Coping 101

February 7, 2013 2 Comments

Even though I’ve been away for a bit over a week, there seems to be lots to come back to.  A few drama life changes for step-daughter, some typical parental struggle with a friend and a very worried buddy-child whose friend is not doing well.

I’m still trying to acclimatize (I’ve been in the Bahamas on a kayaking expedition trip and now I’m back in the land of the ice and snow… ), and I’m still trying to shift my brain from vacation mode to “work” mode but I don’t seem to be doing a very good job at the moment!

Recently I wrote a post about a former friend of buddy-child’s who has dropped out of college.  She really wasn’t ready to go away to school but her mom is not a good person for her to be with and she was ultimately kicked out of her mom’s house just prior to graduation from high school.  Personally, I think her mom was trying to sabotage her daughter’s ability to graduate and be successful and she almost did.  This girl probably didn’t really pass all her courses because I don’t think she was getting the work completed but with a lot of extra help, she magically seemed to graduate anyways.  I’m also guessing that the school officials knew this girl needed to get out of that house so bad that maybe going away would help her.

She wasn’t able to get it together.  That happens sometimes.  Some kids just aren’t ready – especially kids who run in the hopes that all the crappy things will magically be better once they leave and the issues will be gone.  The issues aren’t necessarily gone, they’re just different and now they have an added layer of stress and pressure of needing to pass post-secondary or fear being seen (and feeling like) a failure.  That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone who is struggling before they even walk in the door.

This particular girl dropped out and came back.  Recently she sent a message to buddy-child apologizing for her behaviour leading up to and while she was gone and took responsibility for being immature.  It was a surprise move on this girl’s part but I’m proud of her.  She seems to be learning some valuable lessons now that she’s back.  I hope she finds employment in another city where she can get away from the abusive people in her family and start to save up to try school again when she is ready to face the challenge.  For some people, they don’t and won’t face a single thing they should until they have no where else to run to and I think that some of what this girl is like.

Another good friend of buddy-child’s has gone a different route.  She has also gone away to school and is trying very hard to prove herself.  Her background and her life is not the best necessarily and she left determined to make it.  Last night, in the middle of the night, a strange unknown fellow messaged buddy-child to say that her friend had a plan to kill herself this Friday when she returned home and could buddy please help them.  No one knew her address or knew what to do about it.  Weird, cryptic messages were ‘tweeted’ from this friend today that might not have made much sense if you didn’t know what her plan was.  Buddy-child already had a friend commit suicide two years ago and it was a very difficult time for her.  She did the right thing.  She went to talk to someone who then took her to the police station to give a statement so that they could contact the police service in the city the friend was in.  Last I heard, they had found the friend and she was speaking to a counselor.  No one knows what happened at this point but I’m hopeful the counselor was able to talk this friend into either going to the hospital or agreeing to some ongoing help and support until things get better.

Kids look like adults and they present as adults but they’re really not.  Many kids don’t make it that first year of college or university because their drive to go off and be independent and prove themselves is strong at the start but if there isn’t the coping mechanisms and a solid support system in place, it’s not always enough to carry them through.  It’s easy to underestimate the pressure these kids put themselves under and the burden of being a failure if it doesn’t work.  There are so many things kids should learn while they’re still kids and if they don’t get the chance, things don’t always work out the way they should later on in life.

 

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When university goes wrong

January 21, 2013 6 Comments

I’ve talked before about a couple of the girls who used to be friends with buddy-child but moved away to school and cut off their friendship before leaving in the post ‘The first goodbye’.  There really hasn’t been any contact from buddy’s end of things since she deleted or blocked or whatever it is you do on facebook and twitter.  Every once in a while she hears from the other kids little tidbits of what is happening involving these two and it’s amazing how much she is learning as a result of their behavior.  For a while she was hearing how they weren’t going to class because they were partying too much.  (OMG, can you imagine that they’re missing so many classes?!)

Then she heard how they were coming home all the time and bad-mouthing her and her boyfriend.  (OMG, they’ve left for school, why do they even care what I’m doing.  Do you think I’m going to be talking about or paying attention to anybody here when I’m gone away for school???  And why do they keep coming back?  What’s the point in leaving?)

Then she heard about how the two of them were fighting (they’re roommates at the same school).  (OMG, I knew that was going to happen..  They were not at all compatible for living together!)

Sure enough, one of them ended up back in town having dropped out of school.  (OMG, you’re going to say “I told you so but guess what!!!”).  I did say to buddy-child before the girls left that this one in particular wasn’t going to make it because she wasn’t ready.

I also explained to buddy-child what happens when you flunk out like that (not allowed to apply for student loans for one full year afterwards, the school won’t let you back in for one full year either and then you have to convince them to take a chance on you again and go through a very detailed and lengthy process of letter writing and other such things).

I feel badly for this particular child.  She has a very abusive mother, a father that has nothing to do with her and never has and has had some crappy things happen to her in her young life that she should have received counseling for and didn’t.  She was so desperate to get away she ran the first chance she could get but she really, really wasn’t ready to go.  Yes, sometimes kids need to make their own mistakes to learn from them but the key is having the environment that allows them to learn.  Unfortunately, this young lady doesn’t have that.  Sometimes (like buddy-child) there is value in finishing off personal development issues before tackling other big jumps or transitions in your life.  Too much at once and things can collapse without really being able to put your finger on why it happened.

 

 

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University life

January 7, 2013 3 Comments

Buddy-child has done the unthinkable.  She has been accepted into University.  Buddy will be the first person in her family to go to post-secondary school.  She is likely the first person in her family to have finished high school for that matter.  She has been working hard to bring her marks up high enough to go and it’s starting to pay off.  She applied to four schools and one has already offered her a spot.  It’s her second choice school and according to her, even if all the other schools say ‘no’, she will be quite content to attend this school since it was originally her first choice.  She’s not doing this because anyone is making her, she is doing this because it is what she wants to do.  Mind you, it would be difficult to be living with me and not be in school because I’m kind of pushy that way but still, she didn’t have to live with me, she didn’t have to stay after step-daughter bailed and she certainly didn’t have to go back to school for this extra year to make it all happen.  But she did.  She has done very, very well.  She is extremely proud of herself (rightfully so) and excited for all the new possibilities ahead of her.  She is still scared to leave home, scared to move into residence, scared to think about starting all over again in school somewhere else but now that her life is stable, she feels capable of facing those fears.

Even teenagers need someone to count on as they learn how to face new experiences.  They still need that ‘sameness’ and the reliability of routine and their people being who they expect them to be.  While we push our kids to live up to who we want them to be, they need us to live up to who they think we are in order for it to work.  It really is a two-way street.

It’s going to be very weird saying goodbye to this last child and finally having a house with no one else in it but me!  I wonder if this time I’ll finally go through that whole empty nest thing that people talk about.

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