It’s a problem that should be familiar to many members of the class of 2001–and their parents. Mood swings and erratic behavior are normal for adolescents on the verge of moving out, says Michael G. Thompson, a Boston clinical psychologist and author of “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys.” “This is the most important and most difficult transition in all of life,” he says. “It’s very hard to leave home feeling sad and dependent. Many kids handle the transition by driving their parents off; it’s a way of saying, ‘I declare my adulthood’.”
But knowing that difficult behavior is a healthy declaration of independence doesn’t make it any easier to live with, and the last summer at home can be stormy. Marvin and Patty Fabrikant of Washington, D.C ., have been through it three times, with Jason, Jeffrey and Heather. (Next year they’ll be in the firing line again, with their youngest, Michael.) “The oldest one was disobedient, the second one reckless and the third temperamental,” says Marvin. He still remembers the night Jason climbed out of his bedroom window and drove his girlfriend all the way from Washington, D.C., to her school in Florida. After that, says Patty, an empty nest begins to looks good. “You’re relieved when they finally leave,” she says.
Leaving home is actually the last of a series of major milestones during senior year. The biggie is getting into college. Students who apply for early decision hear in December; just about everyone else finds out sometime in April. “Once the kids are accepted, they not only feel a great sense of relief, but a sense of entitlement,” says Anthony Miserandino, principal of Harrison High School in Harrison, N.Y. By now, they know exactly how many miles away from home they’ll be and how many–if any–of their friends will be with them. Even good students justify skipping school in order to spend just a little more quality time with kids they’ve known for years and may not see for months when summer ends.
Legally, many seniors are adults, and they’re beginning to wrestle with what that means for them. Eighteen-year-olds can vote and make their own medical decisions. If society considers them adults, why can’t their parents? They’re annoyed at how infantilized their parents make them feel, explains Thompson. But they still need their parents and hate the fact that they do, so they attack them. Fights over curfews and other autonomy-related issues are common. Aaron, a Madison, Wis., high-school senior, who does not want his last name to be used, constantly complains that he is one of the few seniors still with a curfew, says his mother, Elizabeth. “He said to us the other day, ‘I have to get used to taking care of myself and to know when to come home. What will I do next year when I’m all on my own? I really need to have the practice’.”
At least Aaron talks to his parents, although not as often as he used to. Bruce Bailey, director of Upper School and College Counseling at Lakeside School, in Seattle, says that one of the biggest complaints from parents in the senior spring is that their kids seem to have taken a vow of silence. “The parents don’t know what’s going on,” he says. “They want to talk to their kids, but their kids don’t want to talk to them.” In fact, many seniors see even the simplest exchanges as a threat to their independence. Says Sharon Gomez about her son, Miguel, a senior at a private school in New York City: “He prefers me not to be in his way, not to ask him anything about anything anymore.” Miguel says he’s especially annoyed when he does something wrong and his mother keeps lecturing him about it. “She keeps telling me the same things over and over, and I really don’t like to listen to it,” he says.
Although they don’t admit it, many seniors are worried about what will happen at home after they leave. Kids whose parents have rocky marriages are especially anxious because they suspect–and they’re not always wrong–that they’re the glue holding the family together. Sibling relationships can also become strained because seniors may feel guilty about “abandoning” their younger brothers and sisters. They may also be jealous that their siblings will get more parental attention or maybe even take over their bedroom.
How can parents survive senior spring with both their sanity and their relationship with their kids intact? Although they may decide to ease up on some restrictions, they shouldn’t give up being parents in the spring of senior year, warns Bailey. Talk to other parents of seniors so you don’t feel isolated. Volunteer for class activities; it gives you something to talk about with your kids. Finally, try to relax a little. “By the senior year they have the basic values we’ve instilled in them, and we have to let them go,” says Patty Fabrikant. Adds Marvin: “You really don’t want to keep the strictures so tight senior year that they break when they go to college from all that freedom.” So how did their kids turn out? Jason graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and is applying to law school. Jeffrey graduated from Vanderbilt last year and is working in New York. And Heather is an honor student at Penn. There is life after Orientation Day. Just hang on.
