to be getting cross at DD. She will not look for work.

[fluffyraggies]

That's in in a nut shell, but so as not to drip feed i'll ramble a bit, please bare with me i need some outside perspective ...

DD2 is in her 2nd year at college. Lives at home with us. She'll be 18 in a couple of weeks.

Originally it was a 4 day a week college course. DH and i have said that she should really try to get herself a PT job. We said it would be some independant spending money for her, would look good on a CV, and would just be generally good for her to get 'out there'.

We are happy to pay for her food, basic clothing, materials for college, roof over her head, toiletries and phone, laptop, ipod, etc. However i wont buy her make up, hair dye, or high fashion gear and we don't give pocket money, we cant afford to. She gets gifts and cash at xmas, birthdays and randomly from her GPs as a treat.

We have other DCs and money is pretty tight.

Bit more ... DD has a BF, 21 this year. He lives with his parents. He and DD together almost 3 years. He has never had a job. He spent 2.5 years unemployed after dropping out of college. He's just begun a 3 day college course and is unlikely to be looking for work of any kind for another 2 years. He came into a little money and funds himself with this. He buys my DD clothes on a regular basis. High heels, leather jacket etc. (He's not having to pay for her basics is what i'm saying). Sometimes he buys her make up, fancy toiletries etc. They go out allot together, they eat out allot together. It's lovely of him but is doing nothing to encourage my DD to get herself a little job.

DDs college have just announced they are dropping a day from the course, so now she is only at college 3 days a week. That leaves her 4 free days. She'll be studying here at home on one of them and the other 3 she'll be with BF at his home loafing around. (his days off are the same as hers)

Anyway I'm now getting pissed off about this job thing. Would you? Am i BU?

When we broach the subject of getting a job she goes quiet, or mutters about study time/visiting boyfriend time/chilling out time - basically she doesn't want a job and is happy how she is. I cant take her by the scruff of her neck to look for work can i?

She is a lovely girl, friendly and sociable. Not exactly an enthusiastic helper round the house but will if asked.
WWYD?

Won't she be coml;eting her cause in about 3 months? I would leave it til then.It really is not a good time to be starting a part time job so close to A2 exams or whatever she is doing.

I think it's totally reasonable that you think she should be doing more; either paid work or something to pad out her CV.

Do you claim CB and CTC for her OP? They'll stop in September when she leaves college and I can tell you that it can leave a bit of a shortfall income-wise; maybe you should raise that with her, along the lines of her contributing a bit more at some point in the near future.

You definitely need to stop paying for her luxuries - phone, laptop, clothes etc. when I was at college my parents let me live at theirs rent free and fed me. The only clothes they bought would be something like smart shoes / outfit for an interview or job. They also paid for my bus pass. Anything else was paid for myself funded by a weekend job. I couldn't afford driving lessons or a car, so I didn't have them until I had a full time job.
She has no incentive to get a job so why would she bother.
I think the longer she goes without a job, the harder it will be to get one iyswim. With no work experience at all, she will be at a disadvantage compared to other applicants.

Wait til she's finished her course (assuming it's a 2 year one). Now really isn't the time to be pushing her with final exams and everything.

I don't get why people get so uptight about this, if they're in college/sixth form or whatever, they're not laying about are they. If they can get a job, great, but they're not a lazy scrounger if they don't, it's their house as well and they're not some lodger! It's not her fault the course has been cut.

Agree with remote - my mother got absolutely obsessed with me getting a job as soon as I turned 15. Embarrassing and daft, especially as she took it upon herself to apply for them on my behalf!

I would suggest she finds a 2 day per week course that compliments her ambitions and current course - or she could do a teaching assistant course a couple of evenings (they are not long courses) and use the 2 days to do her training work in schools - if she wants to teach this will be fab on her cv.

Oh sorry saw that she doesn't want to teach (tired) - what about setting up work experiences in her chosen fields? What is it she is talking of?

She's in 6th form, right, not university? I'd leave her alone till after the summer, tbh. She's doing well in school and not pestering you for money.

The clothes we buy her are her basics - at this time of year warm jacket, jeans, boots, jumpers, warm scarf and gloves, for eg. I have recently bought her a new smart skirt and blouse.
She gets £10 per month for her phone (unlimited texts for this + 10mins of calls or something). There is no EMA anymore, as we all know, but she has a student travel card which is £50 one off fee (which we pay obviously) per year and that gets her on a bus for free 6 days a week.

cory - your post was interesting as it touched on how much time needs to be allocated to home study and whether the college really has dropped a day. I found it odd too.

I feel rather out of the loop as far as her college course goes. My kids are pretty close in age and it feels like they're all shooting through their educational years in no time at all (i'm sure it does to every parent of teens).

I was very involved in their primary years (not least because i worked in their school), struggled and am struggling to feel as in touch and up to scratch with their work and their teachers at secondary level, and, as i say feel a bit all at sea with the day to day details of her college course. It was all clear at the start, but they seem to change the goal posts every couple of months. Subjects and classes are offered and withdrawn due to numbers of students, funding, availability of staff etc. They all seem to float about looking arty and being arty and 'right on' and frankly i wish they sent out good old parents letters the way they do in primary and secondary so we know what the hell is going on without having to grill our teenage mumbling offspring about it .

DD will patiently explain to me if i pin her down and get her into an in depth about whats going on exactly - and i don't want to undermine her by asking for a meeting with her tutors. Last time we saw them, at an exhibition before xmas, they were all full of praise for DD and happy as larry.

Sometimes she tells me things about her course and i think what? - that can't be right, she's pulling the wool over my eyes to have a day off here, or whatever - but on the occasions i've dug deeper she's been telling the perfect truth. It's a weird bloody course.

