I need help with my son, please. 17. Education. Depression?

[IJustDontKnowWhat]

After leaving high-school he went to college with his mates. He didn't seem enthusiastic about any subjects but chose 3 he thought he would like.

He hated one of them and started avoiding the lesson. Over a period of months he became more withdrawn and started bunking off. He didn't want to go college. Was very depressed, I was really worried about him.

He seemed to have social anxiety.

I took him to a therapist to try and work out what was going on but he wouldn't engage.

One day I made him go to college, I got an automated text saying he hadn't arrived. I tried to ring him. Wouldn't answer. He was gone for hours. He finally answered his phone to his brother and he was crying. DH eventually found him in the park.

I thought he had hurt himself.

After that I thought priorities should be his mental health. I honestly thought I'd lost him for a few minutes.

So he left college. This was mid March.

I told him he had to form a new plan for September.

We had a MAJOR family crisis in April that is only just calming down now so DS has just been going to see his friends. Gaming. Just bumbling about the house basically.

I sat him down today and said we need to sort September out.

I went through some courses and he has zero emotion when I'm talking to him

I'm listing building, kids, animal care...

He goes 'right ill do something with animals'

I said so what career after college are you looking at that will benefit from that course.

He shrugs his shoulders. I tell him this is what happened last time, you just picked something randomly and hated it.

You need to find something you WANT to do.

He looks like he is going to cry.

He doesn't want to do anything except sit with his dog and his PS5.

I'm at my wits end.

Will he even be able to get on a course now for September??!

I just don't know what to do. My mental health is shit in general and even worse since dealing with the family emergency from April. I just feel like I'm a shit mother.

Deep breath OP. You are a good Mum, you can do this and so can DS.

Your DS isn't in a mental space where he can cope with thinking about the future or even about "wanting" anything. He was able to think "I like animals, maybe I can do a course related to animals". But trying to make him look further ahead isn't motivating him it is scaring him. His refusal to engage sounds like fear - fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of letting you down - and his response to that fear is not to try harder but to run away or withdraw to the safety of home and friends and his PS5.

What he ideally needs is to expand his world just a little. So that maybe he goes to college and studies something, anything, that gets him doing something a bit positive with his day. Maybe he wont last at college but if he is genuinely willing to try it is a start. Or maybe he gets some paid work instead, not necessarily a career but something simple that he can do even if it's just a few hours each week. Or something voluntary perhaps with animals. Think very tiny baby steps, one step at a time. Think "What is he doing now and what could he do that would be a little bit better for him?" Don't try to think ahead, he still needs to recover.

Great advice from the above poster.

Agree that he is scared and he is not in a good mental place to be thinking about the future. You need to meet him where he is rather than trying to push too much.

If he can get onto an animal care course or something, that should be enough for you for now. Don't force him to think further ahead yet when he is clearly struggling mentally. Even if he doesn't go into anything to do with animal care, having a college course under his belt is better than not and will open other doors for him.

Would an apprenticeship suit him more?

agree with the above posters. Without pressure suggest he looks into what’s out there.
volunteering at PDSA?
look at apprenticeships
He will be able to go to college in September if he wants to.
Is there anything locally to you that would provide support or advice? The careers service should be able to signpost you.

For now as pp said help him expand his world a little.

He needs a job or apprenticeship, college doesn’t suit him.

Have you thought about encouraging him to get a job?

As a pp said expanding his world might be a good idea. My children used to come back from work and tell me about all sorts of careers and courses that their colleagues were doing it working towards and found it really interesting as it was not their norm. One of them has spent her gap year doing a 30 hour per week job and is looking forward to going back to school and studying again because working in hospitality is hard. Work was great for my son too. He barely turned up at his sixth form but was really motivated at work and took up training opportunities and moved up quickly. Instead of uni he decided to do an apprenticeship through work and earned £30k at age 20. I regret the time I wasted trying to get him to school when he was clearly more suited and enthusiastic about work.

I have another son who is doing his GCSEs right now and picked A-levels based on what subjects he likes now rather than a proper career path. I don't think that's unusual. College open days often have a bit about what kind of jobs their course leads to. Most people don't know all the jobs out there so it might be too difficult to map out what they want after college.

Sending much love, my son who is Autistic is just in the process of coming out of this space. We have just picked a course for him to do in sept to achieve something. 17 is an age where lots of young people struggle.

Just keep being his mum and supporting him. I know it's hard but he might just need more time to adjust.

What about a part time job; the sort he might have if he was at college? It would get him out of the house into some sort of routine and maybe help him to consider what direction he wants to go in longer term.

Mental health first. If not college this year, maybe next. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter.

You've had some good advice here so far but need to think about some support for yourself too. It's very, very hard to parent a teen who is struggling. I would recommend joining (if you use Facebook) the private group called Parenting Mental Health.

We've had a very similar experience with DS(18) and DSD(15) this year. It's been really tough. DS started ALevels at a college and has only stuck it out due to the extracurricular sports they offer. He's blessed that he tends to do ok with minimal effort, but has completely detached from the academic subjects. Revision for todays exam was skimming through his text book on the 10 minute car journey to college 🤦🏻‍♀️ I was incredibly uptight about it before Christmas, but my badgering and stressing wasn't helping him and actually he was withdrawing more. He's not going to Uni, doesn't know what he wants to do for work and only started his first part time job a couple of months ago, stacking trollies at a garden centre which he hates, and is getting paid a pittance for, but he's at least engaged in something for a few hours a week!
DSD was struggling terribly in yr10 at school and made the decision to transfer to college to complete. She's only doing maths and English alongside an animal management level 2 course. She's younger than the others by at least 1 year - they are all post 16 education and she's still officially yr11. DP was devastated, embarrassed etc, but actually she's happy and having seen the struggle to scrape (hopefully) a 4 in her maths has proved a different route was the best chance for her to succeed.
It feels from your post that you are struggling with him taking a different route to the traditional one (I understand you are also struggling with his mental health, which is really tough and I get that both of ours suffer and it's so hard feeling helpless to help them). Sometimes some space, time to try something completely different (even with no end goal) helps them to refocus and settle with limited pressure as they aren't working towards anything in particular so have nothing to lose, that's certainly helped DS and DSD to feel less stressed and improve their overall well-being.

It's the working out what he likes to do bit that's tricky, if so far in life he's only figured out that he likes to play on his ps5.

I'd come at this from trying to get him to try a variety of stuff before he commits to another course.

He could try different sports, volunteering, and a job.

If he discovers he loves working at the local animal shelter, then something to do with animals is a good shout. If he discovers he's got a flair for hockey, or another sport, he could look at coaching courses, if he discovers he loves to cook, he could think about chefs courses and so on. But, before the course comes, and interest needs to emerge. And I'd talk honestly with him about this.

My husband was similar when we were younger. He worked in an office for a bit and it made him say he wanted to work outdoors (all of this was after he dropped out of uni). He went to horticultural college and has worked outdoors ever since!

DS1 was like this, dropped out of school at 17 due to various issues, very unhappy for a while. I pushed him to sign up for courses, dropped out of them too! Joined the Navy, finished basic training but then dropped out of that!
With hindsight it would have been better to help him get a job and pass his driving test gain some independence and wait for him to find out he wants to do. I'm afraid it took DS1 5 years to get on a track he has stuck too, he's just about to start a degree after two years of access courses at college.
I kept coming up with ideas that i think he went along with to keep us happy, not a total waste of time but certainly used up a lot of time and money and was stressful at times.
Focus on life skills, independence and getting him out of the house and meeting different people rather than deciding on a career and sticking to it.