Gap year suggestions

Costac

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jul 14, 2019
Looking for ideas.

We have a senior. Graduating high school May 2020.

She is smart, makes As, AP, dual enrollment, NHS, etc. However, as we get into senior year she is retrogressing.

Always complaining, acts entitled, becoming lazy with school work, everything is a battle with her. What she wants is not a battle but chores & academics is a Battle.

It is exhausting. At this point I do not believe going straight into college will work. With no one to check on her, it could be disastrous.

She could get into good colleges but with no effort in this phase, it looks dismal.

I sometimes take on the work to research and remind her to apply for scholarships, but where does my role end and where does her part begin? Is this too much handholding?

She can tell you the A to Z of celebrities but when we discuss school, it becomes a calculus problem.

She may need a gap year to figure out what next.

Would prefer something Faraway from home so she does not assume we will constantly pick up after her.

Any suggestions on how to go about this? If she could just save this drama for June 2020 after she graduates it would help her and us.

What can we do?

Can anyone share?

Yes there are those with the great best situations with their kids, lucky you, l am hoping for anyone who has faced this to tell me how it all played out.
 
I agree a gap year. College is too expensive not to go in it with her head in the game. My oldest had wished she took a gap year because she feels it would have helped making a decision on what major and not waste time and effort on classes she didn't need. What about her friends? Are they not applying working on their applications? Is the a boyfriend who is being a distraction?

Does she have any idea what she wants to pursue? Maybe work in the area she has an interest as a career, for example Nursing. She could work fora year as a CNA, and see if it is really for her.

Americorps also has opportunities I believe where you work for a year and get some type of scholarship. I work with someone who did this and she said it was a life changer for her.

IT really is a tough situation and sounds like seinoritis maybe when school start again she will straighten out.
I am blessed that my kids were/are warriors when it can to school, we also had financial pressures so that made them take school very seriously. Both were RA'a for 2 years and saw some kids who were bright just self implode.

Good luck!
 
I agree a gap year. College is too expensive not to go in it with her head in the game. My oldest had wished she took a gap year because she feels it would have helped making a decision on what major and not waste time and effort on classes she didn't need. What about her friends? Are they not applying working on their applications? Is the a boyfriend who is being a distraction?

Does she have any idea what she wants to pursue? Maybe work in the area she has an interest as a career, for example Nursing. She could work fora year as a CNA, and see if it is really for her.

Americorps also has opportunities I believe where you work for a year and get some type of scholarship. I work with someone who did this and she said it was a life changer for her.

IT really is a tough situation and sounds like seinoritis maybe when school start again she will straighten out.
I am blessed that my kids were/are warriors when it can to school, we also had financial pressures so that made them take school very seriously. Both were RA'a for 2 years and saw some kids who were bright just self implode.

Good luck!
I appreciate this.

I think our household is dealing with both Senioritis & an early implosion. Maybe it is good it is happening now before she leaves for college.

We are looking into Americorps now.
 
Looking for ideas.

We have a senior. Graduating high school May 2020.

She is smart, makes As, AP, dual enrollment, NHS, etc. However, as we get into senior year she is retrogressing.

Always complaining, acts entitled, becoming lazy with school work, everything is a battle with her. What she wants is not a battle but chores & academics is a Battle.

It is exhausting. At this point I do not believe going straight into college will work. With no one to check on her, it could be disastrous.

She could get into good colleges but with no effort in this phase, it looks dismal.

I sometimes take on the work to research and remind her to apply for scholarships, but where does my role end and where does her part begin? Is this too much handholding?

She can tell you the A to Z of celebrities but when we discuss school, it becomes a calculus problem.

She may need a gap year to figure out what next.

Would prefer something Faraway from home so she does not assume we will constantly pick up after her.

Any suggestions on how to go about this? If she could just save this drama for June 2020 after she graduates it would help her and us.

What can we do?

Can anyone share?

