Am I being harsh on dd?

[Harshsea]

Dd2 is 16 and has just gone to college.

She is a lovely girl usually and had always given 110% despite struggling academically sometimes however during the last 18 months of school she discovered a group of 'friends'who weren't the best. She had involvement from school and myself to try and get her away from this group as this group were an utter nightmare and she is easily led but she took no notice. We tried everything.

As a result she basically put no effort into class, started refusing to go to class in some lessons and started with attitude towards certain teachers, blamed teachers entirely for her not achieving etc in a 'it's not my fault I'm getting x because Mrs Y is shit and cant do her job' of way. There was talk of them failing together between the kids.
She actually turned it round in the last three months after an argument with them and got away from them but the end result was a child who could have got 4s and 5s got near enough all 2s and 1s.

She only got on a level one course as a result despite having a level 3 place and of course the kids encouraging her to fail have gone on to what they want to do and not failed.
She actually got a BTEC level 2 tech award in the subject but it didn't count for anything so she is now covering a lot of work she has already done and re sitting some core subjects. She is very bored and angry and doesn't see why she has to cover it again. I've been completely screamed at tonight as it's all 'pointless and stupid and boring and ridiculous '.

She wants to quit college but still wants to work in a certain job of which she would need her level three for. Many of the other kids are open about not wanting to be in college and only want to do level one she said and they are being disruptive.

Part of me feels sorry for her. She isn't a bad kid usually and she just messed up.

The other part of me feels that while I have sympathy for her she was told time and time again that what she was doing would result in this by teachers and learning support and she is now learning a massive life lesson and should suck it up, get her head down this year and get on with it and use this year to really solidify her learning and take advantage of the easy BTEC subject lessons to concentrate on the core which she won't find as easy.

Am I being awful?

No. She has made her bed. She needs to put the work in, retake her maths and English and get a level 4. I was head of year 11 last year (now head of yr 7) and some kids just never see this coming. You can tell them until you are blue in the face but the arrogance of youth means it falls of deaf ears. If she did no work for almost the whole of her gcses (18 months is pretty much mostvof the course) then she would have been so behind when she started to try that it would have been impossible to catch up. However, she has a chance to catch up now. In your position, id keep supporting her, but do not accept her kicking off - she needs to accept responsibility.

I don't really see what else you can do. What would she do if she quit college? She is not likely to get an apprenticeship without her maths and English and she wouldn't be able to do the job she wants without her level 3 so I don't see that she has any choice but to stay at college and retake.
It's hard to be 16 because at that age you don't really look beyond the next few weeks.
I would just try to support her in her studies tell her she needs to stick it out and work hard and things will get better.

This will not be a popular opinion but you should do something.

ThePallidBustOfPallas

This will not be a popular opinion but you should do something'

Like what ThePallid?

Harshsea Rest assures you did all you could for her at the time, as did seemingly the staff. She still has time to learn and rectify her mistake. All you can do is continue to support her and try your darned hardest not to let her give up. Best of luck to you both.

*assured

Hi, I'm a college lecturer and in this situation I'd probably advise that rather than doing a level 1, she should look to see if the college has a gcse resit programme where she can do five GCSEs. This way she could have another attempt and if she pulls her socks up move up to a level 3 next year

She needs to learn a harsh lesson. She clearly spent too much time trying to be popular with the other kids and this is the price she’s paid.

I don’t know if I am the person to ask. My DD only just managed to get onto her level 3 BTEC by the skin of her teeth after years of messing around at school.

A look at some job pages (aka reality check) and a really awful hard minimum wage part time job has taught my DD some real life lessons you know. She can work all day for £5.25 an hour be exhausted and still not afford anything she wants.

This is the ONLY chance they will get free education; they need to take or face life on minimum wage jobs they don’t like!

Can’t you get her on resits?
She’ll be bored out if her mind on a level one course, and she’s most likely right about the disruption. Yes, she fucked up and it was her fault - but I wouldn’t leave her languishing on the course as a punishment.

I put barely any effort in when I was a teenager. I scraped through my GCSEs. I got my college place to study what I wanted to do, but I had no friends there, was unhappy and just didn't bother. I had meetings with my tutors and my mum, all of whom told me that I was capable of so much more, I just needed to apply myself. I stormed out of one meeting. I felt attacked.

