AIBU to worry our son is being overindulged after his A-level results?

[NavyRobin]

Our DS got his A-level results back in August and got 3 A stars and an A. We were absolutely thrilled for him. He was originally predicted ABBB, so these results were a huge shock to everyone, including his teachers. Our son told us on results day because of his teachers not predicting him high grades for his UCAS application, he decided to do badly on purpose on all the tests, mocks etc. At this point I am just lost as to why he needed to act that way as we were getting emails at home telling us that he isn't doing anything in lessons etc when at home he was revising and sticking to a routine. I think I have raised somewhat of an insane child. WHO DOES THAT?!

He wasn't exactly a model student at school. He was bright but messed around quite a lot and didn't always put the effort in we now learn that this is on purpose at A Levels, GCSE he was fine but he liked his teachers at GCSE. We did speak to the school several times about his predicted grades because we felt they were quite low but they wouldn't budge, which I do understand to an extent.

The problem is that his predicted grades limited his university choices. He applied to five universities, including some very competitive ones, but was rejected from three.Then results day came around and he achieved 3 A stars and an A.He's now decided to take a gap year and reapply for Engineering, with Cambridge and Bath being two of the universities he's interested in.
We're supportive of the gap year. We actually think it could be a good opportunity for him, particularly as he now has achieved grades rather than predicted grades. We have spoken to Bath admissions and, because he previously applied, they already have his application and results. They've said his achieved grades would make his application very competitive, although obviously nothing is guaranteed and the rest of the application and selection process still matters. Cambridge will obviously be much more difficult and we're under no illusion that he'll necessarily get in.

My issue is what he's actually planning to do during this gap year, it is his attitude.He worked at Waitrose for about a year, in the deli, and left recently. I thought this would be a good opportunity for him to get another job, even if just part-time, earn some money and gain some independence.
However, DH has actually told him that he "doesn't want to do such jobs" and that he's "better than that".DH owns an engineering company (a different area of engineering to what DS wants to go into) and has offered him work there instead.So DS can work for his dad, potentially doing something engineering-related, while living at home and with very little financial pressure.
And then there's the money.

DS turned 18 this summer and DH's parents gave him £34k as an 18th birthday present. I wasn't particularly comfortable with such a large amount being given to an 18-year-old, but obviously it's their money and their decision. I do understand that they are very proud of him and wanted to give him something special.But since then, he's been spending it fairly freely. He recently spent £13k on a car when the Polo he already had was perfectly fine. He's also been buying lots of things he's always wanted.

And now, because they're so proud of his A-level results, DH's parents have gifted him another £10k. They have always been quite generous with our children all throughout. Our children's JISA's are pretty much just for their grandparents to put money in for them. So he's received £44k from his grandparents in a matter of months, at 18.I genuinely don't understand it.
I know people will say "it's their money" and yes, I completely accept that. They can do whatever they want with it, and I know it's coming from a place of love and pride. But I can't help thinking that £10k could have gone straight into his savings account instead of being handed to an 18 year old
What is the point of giving an 18 year old that amount of money? Surely part of the point of helping your children financially is to give them a secure start in life, not necessarily to give them a huge amount of spending money at 18?
DH thinks I'm being ridiculous. He says DS has worked incredibly hard, got exceptional results and deserves to enjoy the money. He also thinks working for his company will give him much better experience than working in a supermarket and could potentially help with his future university application.
And I agree with some of that.I am incredibly proud of DS. I'm not trying to take anything away from his results, and I'm not against helping him financially. If anything, I think we've been very fortunate that he has grandparents who are in a position to give him this sort of support.But I worry about the overall message.
He doesn't need to get a job because Dad will give him one.
He doesn't need to worry about money because grandparents have given him £44k in 2 months.He doesn't need to keep his old car because he can spend £13k on another one.And DH is actively telling him that certain jobs are beneath him.I can't help feeling that we're setting him up to believe that life will always be this easy.

He's 18. Surely it's not unreasonable to expect him to have some structure, earn some of his own money and learn to manage what he has?
Or am I being completely unreasonable and should I just leave him alone?
He got fantastic results, he's got a potentially very exciting future ahead of him and the money is technically his. Maybe I'm just being an old-fashioned mum who thinks an 18 year old should have to work for things rather than have everything handed to him.

AIBU?

Yes his 165k followers would love that!

Yes, clearly his life is dreadful.

I think your son is getting a hard time here, OP. He’s only 18, and boys can mature later than girls. I’m not condoning his behaviour, but knowing how to manage situations like this often comes with age, experience and maturity. I’m sure plenty of the people commenting did things at 17 or 18 that they wouldn’t dream of doing now.

