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Tips to get your teen more organized/responsive/on top of things? (1 Viewer)

belljr

belljr

Footballguy
My daughter is a young senior, she won't turn 18 until a month into her freshman year of college. I'm hoping some of this is just maturity but I know its not all that.

She is a very good student - so she does her homework and does it well, sometimes though she crams because she procrastinates. A trait she picked up from her mother and it DRIVES ME INSANE.....

We have had a million conversations about it but it still the same behavior. I know part of not wanting to deal with things is anxiety related but she has learned how to deal with that through the years with therapy.

But the one thing she still does not do is stay on top of emails and communications ESPECIALLY for upcoming college. She get the email alert on her phone, read it then just completely ignore/forget about it..... I MADE HER install a calendar on her phone screen and told her to update that everyday or every email.. I've told her to set alerts/alarms on her phone to remind her of stuff.

Well yesterday I ask if she saw the email about the Math assessment she said yes, I asked if she scheduled it she said "I have to schedule it?" I then made her log into her school email and noticed she got an email 2 weeks ago for upcoming college physical for athletics.... I LOST MY **** ...... probably over reacted BUT STILL IS DRIVING ME NUTS.....


Its really her only "flaw" right now and I don't know how to change her behavior. We talk all the time how she has to to this stuff on her own especially when college starts ups....

Just looking for any tricks , SOMETHING i can get her over the hump
 
belljr said:
AAABatteries said:
Sometimes you have to let them learn the hard way. You can suggest but at 18 she’s an adult - needs to learn to be responsible without the parent intervening.
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Well shes not 18 for another 5 months so :)
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It’s hard because you don't want them to ever struggle. Even though you’ve made all the mistakes, suffered all the penalties and only wish you could impart that wisdom into them, we humans only seem to understand when bludgeoned over the head by our own mistakes.
 
My daughter is very much a procrastinator and it drives me nuts as well. She was also a good student and got good grades but doing homework was like pulling teeth (in my eyes). For example, if she had 4 hours to do something that takes a half hour to do it would take her the full four hours. She would play with her phone (She says she works better with music - excuse), she would day dream, she would do something else (squirrel, shiny thing, new shiny thing, etc). But in the end she would get it done. However, if she only had a half hour to get that same thing done she would get it done in a half hour. It would drive me nuts because it made is so she was "doing homework" for hours every night. It wasn't she had that much work it was that she made it take that much time.

I eventually came to the realization that I couldn't change her of these idiosyncrasies. They were her way of doing things. It would drive me nuts to work that way as I would rather get it done then goof off. I even tried reasoning with her many times that if she just got it done I wouldn't be hounding her then she could goof off with no pestering by me. It never took.

When she went to college it was all on her. Out of sight out of mind for me. If she wanted to do that fine, as long as she got good grades etc. She ended up graduating in 4 years with a double major in criminology and anthropology while also completing the ROTC program and graduated as an officer. Very well done.

Over the last year she has been living at home looking for a full time job while also fulfilling her reserve duty responsibilities. The difficulties for her finding a full time job is compounded in that we live in CA and her platoon is in Alabama. So she is trying to find work in Alabama. It's been a slow process and one that is back to driving me nuts as she does it at her speed. I cannot get her to move off that pace and it drives me nuts. it's also compounded because she has to go to Alabama every 4-6 weeks for your reserve duty responsibilities.

All that to say, I don't think these types of things can be forced to change. You have to let them figure out what works for them and make yourself available for questions/advise if they want to come to you. Forcing them to change won't work. My daughter has accomplished a lot doing it her way and I just have to take a deep breath and look away as "her way" is not for me. Be patient and help and remind but trying to force a system on her will likley never work. She has to live and learn and figure out her way. If it works then nothing to really say. The problem comes in if it doesn't work and she continually gets in trouble by it. That may take a couple set backs to get her to understand why setting reminders etc is necessary. It sucks but sometimes you have to trust them to figure some stuff on their own.
 
belljr said:
Homework was probably a bad example as shes on top of it for the most part - taking AP classes and such but she does slack and wait last minute BUT the email/text/thing IS THE MAIN ISSUE and its going to be a problem - she has gotten better but she already missed one event but just shrugged it off. I don't want to say she doesnt care because she obviously does but it seems like she doesnt
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I was just using the homework thing as an example of a her way vs my way thing. It can translate to anything really. The point is that they have to figure out what works for them. We can try and give them examples, tools, etc but for it to stick it has to them figuring it out. Failing and getting repercussions for those failures is the best medicine for this type of thing. As dinsy stated above. Live and learn is sometimes the best medicine (no matter how much we don't want our kids to suffer that).
 
