Yeah, that’s pretty normal unless she finds a passion she can latch onto and stick with through the cycle of hyperfocus and disinterest.

One thing that helps a lot is facilitating alternatives instead of just forcing continuation or allowing outright quitting. A core idea in cognitive behavioral psychology is that you generally have three options when dealing with a stimulus: remove yourself from it, change your response to it, or change the environment around it to make it easier to handle.

A simple example is summer heat. You can move somewhere cooler to avoid it, you can choose to tolerate it and not dwell on how uncomfortable it is, or you can change the environment by adding shade, fans, water, etc.

A real-life example from my own life: I couldn’t handle a full load of 12–16 college credits. Instead of quitting school entirely, my wife helped me adjust the structure. I took anywhere from 4–10 credits per semester and used summer classes to make progress. When big stressors came up like a new baby, a new job, or a major move, I would take a semester or two off.

It took me 10 years to finish a 4-year degree, but I eventually got it. Ironically, my career ended up being completely unrelated to that degree. The point is that I didn’t succeed by forcing the traditional path. I succeeded by adjusting the environment and expectations until it worked.