I can also understand his frustration with the predicted grades. I came out of my GCSEs with all A stars, but my sixth form had a quota for higher predicted grades and prioritised the students they believed could get into Oxford, Cambridge or Ivy League universities. I couldn’t convince them to change mine, refused to drop a subject and ultimately came out with four A stars. It’s incredibly frustrating when it feels as though the people who should support you don’t believe in you, especially when you know they’ll happily take some of the credit when your hard work pays off.

If anything, the lesson for him is that he pushed it too far and could have handled it better. That doesn’t mean his underlying frustration wasn’t valid.

I’d also let him work for his dad. I work for one of the biggest engineering companies, and that sort of experience will help set him apart when he applies for future roles. If he can start working out what he wants to do during his course, any opportunity to build relevant or transferable skills, even if the experience isn’t an exact match, will give him a head start. Plenty of Oxbridge graduates end up going into consulting or finance because the earning potential is greater anyway.

The amount of money is a lot, but from your later comments, it sounds as though Waitrose wasn’t his only source of income and he has saved money. He just got a bit carried away with the money from his grandparents. Again, life is about making mistakes, learning from them and growing up. Out of interest, what did his cousins spend their money on?

My youngest worked for his brother before university in a field related to his degree. He worked through his degree and masters for a similar profession. He applied for two jobs in July and got them both much to our relief.

He had some great holidays abroad over those five years, was bought a car after his degree.

His work ethic is very high despite not suffering any great hardship.

My advice, wait and see.

I suspect he chose to take a gap year because of the grades they predicted. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere applying to the universities he wanted based on their projections, so is going to try again now he has his actual, better, results.

He’s driven, intelligent, and with a clear plan for his future. He’s got his own income streams, and he hasn’t gone on a wild spending spree and blown through the money given to him by his grandparents. He’s likely going to do very well out of life.

Ah, that's tricky. He doesn't sound Oxbridge material from what you have shared. He seems to have missed to a key (implicit) lesson from school, namely that you will not get on with everyone (students and teachers alike) and it's important to be professional and find ways to work in those circumstances. I would be extremely surprised if he got a place at Cambridge, it is (mostly) full of very conscientious, hard working, and focussed young people now.

The money from PILs is unfortunate. I would be similarly frustrated if this were to happen for my children!

I wonder if another approach might be the answer for your son; asking him to think about his personal statement for his application and trying to get him to reflect on how he is coming across? Add in the 'working for Daddy' at your DH's firm, he may find himself looking at a bit of an arrogant young man, which is perhaps not who he wants to be? There must be more to him than a flash new car and flipping the bird to his teachers? Music, art, theatre, gardening, social care, volunteering, achievement through sport - any interests that indicate a texture to his character? (and, incidentally, would make him far more at home in Cambridge than a shiny car...)

The money from grandparents would irk me a bit it is a lot at 18.
The job situation, why not work for dad, seems like much better experience than Waitrose deli counter
The purposely doing poor at mock tests I think is actually hilarious and given he was revising and did get good results What's the issue? Yes it did hamper his uni choice as predicted grades weren't what he got but in the grand scheme of things don't make an issue out of nothing in my eyes

At the risk of a mumsnet phrase, it's a DH problem if he thinks encouraging this behaviour is ok. Some teenagers, of both sexes, are bright but entitled and lazy, and end up doing well and not caring if other students with more needs miss out because the teachers have to waste time/organise extra meetings for them. They often have parents who behave like your husband, and let them disrespect people. Not blaming you, if you weren't encouraging him, OP, but rather than worrying about the money your son has, I'd speak to your husband about not encouraging him to treat people with disrespect, for their sake, and long-term, his own.

It just seems that the thread has gone from you describing your son as an arse to him now being a totally different person. It doesn't ring true.
Equally, I do not believe that the teacher apologised to your son. If he did then the teacher is clearly mad.
Was this a private school?

You don’t need to believe it for that to be the case as I’ve said you’re more than welcome to report the post doesn’t change the situation however false you think it is. I am confused if you disagree and don’t believe you don’t have to engage you are able to report and ignore it’s not a thread that I am forcing upon anyone at all.

Very long winded post to basically say son got good results, is on a gap year and was gifted money and is now resting on his laurels.

