Disappointing AS and A level results from both DC's. How do I maintain a good relationship with them when I want to kill them?

[WhiteRosesAreNice]

Just got results for both kids and they are both dissapointing. DS cant go to uni as he only got a B,C and a U. He did not have good results last year so we had planned for him to apply this year with results and work in the meantime. So he will work and now have to do OU as that is his only hope of a degree and then pray he can go and do a masters somewhere.

DD got her AS results and they are bad.We have tried to keep telling her how she needs to work hard to make sure she is not in the same position as her brother and if anything her position is worse.

Both have been in private education and they have not performed at all. I just keep thinking that we have wasted all our money on them and should have kept it to secure our financial future rather than investing it in them. My husband will go ballistic when he finds out and I will get blame as he wanted to take them out years ago but I insisted they stayed.

I had to give up so many life chances for them and now I sit here in tears as it was all for nothing - the anger from my husband about the money we wasted, the destroyed relationship with him over this issue, the fear of facing family and friends who told us we were stupid for paying for their education and who will now laugh at us and say told you so, the knowledge that they, despite everything we tried to tell them about how important education is and the sacrifices we were making for them to ensure they had life choices, they were not prepared to work hard to get the results.

I gave up my career for them as it would have meant working full time and with my husband's demanding job it was too much for us. I could have done it with more support but that was not forthcoming so something had to give. At the time I thought it was the right thing but now realise it was not.Now it is too late to get back to where I was and move forward.

So what do I do? I have nothing else to say to them and everytime I look at them I know I will be disappointed and to be honest angry and will find it hard not to let that show.

How do I ensure I dont say anything to totally destroy the relationship when I really just want to kill them and feel that they dont respect me, or my husband as they know how important this was to us.

I know they are good kids and I dont have the worries about them that many paprents have and they will come good in the end, I hope, but what do I do in the meantime to get us through this time. I have no-one in real life so would really welcome any advice. I have a crap relationship with my parents, another thread entirely,and had always hoped my relationship with my kids would be different.

I feel really sorry for your children and wonder if there lack of high grades is in someway their way of trying to tell you academic achievements don't mean that much to them? You sound very demanding and materialistic. Why care what other people think after telling you you should have removed your children from private schooling? Did you like the prestige you feel it gives you that you could afford to do that?

I feel really sorry for your children and think you and your husband need to think very carefully how you handle this as I can see it going badly wrong.

No, I think posters have said "a B and a C", but witht he first A capitalised.

Sonnet, you are missreading the posts, they mean a B and a C.

TheFallen
I thought that must be the case. DS1 has had predicated AS results all year.

( he did get a nice surpise this am. AAAB. He had convinced himself he would never get A at Latin.. Went off to work experience grining like a cheshire . Like this )

Ahh...got it now!!
sorry

Good work pag's DS. I'm about my results too. Well, not mine. I was more nervous than I was for my own A levels. I knew I'd done some work

Pagwatch (and others) My son wants to Economics/Finance type degree. He got B in Economics but was predicted A/A*. U in Chemistry. We knew he would not do well, but had hoped and he was convincing us that he was geting c's in practice papers so dont know if he was lying or if the paper was really hard.

He has always wanted to do Ecomincs and is is very good at it. He has a real understanidng for subject (despite grade)and has wanted to do this for last 5 years with no deviation in thinking. We did not push him but encouraged him in what we thought was the right path for him to achieve what he wanted. Masters idea was his idea, not ours. He is a clever boy but taking exams is obviously not his thing and he has underperformed.

I guess we need to get some serious advice about his options, but OU was his idea of getting degree without getting into too much debt. He (and we agree) think 30k debt is only worth it if the degree is from a top uni, and he does not have any chance of getting into those with his grades.

Everyone who goes to private school doesn't automatically get all As, no matter how hard they work...

Although if he didn't achieve HIS best I can see why your disappointed, I wouldn't be too ANGRY with him though.

Just to add to what others have said I think the time has come to take the focus off them and on to you.

What do you want to do now for you? Start your career again? Retrain for a new one?

Develop more outside interests? You'll have 2 children gone soon and its not too soon to be thinking about how you want your life to be.

I am concerned that your husband is going to blame you Sounds like slippy-shouldered-passing-the-buck-bollocks to me. I presume he was equally involved in the decision making though you were more keen on it?

Well don't let him blame you - as others have said their education gives other intangible benefits like maybe they actually enjoyed their school and made good friends.

Good luck

I got B/C/D and I needed to get B/B/C to get my university first choice place.

My mother was disapointed and I can remember the exact wording of the conversation we had when she expressed her disapointment - it also involved school fees and sacrifice. This was 20 years ago. Tread carefully.

