19yo DD failed her freshman year and now is at home refusing to work or go to school

[Anonymous]

I may be in the minority here, but I wouldn’t start with ultimatums like if you don’t do this, we will take away this. Why not have a discussion about what she sees as her next steps and her future plans overall? Ask if she would be willing to see a therapist. Maybe she would like to.

About the drinking, say that you don’t want her to hurt herself or others by driving if she has been drinking. Say that you will always pay for an Uber for her, or offer to drive her and pick her up. If she insists on drinking and driving, this is where you would have to say regretfully that you can’t allow her to take the chance of an accident that would seriously harm her future.

Maybe she just needs to rest and plan her next steps. She is likely to make a plan eventually and move forward and not stay in this holding pattern forever. Don’t set up a dynamic in which she digs in her heels because you are pushing. If she will see a therapist, let the therapist be the one to have the discussions needed with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ADHD is one of those weird diagnoses where it sounds like they will solve all the problems but frequently labeling something makes it worse. She seems like she is very anxious and copes with it by being perfectionist and then drinking.

+1 this was me. I knew I needed help and went to the school psychologist, got diagnosed w adult ADHD (“and probably something else but not sure what”), and the recommendation was just higher and higher doses of the medication that was advertised in the Dr’s office, which ultimately ruined my life for several years. Nothing about counseling, CBT, executive functioning coaches like the PP below talks about—those supports would have made a world of difference and I wish they had told me about any of it. The closest thing I got to that was the suggestion to try to get tasks done in the morning and not the evening, and to open the capsule up and dissolve it in a bottle of water to space it out. My parents “don’t believe in this stuff” so they were no help. I managed to graduate by the skin of my teeth, barely. I’ve been afraid since of going back to try again w other Drs and meds, even though I now have a better sense of other tools that might be available to me. This was at UVA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs rehab. Stop paying for all extras for her.

+1

Also, why did you send a kid away to college when senior year of HS you had to sit with them to get work done? She likely needs an EF coach (many kids with ADHD also have EF issues) and after rehab if she wants college, I'd start PT at CC where you have some supervision over her.

[Anonymous]

Rehab first
Then weekly therapy while she works PT at minimum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs rehab. Stop paying for all extras for her.

+1,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is self-medicating her insecurity and shame with alcohol, OP.

Also, perfectionism, anxiety, mental rigidity are all red flags for mild autism. In girls specifically, autism sometimes doesn't come with the social deficits one often sees in boys. At minimum, your child has significant anxiety. She could also be on the spectrum if she exhibits high levels of rigidity.

She may need meds for anxiety or depression, OP. You need to get her to a psychiatrist or do another evaluation at a psychologist's office. You'll have to see whether she functions better on ADHD meds plus anxiety meds, or if she only needs anxiety meds.

But you really need to explain to her the link between her drinking and her feelings of inadequacy. She can be either in a downward spiral, like she is, or in an upward spiral: going to community college, transferring to her local state college, and feeling much better about herself. For that to work, she needs to control the drinking, especially since she will be taking meds that don't really go with alcohol.

You really need to insist. There is no car or phone or money if she cannot be responsible.
And please don't kick her out, for her own health and safety, unless she starts becoming dangerous. Otherwise in the state she's in, she's going to hit rock bottom in a way that might be terminal.

OP here- Besides her bad executive functions skills, she had symptoms like not being able to pay attention when spoken to or in class, losing things constantly like credit cards, money, AirPods, and forgetting things, task initiation struggles, and not being able to pay attention with background noise, so we are not in doubt about the ADHD diagnosis. But her being on the doe Dr ruk isn’t something we’ve thought. She understands social cues and can community well with others, but she experienced overstimulation after long busy days that cause her to not be able to focus well because of thoughts related to the day and sensory seeking behaviors which doctors told us were related to the ADHD. She knows and understands that their is a gray middle ground and that everything isn’t black or white but if things aren’t the best or the way she wants and she has to settle for the middle things don’t feel good or right the long run and she won’t feel accomplished.

[Anonymous]

OP here again - Ultimatums don’t really work with her which is why we given her any yet. We stopped giving her money anymore though after she came back from college. She isn’t an excessive spender so she saved a lot of it and uses that now to buy her own stuff so all we mainly pay for her is her car, phone, insurance, etc. She doesn’t like to eat out and mainly eats at home and very much either. If we stop paying for her phone and car, she’d most likely pay for the phone bill herself and wouldn’t bother with the car but none of it would motivate her to change really and sometimes in the past when we did give her consequences she would translate that to us hating her.


