How involved should you be once child at uni

[swimmer4]

Son isn’t revising for exams. Do we say anything?

User2222081 I was aware of that. But I’m not sure having access to that info would help. I’d love for him to have someone at uni who he clicked with that could inspire/motivate/mentor him, but that’s not going to happen. He’s had emotional support sessions and doesn’t carry our support & he hasn’t clicked with his tutor. The support is there if he so chose to use it but doesn’t.

MillicentF thank you. It is very frustrating. Mental health is part of the problem so it is worrying.

MrsSnitch, I agree. We made that commitment out of choice and what will be, will be. I’m more concerned about the future if he doesn’t take away a qualification or is so messed up he can’t face the real world.

Thank you aharddaysnight. If retakes helped him to get back on track, that would be good. I suppose we’re going to have to just hold our breathes and see what happens.

KeneftYakimoski thank you for giving view from uni side. Right now I think it’d be detrimental for us to get involved at uni level, however I would bear this in mind if I felt there were things uni needed to know to help with his mental health.

Frankly, dd would not have got to the stage she’s at ( doing well and reasonably confident about Finals next week) if I had not given her huge amounts of support. She was close to giving up many times, but we agreed that if she could possibly carry on she would. She got support from her Department and from the University Student Support people and from her GP. She needed encouragement to access the support available, but once she did it was brilliant. I know some people think it should be “sink or swim” once they get to adulthood, but it just seemed to me that sinking was something I didn’t want to happen if I could offer her a rubber ring. I have no idea what the future holds for her- but at least she will have the achievement of having finished her degree in the face of huge problems. Which has to be better than not having finished it.............

At some universities it is capped to a 2/2. At DDs the mark was capped at 40%

It depends on the reason for the retake, and students often don't realise this.

If you retake because you failed, without any other circumstances, then the retake is almost always capped at the pass mark. If you are able to secure health, welfare or other mitigation for the first sit then it as though the first sit never happened: the second sit counts as a first sit, you can have the full range of marks, and if you then fail it you still have a second sit available. The details will vary from institution to institution, as will such nuances as whether you need to pass all 360 credits.

Students are often not clear about the circumstances under which they take an exam twice, and also don't understand the regulations, so this causes quite a lot of confusion.

@swimmer - you say you are worried that he won’t get a qualification. But he does have qualifications: A levels. I fear that a huge amount of pressure is put on our young people due to this notion that anything less than a degree is a disaster and (to some extent) once in the Uni system they should stay there by hook or by crook despite evidence that screams that it just isn’t working. It’s great that Uni’s are hotter on pastoral care but I do wonder if that just enables unsuited students to limp through a period of their lives that might be happier spent doing something else.

Maybe it’s time to have some very frank conversations about alternative paths.

We are contributing but saying ‘get on with it’ hasn’t worked in the past

No employer will thank you for enabling or facilitating him to skive, basically. And that means he may have to fail to get a much-needed wake-up call.

You could help by modelling ways to work that lead to success and achievement: regular, steady, incremental gains. Hard work but steady & goal-oriented. Regular breaks, exercise, and healthy nutrition.

But it sounds as though he's going to need to learn the hard way.

The problem is a lot of young people never experience learning via minor failure and then improvement.

Good luck.

I think we expect too much of them too young. Deal with living away from home, the threat of loans and choosing appropriate studying for their life long career. There are alot of people making cash from naive young students. Some would be better staying home, getting work experience first, or studying from home.

Feel for you and your DS op

“No employer will thank you for enabling or facilitating him to skive, basically. And that means he may have to fail to get a much-needed wake-up call.”

And offering support to a young person struggling is ^ facilitating him to skive”? Right.

Difficult one. I find myself having to sit on my hands sometimes. Does he have a mentor or tutor who may pick up on this beforehand or may he have a wake up call when he sirs the first paper and struggles? Are those around him likely to be revising which may motivate him?

Bettybaggins, I think the support he got was a mix of study support & emotional and they would have referred him to other se ices if they felt it was needed. The bits he’s told me about that were suggestions of what to do - he doesn’t do.

Bubbles buddy, I think you’re right. But it takes someone with some forward thinking & courage to say ‘this isn’t for me’. The easy option is to stay and scrape along so he doesn’t have to engage with difficult decisions like applying for jobs and returning home/ leaving gf.

Needmiresleep, what’s frustrating is he can do it - first Year was really successful. He just can’t juggle several things at one time it seems.

MillicentF I think you took the best approach for your daughter. Good luck with the finals & future!
It’s frustrating when there’s plenty of rubber rings/buoyancy aids/life boats on offer!!!! and they’re not grasped!

I would get involved if it was clear that DD was not revising for exams as I see uni as a 'halfway house' between being 'at home' and 'leaving home' and as such a period where intervention as a parent when appropriate is the right thing to do.

KeneftYakiMoski - what level of support given can be taken into account to enable a student to retake without any cap at your Uni?

Thank you MrsSnitch. I did need reminding that DS does actually have qualifications . Frank discussions tend to lead to well meantvimtentions that don’t come to fruition atm!!

RagingGirl - wouldn’t that involve micro managing a student? And difficult to model if he’s there and I’m here? Are we really supporting him to skive? Do I say this to him?

@swimmer - what I was trying to get at (perhaps clumsily) is that a degree is not the be all and end all and if your son (or whoever) is struggling (evidenced by lack of engagement) then perhaps it’s time to think outside this little box that society has decreed as the ideal ie a degree

I tend to think that some students just lose their way. It gets tougher each year and it does take a lot of courage to say that this course isn’t for him. Third year is even tougher.

Unfortunately, if he’s not working, he’s fallen out of love with it and the motivation to do well isn’t there. I am truly not sure how parents can retrieve that situation.

We all celebrate when children get to university but, looking back, I had no idea how well or badly mine were doing when they were there. They filtered out the iffy bits. We trusted them to keep going and one also found a few lecturers not to their liking. One made a mistake on an option she chose in y2. That affected her quite a lot and despite other options being excellent, it brought about self doubt. If that has happened with course work a couple of times, it’s not an easy situation to retrieve.

I would look at the rules about retakes. This would, at least, give you a basis for a discussion about his future.

I think we need to be there if and when. Other than that they have to work it out themselves. How much / little DD works is none of my business. Having said that, if I was contributing thousands of pounds every year I imagine I would feel differently.

KeneftYakiMoski - what level of support given can be taken into account to enable a student to retake without any cap at your Uni?

A welfare case can fairly easily mitigate an exam to make the resit into a first sit. It gets harder the more time has passed; welfare cases opened from scratch with no prior history after a student has failed are scrutinised very closely, while students with regular and well documented welfare problems are essentially given what their support worker asks for. The best advice is to start talking to welfare as soon as, and in as much detail as, possible.