I think its really hard for strangers to give advice regarding such a highly personal and unique relationship. For me, with an 18 year old graduating high school and facing many of the same or similar concerns, my approach was to just back the #### off this past school year. I didn't even attend parent teacher conferences (although my wife did). His grades dipped a bit and I have no faith in his ability to take care of his basic #### when he's on his own next fall, 500 miles away. I wanted him to enjoy what might be (hopefully is) his last year living at home. He can recover from a few missed appointments or missed opportunities, but I might never recover if his lasting memory of growing up in our household is me standing over his shoulder nagging him at everything. (He's got his mom to do that!) We still go toe-to-toe every once in a while over normal dad/son stuff, but for the most part its really been an enjoyable year for me.
 
CletiusMaximus said:
I think its really hard for strangers to give advice regarding such a highly personal and unique relationship. For me, with an 18 year old graduating high school and facing many of the same or similar concerns, my approach was to just back the #### off this past school year. I didn't even attend parent teacher conferences (although my wife did). His grades dipped a bit and I have no faith in his ability to take care of his basic #### when he's on his own next fall, 500 miles away. I wanted him to enjoy what might be (hopefully is) his last year living at home. He can recover from a few missed appointments or missed opportunities, but I might never recover if his lasting memory of growing up in our household is me standing over his shoulder nagging him at everything. (He's got his mom to do that!) We still go toe-to-toe every once in a while over normal dad/son stuff, but for the most part its really been an enjoyable year for me.
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I’ve been having conversations with the wife about this exact thing. I told her it’s ovah! We did the best we could, now we need to transition into being her friend. We’re still here and will offer advice and help (by request,) but they don’t want to hear us nagging them all the time.
 
CletiusMaximus said:
I think its really hard for strangers to give advice regarding such a highly personal and unique relationship. For me, with an 18 year old graduating high school and facing many of the same or similar concerns, my approach was to just back the #### off this past school year. I didn't even attend parent teacher conferences (although my wife did). His grades dipped a bit and I have no faith in his ability to take care of his basic #### when he's on his own next fall, 500 miles away. I wanted him to enjoy what might be (hopefully is) his last year living at home. He can recover from a few missed appointments or missed opportunities, but I might never recover if his lasting memory of growing up in our household is me standing over his shoulder nagging him at everything. (He's got his mom to do that!) We still go toe-to-toe every once in a while over normal dad/son stuff, but for the most part its really been an enjoyable year for me.
Click to expand...
This is an insightful post and one I learned this past year myself. My 20 year old son was a layabout with no plans for life until he decided last summer to up and move 500 miles away to go live with a friend and his family. You know cuz a change in the environment is gonna change his whole world. I just wished him the best and said hey I’m always here you know how to reach me. His mom was a lot less sympathetic to the cause, and basically was telling him how he was not going about life right how he was doing things the wrong way yada yada yada. I’ve told her number of times over the last couple years that she just banging her head against the wall, and he’s just tuning her out.
Forward to November this past year and sonny got in a bit of a pickle and it’s one that had some very serious consequences if not handled correctly. I was there for him as much as I could but didn’t overstep backed off and didn’t press and at my urging neither did his mom. As of today everything is OK and he took all the steps necessary made all the phone calls necessary, and make sure that he follow through on what he needed to do on his own. He hates that he screwed up, but I do think he appreciates that he handled his business. He’s even planted a seed about possibly coming back to live at home for a little bit to regain some footing.
He’s growing up some and I think I’m going to breathe a little easier for a bit.
 
belljr said:
BUT the email/text/thing IS THE MAIN ISSUE and its going to be a problem
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I doubt she is missing texts. In my experience, teens do not tend to miss those. She may be choosing to ignore them. Regarding missing things in email, this is not uncommon. I know students at our school often run into problems. My kids were pretty bad with email too, until they went to college. Now they stay on top of it pretty well since the colleges send everything important through email. They now keep tabs pretty closely. I think what we need is an app that pushes email notifications into Snapchat and TokTok. Then teens might start to notice their email.
 
