Skip to main content

Don't / Can't

I've just walked away from a potential UCA (unceasing character assassination).

The nub of the fall out was my asking her how she felt about next school year and actually going to her sixth form of choice which is a 30 minute bike ride away.  

It seems teachers have been muttering to her as well about lowering her expectations and changing her courses.

She is outraged and affronted by my suggestion that she might not go / do it and maybe needs a plan B.  I talked about the technical college which is round the corner from us.  

I am trying to communicate to her that people can plan for the future based on past experience.  It's great when there is a sudden surprise or someone suddenly does something you didn't think they were going to do (attending all her exams) but we can't rely on that.  She protested that I was saying she can't do these things and I said that wasn't what I was saying, I was saying she doesn't.  

She told me I had said she would pass all her GCSEs - I was taken aback, don't remember saying that specifically.  Wish I had jumped on the fact that if I did it was based on what she had done for mocks not some magic wand I have.  

I said it's not that you can't do something it's that you don't.

I had to emphasise this difference a couple of times as she turned what I said back to can't.

I gave the example of her room which is such a shit hole now that even she is choosing not to be in it.  She says she will sort it but she's said it since Friday and now it's Sunday.  She says I've got 12 hours, it's only 8am...I say well we can see whether you've actually done it by the time Dad and I get back from our day out.

Her answer is always that she was going to but now she won't because I've ruined her mood / caused her anxiety - she was having such a great morning, why would I say this at 8am?? blah blah blah

She started to round on me, she really doesn't understand my sudden mood changes...

(this, i think, is the rare time I venture to point out she might not be right about something rather than keeping my mouth shut or doing my best to praise and encourage her (like you will pass your GCSEs)).

Somewhere in what was (by normal standards) a brief exchange and she was saying we (me and teachers) were not allowing for the fact that she always did get whatever it was done, I was able to say that it was because we knew that eventually the world won't give just one more day, just one more day and she will run out of days.  I think she took a breath for a moment so I hope that one went in.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unsustainable momentum

If I was feeling sharper I would elaborate on some physics metaphor for the motion, or lack of, that I see in Lily each day. She started this week of Easter holidays well and was happy with the 3 hours of work at 'revision school'.  I'm not hanging around trying to get her out of the door in the mornings so I know she is late but nevertheless, she makes it.  She did the same yesterday and then, you see, she was invited to the cinema with a friend.  It was a long film (Dune2).  She had the forethought to ask to go to an early evening showing and she was home by 9pm - all good.  Sadly, though, that meant the time to adjust to being home before she hands her phone in was too short.  Tears, accusations and I just knew she wouldn't make it out this morning.  It's like the primary school disco, buzzed up on flashing lights, sweets and unable to self-regulate.   She focuses on the phone and the fact we don't 'trust' her ( she also likes to remind us...
Post a Comment
Read more

Learned behaviour

When we first arranged for Lucas to go to boarding school the psychologist who had been working with us for 2 years was thoughtful and a little reserved. Her greatest caution to us was to be wary of what changes we might see in Lily, as a result, not what might happen to Lucas.  She said that Lily may fill the chaotic void left behind - that she might play up in ways that keeps the home in that familiar 'fight mode' both because it's what feels 'right' to her and because she hasn't had a chance up to now.   It didn't happen then but I would say we never got a long enough respite without Lucas being at home/ being sent home / being out of school for Lily to make any adjustments. Now, however, things are properly different and yet, history is repeating itself and I feel us all falling down the same rabbit hole. I spoke to my brother about it.  I needed someone who knows us and Lily but also has a background in psychology.   Lily was being rude, nasty, manipul...
Post a Comment
Read more

there's always tomorrow

How do I break down the contradictions in Lily's idea of who she is versus what she does and how she shows herself to be? Yesterday she told us at dinner that she is having a competition with her best friend to see who can be the most tanned this Summer. Husband and I bit our tongues and merely nodded with interest. We wanted to say: "You do know that to get a tan you have to be up when the sun is up?" or "You do know that to get a tan you have to go outside?" But it was suddenly clear to me that in her head she was a completely different person - one who jumps around beaches with lithe brown limbs and lies back on picnic rugs with sand between her toes.  I remembered my own Baywatch-based alter-ego. My dream had always been to lose weight and magically change my coarse curly hair for one of those glossy bouncing pony-tails.  Those kinds of daydreams are precious at any time in our lives but especially for a teenager. So it was good that Husband and I didn't...
Post a Comment
Read more