Ah . That makes more sense.
TBH I think you have been very poorly served by the school. They should have been confirming to you if he was managing the ractice papers esecially if he did those subjects at AS.

It sounds as though the hardest bit for all of you is the result coming from no where.
If the U is an anomoly can he not re-sit?

I still think other people advice is spot on.
You now need to support him as he chooses what he wants to do. You have given him the best oppertunity to get what he wanted. You should accept that - you tried your best.
Let him now decide what his next options are and support him in doing that

Aplogies for confusing things. I meant getting a B and a C is not so bad.

( sorry but LOL at my spelling etc on an education thread )

Fanjo - of course I agree. Not all kids anywhere get all A's My point was more that you would expect them to be tuned into the likely grades. The OP and her son would have shifted their expectations if they had had some indication that the achieved grades seemed possible/likely

WhiteRoses - if he wants to work in the finance sector, he'd need a 2.1 or above degree. If he didn't apply himself at A level, while at a school which pushed him and living in a home with parents who obviously made it clear studying was important, there's no hope at uni. Sorry, but maybe he'd benefit from a couple of years working and growing up, then re-taking them/going to uni as a mature student.

Re your DD - hopefully seeing her brother's results will be the shock needed to push her to study hard for her last year, it's not too late for her to turn it around, if that's what she wants and she is academically capable of doing it - be honest, if she's not able/not interested, perhaps it's best you start getting her to look at other career paths.

I don't think I'd recommend an OU course if your ds struggles to motivate himself.

Having said that, the OU do short courses, which might be worth looking at before committing himself. These are good (although not Economics).

It could also be something interesting to do while he makes his mind up.

Someone must have mentioned Foundation years already - that would be another option.

20-something years ago, my (bright) brother got B, C and U for his main A-levels -- and added insult to injury with an A in General Studies, which didn't need any work.

He diddled around for a couple of years before working out what he wanted to do; trained as a nurse; specialised in radiography; and finished a degree last year, as well as becoming head of his department.

A-level to University is A route, not the only route to a career.

Pagwatch - yes, my comment was directed at the OP.

But you are right!

if you weren't directing this at DuelingFanjo

I have invested alot in my kids and can see that telling them what I was sacrificing for them was not necessarily the best move. This was only done to show them that I did not have alot of the life chances I wanted in life and lack of educational attainment was one of the reasons for that. I did not ever want my kids to turn around in later life and say 'I could not achieve what I wanted to in life because you held me back' which is what I have alwasy wanted to say to my parents. The desire for success at private school has nothing to do with being materialistic but merely thinking that this would give them the best chance for success.

I guess I can be satisfied that my kids can never say the same to me and I can feel happy that I gave them the chance but that they did not 'get it' yet and hope they will know and achieve what they want later on.

I want to maintain a good relationship with my kids. I am not an ogre who is demanding of her kids. Merely someone who lived her life through her kids, and is regretting it and hoping that her disappointment is not too evident to her kids. I kow that they will likely leave home in a year or two time and I want to make sure they want to return in the future but it sounds like others think, and have experience of hating parents who tried to push them academically.

that last comment was not meant to sound so self pitying. I want good things for them but can see that I need to leave them to it and need to teach them a few more life skills rather than push the academic stuff.

For those who have told me (in a kind way) to get a life I think you are right and I need to focus on that rather than DCs.

posted before I meant to - comment re life skills was to encourage him to motivate himself in response to comments aout DS not achieving success at OU/uni if he he cant do it at home with 2 parents encouraging.

There is a lot of good advice on this thread - and a number of questions which you haven't responded to at all on here but which you might want to think about very carefully and honestly. The U cannot have been a surprise to your son, you or his teacher in that subject, I'm afraid - I have been teaching for years and have never had a surprise E or U grade at A Level.

What they do next is up to them - my brother was an educational disaster at 18 but now at the age of 34 has a degree, a Masters and a further post-grad qualification and has a very good job in the City. But he found his own way there and made his own choices to get there. You may have to accept that you need to let your children do the same.

Yes I agree you need to do some stuff for yourself - put yourself first over the next year or two.

I think it may do your children a world of good to let them stand on their own two feet. Let your DS decide what he is going to do with some ground rules. You will support him for another year at home if he resits or else start charging rent and he has to get a job. I would not allow him to do OU with you supporting him at home for years.

Consider your DD's position. Does she can/want to change school or go to a sixth form college. Why has she under performed - go to the school and ask what they are going to do about it, you are paying for it.

I would be more annoyed at the school than your DS, they should have warned you he was likely he was going to get a U, that could not have been a surprise.