Letting them make there own mistakes

[HeBeaverandSheBeaver]

Please give me your success stories or wisdom.

Dd 17 has had some MH issues last few years. She has had therapy and this has helped her hugely but she still at times will not go to a class or calls in sick at her part time job. She can't seem to just plough through the bad days

Example. Went out last night was fine but woke with bad period pains so called in sick. She doesn't help herself by taking pain killers early to give them time to work for example. I get so annoyed by her attitude.

She leaves school work till the last minute and then panicks stays up all night and then is knackered next day and sometimes won't go in to school. Her sleep is disordered

I'm fed up with it.

She had an education assessment and was told she was borderline add Very intelligent but slow processing and memory

She certainly has many traits of it.

Timekeeping awful
No organisation
Procrastinating
Worries. Anxiety

I'm so stressed for her future.

Dh who is very similar to her In personality says I need to start back and let her cock up on her own. If she looses a few years of time against her peers then she will learn the hard way.

Has this worked for your teens?

I know in a lot of ways he is right and as they are so similar and has experience of this himself. whereas I'm a planner and get stuff done early so this attitude does my head in. He says he had to learn the hard way too. He is now super successful in his job after a crap a levels and degree as he pissed about.

I'm
Happy to support her but I can't go round in circles anymore as it's doing my own MH up the wall.

Any advice would be appreciated

You can't learn for her. Making mistakes is part of the learning process for teenagers and young adults (and all of us). People tend to learn more from mistakes.

Your way of approaching life is not necessarily the best way. Not everyone likes to plan and do things in advance - just because you personally would find that uncomfortable, doesn't mean it's wrong. It's not constructive to beat her up for not being a mini-you.

Getting annoyed at her isn't going to help and it will just knock her self-esteem. I can't see that you're describing anything life-destroying here. Isn't it better to make the mistakes with a teenage part-time job rather than later in life? That's pretty normal.

What's she good at? What are her positive traits? Given her difficulties, I am impressed she has even gone out and secured a job. Many wouldn't.

"You can't learn for her. Making mistakes is part of the learning process for teenagers and young adults (and all of us). People tend to learn more from mistakes."

Good point there. I will try to remember that.

She seems to do best when under pressure like my dh which I can't relate too. It's fine if I don't get involved but I guess I get pulled into it and then I get frustrated

We are opposites and I need to accept it and let go to some extent.

It's so so hard to do as a mother tho.

Have you helped her to develop strategies and techniques for planning and organisation ?
My son is 18, I've put 10 years hard slog into calenders, charts, timetables, developing routines etc etc. After a lot of support managing school work, he was much more self sufficient at college

Overall he is much more independent now. He can still be thrown if things don't go according to 'the plan", he still often forgets why he went upstairs or spend half an hour in the bathroom and forget to have a shower.But he is much better - gets himself up and out for work on time for example. He is very slow but gets himself where he needs to be on time.
I still have to help him plan any new big changes and support him until he is in the swing of things
He has ASD. I expect to be supporting him develop life skills into his 20s.

Not only does she need to make her own mistakes, she also needs to learn that she can come back from them. If you are never allowed to fail and get up again you go one of two ways: either over confident cockiness, or paralysed with terror at the very concept.

Far better she fail and be supported to get up again now, when she has the support, then later, when she has to cope by herself.

That's a good point @WashAsDelicates thank you

Help her admit she has made mistakes without feeling stupid..
My dd is school refusing. Now realises she has goals for college. Have tentatively suggested she has dug a hole by being so defiant..
Have asked her to consider how she intends to fix it.
Still awaiting a reply..

I have adhd and my biggest light bulb moments of realizing that i needed to grow up abd make more focused effort at school and work ALL without exception came from mistakes i nade....missing too many classes and getting poor marks....being lazy at work and getting fired...i could list so many. Im 45 and many of the moments of shame or just dawning realization still are clear in my mind 20 years on

And i still struggle with focus so life is still a work in progress. But by my mid 20s i had found my groove worked out what mattered to me...knuckled down. And i spent years until then boozing..clubbing....turning up late for work .failing exams. I remember all the lessons !
So what if she is mid or late twenties before she really gets her shit together...let her live those lessons. While offering support of wanted.

@waterrat
How did you overcome them? Thank you for responding

Yes, my daughter in year 12 was dreadful. Really hard work so I approached it with a you make and deal with your mistakes but in a supportive and safety net sort of way. Now, she's on a fab uni course, drives, is responsible and knows when she makes a mistake she can change it and she has our support to help but ultimately the decisions are hers to own

I was like your daughter, HeBeaver. It looked as though I would never achieve anything! Schools and parents were always cross with me, called me lazy, and I could not explain what was wrong; I didn't understand it myself! There were areas in which I excelled because I enjoyed them and found them interesting but had brain fog around everything else. My confidence was zero.

In the end I didn't do too badly at all once I'd found my niche. However I don't forget how difficult it was back then.

My son was similar (though very good at a couple of things), but he didn't care, he knew what he wanted to do with his life and has done/is still doing, it quite successfully. Unlike me, he has always had confidence.

I know it's hard but I'm sure your daughter will be all right. Your husband is right, we all have to make our own mistakes and learn from them.