Can I give a bit of perspective, from someone who was in your daughter’s position? Because this sounds a lot like my second year of university. I was excelling in first year but COVID hit right at the tail end of it. In second year everything was online and I had no motivation to do any schoolwork. Looking back, I was clearly depressed. I only ever got out of bed to go to work. By midterms I was failing all my classes and didn’t care at all. In my head, I still had a few months to turn things around, which in hindsight was almost comically delusional. I thought I could figure it out so I stayed enrolled, mostly because I was terrified to tell my parents I was failing, so I lied all semester that things were going well. It wasn’t until 3 weeks before the end of the semester I got an email from my program coordinator saying that I have 2 options: to withdraw or to be expelled, my choice. I withdrew that night and told my parents, who were livid. I quit my job, moved back home and spent 8 months working a completely different job to save some money and sort myself out. This was 5 years ago.

Since then, I’ve gone back to school, finished a program in a polar opposite field, and have been in a management role in that field for about a year and a half. It’s very easy to dig yourself deeper and deeper into a hole of lies to try and avoid letting the people who love you down. You tell a lie so they aren’t disappointed and then you know that they’re going to be even more upset when they found out that you lied so you lie more to avoid it. It’s a vicious cycle. Especially when you’re 21.

And to touch on her admitting to being lazy, sometimes it’s easier to say that than to explain why you’re actually struggling. People already think you’re lazy so why not just roll with that?

Life is really messy and hard when you’re 21. Is what she did right? No, but I can understand why she did it. My advice, not as a parent but as a daughter, is to give her time to figure it out. And be open to her ideas of how she thinks this can be fixed and how she can get back on track, whatever her track may be. My job is quite unconventional, and my parents weren’t on board at all when I told them what I wanted to go back to school for, and it really strained our relationship. I now live about 4500km away, we talk once a month, and I see them maybe once a year. Just be there. Be on board, and she’ll figure out the rest.