My previously studious sensible daughter appears to be partying far too much.

[RunningRaces]

I’m not sure what to say or do so I’ve not expressed any opinion either way and as a result she’s still being really honest about it with me. She’s bragging about the fact that her dorm mates have all got tired of the freshers lifestyle but the cool ones in her group still stay up to the early hours even as the rest fall away from the kitchen and go to bed. She seems to think that this makes her little hard core group the cool ones - privately I suspect her dorm mates are starting to be a bit sick of it. I’ve never had to deal with any poor judgement with her growing up - she was just naturally bright and responsible - I did not see this coming AT ALL. Naive of me, but here we are.

I, with hindsight incredibly stupidly, saved for her entire university education in the government child trust fund from the day she was born, so she gained access to all her tuition fees and maintenance on her 18th. I can’t even force her to live on beans and rice as a consequence - she’s got all 3 years money up front. I could kick myself for letting that happen.

If she were a bit sheepish and knew she’s being a berk then I’d know how to talk to her but she’s convinced she’s in the it crowd and seems to think that she has given her kind of status because she’s suddenly the party girl and is clearly proud of it. So far I’ve not expressed any disapproval because she’s an adult and I thought it would settle down but 6 weeks in and she’s still out every night, almost entirely nocturnal and spears to be forging an entirely new identity as a wild child or something. It’s up to her what she does but I can’t keep implying it’s all fine - she’s got four A* at A level in STEM subjects and is studying physics at a Russell group - I very much doubt she’ll keep up with the rigours of the course if this carries on.

Does anyone have experience of this? Does it calm down once they start seeing their grades suffering?

@BiancaBlank I agree and do hope your DD does get out and about.
@RunningRaces it seems to me like you’ve raised a great daughter who has a strong relationship with you. I wouldn’t be worried about the money nor her studies tbh. I’d be concerned about her health and being in vulnerable situations like the falling asleep in the kitchen episode. But that episode was a warning and a lesson learnt. When my DD tells me her drinking stories I do try to suggest reining it in; building her tolerance to alcohol isn’t ideal. There’s a tricky balance of being a non-judgmental parent with an adult ‘child’ that still requires guidance here and there. Sounds to me like you’re doing that pretty well.

Partying - fine. Let her get on with it, it's totally normal and sounds like she's not done it before so to be expected really.

The money is incredibly worrying though, it makes her very vulnerable. If there's any way to get it back in your name, with a proportional allowance dropping each month, I'd do that ASAP.

Saving in your children's names is always a huge risk even with the most sensible of children. I hope other readers are taking note.

I wouldn’t show disapproval. Keep it neutral and talk about risks. She’s an adult. A little socially immature by the sounds of it, but she doesn’t need to be approved or disapproved of. Talking about risks and how to get yourself out of tricky situations is more useful to her.

I was at Oxford a million years ago & tbh drank my way through the first two years. It was fairly standard. I know students are more sensible these days but I would not be concerned at this stage.

My middle one is in his final year at uni. He drank a lot for the first two years. Also worked hard & got very good results. He’s cut right down now - hasn’t had a drink in 3 weeks partly because he is so focussed on his final year & doing a lot of external career networking, and partly because he has matured & has a different understanding of the damage alcohol can do.

The youth can drink & keep up with studies though. I wouldn’t worry.

The money is way too much at once. Definitely try and get that changed - so it’s protected by years.

At the induction session for uni we were actually told, "party this year because you won't have time next year".

Leave her be.

She sounds very smart indeed and an opportunity seeker. She won't want to do badly on her course and if she gets bad marks at first she'll get her act together. Stop worrying.

Hi, OP -

As an RG STEM academic I think the situation is potentially ambiguous.

First, it’s fab that DD is talking openly with you. It must be hell to hear her story of being adjusted on the floor in order to vomit safely, but nothing is more important than keeping her trust. Congratulations on that. I agree with you and PP that parental criticism would likely backfire badly.

With the four A stars and the background they entail, chances are that DD is just experimenting belatedly and will settle down. We do see this all the time. But it isn’t the only possibility.

