Worried, daughter confusing me

Post Reply New Topic

My daughter is asking me to push her to grow up and leave home before the other kids her age do. She says she thinks she is ready but feels nervous and wants me to push her. She has AS and so do I. What would others do?

How old is your daughter? Does she have a job?

She has never worked at a job and would be going away to school. I told her I will support her if she really wants to but that I don't want to push her to do it, it has to be something she really wants. She thinks I should push her because the world is full of people who push and that's the normal way adults treat kids. She would like me to be normal. I think I am normal, though I understand many people don't see either of us as normal.

I don't understand what this means or what to do.

It's really very simple: she wants to grow up, like all kids want to grow up. She doesn't want to depend on others for the rest of her life. She wants to be an adult. I think she wants you to be a little tougher on her (though she will resist and get upset should you be tough on her).

She needs you now to guide her towards that goal. She needs your knowledge and your wisdom. She needs to know that she has to finish school in order to be able to get a good job and support herself. She needs to know that it doesn't make any sense moving out should she not have a job.

When I was 17, I wanted to move out BADLY. I had no job. I was still in high school. I ran away, hoping to live at this place called "The Door," which takes in kids. I thought I could just get a minimum wage job and live in an apartment--boy was I wrong!

She also needs a place where she could retreat to should she be having difficulties (she won't admit that to you, by the way!) A good parent provides that, without guilt, and without reminding her of how you sacrificed for her, etc.

She doesn't need you to tell her the world's too tough for her (that would be a great, great mistake).

It's interesting to me that she thinks pushing kids out the door quickly is "normal" when so many people are criticizing others for letting their 20-something kids stay at home too long! I suppose that's not as wide-spread a problem as some people say it is and that she's just reacting to what she sees and hears about her local peers. Naturally, she doesn't want to feel left behind or babied.

I'm not a parent, but I am an NT who left home less than a year after graduation even though her parents weren't sure about letting their baby girl go. I had a bachelor's degree, a job as an assistant teacher, had proven myself responsible, confident, etc., but they worried about my financial assets until I showed Dad the detailed budget I'd drafted for myself; my forethought really impressed him and reassured him that I was indeed a big girl. I wasn't making much but wanted to get back out on my own after college. My short-term independence there had really revved up my appetite!

But back to you: if your daughter hasn't gone to college yet (that's the "school" to which you were referring?), let her know that it can be a great test run, as can one or more summer jobs that she can get when she's at home with you. After that, you and she can consider what kind of job and salary she might pull in once she graduates, where she might live, if she'd have a roommate, transportation, and so on. If her AS could inhibit any of her independence skills, map that out and have some kind of if-then plan or trouble-shooting guide--including simply calling you for a pep talk or whatever. THEN you can both decide when it's time to go. I think that planning and writing things out together may help both of you; she might see your logic clearly, realize what questions to ask and what challenges she might face, while you can double-check and be sure that you haven't left out any important details. Hopefully, the process will make you both feel more confident about it all.

If she really wants to decide right now, maybe you can set a tentative, broad "expiration date" for her residency with you. As Kraftie said, it's better to wait a little too long than for her to rush into something she's not actually ready for; having to move back in would probably hurt a lot. Obviously, moving out can be a big deal for some, but you and she can take concrete steps to make it less intimidating.

Does this help, or have I missed your point? (I hope not, but don't hesitate to tell me!)

Perhaps she means that she wants you to reinforce what she wants for herself in terms of leaving home and going to college. I suggest that you do and make it clear to her that you believe that she definitely can, then help her with the skills to do so, i.e. what any college student would need to do for themselves away from home.

I'd guess she means that she knows she will have trouble adjusting, but needs you to show faith in her that she will ultimately prevail.

Discuss with her what she actually needs to be independent (income, any lacking skills, etc.) and see that she develops a plan to acquire these things.

I wish I knew how to get her to listen and really hear. For me, an analogy would be if she wanted to join the military and I could be proud of her and help her in any way I could, but if she needed me to tell her I agreed with her decision and felt it to be the right one for her, I couldn't say that now, today. I could only say that if it makes her happy and is truly what she wants I support her. And she knows this but wants more. I feel if she needs not just my blessing but my encouragement for something I disagree about the timing of, she isn't ready. I am ok with supporting, I don't agree with her decision, our opinions differ. What do others do when they respect a loved one and disagree, what am I missing?

Or is everyone saying it's important to give her lots of empathy regardless what I think of her plan because that's what people need and should do for one another?

I don't know you well enough to know if you are justified in your disagreement or not...and that would matter to answer your question.

Why do you think she should not move out?

I think that sometimes kids want to do things they're definitely not ready for--so the parent has to be firm in their opinions and principles.

The parent has to, for example, not encourage a kid to move out of his parents' home if he/she has no job (unless, of course, he/she is in college). If the parent is not firm--and, instead, encourages the kid to move out, the parent is not doing his/her job. The parent is leaving the kid "out to dry."

It's not logical for a kid to want to be independent with no job. It would place a large financial drain on the parents should they forced to pay the rent for a kid's own apartment.

It sounds like it needs to be discussed and negotiated in a way you both agree is a reasonable outcome. When my daughter would get mad at me, we would pass a few notes under our respective bedroom doors. What are her thoughts on the timing of moving out? Will she negotiate? Can she live in a dorm for her freshman year of university?

What would *I* do? Probably tell her some possibly related stories from my own life.

e.g. About how I sometimes wish my mother had pushed me harder to finish school faster and pay my own way sooner, instead of ruining herself financially supporting me and my siblings as she did; and how, being a parent myself now, I can now see why she did that, and acknowledge that having that extra time did me a lot of good too, in unexpected non-obvious ways; although I'm sure it did some damage too, and today I'm not sure if the good outweighs the bad or the other way round.

Also, about the time where I decided to "fix myself" using the "learn to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool" method - in my case it was mostly to do with executive function issues, not being motivated at work etc, which nobody had complained about but intensely bothered my perfectionist self. I left a good, interesting, secure job with stock options, in a place where I had a nice circle of friends, to run off and be self-employed in a new place where I didn't know anybody. I swam and didn't sink, and I am proud of that. But I didn't swim that well, I lost the stock options, and looking back on it now I'd be rather more proud of myself if I'd had the wisdom back then to focus on what I'm good at and enjoy doing, and find ways to do more of that, rather than obsess over what I'm bad at and try to be perfectionist about those. "Fixing" one's flaws I would say is generally desirable, to the point where they don't impair you much - beyond that point, IMHO, you're approaching pointless masochism.

From your description it sounds like your daughter may have caught that "I want to jump in at the deep end" bug. Also, to stay within the metaphor, while choosing the deep end rather than the shallow does speed up the learning experience (at the cost of higher stress), there's really no rational reason to choose a corner that's infested with sharks, stingy jellyfish, or sewage. None of those actually help you learn to swim.

Might work better if the stories are your own.
YMMV, she might just roll her eyes

I think it's good that she wants to be a responsible adult and be independent. Now the next step is helping her achieve those goals. If your daughter is an adult, you can't really stop her. I assume she is because you mention she is going away to school. You're a mom so you worry and that is pretty normal for most moms, I know mine still worries about me but she won't tell me to not do it or stop me. I wanted to go to Chicago and this time she talked me out of it saying it has too many people, people drive like maniacs, it will be too stressful for me to get through the city. I think I will just stick with Wisconsin. So in some cases she will stop me but I know I have the choice to defy her because I am an adult and make my own choices, she won't force it on me to not do something or else.