Anonymous wrote:OP, I think you sound like a Good Person. I also agree you didn't have a handle on tweens and there are assorted issues at play here. One thing I think you may need to acknowledge about yourself is that you seem to be... I don't want to say "controlling," because that's not quite it. But you seem to believe you have a lot more control over the world than you do, and you may need to work on accepting that.

Of course you can set yourself and your nieces up for success. Of course you can try and plan ahead to help your own kids be Better People, selfless, kind, non-materialistic. I firmly believe we have influence as parents or as concerned adults! But I also firmly believe that we have only so much influence. We can't expect there to be magic bullets that guarantee any particular outcome. And that's important to understand as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I remember from childhood when I didn't want to do something my feet would be killing me which didn't help my mood. If it was something I was interested in, I was foot loose and fancy free. It just may be that age.

Also, did they eat differently when they were visiting you compared to their diet at home? You mentioned early on that they would eat simple carbs all the time if they had their choice - if the food was different, it may have messed with their blood sugar, making them hangry and cranky. Of course healthier food is better, but dietary changes may have had an impact on their behavior in the short term.

Op here. I asked for a list before they got here of what to buy. It was pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, donuts, cereal, mac n cheese. I bought them what they asked for but tried to also provide healthy sides (broccoli, peas, strawberries, apples, etc.). They asked for soda and juice but I did not buy those things.

Their diets aren’t great but that’s really for their parents to sort out, not me. No way am I picking a battle like that with visiting tweens.

Wow, you are so rigid that you wouldn't even serve/buy them juice?

I also want to reinforce what another poster has said. You seem much more interested in validating what you've done and looking for reinforcement than you are in really "helping" these girls. You have managed to respond to everyone with whom you've wanted to argue and completely ignored the one act that can help them get on track for college. It is the AVID program. Look it up.

Finally, perhaps you were the cool aunt before the trip. I think that your stridency got in the way of that now. You have some leg work to do to get back on track if your (admirable) goal truly is to help these girls get to college. You will have to decide whether their long-term goals and college are more important to you than stroking your own ego. I hope you chose the girls and let go of your ego a little bit. You will need to cool your jets and rebuild their trust. You will need to build their self-esteem and act respectful of their family unit to do that. I want to believe that you have good intentions but that your enthusiasm got in the way of your common sense. I hope that you are able to recover the lost ground. Good luck.

Op here. I’m not their parent, but it’s my house. Juice and soda are not allowed in our house.

I haven’t lost any ground. I have no idea what you’re even talking about.

I’ll look up the AVID Program.

I live in another state two plane rides away from them. I’ve got my own children to raise. I’m here to expose them to ideas and possibilities but I’m not going to be able to get them into college on my own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I remember from childhood when I didn't want to do something my feet would be killing me which didn't help my mood. If it was something I was interested in, I was foot loose and fancy free. It just may be that age.

Also, did they eat differently when they were visiting you compared to their diet at home? You mentioned early on that they would eat simple carbs all the time if they had their choice - if the food was different, it may have messed with their blood sugar, making them hangry and cranky. Of course healthier food is better, but dietary changes may have had an impact on their behavior in the short term.

Op here. I asked for a list before they got here of what to buy. It was pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, donuts, cereal, mac n cheese. I bought them what they asked for but tried to also provide healthy sides (broccoli, peas, strawberries, apples, etc.). They asked for soda and juice but I did not buy those things.

Their diets aren’t great but that’s really for their parents to sort out, not me. No way am I picking a battle like that with visiting tweens.

Wow, you are so rigid that you wouldn't even serve/buy them juice?

I also want to reinforce what another poster has said. You seem much more interested in validating what you've done and looking for reinforcement than you are in really "helping" these girls. You have managed to respond to everyone with whom you've wanted to argue and completely ignored the one act that can help them get on track for college. It is the AVID program. Look it up.

Finally, perhaps you were the cool aunt before the trip. I think that your stridency got in the way of that now. You have some leg work to do to get back on track if your (admirable) goal truly is to help these girls get to college. You will have to decide whether their long-term goals and college are more important to you than stroking your own ego. I hope you chose the girls and let go of your ego a little bit. You will need to cool your jets and rebuild their trust. You will need to build their self-esteem and act respectful of their family unit to do that. I want to believe that you have good intentions but that your enthusiasm got in the way of your common sense. I hope that you are able to recover the lost ground. Good luck.

