They settle in and we miss them. Uni Starters 2023 - Thread 2

[spamm]

I wanted to get a news thread ready for everyone as you wake up in the Uk.

We are settling into a routine of talking to DS on FaceTime on Sunday mornings after our breakfast, which is early pm his time. It is so nice to see his smile and catch up on how he is doing. I know at some point he will have a bad day, but so far he seems to be doing so well, I am ridiculously proud.

Hope you all have a good week!

@HoneyButterPopcorn I hope he's ok. It infuriates me - I have to remind myself that I too was once young and unable to take advice.

Oh no @HoneyButterPopcorn hope he's okay when you see him.

I think it’s underestimated what an ‘assault’ on your wellbeing starting university can be. New area, new ‘home’, new peers, having to live properly independently for the first time, missing family etc. And the world is set up for ‘loud’, confident and sociable people. I am sure he will be delighted to see you. I feel for kids who don’t have the kind of parents they can turn to for support. Hope the visit goes well.

My daughter is an anxious soul. What I am realising is that she dumps her anxiety on me, I go away feeling terrible, and she feels better and then gets on with her day reasonably happily. She herself has admitted this. So maybe your son just needs you to know that he’s not feeling great at this moment, and in the process he will feel ‘lighter’. Remind me why we choose to be parents?!

My daughter has her first hospital phone appointment tomorrow without me being beside her. I know she is an adult and it is important she manages her health condition herself. But I hate not being involved. She also minimises all her symptoms when she talks to doctors so I am worried they will discharge her. oh why do they have to leave home?

Maybe have a chat and ask her to go through what she is going to say. Make sure she writes it down and has questions to ask.

Mine is in Newcastle. Went back at christmas.

Getting used to living on my own is hard. Miss them being small

Good luck @HoneyButterPopcorn and @Sinutab - I hope all turns out well.

I think my dd is the same as yours, @Sinutab , with the anxiety dumping. Had a long phone call on Saturday morning about how 'everybody else' has 'loads of friends' and she's the only one stuck in her room too scared to make contact with anyone. I worried about her all day then she texted me to say she was going to cinema with one friend, then out clubbing with another... I think she needed the venting at me to buck her up into messaging a few people.

@HoneyButterPopcorn Sorry to hear about your son. My DD said last night that she wasn't happy doing her degree BUT, I'm a strong believer that actions speak louder than words. She's had tons of time over Xmas to look for jobs/courses/degree apprenticeships (which she talks about all the time but never gets on with), yet she's actually spent the whole time revising maths, which would bore most people to tears. Which suggests to me her preference is to study maths.

And when she's going round in circles, crying, trying to rationalise why her ex dumped her (it can't be rationalised), I've now started to say "I can't keep rushing up there to deal with this, so you'll have to pack in, come home and just get a job here". Within seconds, she stops crying because she actually does enjoy it in York and doesn't want to come home.

She's driving me mad at the moment! Even her counsellor has told her to stop coming because she's not listening to advice or doing anything to help herself.

@HoneyButterPopcorn

My dd1 didn't settle quickly. She was okay her first term, but I think surprised herself, and definitely surprised me, by being very homesick. And she was 4-6hours away, which was good because she couldn't keep rushing back, but bad in that she really couldn't get back.

I really struggled when she went back that second term, knowing that she wasn't happy.
Then covid hit and she was straight home and so happy to be home. Then she didn't want to go back in September, which was tempting, but I could see that if she didn't go back then, she'd probably never go back. So she went back, and this time she was sharing in a flat of 3, all quiet girls who got on, not best friends, but a good group together. Good thing too, because they couldn't do anything outside anyway due to covid.
Anyway the 2nd year passed with her not tremendously happy, but then at the end of the 2nd year she got involved with the theatre group.
And that was it. The third year she was busy, involved and loved it.
Until really halfway through the third year I thought she'd get to graduation and rejoice. No, she'd have loved to have another year and was upset to leave, which I wouldn't have believed possible.

What I'm trying to say is don't just think he'll never enjoy it. He may find something and then fly. I'm not totally sure dd1's degree wasn't the worse for it, but she gained so much more in the third year than she could ever have lost in the degree.
I hope that gives you hope.

I have learned the hard way to listen & sympathise but not advise unless asked. I still get it wrong though

This is so true. When she tells me her problems, I give advice and I want to find a solution. I have slowly realised that she just wants to vent at me. I am meant to absorb her worries and just reflect back that I’m sorry she is so stressed. I am bad at this but I’m really trying to improve. My sanity as well as hers.

I was about to post for advice about how to handle D's' terrible budgeting. i.e not letting him starve while getting him to learn a lesson or two.

Anyway he has just rang and he has a job. He already has one but this is more money and better hours and more aligned with his degree. And they are giving him a MacBook to do the work on!

He is on max SFE plus about £60pw in his current job. He will now have an extra £800pcm coming in and if he can't manage on that, then he's really in trouble.

@HoneyButterPopcorn how was ds?

I also am in solidarity on the stress/ misery dumping. Nothing unravels me more quickly than one of this phone calls.

@stilldumdedumming thanks for asking.

He was ok. I took him out for breakfast and we had a chat about everything in the universe.

