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Things have been very weird lately - some good things and some things I just wish weren't possible

attempting_to_maintain_composure's picture

These last couple of weeks have been kind of a blur of stress and weirdness in our house. FDH got a call two Mondays ago from the online school saying that SD needed to be done with her coursework by this past Monday, which he wasn't expecting. Apparently, what the woman who is in charge of SD's stuff at the school failed to mention in November AND during that phone call two Mondays ago was that SD needed to finish up the first half of her school year by the 14th. FDH couldn't get in touch with anyone else at the school until the day after this phone call (because this woman always calls FDH right before the offices close for the day for some damn reason), so, for one day, FDH and SD were panicked over the fact that she would finish out her 8th grade year with a bunch of Ds.

We took the opportunity to let SD know that if she hadn't blown off school in December and February it wouldn't be a huge stressful situation for her, but, that there's nothing about the past that could be changed, so, if she ends up with straight Ds for her 8th grade year, then that's what's going to happen. She's just going to have to learn from it and try to do better going forward. Luckily, though, that's not the case. SD was all sad and butt hurt when she found out that she had a whole second half of the year to go. She was stressed over cramming the rest of her year into one week, but, she liked the idea of being done with school in April better than having to work through the summer. But, oh well, that's the way it is, SD.

So, we had to discuss this all with SD because FDH thought she would be done with school at the end of April, like, done done for the year and this kind of changes everything. The whole point in having her out here these last two months was to make sure she finished up her 8th grade year and had the time and ability to take the standardized tests she needs to take. But, now, SD has another half of the year to finish up and she's going back to GUBM's in 10 days.

But, I think we actually got through to her with this last conversation we had with her. We explained to her that for her 9th grade year, we were willing to look at options and give her a choice - she could go to a brick and mortar school (my least favorite because that means SD is here the majority of the time and I just can't get excited about that at all), she could stay in the online school she's currently in and do the program she's doing OR move into the syncronous program, or she can switch online schools to one that might be more forthcoming with information than the one she's in (like, seriously, why did they not tell FDH that SD had two parts to each course back in November? Better yet, why didn't FDH ask these questions, either? But, whatever).

We also told her that her ability to make a choice in the fall is contingent on her doing her work at GUBM's house as well as when she's at our house. If she does her work at both houses, then everything is great, she won't get expelled from her current school, and we can stick with the current custody arrangement of her spending half her time here and half her time with GUBM, we can switch her school to a different online program or switch her into a brick and mortar school, whatever she would like to do. However, if she doesn't do her work at GUBM's and gets expelled, she has no choice but to move out here fulltime and enroll into a brick and mortar school (FDH and I both made the agreement that if SD can't do the online program then she has to go back to regular school, and SD knows this, too). If she does work while at GUBM's, but just does the bare minimum and doesn't finish up her 8th grade year before the end of August, when her 9th grade year would start, then she has no choice but to stay in the online program that she's in and can't make a choice for the coming school year. I told her that she has to do her part in order to keep her options open, because if she doesn't do what she needs to do, then, she doesn't get to pick what she wants to do because there won't be any options available to her, they will be limited by her inaction.

That seems to have gotten it through her head a bit. She hasn't been argumentative about doing work since we had that talk, and she's been doing it without FDH having to force her to get on the ball; there has been much less prodding going on and he's been much more relaxed because he's not worrying about SD goofing off instead of doing school. The other day she had a headache and had to lay down and sleep it off a bit, but, when she woke up, she said "I have to log on and do some work so I can get attendance credit for today" without FDH having to say anything to her. So that was kind of impressive.

I told FDH that I think letting her know about the options for the fall and how it's up to her to ensure she still has those options may have done the trick somewhat - of course, only time will tell if she sticks with this motivation when she's back at GUBM's - because at her age (14), it's important to have choices and be able to exert some independence in such ways. And it puts the onus on SD, instead of us being the ones who are in charge of what school program she's in next year, she's got options, but only if she does the work.

She's also started thinking about how she can make her work environment more appropriate at GUBM's to encourage her to work rather than goof off. She told us that she wants to leave her Xbox here when she goes back at the end of the month because that is the biggest distraction for her when she's there and she told us that there are other things that distract her at GUBM's that she wants to bring out here and leave here so they won't tempt her. And she's going to try to find a space in the house that she can devote to being her work space, like she has at our house. Sadly, I was not really surprised to hear that GUBM didn't encourage her to set up a work space somewhere in the house. SD has just kept her school stuff in her room at GUBM's, so, she is even less inclined to work on it when she's there. By her own words she said that her bedroom is where she is the laziest at home (which is not surprising because that's where she keeps her Xbox). So I said "Well, it's good to have a workspace that is outside of your bedroom because just as you said that your room breeds laziness, you don't want to really associate working with your bedroom. It's best to keep bedrooms for relaxing and sleeping spaces, which is why we set you up in the dining room for school." Hopefully GUBM and the woman who owns the house they live in aren't asses about it - though I really can't picture them being all supportive of SD setting up in their dining room.

Unfortunately, we also had to explain to SD that if she's not doing school work when she's at GUBM's that GUBM will be getting truancy notices from the school in the mail and there are penalties attached with truancy (we didn't tell SD what they were, but, GUBM faces fines, compulsory parenting classes, community service, and even jail time in our county). SD grimaced and said "I can only imagine what kind of hell THAT will cause at home." FDH then told her that he will be explaining to GUBM about this so that SD doesn't need to worry about having that conversation with her, and he also said that he understands that GUBM isn't always the most pleasant person to be around if something goes 'wrong', but, that it's the school's call, not his, and that this is why he will be talking to GUBM. He needs to make sure that GUBM is aware of the consequences of her standing in SD's way of receiving her education. He then told her "this all means that if GUBM is dragging you off to work every day that she will get in trouble with the school for your absences. And if GUBM is NOT dragging you off to work every day and you are just messing around and not doing school work, she still could get in trouble, so you need to remember that when you're at her house." It sucks that he had to lay that out for SD like that, but, she needed to be aware of the fact that if she's using GUBM as a scapegoat, she could bring trouble home with her.

