Fledglings 2026 - support, discussion and looking after each other

[ComingInByAnsible]

A thread for parents of Year 13 leavers as they go on to universities, apprenticeships and other new adventures.

DS is off to Warwick to study PPE.

Seems to have had a shift in mindset last night . Already open to and looking at societies she’s interested in and fingers crossed she will go after reading week. Hoping she enjoys the trip with her course to York and looking to meet up with a friend who is studying there in her free time.
Some of her friends are visiting her this weekend so that will be good for her !
i haven’t seen her since I dropped her off in September , planning to go visit the first weekend of December and hoping she will be more settled by then .
She met someone from our home town who invited her out yesterday and they clicked so well . They invited her out again today but there’s no tickets left for the event they’re attending but have swapped instas and are planning to meet up again so another positive ! Little by little .
I keep reminding her that the most important thing is the course and she says she’s enjoying that .

Very pleased to hear your update, @RockyKeen

She’s crying today again unfortunately. Seems emotionally exhausted. The uni has so much help on offer she’s just reluctant to make the ost of every opportunity and very negative . She’s stressed 24!hours . Never relaxed , she feels she has to be making the fort all gen time with everything and everyone . I’m not sure it’s worth it if she gets to Christmas still feeling like this. Maybe it’s best starting afresh somewhere new next year if things don’t pick up by then . She feels like she doesn’t belong . I keep sending her links to societies and events but she is so up and down all the time. Moving course like she did has thrown her off kilter. As a mum I don’t know what to suggest to her. I want her to know she has options without putting things into her head .

@RockyKeenI'm so sorry to hear it's another hard day. I hope her friend visiting at the weekend will help.

But I agree, it is so hard for us to navigate as parents. You want her to fundamentally be happy and settled, and this definitely feels like the opposite of that. We feel powerless just looking on and hoping for the best. I'd feel exactly the same and, for what it's worth, I think you've got the right idea helping her to not feel stuck in an impossible place without encouraging her to leave. So so hard though.

@RockyKeen I'm sorry to hear your DD isn't doing as well as you hoped.

It's so hard- ds2 has up times, when I feel cautiously hopeful, then downs where he gets quite despondent. He is making a lot of effort to get out and meet people at socials etc, but definitely drew the short straw in terms of flatmates- he doesn't really have that much in common with them but then feels miserable when he's not invited out to things with them.

We have visited, and so has his dad, and ds2 is due home on Saturday for reading week. Whether or not so much contact with us and home is a good thing I couldn't say, but it feels right for now.

I feel that if we can get through to Christmas, that next term might be better. Hopefully it'll be the same for your DD too.

I’m on the verge of telling her to come home . She tried going out with course mates but she had a panic attack in the pres and left and she’s worried they will think she’s a weirdo . She’s not a big drinker nor takes poppers or stuff like that nor I to club I g . She tried but had to leave . She’s so lonely in her course and has began to worry she’s strange . She’s more into pub quizzes and karaoke and bars and indie music . She feels like she can’t stay there in her course as she has to work in groups all the time and feels so different to those around her . She’s giving it one last push until Christmas but can’t continue like this if nothing improves. She hated her old course but had lovely people , in this one loves the course but hasn’t clicked with anyone . She was so excited to have been invited out but just panicked at the idea and said she didn’t like clubbing and left as she felt herself panic . Now she doesn’t want to show her face in class . She’s so embarrassed but she felt so uncomfortable in the pres . I’m sure that there are societies for her but the whole course thing is bringing her down . I dint want her to experience three years of this .

@RockyKeenis she far away? Could you visit her?

@RockyKeen Can you try to persuade her to speak to student services (or whatever the wellbeing team is called at your dd's uni). There will be so many students feeling like she does, and they'll be very used to speaking with freshers about this kind of thing.

Ds2 is also different from his hall mates - he prefers video gaming, table-top games and so on, although discovered an unknown liking for lacrosse. It took quite a lot of times telling him that it's perfectly fine (and normal!) to like different things. I've also spent a fair bit of time sending him links or screenshots to various things that he hadn't found himself, being, as he was, so mired down in misery.

Also- I had to gently point out to him that he kept focussing on the negatives, when actually quite a few positives came to light when we visited- for example, how a couple of girls were keen for him to choose their social event over another, how he'd got on well with some people at a video-gaming evening and done well- that kind of thing.

Sorry to hear this @RockyKeen. Is it a big course? Does she have an academic mentor? If she were one of my students (I'm a lecturer), I would tell her to try to stick it out until after Christmas. (In my smaller classes, I'd also sneakily try to increase the social aspect of seminars so the students get chatting.) It is really common for students not to gel early in the course and it's definitely a situation which has got worse. I have a lot of students in your DD's position who don't feel like they have any friends - it helps them to realise that true of a lot of other people (despite appearances sometimes). In my subject, we've tried to make it easier for students to make friends, but it's not easy.

In a bigger course, it's harder for the staff to do anything.

