanted all along, we have been to a lot of open days, some entailing an overnight stay BUT if she is seriously struggling with the pressures of a levels and is doubting going to uni that is fine with us too. I will support her in every way i can, but want her to know that if she chooses not to go that would be fine too

I get the feeling your taking her actions as an insult to you rather than a symptom of how she's feeling.
Locking herself away and not talking to you is a very normal 18 yr old response.
When you talk to her do you try to fix the problem. Example
D - I hate revision it's so stressful.
You - I know but it needs to be done. Just set a time and get it out the way.
D- oh for gods sake mum stop telling me what to do.
You - I'm not telling you what to do im trying to help you.
D- you don't understand blah blah blah
Result is a meltdown.
If your response was - I know what you mean I can imagine it's grim.
Then walk away and say no more. What is happening is that your just agreeing with her. She's not after help just recognition of her feelings. This normalises her feelings and indirectly helps her. Giving advice just adds to the stress.
This technique can be used in loads of different situations. It's hard to do but works really well. Give it a go.

Sorry for typos. To be clear, counselling and meds of limited use, lack of sleep a big culprit, but breaking up work in to very specific chunks using past papers (only 1 question at a time) is providing some structure.

That's not a supportive position, though. A supportive position is to put all your thoughts and help behind what she wants to achieve and to not burden her with trivial things.

Fanny - thank you for that. She is meeting with tutors next week to see if they can highlight the most important parts of the syllabus, and if they can help in any other way too.

I have a friend with a DD the same age and from what she has been saying a fair few of her friends are struggling at the moment. Lots of tears and parents booking appointments with hypnotherapists etc, generally a difficult time.

When you say you were 'an emotional wreck ' yourself and felt she had let people down, was she aware of this? The feeling that she has let people down is not a helpful one at this point in the proceedings. There might be no pressure on her to go to University but she is clearly putting pressure on herself. Really stressful time for her, not knowing where she will be living in September and feeling everything rests on the next few months.

Your job is to exude calm and try to keep everything on an even keel however much turmoil you are feeling inside. Very difficult but if you have good friend maybe they can help with this. I speak to my friend most mornings in term time and it is her venting session so she gets it all out. She will be doing the same for me when my DD does A levels.

Tricky time for parent and child but you will both get through it.

Thank you everyone for your input. I will take it all on board. However the day has not got off to a very positive start tbh with tears all round again. The biggest problem generally is just not being able to get her to actually start anything, so getting out of bed is an ordeal, then getting downstairs, then deciding what she is going to actually do. So far today i have checked to see if she needs to do anything before work (no work last week, 13 hours over 2 days this week), been told to go away and leave her alone. I think she has contacted work to see if anyone could cover her so she doesn't have to go in, so she can revise. But my mind sees it as do the revision she could have done last night, or the day before when she went out with bf for the day. Or instead of clubbing tonight and having to spend half of tomorrow in bed catching up from rolling in at 5am! I know i am supposed to be the adult, she is too, and i just don't feel i should have to try to ban her from doing certain things to make her revise in that time. She knows how many hours in the day, but just cant make herself see that studying should be a priority and bf, going out and clubbing will still be there when exams are finished. She has loads of things to look forward to after exams - festival, girls holiday, holiday with bf. Whilst i like the bf very much she does seem to spend pretty much every waking hour with him. I know she is sad and not being able to cope or prioritise i just feel so frustrated. However, i will re-read everything and see if she will try and formulate a plan of sorts.

TBH neither clubbing nor a job are going to help her max out on her exams. Both are strictly forbidden in our household (we are on round two of school leaving exams - DSS1 did his in 2013 and it's DSS2's turn).

Maybe i have taken too too relaxed a view on it, she knows i disapprove of it, but by the same accounts i have always hoped she can be responsible enough to decide for herself it is a bad idea. On the plus side she has just come down for breakfast and sat next to me and spoken (as opposed to growling) to me and said she probably wont go out tonight. And i think she smiled!

Try as far as possible to be encouraging of behaviours that will help your DD achieve her goals and leave disapproval of self-defeating behaviours to one side. Relentless positivity goes a long way during exams!

I've given in with hoping responsible side will kick in, freedom has led to a reversal in responsibility here!