Yes there are those with the great best situations with their kids, lucky you, l am hoping for anyone who has faced this to tell me how it all played out.
I think that there comes a time when you have to step back and let them be responsible for their own studies, life path. I know that it is hard. By ‘handholding’ and doing research, form filling etc you are taking the responsibility from her and disempowering her. As you said, she is an intelligent girl and she will quickly work out that if she wants to go to University she will have to jump through certain hoops to get there. Similarly it should be her choice whether or not to have a gap year.
If she is keen to have a gap year maybe suggest that she looks at Raleigh International and Lattitude.org. British charities working overseas but they accept young people from all over the world.
 


I personally am not a fan of the gap year unless you are committed to something worth while such as ministry or helping others in some way. But just to take a year off, I have seen too many kids do that or say they are starting at semester and they never go or go and drop out because they were used to doing nothing and liked it.
 
My son was very unmotivated his senior year of high school. He finished college applications at the last minute, didn't ask anyone to even look over his essays, and was then surprised when he didn't get into his top choices of schools. However, after he started at his "safely" school, he blossomed -- he found a major he really enjoyed, got more involved in extracurriculars than he had been in high school, and (completely on his own) applied for and landed a great job after college graduation. He explained to me during college that he was just bored in high school, so he didn't care.

Your daughter may be in a similar situation, or her issues may be completely different. Either way, though, you need to follow her lead on next steps. If she indicates an interest in a gap year program and you find ideas that you think would be good for her, by all means provide her with information about them, but she needs to make the decision whether or not to pursue them. If she wants to apply to colleges and believes she can succeed in a year, let her try (or at least send applications -- if you're paying for college and truly don't think she's ready next spring, that's another discussion). If she applies to colleges but then decides she needs/wants to do something else for a year, many colleges will let her delay enrollment for a year.

As tguz mentioned above, if she doesn't make plans now for next year, she may lose the initiative to apply and enroll in college or other programs later.
 
I would ask your question in College Confidential Parents forum.
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/
Some ideas:
1) She could do an exchange program overseas ...e.g. Youth For Understanding as a gap year.
2) Just have her apply to the Flagship State U....don't talk about any other colleges. She may see others talking about colleges and start to get interested. Or if not, she can excel at the State U.
3) Or just have her sign up for Community College.
4) This defiance may actually be fear....she may not want to go to college or not know what to major in or not know where to go.
5) Consider there could be other factors at play.... Drugs? Mental Illness? Friend/boy/girl friend issues?
6) Set boundaries on what is expected if she does a gap year...e.g., must work at least 20 hours per week
7)Gap years should not be running away from something (college) but running to something (exploring something)
8) Talk to her Guidance Counselor about what is going on
 


Did you ask her what she wants? What are her interests?

If she is in advanced classes, then she's smart enough to know what she should be doing.

I wouldn't bother any further. I'd just say, "Hey, if you want to go to college, you need to do xyz. If you need help, let me know. If not, then you need to get a job or take some credit/noncredit classes at community college to stay under this roof. If you think of something better, then let me know."
 
I get the no "hand holding" thought however its a much diffierent world now. I'm 54 and in my day if you made mistakes you could recover, not so much now. If you screw up your first year you can essentially eliminate yourself from may programs like nursing or Business school for example. My tuition was $600, my kids $6,000. I see so many parents with the "that's not my problem their an adult" who are then mortified to find their children have $80,000 in loans and a Poly Sci degree and no job offers.
 
Gap years can work but more often than not IME it tends to lead to people losing the motivation for college especially if they are working and earning money. This is the same IME that can happen when people go to college but then opt at a certain point to take a break.

Senioritis happens, it happened to me in some respects when I was in high school--it didn't mean I was suddenly not ready for college. Behavorially it could just be antsy feelings towards getting out on her own. A student who is that accomplished I wouldn't lose faith that quickly in their abilities to function well enough in college to the point of suggesting they take the time off. You might also see if some life event happen that could have contributed to her behaviors.
 
Also sometimes kids forget that applying to college doesn't equal "must go".
So i would shepherd her through applying to the appropriate State U and tell her she doesn't have to choose what to do really until next Aug when you pay the tuition or not. Just tell her you want her to have options and you want to work with her on having as many as possible.
 

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