Dreams and Promises

Daughter came to me this afternoon and wanted to talk. She explained that she wanted to move back to Tiny Village. She told me that she wanted an apartment, and she promised me that she would be responsible and take care of herself. She said she was willing to have a nurse come in to help with meds. She told me she wanted to go back to the workshop there so she could work hard and earn lots of money.

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These conversations are so hard. I don't want to kill her dreams. I hate telling her all the reasons why her plan won't work. I did point out that it was hard for me to believe that when just yesterday she was breaking into the pantry while I was out mowing the lawn, and then lying about it. I mentioned the fact that she has trouble going a day without calling me from her program, and I found it hard to believe she could handle moving to another state and not seeing me for several months at a time. I reminded her that she hadn't been able to handle the chaos of the workshop when we lived in Tiny Village. Of course, she thought I was terrible and was preventing her from reaching her full potential. Of course she can move down there and live independently and manage her health. She promised me she'd be responsible with her money and wouldn't stop spending it all on junk right away.

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The problem is, she really believes she can do it. She doesn't see the disconnect between her words and her actions. She doesn't see that if she can't/won't do it here at home, it's not very likely she'll do it when she's living alone. I want her to be more independent. I want her to experience success and build on it. That's one of the reasons I'm sending her back to camp for another week. She was successful there, I want her to experience independence and success again. I need to look at the psychological evaluation for the guardianship again, but as I recall, the highest age equivalent she had was one area where she scored at 10 years, 0 months. There were at least two areas that had an age equivalent of less than 4 years. It's a challenge helping her find realistic dreams.