Would I be AIBU if I do not allow DD to take a gap year?

[MarvellousMrsMuggle]

Semi regular user here, name changed for privacy and posting in AIBU for traffic. I am extremely unsure about a gap year for DD, hence the tentative thread title. Some context so I don't drip feed ( sorry if too long):

We live overseas and DD (18) is currently finishing her A levels. She plans to study in the UK and has a conditional offer from three RG unis ( Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham) to study politics. She has firmed Manchester. She now wants to take a gap year.

She has had a horrendous time in the last 4 years.
(1) During her GCSE's her best friend died of cancer after a year of struggle.
(2) During her AS levels DD herself fell mysteriously ill, and we could not get a firm diagnosis. After months of buggering about, she was diagnosed with Migraine Associated Vertigo, a fairly uncommon uncondition which means she is very dizzy on and off, triggered by certain foods, and sometimes made worse by stress and irregular meals. It keeps recurring from time to time.
(3) She did very poorly in her AS levels because she had to take two months off school. Got a string of Cs and Ds.
(4) She had a gruelling year catching up, took 3 resits, pulled herself together, and got a predicted AAB. Her teachers say she might even make an AAA but we were prob too conservative with our UCAS choices which I now regret.

DD now says she wants to either do a deferred entry to Manchester next year, or take a gap year to reapply to better colleges ( Kings, Warwick) if she gets an AAA in her exams. Her reasons: the migraine keeps recurring and she does not feel a 100% fit. She is wary of being so far away from us in an unfamiliar city , learning how to cook and manage house etc while being ill on and off. She also says she's very tired and worn out. During her gap year she plans to be at home- not travel- and do an internship/ an economics course/ learn a language.

My concern is that she may be tired now given the gruelling last two years, but may well regret it when she sees all her friends going off to uni.The migraine is a life long condition so it's not going to go away by next year anyway. I am also not sure if a better uni is worth it given Manchester is a respected uni. She will be 19.5 by the time she enters uni.

Eventually, it will be her decision, but I am just trying to help her make a good one.

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks everyone for all your advice; I appreciate it, really. Just putting it down on the screen has helped me clarify a bit. Both DD and I have been living v much inside our heads the last few years, muddling along so to speak.

Not ruling out adjustment, as some have suggested, but that may be even more stressful as she wont have had a chance to check out higher ranked unis.

I am deleting this post and prob wandering over to the education forum to discuss gap years further.

I had a gao year and it is that year off I credit with my sucsess at university.

I grew up a lot, did some travel and worked in a full time job for 8 months to pay for said travel (and saved up some for uni).

I started uni a much happier, much more mature and a more focused person.

Sounds very sensible to have a gap year. I recommend gap years, they make a huge difference to maturity. She has had a tough time and is cream crackered, which is not surprising for any a level student, let alone her extra issues.

The only sad thing for me, is that she doesn't have money saved and isn't planning on going off and doing some travelling, to .... Israel/Egypt/wherever she may fancy.
Could she incorporate that?

Does she drink fizzy drinks? During 6th form, DD’s BF plied her with lemonade and she developed migraines. At uni, no fizzy drinking BF = no migraines.

Also, DD is at uni in London. It hasn’t crippled us as the rent payers

Oblomov, it's hard to earn money where we live so hard to go off on a holiday by herself but we do plan to have a family holiday somewhere nice after exams. She's v fond of her brother and over the past two years, she hasnt had much time to spend with him so she might enjoy that, even if not with friends.

Base on everything you have said I think a gap year is exactly what she needs and I would encourage it

Vanilla Sugar: Fizzy drinks are a huge trigger. She does not drink any at all. It wasnt too difficult to cut out as she wasnt all that keen on them. Her latest trigger was having just one drink at her friends' party. It's really quite hard to be teetotaller at this age; I hope she grows out of it.

My dd was poorly from 15-1/2 to about 18. She dropped out of Y12 due to illness and had to repeat 6th form at another school. She got into a very good RG uni but her results were way above expectations. Within 10 minutes she decided she was applying to an Oxbridge College. She did and was successful.

This year has been one of continued recovery for her and I think she will be in a much better place to make a go of it and be happy. She has learnt another language (well learning) a slightly off piste one. Has joined a local choir (she has always sung, is reading into her subject and has had a couple of part time long term temp jobs. She doesn't want to go travelling to anywhere far flung but is planning a bit of inter-railing with her school friends who are still her friends.

Best thing she has ever decided. DS had a gap year too. For some it helps them grow.

I think she should definitely take a gap year. I wasn't too sure about going straight to university after school, but my parents pushed my to, and I ended up dropping out in second term, and taking a year out anyway, because I wasn't ready for the workload and I just wanted a summer off after 7 years of annual exams.

(I went back the following year)

One of my DD's went straight to Uni after school. Dropped out. The other two took gap years. Other two have ended up doing completely different courses from what they originally set out to do because they had an extra year to grow up and think about it. And most Unis like gap years, especially if it involves travel or charity work, or experience in some way of the type of course they want to do. Makes a better personal statement.

It must be hard to see your child become an adult so no judgement on you thinking you can allow her. Just support her choice.

My mum said something to me when I left home to study that has stuck with me. She told me I could always come home and she will always be proud of me. My Dad told me he trusted my judgement.

So when I did mess up or realised I had made the wrong choice I knew I had a safety net.

Most unis have sober societies and events as part of welcome week. Give her the year to just breath and rest. Going with a friend to uni is never a good idea, they will either argue or not mix outside their friendship. Neither is good.