@MumMumMumMumMumMumMumMum
I will tell her to go speak to her academic advisor after reading week see what happens .

@Shodan I am going to encourage her to go to student services after reading week too.

im trying to help her think more positive.

@RockyKeen Not sure if this is at all helpful, but is it possible that pushing her to find solutions is heightening her anxiety about this situation being unendurable? Okay, you're a lonely weirdo - so what? I've been there. It's not
comfortable, but learning to sit with discomfort can be a way of reclaiming power in a situation.

I'm not arguing against her leaving at Christmas if she's miserable, but one way to address anxiety is to keep asking "So what?" I'll never make friends - so what? I'll live a life of eternal solitude - so what? I'll die along half-eaten by my cats - so what? Not done in an unsympathetic way, but as a way getting these massive inchoate fears out into the open and seeing how realistic they are.

@bibliomaniacouldnt agree more. This is how we've handled our daughter's anxiety. With a lot of hugs and 'so what's'. I think she appreciates it. Often she just needs to know she can get through it. So hard to watch the struggle though.

I love this advice.

I also think that them being in constant contact with us and friends at home can warp perceptions. There is a lot of comparison and discussion of day to day ups and downs. I was at times nearly a hermit when I first left home but no-one from home could contact me except by letter, so they didn't know.

@bibliomania @Tomrrowandtomorrowandtommorrow

Thanks for the advice . Inhave told her to just do what she enjoys and the rest will follow. I have suggested a few societies in things that interest her and her sisters have told her to just be herself and work hard don’t worry about anything else .
I did tell her I was proud of her going out last night and so what if she came home because it wasn’t her thing .
Time will tell. Her friends are over this weekend from Preston , Manchester and Newcastle so that will be good for her .
I keep reminding her that there’s a couple of girls she knows and gets on with that she meets for coffee once a week and that is a positive even if they don’t feel like friends yet and the two societies she’s gone too she’s enjoyed the activities even if she hasn’t made any close friends. To dwell on the positive , and just do her .

My ND girl is also struggling but I have learnt over years that "offering solutions" is not what she needs/helps. It overwhelms her and some aspect of ODA makes her pointedly ignore it. Sympathise/empathise but dont try and fix it for her. I know its hard trust me but they have to find their own ways. Societies would be my DD idea of hell.
Last night she got all ready to go out with one other person to a halloween party/club. Rung me in a panic she could find her purse (with her ID). She'd left it at home. I started offering solutions and she got more upset/annoyed. So i left her to it and just said how rubbish it was. She got ready and they went she wasn't allowed in but sometimes they just have to deal with how life can be shit. Felt so awful for her but didn't let it show.
Much sympathy

@BurnoutGPoh that’s such a shame re forgotten ID hopefully she won’t do that again. DS ND GF lost her passport on a uni night out. Helps if they have more than one. DD keeps her provisional driving license in her phone plastic cover

Friendships at university can be a slow burn for lots of students. Particularly for introverts looking for likeminded introverts, for obvious reasons. I don’t think I remained in contact with any of those I got alongside in my first term. This point in the term can be especially tricky as you gradually realise many of the friends you had made were really convenient acquaintances with little in common beyond eg being flatmates and looking for someone to socialise with. So they begin to drift but proper friendships may not have become established. It is also the point at which students run out of energy trying to be a ‘better version of themselves’ so friendships become more honest.

My ND daughter also came out with the line 'there are nice people I like and do things with but I don't know how to make them close friend's. We had to point out that that's how you make close friends. Just keep hanging out. They put so much pressure on themselves.

To be fair, NT DS came out with a similar line and had to be set straight about it by ND DD (who has now been there and done that, fortunately).

My anxious DD took a time to find her tribe, who turned out to be course-mates. There was a big blow-up at the end of first year (it happens!) and she started over in year two, and made some great friends.

We went to visit DS at the weekend, who is outgoing and confident (even more so after his gap year!) and he is in a very different boat.

Both kids are/were in the same city (different unis!) some 4.5 hours' drive/train away, and I think it was actually good for settling-in that they couldn't pop home easily. But that also depends on the YP involved!

I agree about the distance @PhotoDad. No popping home for DS although I will see him at the weekend for the first time since September. I can't help worrying though.

@MumMumMumMumMumMumMumMum I havnt seen her since I dropped her off either.
Shes on a trip right now with her course and us sick but im hoping she enjoys herself.
Will be visiting first week of December.

Mine is 8 hours away, she’s been home once and will be home twice more before end of term AND I’m going up for a weekend ! Loves the uni hates the distance ! No regrets tho

DS was going to go about 12 hours away and is now pleased he didn't. As am I simply because of the driving distance.

We are one hour away from DS on the train and two hours in the car. He only comes home very rarely. He loves (relative) self-reliance. He absolutely blossoms.
I thought I was the world's most independent teenager and I have raised an even more independent teenager. My Mom is pissing herself laughing all the time.