My Daughter (18) goes to college across the country and has always been a very independent woman. My wife and I are both college professors so we never had any issues or concerns with her grades and preformance in school.
That was until this semester when we received a letter that our daughter had been put on academic probation and if she didn’t earn a high enough GPA this semester she would be dropped from the University.
My wife and I were beyond shocked, and before we talked to our daughter we wanted to have a plan. After a lot of conversation we decided I would take a temporary job offer I had at my daughters university and rent an apartment by campus that we would live in together so I can monitor her and make sure she is focusing on the right things at school.
She returned home a couple weeks ago and we agreed to give her a couple days to come to us with the news. She never did and the conversation ended up happening tonight at dinner.
We tried to make light conversation about her grades but she lied to our faces and told us everything went well. I then placed the slip down on the table in front of her.
She froze, grabbed the paper, and got emotional. After she caught her breath I asked her again to explain herself and that we just wanted to help her.
She told us at the beginning of the semester her friend got her a fake ID and brought my daughter to the bars. This progressed into going out drinking most nights of the week resulting in missing class or not getting her assignments done.
My daughter has never been a drinker, in high school she would tell us she was staying sober at parties and would sometimes sleep over at her friends to make sure everyone was safe.
She then told us she realized how bad it had gotten too late and when she met with her professors there was nothing they could do.
I told her that non-conditionally when she goes back next week I will be going back with her and renting an apartment for the 2 of us so I can watch over her.
She responded and showed us a day app counter showing she was 4 and a half weeks sober. She told us she has figured out the textbooks for her classes, read through most of them, and blocked all of her old friends.
She said she understood why we would want to have eyes on her, but that it wasn’t necessary and she wanted to continue being independent.
I still believe the best thing for us to do is for me to go stay with her because I want to be sure she has the support system she needs.
We argued and I ultimately told her if she didn’t let me do this we would stop paying her college tuition. She stormed out sobbing and hasn’t spoke to me since. So AITA?
YTA – you cannot monitor your daughter forever. You are way too controlling. If you don’t want to pay for her school, then don’t but this is bullshit AND YOU KNOW IT.
YTA. She needs a support system, not a warden.
YTA a big one. you really want your daughter to hate you.
this isn’t real, yta
YTA – the fact that your first solution was to move in tells me you’re over controlling and it says you don’t trust her to fix things herself. Part of college is learning how to grow up and become an adult by making mistakes.
Also the fact she tried to hide it also suggests she knew you’d react by trying to take over control of her life instead of listening to her and being a supportive parent.
Makes one wonder how much her life was controlled growing up. Often the kids who go off the rails early on in college are the ones who weren’t allowed much independence and decision making before. They have freedom and don’t know how to manage it.
YTA she made a mistake, she’s fixing it, you’ve said she was responsible before, so why do you feel the need to move in with her? And to threaten her college education? Did you stop and think that the reason she didn’t tell you earlier and had to fix it on her own was because she knew you’d pull some bs like this?
She was staying sober at parties and staying at friends place to make sure they are safe is the most naive thing I heard in a while. Having you hover over her is not going to help. If you don’t want to pay don’t but yta for your current plan
INFO: did you not look up basic privacy laws before you wrote this story? Student records are protected by FERPA, you would not have received any such letter.
ETA: y’all take one single glance at OP’s post history. Nothing here adds up.
YTA. Your heart is in the right place, but threatening to stop paying tuition because you dropped a bomb on her at dinner and she didn’t reply the way you wanted is a bit far.
Is there a good middle ground here? Can you stay “on top of her” from home? It just seems extreme to jump straight to wanting to live with her to monitor her behavior.
Unless she’s been reckless in the past, this probably seems like a sudden lack of trust to her. People make mistakes and it’s easy to fall into bad habits, especially in college.
When everyone is calm again, I suggest sitting down and talking it out more, trying to come to a compromise.
YTA. Your daughter is dealing with pressures of young adulthood, with parents she’s hesitant to share her struggles with because they go off the deep end with manipulation and control techniques disguised as ‘caring’. Sad.
YTA for writing “preformance” and claiming to be a college professor who can spontaneously take a temporary job at some other college without lengthy arrangements.
If your daughter has a sober counter on her phone, this is a bigger problem. She needs to get counseling asap, they can offer great tools for studying, managing time and how to regulate drinking (i hate that there’s sometimes a stigma with counseling). Additionally she lost toxic friends and while they were toxic they probably were her support so she must feel a little lonely rn. It’s great she’s starting to take initiative though but it’s a slippery slope with drinking in college especially without support (loss of friends). She needs support.
Additionally, this is a double edged sword, she needs to learn. You can’t baby her or how will she learn? You need to have a real conversation with her as an adult. It’s not that you’re gonna stop paying tuition it’s that she’s gonna get herself kicked out of school her gpa is too low. Ask her to come up with compromises and work together to figure stuff out.
reassure her there are setbacks and you guys are proud she’s taking initiative but its serious. Reassure her you love her.
YTA. She’s an adult and will need to figure this out on her own. Sounds like she has a plan.
Stay out of it. Helicopter parenting doesn’t work. She needs to handle consequences on her own without you adding to the problem.
I can’t guarantee she won’t fail. Give her a chance rather than an extreme reaction of changing jobs and moving.
My best friend partied hard his first semester and got a 1.9 GPA. He had to give up on his dream major, but made it through college. Got his Master’s at the Sorbonne.