Op here. I’m not their parent, but it’s my house. Juice and soda are not allowed in our house.

I haven’t lost any ground. I have no idea what you’re even talking about.

I’ll look up the AVID Program.

I live in another state two plane rides away from them. I’ve got my own children to raise. I’m here to expose them to ideas and possibilities but I’m not going to be able to get them into college on my own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Well the old west town has been a hit with other visitors. There’s a stunt show/gun fighting, a magic show, little shops, a place to mine for gold, a haunted train ride through a grave yard, and even horses you can ride and feed. We also had lunch there in an old timey outdoor picnic/covered wagon kind of camp. Plus we got homemade ice cream.

The shirt thing was at a local university I’m encouraging them to consider. I don’t think anyone has ever talked to them about college,?s so I took them to the college to buy t shirts and walk around for literally 15 minutes and yeah I wanted the cute photo op of them in their college shirts. That was also a complaint-fest.

My 12 year old tween DD would hate that. And no she's not bratty. Did you entertain other tween girls and boys this summer and take them to this exhibit and it was a hit with them? OP, I am sure you mean well, but making stereotypes based on their income levels and genders really rubs the wrong way. You think your two DS's won't be bratty or annoying when they're tweens? Even with family members? Hilarious, that's a great joke. Keep on believing that.

Op here. Um I guess thanks for the Monday morning quarterbacking?

If you look up thread, I describe the plan we made jointly for the weekend.

In addition to them being the age that they are, there’s three of them with three sets of preferences.

And the pandemic makes options pretty limited for what activities we can do.

So what I’m supposed to just leave it up to them the whole trip? If I did that it would be driving from one Starbucks to another with stops at McDonald’s in between along with a dozen hours of iPad time per day.

I sent them links for each activity I wanted to do in advance, and they were on board. One of the kids liked the pioneer village. Another kid didn’t but she got to go on a horseback ride through a dude ranch/mountain trail and she enjoyed that part.

Anonymous wrote:OP: for someone who works at a college, you seem to be missing a huge point about being a mentor. If you (very admirably) want to help these kids be the first ones in their family to go to college— or help anyone make a major change, you start by meeting them where they are. You know this. You build trust over time. And you slowly help them at their speed, step by step. And you respect their wishes and values while you do so.

You seem to think that you can drag kids to your college, put them in t-shirts and take picture, tell them their life’s ambitions aren’t good enough and they should want something else and then get pissed of that you haven’t completely changed the trajectory of their lives in 72 hours.

Of course with time and energy and interest you could make a real difference in their lives. But, you would have to start by gaining their trust and making them like you and understanding where they were coming from. And respecting what they want. And you would have to do so in a way that didn’t demand they completely alter everything they had grown up believing in one weekend.
It would take time and patience and you wouldn’t be constantly praised for your efforts. The reward would be seeing 1 or 2 of them become happy successful adults 15 years from now. No matter what you do, 1 or 2 of them just might not choose college. And you would have to respect that. And then be there if they wanted help upgrading skills later.

And even that would work for you, because you don’t like these kids.

Actually mentoring isn’t about you. Thanks for you. Appreciation for you. People praising you. It’s about making a connection with a child, creating a relationship and building on it. It’s about the child, not you standing several states away judging the children as deficient and their upbringing as deficient and their dreams and goals as deficient and their manners as deficient. I mean, do you like anything about them?

I’m pretty sure what you just did is convince three kids that the dead last thing they want is to attend college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe people are trying to excuse this behavior. I have teen girls and at that age, if they weren’t offering to clear off the table after dinner, making their beds, saying thank-you and asking how they could help out around the house/ with the small cousins, I would be LIVID with my girls.

OP, are they still there or is the weekend over? I definitely think you need to have a kind, direct conversation with them about expectations. [/quote
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Have you been around kids whose parents are separated and divorcing? Were your kids dealing with that as tweens? During a pandemic? Did you speak to your kids about what college is? How many other conversations have you had with your kids over the years that these kids have not gotten to have?

Fair point (I made the response above). These girls are clearly going through more than mine have.