Thread 41 Corona Cohort - Autumn Adventures of our Adult Children

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Be warned there might be lots of 'Uni Freshers' chat this time of year. My experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and support to be had !

previous thread

Back to curtains - I don’t have a pic of DSs but I did see a pic on WIWIKAU of the same curtains.
i present to you the foulest curtains I have ever seen…

Wow @278Newnames that is NOT what I’d imagined at all - not 70s, far more recent but deeply misadvised!

@278Newnames I thought that was a bouquet of flowers in front of the curtains. DS likes his turquoise curtains - those would give him nightmares 😱

Oh dear, I quite like those!

So. I am going to thoroughly clean my bathroom today. Shaving foam around the toilet pedestal and everything. My clean ordered productive life starts here!

Did I mention I blitzed DS's room yesterday including pulling out his heavy divan bed from the wall for the first time in far too long. Found 57 socks in total. Plus about £20 of coins, zillions of football sticker backs and a power bank.

57 socks!!!!

I mostly found empty drinks bottles, sweet wrappers and chocolate bars

@HarrietDVane Aside from the mono text in reply to my question there's been not a single call from DS let alone Facetiming but that's how he is. I know if something is wrong he will call, although I wish he would call when he's having fun too . Glad to hear your DD's in daily contact, good on her! We have no idea whether DS finds his accommodation noisy, he is on the ground floor which I suspect might be noisier than others but he's not close to the front door thankfully, so I'm hoping it will be okay.

I didn't find much food related stuff because in the last couple of years he has mainly taken residence in our room in the evenings (there's a TV with Sky Sport in there) and I have insisted that all evidence of food consumption is removed before we go to bed. I put his clean laundry on his bed and he used to shove it all to one side and sleep with it there so I guess the socks have fallen down one by one (I don't pair other people's socks). They were all
clean at least.

I am wondering how he didnt notice that 57 socks were missing! He must be a man of many socks!! 🧦🧦🧦

I think those curtains might work better IRL, but they must have been put up by the occupant, surely??!!!

Some of the socks belonged to other people and must have got in his pile by mistake, we've probably got their pairs in our drawers or binned. Most of mine are black with different toes, heels etc so pretty similar to his, none of us mind wearing odd ones if they look the same in shoes, I keep odd ones if I bin one with a hole in. DS actively chooses to wear odd ones and never pairs his up, just picks two out every day. So I guess we never really noticed and he just bought some new ones every now and again.

Haha! I texted DS at 8am saying I hoped he was up and eating breakfast (which he ignored). He then sent me a text at 9.05 which looked like a picture of an email about the increased cost of books (gone up from £60 to £80 from the info on his induction things). I asked if he was in his class and he came back with 'what class?' I replied 'your induction at 9am' and he said 'I forgot'. 😱 Turns out he was being 'funny' and was in the induction. 🤐

@Heifer I think what's annoying me even more about the meals thing is that they don't have a kitchen to be able to make themselves anything or store food but have only two meals supplied for a whole weekend. If they want something hot they have to buy it uni prices or eat out somewhere.

@278Newnames those curtains win, they are very special! 😂

In sympathy with Mums of poor communicators here.
DS is answering my texts with one or two words. And isn't taking my calls by & large. Apart from last night when he slammed the phone down on me.😢
I don't know whether he's ok, stroppy or finding it difficult to adjust. He's talking to DD who says he's ok & needs to warm to his flatmates. No idea whether he made it to his 9 o clock lecture.
He's very young 18 - in late July so I'm worried. Not about partying, but he has a tendency to shut himself away & sleep a lot when stressed ( severe ADHD?).

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn your DS sounds like he has been taking lessons from@icanbewhatiwant DS. Imagine the banter they could have!

@Cantonet it good that he is communicating with his sister. I think boys can be like that, I think DS1 would have been if he had not been humanised by finding a GF in his gap year!

57 socks - I think he and dd might be related . And many thanks for the pic of the beautiful curtains which will haunt me in my dreams tonight.

I'm here to give a massive shout out to the lady from Citizens Advice who spent 2 hours this morning helping dd with her PIP form. She was an absolute legend and we both feel much more confident about filling the monstrous thing in now.

Sympathies @Cantonet he sounds like my (ADHD) ds, who also communicates more with his sister! Hopefully she'll let you know if there's a serious issue and he just needs to settle in properly. They've not been there long.

I messaged dd last night to say she shouldn't be out too late as she's got a programme of activities today. She texted at 2.30am to say 'I'm back now so not too late' 😂and even went to breakfast despite her first session not being until 11 or so. She met some lads from Birmingham at breakfast so that pleased her!

She's still not spoken to the people on her corridor (although she's only been there since Sat evening!) and it's stressing her out and making her anxious about using the showers. Hopefully she'll bump into one or two of them today, or summon up the courage to knock.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn DS hasn't looked at any induction things so knows nothing about books 🤷 I'm guessing he needs books for French too.
With regards to catering, there should be some sort of kitchen in his hall with a microwave and toaster. I left DS with bread, cereal, milk, cheese, tinned soup and pot noodles. He should survive (although I have my doubts) He's been to the Co-op to buy apple juice apparently.

@crazycrofter which floor is your DD on as from memory I think she's in the same block as DS.

@mummyinbeds Im not sure there is in his block, DH said they didn’t see one as they walked around and DS was given a kettle when he arrived for his room..

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn DS has a fridge and kettle in his room and the kitchen is on the floor below. Maybe your DS should go exploring and trying doors - carefully in case they're bedrooms.

I don’t envy you with the PIP form. I spent ages reading all the guidance, drafted it and DD filled it in and it took ages. Assessment was face to face and the assessor just twisted everything DD said despite loads of evidence to the contrary. I’ve just sent off a mandatory reconsideration which can take another 8 weeks.

@EspeciallyDivided 57 socks!!

@mummyinbeds she's A block - 1st floor. I’m sure she’ll meet them all soon!