Galileo said:
belljr said:
BUT the email/text/thing IS THE MAIN ISSUE and its going to be a problem
Click to expand...
I doubt she is missing texts. In my experience, teens do not tend to miss those. She may be choosing to ignore them. Regarding missing things in email, this is not uncommon. I know students at our school often run into problems. My kids were pretty bad with email too, until they went to college. Now they stay on top of it pretty well since the colleges send everything important through email. They now keep tabs pretty closely. I think what we need is an app that pushes email notifications into Snapchat and TokTok. Then teens might start to notice their email.
Click to expand...
Lol. ... My kid has none of those apps....she just created a Snapchat a couple weeks ago because she was actually missing senior fun stuff that was getting posted
 
Mine, who definitely knows everything and definitely knows I'm a moron, decided her grades were high enough that she could stop doing homework on nights she had to work. Because denominators matter, she ended up sweating finals that she shouldn't have had to worry about at all. Unfortunately, it worked out OK for her, and I'm pretty sure no lessons were learned. There's always going to be something, bell.
 
I know what I am going to say is easier said than done, but you need to relax. Things will work out. You raised a smart girl and she will figure this out. You can't let "X" year old you impose how you act now on her. This is just something I have learned recently and I know that drives my wife crazy. I was a mess when I was 18. However, I try and remind my wife (since we have been together since high school) how she put things off during college and waited until the last minute to write papers. To this day, my now 54 year old wife puts off doing stuff at work and around the house, but yet, we magically expect our 18 year old to have all her stuff together?? Our daughter has literally been putting off setting a DMV appointment to get her permit, no matter how much we encourage her to do it. She has $8,000 saved in the bank (and growing) for a car, but doesn't want to drive.

Here is the other thing, my daughter has anxiety issues as well. Her room is an absolute disaster--I mean it is so bad I worry about bugs being in there. My wife had enough and one day, went in and cleaned it. The amount of pain and stress it caused my daughter was off the hook. She was literally in tears. Our daughter has never been diagnosed with ADHD, but the more I read about it, the more I believe this is what she has. Smart--straight A kid throughout her life, but a mess when it comes to organization and getting things done. I have seen that ADHD kids have an organization method that to a non-ADHD person, looks like a mess, but to them it makes sense. I think they call it the stacking method or something, but it works for her.

Trust your parenting--you raised her right, My wife and I kick ourselves because our 23 year old daughter is so fragile and folds at the hint of problems because we always have and continue to solve things for her. I don't advocate just letting go and letting them fail, but learn to relax, listen and lurk on the perimeter.
 
belljr said:
My daughter is a young senior, she won't turn 18 until a month into her freshman year of college. I'm hoping some of this is just maturity but I know its not all that.

She is a very good student - so she does her homework and does it well, sometimes though she crams because she procrastinates. A trait she picked up from her mother and it DRIVES ME INSANE.....

We have had a million conversations about it but it still the same behavior. I know part of not wanting to deal with things is anxiety related but she has learned how to deal with that through the years with therapy.

But the one thing she still does not do is stay on top of emails and communications ESPECIALLY for upcoming college. She get the email alert on her phone, read it then just completely ignore/forget about it..... I MADE HER install a calendar on her phone screen and told her to update that everyday or every email.. I've told her to set alerts/alarms on her phone to remind her of stuff.

Well yesterday I ask if she saw the email about the Math assessment she said yes, I asked if she scheduled it she said "I have to schedule it?" I then made her log into her school email and noticed she got an email 2 weeks ago for upcoming college physical for athletics.... I LOST MY **** ...... probably over reacted BUT STILL IS DRIVING ME NUTS.....


Its really her only "flaw" right now and I don't know how to change her behavior. We talk all the time how she has to to this stuff on her own especially when college starts ups....

Just looking for any tricks , SOMETHING i can get her over the hump
Click to expand...
3x5 notecards are seriously awesome. Wishing you the best.
 