I think the work experience is fine I think the money is a different matter it Very much depends on somebody's personality.
He did well in his A levels But he needs to put it into context Other people will have done equally well. He's not that special.
The year will go pretty quickly. I would explain to him that if he spends all his money that you will not be supporting financially to the extent that you would have done at university if he hadn't This money. Hr needs to take some responsibility and have some money to support himself through the three years at university and not just spend all of this and expect you to support him. this money potentially would allow to work part time whilst he's studying which is something a lot of people Would love to be able to.

He has been playing hockey since he was 7 and plays county level, has gone abroad to play countless of times and he’s very passionate about hockey too. There’s countless other things he’s involved in he is always doing things the school has evidence of this and that will reflect on his reference. He does have things he’s passionate about not just engineering and he is well rounded this situation with predicted grades was an isolated incident which was why the school was concerned at his grades during the test but we told them he’s doing the work at home constantly and is probably just upset by the predicted grades.

His grandparents on his fathers side have always spoilt the grandchildren now this isn’t an isolated incident it’s just now our son is 18 and can have access to his jisa and have money directly sent to him. DH was against it as much as I was, we spoke to them together he had words with his parents on his own but in the end they just said they’ll do what they want he’s young and they want to help him and he should have fun etc.

I'm not going to report the thread! And it wasn't the money I was questioning,
It just took you a lot later in the thread to give an insight into your son's life and I wondered why that was.

If he is working and going to reapply then thats fine and a good idea. As he has this money and job I would suggest you dont give him a penny whilst he gets to uni and tell him that now. Demand some of his job money to save. My daughter is going to cost me close on 200 quid a week to top up her accomodation costs and food/social money and insist your DH or his GPs do not hand over any more money as he is able now to fund himself.
He clearly is not sensible with money. His GPs arent sensible either really.

I gave insight when people asked. If I had in the original post it would have be quite a lengthy post. I didn’t know that was a rule on here people were asking certain things making assumptions saying that he apparently doesn’t help around the house etc. I live with him I know what he does. If I’d have put all that most would have said I necessary contest. Damned if you do damned if you don’t.

IME predicted grades do not fall out of the sky.

At DS's school from the beginning of 6th form the termly report provided their grades and likely predicted final grades. You are able to track progress. Once predicted grades were issued, pupils were then given another period of time to show that they were able to attain higher grades in the classroom (additional classes & tests were offered outside of the usual school day to evidence this). Only after that were the predicted grades fixed for UCAS purposes.

I would be very surprised if he had been predicted 3 A stars or whatever for the first two terms of sixth form and then the predicted grades dropped.

But even if this had been the case he would have been able to change the predicted grades with a bit of extra effort in class. In which case he could have already have his place at university secured (and also the opportunity for a year out should he have wanted one).

It was a waste of his time failing tests and refusing to answer questions in class.

Well, goodness. I certainly hope you weren't paying this school. I'm quite surprised you were happily sending your son off every day to a place where they were accusing you and him of being liars and hoping he would fail. Sounds like a very strange situation indeed.

Also, your story here is a bit different from the one in the OP. In this one, you seem to have known and understood he was winding them up, as opposed to earlier when the results were a 'huge shock' and he didn't tell you about the windup until results day, and previously you were 'lost as to why he needed to act that way.'

These two things, from two separate posts don't exactly tally.

We did speak to the school several times about his predicted grades because we felt they were quite low but they wouldn't budge, which I do understand to an extent.

I do not take kindly to teachers not trusting us, we told them he is just winding them up,

I think maybe your son isn't the only windup merchant here, OP?

"I would be very surprised if he had been predicted 3 A stars or whatever for the first two terms of sixth form and then the predicted grades dropped.
But even if this had been the case he would have been able to change the predicted grades with a bit of extra effort in class. In which case he could have already have his place at university secured (and also the opportunity for a year out should he have wanted one).
It was a waste of his time failing tests and refusing to answer questions in class."

This. Your son has wasted his time and there is no doubt his behaviour towards his teachers re. the predicted grades was pure arseholery and indicative of an attitude and a side to his personality which requires some improvement. But no-one's perfect and we all fuck up sometimes. From your later posts, it sounds like he is doing a lot right as well and the year out should be beneficial.

Completely agree that the money gifted by his grandparents is really excessive and their actions in that regard are unhelpful. Hard to see what you can do about that, however, if his grandparents ignore your views on it.

I think the real world, when he finally enters it, will think he's a bit of a twat.

Your husband sounds like a bad influence on your son, OP @NavyRobin

I don't think the real world is much of a concern here.

Do you think he will make a nice well rounded adult @NavyRobin ? Do you think he will make a good life partner or father?

Yes he's a brat .sorry .

Is your son a year behind in school? Because it would be seriously questionable (illegal) for a car company to contract with an under 18...