I'd let her have the gap year

Let her have her gap year. She's had an exhausting time and there's nothing wrong with taking a year off. Also, after a year of resting and working in (probably unexciting) jobs, she'll be raring to go to university. It won't affect her prospects at all - she'll be 19 instead of 18 and no-one will notice.

She needs a break! I took a 2 year gap 'year' made not a jot of difference in terms of frinds going off to uni (I visited a couple of them for weekends away) and some friends stayed local because they chose to work, do non uni further education.

When I finally got to uni I was in halls and 2 others had had 2 years out, made no difference in terms of making friends or sitting the course.

Good luck.to your DD

I think the gap year sounds like a good idea for her.

Re the migraines - we had issues with migraine with DS over the last few years. His were stress related it turned out. In the midst of finding that out though we tried osteopathy and chiropractic treatment and acupuncture. Might be helpful for your dd if you haven’t already tried any of those. The acupuncture in particular can be very helpful with stress.

The time for 'letting' her do things is gone, she will want your support now...

My parents would not countenance a gap year, so I ploughed on, did the minimum I needed to do, to get by, had a great life but entirely wasted the academic content of my degree. Only years later did I discover that my father had dropped out (to join the air force, just as the war ended and demobilisation started, so not such great timing). It took me a good few years to discover my own real interests, I have paid for many, many courses and really enjoyed them, typically turn up having read the entire reading list, ready to discuss and fund out more. I love learning...having got to it in my own time.

I'm sorry but in this day and age when parents are expected to support their Dc through uni it's not unreasonable that they get a say. It's not like most DC leave home at 18 and never come back again.

My sister taking a gap year plus a year abroad at uni has had a major financial impact on my mum who has to sub her every holiday etc.

Agree that sharing university accommodation with a schoolfriend is a potential recipe for disaster!

An advantage of not going straight to university after school is that you get to hear - and learn from - how friends are doing.

A tip on work if she decides on a gap year, more jobs might be open to her if she pretends she has no university plans! Friends taking gap years who stated their plans and applied for “internship” type roles got less well paid/skills building jobs than those who made out they were looking for schoolleaver jobs with prospects. They then just made travel plans, told employers their plans had changed and resigned. All got decent references. She will be competing with graduates for paid work.

Working - potentially even full time - might be hard but earning money would give her options and look good on a CV. And may clarify her education decisions.

A gap year sounds like the best thing possible for her. She should not go into Uni mentally and academically exhausted. I've seen too many students push themselves too hard and arrive at Uni fed up, only to drop out in the first year.

It isn't up to you whether she takes a gap year or not and it isn't your place to decide which uni (or regret the choice), it isn't you that is going to be attending!

I remember when I was at uni chatting to someone who told me they hadn't chosen their subject or the uni themselves, their parent's had! I was shocked that parent's could have so much control at 18. They were deeply unhappy and contemplating dropping out.

I think you need to take a step back and allow your daughter to grow up and make her own decisions. If she wants to take a gap year, change unis or whatever that's her business not yours, she's 18 not 8.

To everyone who is saying you are unfair to 'let' her have a gap year - this is all very well. In reality though, what happens if her parents don't support her initially - provide a home for her / roof over her head if a job doesn't materialise straight away? If she had to sign on to JSA for a while, her situation would be pretty grim without some support from her parents. It's all very well saying that it's HER decision, but ultimately her parents may be the ones carrying the brunt of the financial cost of the gap year until she finds her feet (whether that's a matter of weeks or months) so they should have some say in the matter too - it should be a joint decision. And I say this as a parent of a teenager the same age who has just decided on a gap year before she goes to college/university.

By the sound of it though OP, your daughter would really benefit from a gap year though, after all she has been through. My DD has decided on this because she wants a career in performing arts so wants this next year to really focus on her dance & drama training, and is hoping to get a second job alongside her current part time job to be able to fund this. It was something we talked about and decided together, and we are both happy with the decision. Her dad (we are divorced) doesn't yet know about the gap year, as he doesn't support her choice in course and wants her to do law or english. Now that ISN'T his (or my) decision! He has spent the last four months trying to talk my daughter down from a career in musical theatre. The result is that she no longer shares information about her future with him, and she is currently not speaking to him since the last time she visited when he spent the whole weekend ranting on and on about her doing an english degree.

I know this may seem a contradictory to what I have said above about it being a joint decision - in my DD's case, her dad has not been the resident parent for the past 12 years, I have, and he will not be providing for her after she finishes her exams anyway, regardless of whether she goes to University or takes a gap year (as he has already indicated). As I am the one who will be supporting her until she finds a job, and will also be supporting her continued performing arts training and her round of auditions next year, the decision has been made jointly between DD and myself; it was her idea but she knows that she cannot do it without my support and needed me to agree to it in order for her plan to be successful. She did not include her dad in the decision firstly as he has already said that he will not support her if she chooses to pursue a career in the performing arts, and secondly because the decision one way or another will bear no impact on his life in the next year.

it isn't you that is going to be attending!

No but presumably the op IS going to be the one supporting her for the next 3 or 4 years.

It's 2019
OP's DD had a gap year, learnt to manage her condition, developed great transeferable skills in an internship. She arrives at university.
'Hi, I'm X, been living abroad with my DPs, studying Y, how about you?'
(conversation about a levels and gap years follows, DD mentions unusual health condition)
'Oh, really? yeah, I remember my mum mentioned something about that when I was thinking of a gap year. She's on mumsnet- I remember now, there was this woman asking if she should LET her dd have a gap year- how we laughed- actually they lived abroad too...'
OP your post is completely identifying.