I'm now the same age my mum was when she attended that meeting and understand so clearly that they weren't trying to attack me. They were trying to help. Ultimately I didn't complete the course.

I regret it now. I always have. But I also think that I wasn't ready to study then. It wouldn't have mattered what was said to me. I was 16. I knew it all. If her head isn't in it, you won't be able to make her study and she could wind up spending this year repeating the mistakes of last year.

Can she take some time out from studying? It took me a long time (and much encouragement from my DH), but I'm now working towards my degree through the OU. I finally feel ready to get my head down and I have the motivation of not wanting to mess up again. And I have plenty of working years behind me.

Perhaps a job where she's required to have the discipline to turn up every day and peform a set of expected tasks will be an opportunity for her to experience the real world and consider her options.

Ellisandra her college do not offer more than maths, English and science. She does not want to do science. She doesn't want to resit other exams, she wants to be on the course she wanted which is obviously not possible.
Her school didn't want to keep her at sixth form level. They said basically with 2s they didn't think she could get 4s and that was the end of it.
She is re sitting two GCSE.

She was meant to be doing level three program. She interviewed and did so well. She is instead doing level 1 of a similar kind of related course , to make matters worse this course has been merged with another course which is kind of
related but which she has no interest in. Unfortunately to make it suitable for both groups they have used all the optional or choice units as this other course area so she is now doing a whole day of a subject she doesn't like. Yesterday involved sticking pictures from magazines on to paper.

She has cried tonight. It is a very hard lesson but it is also her own doing. Do I feel sorry for her? Absolutely, she was desperate for friends and picked the worst bunch. She also tried desperately to pull it back and it makes me sad that we all knew it was too late.

highheelsandbobblehats that's really useful to hear perspective or someone who has been there. I've already been wondering about OU.

Yes. She’s still very young. If there is anyone you should be harsh on it’s yourself. Why did you raise her to be so easily led? Why didn’t you remove her from the negative influences when you saw it’s was a problem? While of course teenagers have kinds of their own etc etc parents are responsible for making them the way they are (they only start developing a personality not defined by their parents during those years really) and they also have to power to control the environment the child is in. You are shifting the blaming by saying this was her doing. It was her choice but it wasn’t her doing.

@Boggles odfod.

OP you are not wrong but it would be OK to sympathise as well as do the "you made poor choices and this is the result" thing.

I was an A* student right up until I was 15 when I decided I had far better things to do than school! I ended up just getting English, Maths and Science at college before going in to the real world and working my butt off in several jobs, including one that would pay for my professional training.

What job is it she wants? Are there other ways to enter this profession, e.g. training employment contracts, apprenticeships, etc?

I wonder if you have raised children all the way to adulthood yet Boggles? It's very difficult indeed.

I would echo pp, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Education just doesn't work at the "right" time for some people.

See if she can bypass college for now with an apprenticeship. Don't do all the looking yourself, she can at least help.

Resits. She's not the first and she won't be the last.

She wants to be either a social worker or a children's mental health worker working in either capacity with children with special needs at the moment.

She has had a blip, there are other who do whether it be bad behaviour, illness, anxiety and many other reasons. Now the question is how long will it take to get back on track. I know children who sought out toxic friendship or went off the rails because of the fear of GCSEs. There maybe many reasons why she did what she did. She will be OK and some of the best youth workers are those who have succeeded despite a few knock backs. She needs a good career adviser.

What is it she wants to do? What is the course? There are probably other options to achieve the end goal. If you are ok with saying what it is, people might have suggestions.

One of my DC didn't get the GCSE results they could have have achieved for the same reasons. He was disappointed but we supported him by reminding him we all make mistakes, he knows he has greater ability than his results, but it doesn't matter, he can still achieve what he wants, it just means it will take harder work/a tougher time in the interim, as long as he learns from his mistakes.

While of course teenagers have kinds of their own etc etc parents are responsible for making them the way they are (they only start developing a personality not defined by their parents during those years really)

Seriously? Your kids might be a dull mirror of your personality Boggles with no quirks or characteristics of their own but you don't speak for everyone.

Sounds shit op but agree she kind of needs to suck it up for this year so she can get onto the course she needs. Better to balls up now than go off the rails at uni and piss a years tuition up the wall. It's not your fault, and it sounds as though you're being as supportive as you can.