We did have a talk with her today and she still doesn’t want any therapy or to see a psychiatrist. About future plans, she says that she wants to transfer from a 4 year to another desired 4 year university but not right now. About her coming home drunk and breaking other house rules , we told her we’d have zero tolerance for it anymore and she didn’t seem to fight it or care.

[Anonymous]

You know she has a drinking problem yet you are still paying for her car! Take away the car. If she hurts, someone, it will be partially your fault, your insurance will go up, etc..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again - Ultimatums don’t really work with her which is why we given her any yet. We stopped giving her money anymore though after she came back from college. She isn’t an excessive spender so she saved a lot of it and uses that now to buy her own stuff so all we mainly pay for her is her car, phone, insurance, etc. She doesn’t like to eat out and mainly eats at home and very much either. If we stop paying for her phone and car, she’d most likely pay for the phone bill herself and wouldn’t bother with the car but none of it would motivate her to change really and sometimes in the past when we did give her consequences she would translate that to us hating her.


We did have a talk with her today and she still doesn’t want any therapy or to see a psychiatrist. About future plans, she says that she wants to transfer from a 4 year to another desired 4 year university but not right now. About her coming home drunk and breaking other house rules , we told her we’d have zero tolerance for it anymore and she didn’t seem to fight it or care.

OP -- definitely sympathize your situation, you feel like she is holding all the cards. Biggest problem is she is an adult, and unless you have POA you cannot force rehab, therapy etc. I suggest you get some support for yourself to help you manage the problem of your adult child and how to parent her through her ADHD. She is clearly feeding her dopamine needs through alcohol since she refuses her ADHD meds. Find a DBT therapist who can help give you an outlet and build the tools you need to get through this difficult time and implement the tough love parenting that is needed at this time. In the meantime, I suggest as others do, if she keeps coming home drunk you won't be paying for the phone, gas, insurance. Let her spend down her $...it's ok because eventually it will be gone and she will face tough choices. Good luck

[Anonymous]

You never truly addressed her ADHD, did her work for by making her go her homework.
Anxiety/depression are often co- morbid with ADHD.
She needs to see a therapist and psychiatrist or psychiatriic practice that manages medication.

[Anonymous]

Cut off the money (phone, car, etc.) until she makes positive steps for change. You are enabling this behavior.

[Anonymous]

OP you can make your car, phone and insurance payments contingent on whatever you want. Attend therapy? Negative breathalyzer tests? Register for community college classes and show you her work? Get a part time job and don't skip work? Meet with an executive function or life coach to help her regroup and figure out next steps? You decide. She can spend down her money for now.

Your younger two children might feel confused and frustrated if you enable their older sister.

One of your challenges will be to set and hold boundaries without pushing her into the arms of your DD's boyfriend.

[Anonymous]

I think you should try to encourage anything positive that you saw during her college year and build on that. If she did well in a class or activity emphasized this is what she is capable of and she can do other positive things. Establish some expectation without being too lecturing or punishing.

Frankly flunking out of school can be devastating for some kids and lead to terrible decisions. One of my friends married a total loser after flunking out and never got back on track. One of my cousins who flunked out moved back home and fought with her mon everyday before dying from a combination of alcohol and drugs. In both caees they had an ongoing conflict with their parents and already had poor self esteem before flunking out. Then getting treated like a bad child after flunking reinforced the low self esteem.

I agree therapy would be good but I really think she needs to build self esteem and find anything she is good in as a starting point.

[Anonymous]

She needs treatment for alcohol abuse and it is not going to be a 28-day process. This is the primary issue, it is medical, you are her parents, and the only right move here is to get her treatment.

If you do not address this now, you can forget about college. You may be here in 1-6 years regarding her legal woes and 10 years after that regarding the long-term consequences of binge drinking.

I hear you saying that you did not know she had ADHD until she was in 10th grade and I accept that, but regardless of how it happened, you are living the very strong association between untreated ADHD and substance use disorder.

[Anonymous]

This is incredibly difficult. May I suggest an out-of-the idea? Send her to a semester program at NOLS. There are still openings for programs that leave this fall. She will mature in a controlled environment and come back changed. I’ve seen it happen to kids in similar programs.

This touches at me because I could absolutely see my adhd tween daughter making these same choices, and I see myself already enabling the helplessness now by being too involved in her schoolwork.