SD doesn't have very many unexcused absences left before she gets expelled, I think she would only need to goof off for two weeks before she risks expulsion at this point. So, we had to initiate a conversation with her about how she wants to organize her summer to best ensure that she finishes her 8th grade year. She said that she wants to give it a shot for a week or so at GUBM's, and then assess how she's doing with FDH. If she's doing well, she would like to stay through the end of May before coming back here, but, if she's not, then she's open to coming back out earlier. Not thrilling for me because I'm not exactly stoked on the idea of SD being here all summer, especially because there's going to be a lot more craziness with planning the wedding in the coming months. And I'm just tired of having her around this long as it is, she's been here since March 5th and I'm missing coming home from work and having it just be me and FDH.

Then there's the fact that my half-sister and her fiance are planning on visiting for a weekend in the end of May and I'd rather have them stay with us than stay in some hotel (they're going to drive out here from NJ so that's enough of an expense). But, if SD is here, they can't stay with us because we won't have the room for them AND SD. And, honestly, I don't really want SD here when my sister comes to visit. It will be my first time meeting my sister face to face and I don't want to be all stressy or weird because I'm in the midst of dealing with any SD/teenager weirdness. I just want to enjoy the visit with her and spend time with my relative that I missed out on having around for the past 31 years of my life.

I wish I could be more optimistic about SD doing work at GUBM's, but, this is the third time we've heard SD say that she's going to do her work at GUBM's, so I'm not counting on her word at this point. And part of me still thinks that she's not even trying at GUBM's because maybe, deep down, she DOES want to move out here fulltime and is just afraid to say anything.

Then there's the fact that SD has made some progress in regards to me. This past weekend, she blew off her chores for goofing off on the computer. She was supposed to clean her room and change her sheets before bed on Sunday, and FDH asked her not to wait until too late and to just get it over with. But, of course SD decided to wait until 9:30 to do anything about it. SD also has had a bad habit these past few months of not washing her own bedding when she does her laundry. She just shoves her dirty sheets into the laundry room and washes her clothes. She's got four sets of sheets for her bed at least and none of them were clean. Sure, I could have just given her a clean set from our linen closet, but, she has sheets of her own and it's not my problem if she doesn't wash them with her laundry.

So when she asked for a clean set on Sunday, I said "You have four sets of sheets, if none of them are clean then you need to wash them." By the time she got them in the washer, I noticed what time it was and said "Listen, SD, your dad asked you to not wait until the last minute to do what you needed to do tonight. You made the choice to sit around on your computer until 9:30, so, now you're stuck waiting up until your sheets are clean before you can go to bed. I'm disappointed that you didn't do what your dad asked of you. And just know that you will be going to bed early tomorrow night because there is no way that you will be able to meet your bedtime tonight." She didn't have any sort of assy/sassy reaction to me saying this at all, so I was a bit shocked. She simply said "I understand, I should have done this earlier, that's my fault."

I then told her that she needs to better plan her days when she has chores, because she could have easily picked up, dusted, and vacuumed her room and put her sheets in the washer BEFORE goofing off on the computer. I said that we really don't ask much of her in the way of chores around the house, we ask her to help out as needed with certain things (usually it tends to be stuff that FDH handles more than anything to lighten his load a bit), and we ask her to just keep herself and her personal space clean, including doing her own laundry. So, we really only ask her for about an hour or so of her time every week to do her laundry and clean her room. And what she said next left me completely floored for the next hour. There was no snotty remark, there was no death glare, she didn't sulk off to her room for the rest of the night. NOTHING. She simply looked at me and said "Yea, you're right. You guys really DON'T ask that much of me. I'm sorry, I need to do better and start doing my chores earlier." :jawdrop: I told her that I was pretty impressed with the way she was handling this conversation, because it shows that she's making progress with the things that she struggles with (taking any sort of criticism and getting consequences for not meeting expectations) and that I was proud of her for being able to recognize where she could improve in the future.

But, even with that bit of progress, I'm still not stoked on the idea of her being here most of the time. I'm really not.

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attempting_to_maintain_composure's picture

That's something we're hoping to work on with her over the next 10 days (mostly it will be FDH with his experience with GUBM, but, I'll help as I can with that convo because I have experience with a BPD mom). We are keeping this a continuous convo with her so we can talk about things with her some more in regards to how she can exert some control over her school work when she's at GUBM's as well as how often she's planning on being out here to find a balance that works for all of us AND fits the needs of the situation.

Luckily, it's also something she can work on in counseling as well as with FDH - there might be things she is more comfortable talking about with her counselor than with us. Unfortunately, she missed her appointment yesterday because she wasn't feeling well so I'm hoping FDH can get her an extra one before she goes back to GUBM's just so she doesn't have to cram everything into one appointment.

It definitely sucks that we had to lay it all out for SD, but, you're right, it was necessary because of GUBM. It lets her know how she can keep things peaceful at GUBM's as much as she can - she already knows she has limited power anyway, but, if she knows that she can help to avoid some drama, then that's good. And it shows her that she's responsible for how many options she has for next school year.