Thread 42 Corona GCSE Cohort - 👻Creeping it Real for Oct22

[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 advice to be had.

previous thread

Hello everyone, @horrificbiology my son is at Lancaster too. Still

pS my DS1 is 22 today - he is on his year abroad in California so spending his birthday by driving with 3 friends to Las Vegas for the weekend… they grow up so fast! Every year I forget he shares his birthday with Putin and every year I am shocked to discover he does 🤣

Gosh - a new thread already! DD seems to have changed her opinion again. In week 1 business was great and law was hard and boring. Now law is great, and business is boring!

Keep us updated on your gap year students @Delphigirl @monkey2001 @MirandaWest and any others! It's really interesting to hear what they're up to. Ds plans to take (at least) a gap year, if he goes to uni at all.

Sorry to hear ds is finding things hard @Volterra . I guess you know that sixth form started in a similar way, so maybe it's just that he takes a while to settle? Hope you can get to the bottom of what he doesn't like about the lectures when he's home.

Happy birthday to your DS, Delphigirl and I hope he has a good, but not too good , time in Vegas!

The Putin thing never clicked with me - I don't know if I want to tell DD...

@Volterra Sorry to hear your DS is struggling. Has he made any "friends" in his halls? I was going to ask which one he is in but remember it is in the city so DS and his gf probably can't "bump into" him. I gather there have been transport problems getting up to campus from town this week and it's been a hassle which won't have helped. I guess doing maths he is in big lectures so hard to gel with people too? DS has had some engineering maths lectures with 200 people in!

Bath do have really good wellbeing support. I'd encourage him to ask for some support but if he is reluctant, there is a Be Well week next week where he may be able to access some support without it obviously being seeking support. Some details are at the link below:

www.bath.ac.uk/guides/be-well-week-event-guide/?fbclid=IwAR01m3kjn1-8HAsH9_rgogSLaQaeBoDRCXKmSF7HXmorSrOWmiE7k3xV0cQ

There's also a post on the University of Bath facebook page dated 30 September about the Wellbeing advisers. I can't share it here but it's worth a look.

Sorry pressed too soon. Just gonna say we are still feeling our way. We have spoken every day but I think he has needed it. Feeling positive though and think it is going well. Once he has got going next week I expect it will be less

Thanks . 6th form was a complete nightmare but he got there in the end. It’s one of the reasons I was keen on him going to Bath as if needs be as he can get home easily and it was being home at weekends that got him through.

A little worried that he isn’t keen on the lectures as it was the lessons that kept him going in 6th form. Will ask more when he gets home but hopefully it’s just him feeling rough with whatever he has then everything feeling hard work.

Had a video call today as DD texted to say she was ill. Easier to assess how ill she is if I can see her. She reckoned she had flu, I'm happy she's probably got a virus. She missed lectures today, and will hopefully be better by Monday. We normally WhatsApp several times a day at the moment. DS was a similar when he first started but 2 years on we normally only hear from him every couple of weeks or so, but then it's usually a 2 hour facetime!!

DDs boyfriend is going to stay next weekend which she is really looking forward to. She'll have been there for 4 weeks by then, so hopefully settled enough to not be unsettled by a visit.

Hope your DS1 is having a ball Delphigirl, happy birthday to him!

Thank you Orange, excellent to hear your girl getting stuck into Cardiff life.

Volterra, hoping your boy makes a breakthrough very soon from it all being a bit rubbish right now. Being Ill doesn’t help either. Seeing him face to face will help I hope this weekend.

Remember DS1's old landlord tried to charge them for some extra stuff after they moved out?

Now TODAY they have told them all that they exceeded the fair use policy on energy bills and they all need to pay. His is nearly £200! If he doesn't pay by 10th October they'll chase the guarantors. I mean WTAF? He moved out 2 months ago!!

@Piggywaspushed I'd be asking for proof that that relates to the usage shown on the meters on the day they moved out! Two months delay seems weird.

They have attached loads of utility bills which it is impossible to make head or tail of. Lots of estimates. No reading form day they moved out, which was two months ago...

Thanks @CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee and @Oblomov22

Lots of texts WhatsApp’s pics and FT etc for first 3 days as ‘there’s only ever been us two’ - I dropped her on Sunday morning
Less contact since Wednesday as she was clearly ‘having a blast’ and had clearly made lots of friends which made me feel ‘a bit not needed anymore- esque’ 😩
But happy she was settled and i went into ‘switched off’ mode 😊
However, given I went into ‘not needed mode’ I missed her texts in the very early hours of this morning and didn’t pick up them up- until ‘very early’ this morning’ ’
Thankfully, I was able to FT
her so was in one sense there with her virtually ‘
She was seen by her college doctor later this morning and after a prescription and sleep is feeling better.
If anyone else’s DC haven’t yet registered with a GP at their university please encourage them to do so!
Caveat: I’m not on WIWIKAU and it’s not ‘drink related’

Thank you for the new thread

Proggythat sounds scary but lucky I’m equal measures; I hope she is on the mend from whatever happened/she had!

@MirandaWest , don't go, you have as much to give us all the Uni drivel!

Likewise @Delphigirl, only if it suits you, stay. We welcome the variety of all dc doing different things.

Thanks for the new thread.

I've been messaging DS every other day if he hasn't been in touch. Just light stuff like how's the cooking going' or 'what's the plan for this evening'. We spoke last Friday and he's home overnight tomorrow for a sports event.

Sorry to hear she's poorly in the first week @ProggyMat Wishing @Seeline DD a swift recovery too.

@ProggyMat hope she’s better soon. DS has registered with the uni GP, the uni kept asking him to and after a lot of thought I’m glad he did, if he is ill whilst at home he has me to sort out things like temporary registration at our GP.

@Piggywaspushed that sounds like a total PITA, hope you manage to get it sorted.

@CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee glad to hear things are going well for DD in Cardiff.

Communication here - texts and phone calls, we’ve never done FT as a family. I speak to DS most days at the moment but a lot of it is admin related (the DSA stuff appears to be sorted out now, till next time). I anticipate the frequency dropping off, as it did when he went into boarding.

Thanks for the new thread.
Struggling here - DD, and consequently, me. As predicted, all her ADHD issues are still around, just 150 miles away.
Sorry to hear your DS is finding life tricky too, Volterra.

So pleased to hear your DD has taken to Cardiff so brilliantly, Cinnamon - I knew she would once she got here.

@Alsoplayspiccolo, spill of you want to Piccolo. We have do many SN dc on this thread, (including mine don't forget, whilst he seems ok now he's bought me to my knees before, so I do, do sympathy!).

@Volterra @Alsoplayspiccolo : sorry to hear about right times. I do think there’s such a danger that our kids have a ‘best day of your life’ narrative around uni - whereas actually you are being dropped into a lot of challenging stuff - keeping yourself alive on all fronts whilst making ‘forever friends’ and managing the challenges of a new course.

Agree with everyone that it’s good to hear from the gap year experiences. Hope the thread doesn’t feel too uni focused, as I definitely like hearing the different routes the kids are taking.

Thank you for the new thread.
I am still hanging here and reading all your posts. Life is bit tricky with our older DS and seems that I have very little energy for everything else at the moment.
DD has settled to Bristol and seems to be mostly happy. We talk pretty much daily. Not any more because she feels that she has to, but because she likes chatting to me.