I think it might be time to ask her if i can see someone at the college with her about work placement and career advice. That might help.

Rambling now. Sorry.

xposted a bit.
maddening - the teaching assistant course is a good idea.I may be able to steer her back to the teaching idea tbh. She's not dead set on anything particular.

porridge - i got that pestering from my folks at 15 too. I was working 4 long evenings plus all day Saturday in Tesco and trying to do O levels and then A levels

I wouldn't expect DD to do that much.

I wouldn't make a fuss about it if her education status would entitle her to be named on a child benefit claim. Under that circumstance then I would buy needs but if she refused to get a job then she would go without wants.

fluffy, I could have started this thread myself

course not arty, boyfriend aged 18 though (with no money himself), dd a year younger

but everything else, almost identical

I don't understand why she doesn't want to get a job, to have more money. We have tried to encourage her, but it's gone nowhere. DH is softer than men though, and feels we shouldn't pressurise her as she is getting good marks in her studies. Her tutors love her.

but she seems content to laze around when not at college and uninterested that just now, at the time of her life when she should be getting out there and going to festivals etc (which we refuse to pay for...although other parents seem to do it) she has no disposable income to facilitate it

stretching birthday/xmas money out for months, missing out on good stuff, living an actually really boring life watching telly with her bf

it seems like a waste of youth

yep, youth really is wasted on the young

softer than me

Hi there, I'm doing a Fine Art degree & the tutors never stop going on about how we are on a 40 hour week, if not in studios then should be studying etc. We also have to do unpaid work experience in the 2nd yr.

The amount of work is non-stop & gets deeper & deeper theoretically, not to mention the tons of practical stuff.
Perhaps she & I could swap courses....

Indeed

the 1.5 days a week dd is not actually expected in college is meant to be for doing assignments/private study

At 18 I was expected to pay for everything bar rent and food whilst at college full time. As soon as I left college and got a full time job I paid rent and bills (more than half my wages).

You are being too easy on her and it will do her no favours long term. When she DOES want a job she'll struggle if employers see nothing on her C.V As she gets older. But also she needs to understand how much day to day things cost, and how hard it is to be a grown up with responsibility for herself... other wise she'll never manage on her own! how can she be an adult when you are still treating her as a (dependant) child?

Ohhh, - that's what i think too, you see.

And like AF says, a little disposable cash would make her life so much more interesting. I don't want the money form her. That isn't the point really.

Eowyn - i remember talk of work experience in the 2nd year. That must be soon.

I'm grateful for everyone's posts.

I think it is fine for someone in full time education not to work, if you can afford to keep her (basics, not luxuries, as you are doing). But I think she is far too young to be taking money from a bf. This would worry me a lot. I don't know what you can do to stop it though. But it entangles them more completely than is suitable for her years. (very pompously expressed - I'm sorry - am I the only one who thinks this?)

DD and DS have both had jobs since they were 15. If they want cash they have to earn it here.

Go to the travel agents get loads of travel brochures, leave them lying around in different rooms,bathroom included, when you catch her flicking through them, casually say, "You and BF could be somewhere lovely this summer if you got part time jobs", then don't say another word.

leave a few festival guides/calendars lying around,

her brain will do the rest.

and book yourselves a short hop trip away soon, leave her at home with basic food rations, when you come back, get all excited about planning your next trip.

Going to take a different tack here. Everyone always seems determined that teenagers should "get out there". God, I hated this. Teenagers are different people, just as adults are. All the milestones and activities people my age were supposed to enjoy and look forward to were either boring or terrifying to me when I was 17. And I certainly lacked the maturity and confidence to apply for jobs, even though I'm sure I also came across as mature, sociable etc to my parents. I am still grateful that they didn't push me, and it didn't do me any harm at all when applying for jobs after university. Nor did it have the slightest impact on my ability to budget, which has actually got very little to do with how the money comes in.

In retrospect, what I should have done at 16-18 is found ways of enlarging my mind and boosting my confidence that were outside the usual "stuff teenagers should do" - things that would have given me hints about the kind of adult I wanted to be. That could well have encompassed volunteering, and it sounds like in her case it might include eg gallery visiting, touting her portfolio around, getting in touch with any local arts festivals, asking libraries if they would exhibit her work etc etc. Also I bet her arty-farty college has all sorts of extra-curricular stuff going on too.

I am a bit uneasy about her taking money off the bf to be honest. I think that breeds the kind of dependency she could probably do without. But I think she probably needs an alternative vision of adult life that's a bit more compelling than "get down to Tescos."

Curryeater i was wondering if anyone else would think this. I do tbh. I have to dash now, but - Drip Feed Alert - the clothes BF is buying DD are way different to DDs general style. I feel he is dictating a bit. Same with her hair.

tangled webs ay.

x-posted with some interesting posts there. Holidays are a good example of something that didn't attract me in the slightest when I was 17. I had a great time doing all the socialising/holidaying things in my 20s, when I was ready.

Oh god yes that does sound worrying.

When I was about 20 my college bf implied to his parents that we were sleeping together, and they were all cosy and liberal and "call me Dave" types, and I made up some excuse why I couldn't visit his family because I knew they would give us a bed together and congratulate themselves on being all down with the kids, and I couldn't bear it, and instead he came to visit my family in strictly enforced separate rooms. It was what I needed at the time. (we had not been together long, I was not ready to sleep with him, actually was not that into him and never did)

I think that sometimes parents have to provide the framework to allow their kids to be as young as they are (need to be or want to be) even if this makes them look like "bad guys"