How to help without enabling?

[anne]

Dd14 has finally admitted she's scared about high school.     This IS progress.  But, she's also deliberately failing grade 8.  She's not RRAFTBW.  Her anxiety and stress are going through the roof and her acting out towards the family is really taking its toll. She says she really wants to go to the high school she's chosen, but her actions are opposite. What things can we do for her to help her lower her stress, while not enabling her to fail or using us to do her work for her to pass?  We're concerned about what this stress/anxiety are doing to her.
anne

[MaKettle]

Can she talk to someone who's currently going to that school, visit the school, meet some of the teachers?  Our DD's middle school had a summer course for incoming middle schoolers so that they could get familiar with the school ahead of time.

With my DD it's fear of the unknown.  Anxiety goes through the roof & then behaviors escalate because she doesn't know what to do with the anxiety.

We're currently going through the same thing because we're looking for a new church closer to home.

[anne]

Sounds like the same child...   We took her to the "Shadow Day" at the beginning of December and she had a blast.  She knows some of the students as they were counselors/CIT's from Church camp.  She says she wants to go, but does everything the opposite and still insists it's going to work.  She's seemingly looking at this whole high school thing as leverage to get new stuff - her school bag is mysteriously ripping when it's been fine for 2 years, her clothing is getting rough treatment, etc.   Also, her stress levels are through the roof.  We've added Meletonin (sp?) to her evenings to help her calm and sleep, but I don't think it's doing much good.  We try to discuss her school work with her as little as possible, but she's upping the ante and forcing us to really have to address these recent issues.     Truth is, I don't even want to be around her anymore as I'm so skittish and tired of being hurt.  She's scared and we're hurting.  I guess she's also sensing this feeling of mine as well and that's not helping. 
anne

[Truebluemom]

Anne - Could you let her "earn" new items for school with RRAFTBA behavior?  Like maybe make a list of things she'd like for school and do a chart for how long to get along to earn each item? Then store them away for her until school starts?  Maybe you could use it as the flip side to the ice cream chart. If she doesn't earn it she starts school without.

 

[anne]

Going to try that!   She does know from Christmas, that B-day is also going to be building up her school supplies, but this may help her to calm.  And, it will show that we are trying to support her.  We'll give it a go, thanks!
anne

[adsglinda]

How long before she starts?

Keep telling her "it's going to be ok"  "you will be safe"  "you will have everything you need"  "everything is going to be fine"  "if you have any problems, we'll get them worked out"  etc etc.  positive calming statements about it.

[mommabear]

I have a few other thoughts.   My DD had a lot of anxiety about starting middle school and in addition to the calming statements and assurances that it would all be okay we did a few other things.  One thing that really, really helped was that our school offered a "jump start" week before school started.  It was optional and was focused around the transition.  So they did activities to help kids get to know each other, the teachers and the building.  They go to practice locks and walking their schedules.  Our high school did something similar for entering 9th graders.  The other thing that really helped was that I found her a book about the transition - it was like "the girl's guide to middle school" and it had great advice and tips and really normalized all the fears.  I don't recall if they had a similar book for high school.  She really liked the book as she could read it over and over and over as many times as she needed. 

I love the idea of having her list the things she needs/wants and then having her work for them.  I am so going to use that over the summer as an incentive for my DD.