It's benevolent dictatorship / micromanaging for the next wee while. Yes to being relentlessly upbeat.

I know kids grow up and change. She does psychology and they have been doing about mental health and she told me she thinks she has an anxiety disorder. I dont know whether she might have, or whether it is the usual traumas associated with growing up and exam pressures. Over the last couple of years she has gone from predicted 3 a's to being predicted 3 c's, which has drastically changed her original uni plans. College let a group of them down badly last year and her confidence and faith in the education being provided to her dropped dramatically. She has competed at national championships in her chosen sport, but hasn't done any sport, even for fun, in a long while now. And the crying.....is this how a normal, slightly emotional girl behaves or is there a deeper problem here. I understand the doctors view of doing nothing except talking to her because drugs or counselling might make her worse before it gets better and exams are quite soon. But would we want to go that route after June, with her potentially starting uni in September. If nobody mentions college, studying, exams or uni she is the same girl she has always been, so maybe a change of environment would solve some of her issues. I just don't know what to think anymore.

It sounds as if she is dealing with a great deal of disappointment and reduced self-esteem.

I am not being nosey but is she on the pill? My DD was for 4 months it was hell, she was crying, mood swings and her poor BF took the brunt of it. She came off the pill and within 2 weeks was back to her normal happy only slightly stroppy self. How that boy put up with her I don't know?

She was on the pill for quite a long time (to alleviate period problems), but she had the implant fitted in January. I did wonder if it was anything hormonal to do with that, but the problem has been there longer than that. I did mean to suggest she ask the doctor about it, but forgot. I will suggest she males another appointment - thanks

Welshpixie, like you said, her bf must have the patience of a saint

Agree with not worrying about “letting people down”. It might help if you remember that your DD is unwell just now, whether it’s hormones or anxiety.

I am quite a worrier myself and it does sound as if you have high expectations and you may be unintentionally putting both yourself and your DD under pressure. (I do this to my own DS unless I am very careful!) What she probably needs most is for you to back off and say “never mind dear, it’s not the end of the world, we’ll cope”. If she needs to postpone uni for a year while she sorts herself out that’s not the end of the world either. If you can be calm and relaxed and remember that five years from now this will all be water under the bridge and she will be fine.

The fact that she achieved national championships and then dropped out of sport altogether speaks volumes about anxiety. What can happen is that a wish to achieve something replaces the simple pleasure of doing the activity, and then the fear of losing or failing makes it impossible to do the activity at all. That can happen in academic and school life too. (I work in a university and I see it quite often.)

Whether it’s enough for an anxiety disorder I don’t know. Anyway one good response is a calm, low-pressure environment, not necessarily one where she gets to do everything she wants and avoids everything that scares her, but one where she is encouraged to do a teeny bit of college work, not to get results, but just to get her over the fear of it. If you emphasise results – any kind of results – this may kick off the anxiety. Instead she may need to focus on the process, and only very little bits of it - “Read the book for five minutes.” “Write a mind map”. “Answer one bit of an exam question” “Write ten post-it notes”. Don’t worry if it’s right or wrong, it’s the doing that matters. So instead of thinking "you could have done two hours revision but you didn't" think "I'd like you to do five minutes today" and if she can/will, that's good, and if not, well it means she'll take longer to get over it.

And bear in mind that when someone is in a fret, each of these little things is a big achievement in itself.

As a parent of a DD who has huge anxiety around exams, I agree with Kleinzeit, creating a calm consistent environment, where she is encouraged to do her best but with the knowledge everything can be fixed, is best. Can I suggest at this late exam stage, you are led by her and school as to what she can achieve. If she is struggling with anxiety, she could even drop an A level now, or do retakes next year , if she thinks she may be struggling with mental health issues, please take this seriously and do follow up after exams. A gap year maybe worth considering, so you address any mental health issues while she is still living at home and she can make uni choices she feels happy with. If you can suggest she does the best she can and you will all regroup after results, it may take some of the pressure off. My DS, had a last minute home tutor for 4 weeks to help organise one of his A levels. Can she put her job on hold until after exams ? Please try to get your own support from friends or counselling, as your stress will unfortunately make things harder..good luck.