Manipulation Gone Wrong

My chief complaint about myself is that I continually underestimate the manipulative capabilities of the crazy man. In this scene he has sent an email to the eldest to try to establish communication as she has been incommunicado since Dec. 18th. The email was a bit saccharine with all the predictable "I miss you and I'm hear for you" things and the eldest's immediate response was "Does he think this is a soap opera?" Well, certainly not as exciting as any Spanish soap opera we've seen. In this email he also wished her luck on her upcoming interview/audition for the high school of the arts. Oops. This caused what we call in the tech world a fatal error. The morning of this appointment the eldest woke up in an incorrigible mood and refused to go to said interview/audition. After 2 days of prodding I finally got a solid response which was that she didn't want to go just because he wanted her to. She had completely lost site of her personal interests in the school as this is the high school he has been actively pushing. Mind you, he's done nothing to support her preparation for this interview but it is the high school he's been advocating for. Tween backlash resulted in her not wanting to do anything that would please him.