Physics can be a demanding programme. If DD is feeling challenged for the first time, the drinking could be helping her superficially to cope. I have seen this with several personal tutees, who have reacted variously. One of the most able of the party crowd was a functional alcoholic during most of her first two years, mostly a 2.1 student. A health crisis led to her drying out, repeating Y2 and ultimately graduating with a First.

The person I know best in a similar situation is DH, who did Maths at Cambridge. His school years sound similar to your DD’s. He genuinely became sporty and social at uni, but he also began the course by struggling with the material. What was the interaction? It’s hard to say.

He was the odd duck who actually found the material easier as the course progressed, got a Distinction at Part III and simultaneously cut back on the social side. (He got a PhD and became an RG Maths professor).

So I think it’s possible, though by no means a given, that your DD isn’t doing as well as she would like to be on her course. If true, I wouldn’t presume to say what is cause and what is effect, but I would want her to know that sometimes the adjustment to uni (or doctoral studies) is most difficult for those who never struggled before.

Best wishes to her

Hi @poetryandwine

thank you so much for such a considered and helpful post.It hadn’t occurred to me she might be being stretched for the first time - that’s definitely something I’ll try and bring up in a roundabout way at Christmas when I see her

Thanks everyone for helping me get this into perspective. The fact that she was sparko in the kitchen floor of a flat with 11 relative strangers in it couldn’t be left at just a raised eyebrow emoji, but everything else I’ve not really commented on and I’ve just listened.. It’s all so very new - I’m flabbergasted at how much she’s changed, but that’s what she’s there to do. For someone that’s not worn a dress/skirt since about 2010 and had to be encouraged to change out of her tracksuit bottoms for a clean pair, what I don’t think she quite appreciates is that she’d be an absolute knock out with a bit of lipstick and a blow dry. God only knows what comes next when she clocks that. All power to her and all that - it’s going to get a bit bumpy I think. At least she’s happy and that’s all that matters.

Thanks, OP, and I completely agree that ultimately DD’s happiness is most important. Sounds like she is lucky to have you

As she's not at home and you don't have control of her finances, there is little you can do to compel her to change her behaviour. Of course, I think it's fine she has some fun but I also agree that it's worth talking to her when she's home for Christmas if it continues. Drinking heavily every single night isn't great regardless of whether her young body can handle it or not, and people do fail their first years or second or third! My dd has met quite a few on her course! Retaking a year means extra fees and expenses these days. I'm not saying never party but there has to be a middle ground.

Are they really that grown up at 18 that you can’t have a word with them, give them a bit of advice?

I would ask her how she is finding the course, and if she coping well looking after herself?And will give her advice about how to manage her money,

Do they really have to get crazy? Drink and party every night to have fun?

When I went to university we went out on weekends; not all weekends; went on trips together. I had a great university experience but don’t remember all these drinking and partying until you drop; maybe because my friends and I didn’t have much money. It wasn’t in the UK though and we lived at home.

@yeaitsmeagain yes first year does count. Especially if looking to do an internship over the summer. Plus how many posts have been on these pages about kids failing their first year and having to do resits, sometimes more than once?
OP uni is an opportunity to reinvent themselves. My own studious introvert three A star DD has amazed me in what she's doing. Though the opposite of yours - she's not only gotten to grips with her course but is a deputy editor on the student newspaper, is the student volunteer and outreach coordinator, and the freshers rep for her course. And she's only been there less than a month. She has joined a few societies, attended guest talks, and has basically decided to squeeze as much opportunity out of her experience as possible. I was worried she'd stay in her room buried in books - but nothing of the sort. Looks like yours has also decided it's time to let her hair down and try something new, though maybe not quite in the direction you hoped!
Your DD seems to be handling the money well. Hopefully she will buckle down - it's a rare beast who can party all night and do well all day. And there's so much more to uni than classes and the pub/clubs, she should try and flesh out her life snd her CV with other activities the uni offers.

I remember the two party girls who I partied with having to repeat a year, one ended up a barrister and the other a manager in Barclay's. Chill, OP.