I have a feeling I will need to harken back to this thread myself here in a couple years. My 12-year old is already exhibiting signs of being a procrastinator that will likely ignore or "forget" emails, etc. She already is terrible at returning texts via her Apple Watch - the very reason we got it for her. I already know I need to back off a little bit and let her grow.
 
belljr said:
Gally said:
belljr said:
Homework was probably a bad example as shes on top of it for the most part - taking AP classes and such but she does slack and wait last minute BUT the email/text/thing IS THE MAIN ISSUE and its going to be a problem - she has gotten better but she already missed one event but just shrugged it off. I don't want to say she doesnt care because she obviously does but it seems like she doesnt
Click to expand...
I was just using the homework thing as an example of a her way vs my way thing. It can translate to anything really. The point is that they have to figure out what works for them. We can try and give them examples, tools, etc but for it to stick it has to them figuring it out. Failing and getting repercussions for those failures is the best medicine for this type of thing. As dinsy stated above. Live and learn is sometimes the best medicine (no matter how much we don't want our kids to suffer that).
Click to expand...
I don't disagree but I am not having her miss her entire freshman year softball because she forgot to file paperwork :)
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Why not? Either it matters to her or it doesn't. No longer your problem- you've flown your mission.

You do need to explain to her that you won't be doing that stuff for her before you stop doing it, though.
 
Courtjester said:
listen and lurk on the perimeter
Click to expand...

This has been our approach. Doing a complete hands-off is just too difficult. You need to let them make some small failures, but have a balance and make sure they don't make a colossal mistake that could result in something like them not getting accepted to college. In both cases, using it as a teaching moment.
 
STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:
If it makes you feel any better, she knows everything and probably thinks you’re a moron.
Click to expand...
As a father of 5, I can state with confidence that kids that are in their teens THINK they know everything. But that all changes when they get into their 20's . . . then they KNOW they know everything.

The only thing that we have found works is to hit them where it hurts . . . in their pocketbooks / wallets. You can tie in things that don't really go together to force them to grow up. For example, we struggle with one of ours filing paperwork by deadlines (college age). We told him if he missed out on filing his paperwork for his summer internship, we are done paying his other expenses and taking away his car for the summer. Everything got submitted the next day.

It only takes carrying through a few times to get them quaking in their boots. We've taken away phones, cars, vacations / trips, etc. We haven't said they COULDN'T do things, but it's hard to communicate with people to make plans without a phone. And it's hard to find rides everywhere. And it's hard to find money for apartment deposits. And textbooks. And groceries. And clothes. I think people will get the point. We aren't nasty about it and won't listen to the subsequent outburst (which will start going away once you start getting tougher with them).
 
belljr said:
Mrs. Rannous said:
belljr said:
Gally said:
belljr said:
Homework was probably a bad example as shes on top of it for the most part - taking AP classes and such but she does slack and wait last minute BUT the email/text/thing IS THE MAIN ISSUE and its going to be a problem - she has gotten better but she already missed one event but just shrugged it off. I don't want to say she doesnt care because she obviously does but it seems like she doesnt
Click to expand...
I was just using the homework thing as an example of a her way vs my way thing. It can translate to anything really. The point is that they have to figure out what works for them. We can try and give them examples, tools, etc but for it to stick it has to them figuring it out. Failing and getting repercussions for those failures is the best medicine for this type of thing. As dinsy stated above. Live and learn is sometimes the best medicine (no matter how much we don't want our kids to suffer that).
Click to expand...
I don't disagree but I am not having her miss her entire freshman year softball because she forgot to file paperwork :)
Click to expand...
Why not? Either it matters to her or it doesn't. No longer your problem- you've flown your mission.

You do need to explain to her that you won't be doing that stuff for her before you stop doing it, though.
Click to expand...
Why will I not let her miss an entire season of college softball because she forgot to file paperwork? Seems pretty obvious why I won't let that happen...... She put in all the work, made all the videos, met all the coaches.....not sure why you think it doesn't matter to her simply because she forgot
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Because she isn’t suffering the consequence. Thus she won’t learn a lesson. Helicopter parenting. (Not a criticism - my wife and I are guilt of it too at times)
 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
Let her suffer the consequences of her decisions, and let her clean them up herself. Missing out on something big she loves will teach her infinitely more than you can.
Click to expand...
I agree 100% with this. Let her suffer consequences now when the downfall will be relatively small and she has so much of her life ahead of her. Better that it happens now, then at some point in the future when the hole to dig herself out of is much deeper.
 
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