I think he feels that he hasn’t met his ‘tribe’ yet. I asked if he has made friends - he said ‘yes about ten that I didn’t know before I got here’ (he met a couple of ex school mates and knew a couple of kids from elsewhere) but it’s mostly on a 1-2-1 basis.

He was out last night (joined a sports society and they went on a bender by the looks of it) so I hope (by the looks of his 3am finish) it went well!

He has trouble sleeping (gerbils on wheels all night) so I tried to give him some advice (as someone who hasn’t had many good nights sleep ever). Hopefully he will actually listen!

I have told him that he can call or message me any time but try to avoid dumping on me after 11pm because then I just won’t sleep a wink (call dad!)

@stilldumdedumming if you are wanting to look at budgeting, the two options I'd recommend are:

1. Monzo (or similar app-based bank account). DS uses this for all his day-to-spends and you can categorise the transactions and I think set monthly/weekly limits
2. YNAB. I think it's free for a year for college students, I don't know if that's only in the US. DS is also using this, as he actually has surplus cash - this is partly because he doesn't drink, partly because he's home so much so not buying many groceries, and partly because I over-funded him initially, having no idea how much he might need (and the final third of the maintenance loan only has to cover a ludicrously short time period, so can 'level out' then).

after an amazing first term when she settled in well, I think dd is now feeling the strain and her social battery is running out. She's made a lovely group of friends but they literally want to socialise from the minute they wake to minute they go to bed and she's finding it very tiring and hard to say no. Anyone else had this? I thought term one was supposed to the hardest?!

@belvitas @HoneyButterPopcorn @stilldumdedumming yes I can empathise with what you're all saying.
I think term 1 everyone is wanting to be on their best behaviour (for want of a better phrase) and then after their Christmas break they have a dull, damp January where lots are feeling the slump and there's not much to look forward to etc and they then think they are the only one to feel this way.
In some ways term 2 may turn out to be the hardest one as already DD wanted to come home for the weekend - she's decided not to now as a flat mate friend got v drunk last night and DD was helping her and it's a lot more involved than she first thought - but reading week is end of next week so not long til she's home.

I keep reminding DD that you can branch out of just hanging out with your flat mates and see other people too but she doesn't want to seem disloyal - she's known them but a few months so not disloyalty at all (plus two are v clicky and not so nice to her at times). Not easy seeing all this from afar but also having to have an overwhelmed DD on the phone when it all gets too much.
She's immersing herself in her course thankfully and enjoying that side of things and so far hasn't missed a seminar or lecture.

I hope your DS is doing okay @MirandaWest

DS is coming home for the weekend tomorrow but this is because (a) next lot of new meds got delivered here today and either I needed to go there or him come here as don’t want to post them (b) he wants a rehearsal with his band as they have a gig in a few weeks and they’re all here and c) he has to do a stool sample which has to be dropped off here in a morning so he’ll do that on Monday morning and then go back to Newcastle.

As far as I know all still well with his health 😊

Thank you @tribpot - I will mention it to him at some point. He currently has 42p to his name. I pay his sim , his rent is paid and I gave him a card for Lidl for £40. He has some money on his laundry account.

To some extent he needs to understand what happens when you don't budget. He does still have to get to work and I know he will walk it but it will take him literally hours so I think I'll bung him some money after the weekend.

He gets paid in 2 weeks but that won't last him until the next pay day.

@stilldumdedumming it's so hard for them to learn. As part of my job clients often put down their incomings and outgoings. You would not believe how many green adults have no idea how much comes in each month and how much goes out.

One thing I would recommend is stressing to him that £800 pm is not £200 pw. He has to divide £800 by 4.3 to find the average weekly amount.

Not much of a different but it will hopefully stop him over spending.

@CadyEastman yes - I was a money adviser at a law centre. We've already had that chat as it happens! I've done a budget with him. He does have enough- but he's an all or nothing person. So he just spends it all or nothing. He never asks us for money - but I think he's going to have to. Thank God he doesn't have an overdraft!

Thank God he doesn't have an overdraft!
They just don't work for some people do they?

DS arrived yesterday, got picked up by a band member and they went and practised and then went out. DS appeared back around 5 this morning 😃

When I saw him earlier on he said he’s organised who he's living with next year which was good to hear. No house yet but the other 4 have signed up to view lots of houses and DS says he’s not too bothered what and where. The other people (all girls. I think) are all “chilled” he says which sounds good. And the weekly cost he mentions sounds OK although as DD will also be starting uni in September I feel we will be lacking in money in general…

Dd has just got a new job. She was working in a new bar that's opened but I think as she wasn't really prepared to do more than one long or two short shifts a week they not really put her on the rota. She thinks they hired too many people.

Anyway new job pays a lot more and she just going be working Saturday nights. She's a hostess looking after the vip area in a club/bar. Tips are good two so she should have about £150 a shift.

She said the vibe in her flat is a bit less partyish since they went back after Xmas as everyone has exams.

She's coming home again soon as she has some work experience next week.

DS has gone back up to university and texted to say the other housemates found a house that seemed good (and price sounded OK too). Hopefully they’ll manage to get it.