I don't think you meant to tag me, I'm nowhere near ancient enough to have a child at uni 😂

edit: Oh wait, I missed that the first bit was to me. My uni didn't have first year resits unless you physically didn't sit the exams, because the marks don't count for anything and they knew your A levels were good.

Ha! Just you wait! One minute you are a frazzled young mum with tiny children then before you know it you too have joined the ranks of us ancient crones with 18 year olds!

Absolutely.

It happens in a blink of an eye.

Hi OP, you sound like a lovely mum and with a fresher myself I can totally understand where you're coming from.

Your DD reminds me very much of me as a first year (many MANY moons ago!) With the benefit of hindsight I can see that I was trying to reinvent myself through the medium of alcohol from the brainy/nerdy character I'd been at school and 6th form.

I did have lots and lots of fun, but I also had some not so good experiences and ultimately I think my university experience ended up falling between me actually becoming the cool person I wanted to be (but was never going to be, being the hardest drinker in a group having turned out not to be the shortcut it seemed) and the slightly less nerdy/brainy but still bookish and more rounded person which three years of Uni could have led to.

I don't want to derail your post, but do DM me if you think there might be any of this going on (even subconsciously) with your DD and if it would be helpful to chat.

I would have a chat about the money at Christmas. Get it reinvested in ISAs for a year and two years. Then have a sensible draw down system. Or even get a loan. If that’s ALL the money you have, it’s leaving her very exposed financially beyond her degree. She will have spent the lot.

If she is studying physics, one thing she needs to take care of is making sure she is attending and passing any lab units. I've known many students fall foul of this.

For example there might be 120 credits across all the first year modules and 30 credits are for lab based modules. You can only progress to year 2 if you pass modules worth a total of 100 or more credits. So if you fail your lab classes you can't progress.

If you fail other modules, you may get a second resit attempt at exams ( usually in late August or early September) but you can't do this with labs as if you didn't attend/do the experiments in the first place you have to attend and do them to get the credit and you can't do this over the summer.

So the decision of the exam board may be that you have to repeat the first year (or at least the failed modules of the first year) WITH attendance which means paying tuition fees again.

@RunningRaces I'm surprised at the lack of empathy from other posters. I can see why your DD might have gone off the rails, but as most of us are parents on here I would have thought they would understand why you are so worried.

Drinking 7 days a week to the point of passing out is concerning, and I can see why you are worried. Your daughter might get a wake up call in January when she has exams or in the summer when she has to do resits.

@poetryandwine always has useful advice on higher education threads and she may be right that your daughter might for the first time not be top of the class.

Ah @RunningRaces I was like your daughter. Selectively mute, nerdy, always preferred to spend time with a book than with people. Musically talented so free time was orchestra and choir (where I didn't have to speak to people). Learned a random language at 12, in the days before DuoLingo, to conversational standard because it looked like fun, prior to realising that this would entail, er, speaking to people albeit in another language. Shining hope of the school etc, then went to Cambridge and discovered that alcohol doesn't half help with the selective mutism and social anxiety, spent two terms pissed and the third term studying frantically. Having been the "perfect teenager" I basically had a delayed adolescence and didn't really calm down until my mid 20s when I burned out and was diagnosed with high functioning autism (don't come at me, Mumsnet, that's what's on the report).

Anyway, I was among a bunch of other people doing the EXACT same thing at university, we all graduated with good degrees, and we're so respectable these days it's quite funny. The only difference is we didn't have mobile phones so our parents had no idea.

Doesn't matter, first year scores don't count for anything.

They don’t count towards the final degree classification, but you usually need to get at least a pass in every module to progress to year two.

Blimey - I’m not used to a slow burn on Mumsnet. Thank you. I'm really very grateful for the thoughtful responses. I’ve spent the last 8 years trying to get her to let her hair down a bit. I now have to bite my tongue til it bleeds if she’s having a blast, but by golly, I didn’t see her going in this direction.

Gulp.

I’m sure it’s fine.

@KarmaViolet your story helps me understand this so much better - thank you . I love your name by the way 🙂.