Is anyone else's kid ignoring all the onboarding info?

[Anonymous]

UVA has quite a few moving parts. Sunday is the deadline to change General Education pathway in the College and complete Advising informational sheet. Figuring out what AP credit transfers, sending Dual Enrollement transcripts to the right place, determining advanced placement for writing requirement, and language placement testing are on kid's list.
Kid is actually going to the doc today to get shot record and TB test for the Health form.
Kid doesn't check e-mail regularly, so it's a new habit to get into. Maybe kid will be more on top of things now that AP exams are almost over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am in the parent group for FSU. There are multiple posts from kids who didn’t sign up for orientation as they were told to, and the university rescinded admission. Parents appealed and it was too bad, so sad.

UTampa did the same for students missing paperwork

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe the previous poster. And way to many parents here need to land their helicopters. Your kids will be fine.

OMG you need fo get into reality; of course this is happening. This year in particular, some schools overadmitted and are using every reason to get their numbers down, or they are worried about filling their class and will move to their waitlist if an accepted student doesn't follow up. You are out of touch. Its incredibly important that kids stay on top of this stuff.

[Anonymous]

I agree this sounds like anxiety and avoidance. If she doesn’t have a history of this kind of thing, it’s likely that the idea of a big transition combined with the stress of finishing senior year and the past 14 months of a pandemic is overwhelming her. Coming down hard or expressing your own growing panic to her will only make it worse. Detach from the emotions, let her know you are confident she can handle it, and offer to assist her in catching up (maybe with an incentive like doing it over lunch with her favorite food) may break through her resistance.

[Anonymous]

“So I looked and sure enough, she's not checked her College X email, or opened her high school email from College X.”

OP, this is a huge red flag to me. Why do you even have access to your DD’s high school email or college email? Did you regularly check her emails during high school? Having passwords and checking your kid’s email is a huge invasion of privacy and is not appropriate. Does your DD have ADHD? Maybe sign her up for an executive function crash course this summer?

[Anonymous]

Come on pp ^^. When my kids applied, we had a spreadsheet for each college highlighting due dates, scores sent and received, as well as passwords. Every school and documents required varied and had different due dates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on pp ^^. When my kids applied, we had a spreadsheet for each college highlighting due dates, scores sent and received, as well as passwords. Every school and documents required varied and had different due dates.

You checked your kid’s high school email and college email (once admitted)? This is very, very controlling. Yes, remind them to check - but actually LOG ON and read through their emails? I disagree with you. This is not the norm.

[Anonymous]

Only read the first page of this thread and my oldest kid is a high school senior so not seasoned in this process but wondering if it is everything else going on, AP exams, prom, and total burnout after this year? There was a huge push from our kid to complete everything on the to do list from college (find the roommate, sign the housing contract, etc.) and then crickets.

I think these kids are exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“So I looked and sure enough, she's not checked her College X email, or opened her high school email from College X.”

OP, this is a huge red flag to me. Why do you even have access to your DD’s high school email or college email? Did you regularly check her emails during high school? Having passwords and checking your kid’s email is a huge invasion of privacy and is not appropriate. Does your DD have ADHD? Maybe sign her up for an executive function crash course this summer?

OMG chill. Kids this age literally do not care about their email. It’s not private to them at all. They don’t use it among friends EVER.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“So I looked and sure enough, she's not checked her College X email, or opened her high school email from College X.”

OP, this is a huge red flag to me. Why do you even have access to your DD’s high school email or college email? Did you regularly check her emails during high school? Having passwords and checking your kid’s email is a huge invasion of privacy and is not appropriate. Does your DD have ADHD? Maybe sign her up for an executive function crash course this summer?

NP-I respectfully disagree. Every family is different. In our family if a minor child has an email account the parents have full access to it. We don't read every email but we are able to. When our dd was a junior in high school we created a completely new email account for her to be used for college applications. I would regularly check that email account to see if there were any time sensitive emails. Then I would remind her that she needed to check her emails more often. It is a lot for high school seniors to handle. She got better at it. As she got better at it I faded out. I want my teens to learn how to be independent but it doesn't need to be an all or nothing situation. Once she had picked a school we reminded her how to unsubscribe from other school emails systems so that she would not get flooded by junk email. When she was 18 and leaving for college we talked about her changing her password and that we no longer needed access. She said she was fine with us having it and that it was nice to know we were able to get in in an emergency. And it has come in handy. This past week she was on a school trip with no electronics. Before she left she asked me to check her email daily in case anything came in that needed to be dealt with before she got back. It did. The company that the school uses for fridge rentals emailed her and she had 48 hours to reply or we would lose our security deposit. This set up works for our family.

[Anonymous]

I’m in the same boat OP. DD is just focused on finishing up HS and hasn’t been checking stuff...

[Anonymous]

Same here. I know I’ll get flamed for this but right now I’m just double checking emails to make sure she’s not missing anything she needs to attend to. Don’t forget these kids have basically been horizontal for a year and while they might be excited about college they’ve not had to attend to much in an online school.

[Anonymous]

No, but my kid does tend to ignore business-speak mumbo-jumbo like "onboarding" when applied to college orientation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s anxiety.

This is a lot. Big changes and decisions and it’s scary. She’s not trying to be irresponsible or flippant, she’s paralyzed and avoiding the discomfort of dealing with all these overwhelming choices and facing the reality that her life is changing big time in the fall. I would guess she probably needs more support, not less, and it’s not the time to back off and let her sink or swim and deal with the consequences.

Same here. I know I’ll get flamed for this but right now I’m just double checking emails to make sure she’s not missing anything she needs to attend to. Don’t forget these kids have basically been horizontal for a year and while they might be excited about college they’ve not had to attend to much in an online school.

I agree with both of the PPs. OP, I have a senior and he is in the same boat. He's not excited about college, because he's not excited about anything. A year plus of online school has taken its toll. Different families took different approaches to the pandemic, but we are paying the price now for our risk adverse approach. We did have a come to Jesus talk with our son and told him that we fully support him if he's not ready. It has become clear that he is avoiding reentry because he is anxious and paralyzed. It's normal to be nervous but not to be paralyzed with fear.

Since realizing this, I scheduled an appointment for him with a therapist. We are kindly emphasizing that avoidance is only going to make things worse, so he needs to take steps toward addressing these issues. The good news is that he is open to getting help and has realized that his anxiety is a problem that requires immediate attention.

This has been a difficult year for many kids. Those who were anxious before have enjoyed the safety of their homes, which makes returning to regular life feel overwhelming. When you pile the prospect of starting an entirely new life on top of that, it can feel suffocating.

[Anonymous]

Maybe sign her up for an executive function crash course this summer?

NP, but my senior with ADD and executive function deficits is flailing right now. Yes, there’s anxiety to boot.

Does anyone know of an “executive function crash course” that might be available for college-bound kids? My kid has a summer job for six weeks, but it’s not full-time, so she has some flexibility. Would be grateful for any recs!