Thread 47- Covid GCSE Cohort - Summer's running away from us!

[OrangeCinnamonLatte]

...it will be Christmas before we know it.

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). 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 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children/4792342-thread-46-gcse-covid-cohort-searching-for-summer-solstice

Oooh my DS lived on Hubert road in 2nd year! Ahhhhh. It is obviously a different house, though, because his was an absolute DUMP.
He has moved for 4th year but just around the corner I think.

@mummyinbedsI just got back from A&E as the chest pain i've had since Monday got frighteningly worse. 4yrs in a row is a lot! so perhaps the end in sight is exactly what you need and well done you for all the highs and lows. Fingers crossed DD will get her uni of choice. We're actually on holiday on results day so will be en route but if there's wifi, will definitely be popping in to say congrats! DS1's uni result was exciting but he sort of knew what he was going to get already plus there wasn't the buzz of knowing kids of the same age across the nation were getting their results at the same time ifynwim.

Oh wow, Delphigirl, small world!
Im guessing a lot of the street is student lets? DD’s house sounds decent, with decent landlords - I’ve seen photos and they’ve had contractors in over the summer to address a couple of maintenance issues, without being asked to.

DD seems to relish telling me how high crime rates are around there, however…

Are you ok, Shimy? What did the hospital say?

Hospital said they think its fibromyalgia pain of the chest muscles. I'm to continue on painkillers. It's so painful even swallowing saliva makes it spasm.

That sounds horrible, Shimy.
I hope it eases and you manage to get some sleep tonight.

Oh no, @Shimy, good luck!

Fingers crossed the painkillers kick in soon @Shimy. Hope you felt reassured at the hospital.

Good luck to the DC awaiting exam results. I'm not missing the ratcheting up of tension at all!

I think the whole road is student lets! Very sociable. Yes Selly isn’t the safest, lots of dodgy people offering drugs on the street and some muggings etc - she needs to keep alert but it’s no worse than fallowfield in Manchester or other v concentrated student areas in big cities.

@Shimy that sounds horrid, I hope you get some relief from the pain soon

Thanks all for the good wishes. the painkillers are taking the edge of it. I've been managing my fibro pain so well but this is a new area I didn't even know could be affected. I'm supposed to be out there shopping for a new bathing suit & floppy hat ..pah!

Best of luck to all those awaiting results. Make sure you've got your plan B & C sorted AND if you have a dc that will applying to uni next year, now is the time to collect Clearing data for their subject!!!

Glad its a little better with the painkillers @Shimy. I have glanced through clearing on DD's behalf for next year (she is showing very little interest in the whole process still) and no problems there, her grade expectations have dropped somewhat and I don't think she'll be applying to RG or equivalent unis so there is less competition. I feel a bit frustrated at her seeming total lack of engagement with it all. Yet she still says she wants to go.

@EversoDetermined DS1 was exactly like this. Infact he didn't look at league tables or investigate any university online throughout. We kept asking if he really wanted to go to university (he too had quite low grade expectations) or preferred to take a gap yr and work and each time he replied, 'yes I want to go touni, No to gap year!'. So we just carried on with the motions shortlisting unis. He happily went off on his own to open days but not sure how much he got from it all as he didnt feedback anything. Even on results day, he couldn't be bothered to get up and after checking his results just went back to bed. But off to uni he went, and just graduated last month with a strong 2.1. We really thought he was going to drop out of uni or fail everything. They just have a different personality. They don't get what all the fuss is about and take a bit longer to mature enough to articulate how they are really feeling. I do think 'maturity' is a key element in all this.

Some young adults don't actually wake up from their 'childish slumber' until they are actually at university and suddenly all that you've been talking about starts to make sense. I think so long as she is not being pressured into the whole uni thing and hasn't got any strong feelings about another route, just keep going.

Thank you @Shimy its really helpful to hear how things have turned out for others in a similar situation. I have made a spreadsheet for DD and then backed off. But this morning we have had a row. She is doing a week work experience at DH's company, she hasn't had to lift a finger to arrange this (he's one of the directors so can just do it if he chooses). Other DCs would not get this chance or would have to work hard to find it. She has expressed no gratitude. As they went to leave the house DH said to her that he would be very busy today so perhaps she could look at unis. She asked me to reshare a link to the list, I suggested she take her Ipad so she isn't just looking at it on a phone. She said No. I saw red a bit and said I was sick of her pushing back on every single bit of advice we give her. DH piled in with more of the same. She isn't nasty to us as some teens are, there's never any name-calling or such but she just pushes back all the time even on the small stuff, I asked her about three months ago to sort out our massive pen collection and throw out any that don't work (she's the main user of them) but no, still waiting, it would only take a couple of hours. DS is so different and much easier.

Mine were / are both a bit like this about university ED. And DD sounds a bit like yours - she can be very eye rolly and difficult. When she was having trouble revising for mocks I suggested a particular method and she said "well thanks very much, I was actually going to try that until you just said it" 😂

The determination not to be seen to take advice is exhausting. She reminds me of an ex boss who had to be fooled into thinking that every good idea was theirs.

I think maybe she saw how much I helped DS and thinks it was because I was interfering and controlling, when he just needed a lot of support (suspected ASD). I am very glad not to be as involved again and from September will be really busy (which she has also complained about). She hasn't much of a clue about any of it so could actually use a bit of advice but I wait to be asked these days 🤐

@EversoDetermined Even the whole 1 week's work experience thing resonates. The usual advice on MN is to back off and they'll figure it out, problem is sometimes you don't have the benefit of time to 'back off' and leave them to it, they have to do it now so I get your frustration. On the other hand; she hasn't had to lift a finger to arrange this, it's difficult to express gratitude for something that's just fallen into your lap. I also think this is one of those situations where one must choose their battles, precisely because there are so many to choose from 🙄. I would leave her to use her phone if she must so long as she can give you some feedback that shows she actually did some research. It's tiring but you'll get through this stage.
What does she plan to study?

Good luck @EversoDetermined and @singingstones with your dds! I'm sure it will all come good in the end - and if not, they'll learn from their mistakes. Dd is a procrastinator, but eventually she got her act together and looked at unis, did her personal statement etc - but it was nearer Christmas and definitely not at this point. She started to think about it properly once all her friends were doing it. She didn't spend enough time really thinking about the course, and it's come back to bite her a bit now, but it's not the end of the world.

Because my ds isn't planning on uni and didn't need to worry about predicted grades, he's had no motivation at all this last year. And he wants a gap year before thinking about career/apprenticeships etc. Which is all fine - he's an August born anyway, so young for the year - but it means he feels no sense of urgency about studying. I really worry he's going to come out with Ds/Es, but then if he does he will hopefully learn a lesson.

@shimy That pain sounds horrendous, I'm glad the painkillers are taking it down a bit but I hope it improves quickly.

How many of the DCs on this thread are going to uni this year? It sounds like quite a few if I'm reading correctly? Wishing everyone good luck for the A level results!

Hope the pain recedes @shimy, that sounds horrible.

Thank you @JustHereWithMyPopcorn & @crazycrofter

Thanks for the kind thoughts about DD. Picking my battles and letting her come round to things in her own time has served me very well over the years, and I think is one reason why we have avoided screaming, name-calling etc. Indeed she is very polite and kind. But some things she has just never come round to (keeping her room even remotely clean and tidy for example) and it gets a bit wearing. I have been re-reading that "How to Talk to Teenagers" book recently and again I think the strategies there have helped avoid conflict over the years but I'm not so good at the "getting them to do things" angle. I realise there is plenty of time yet for uni application stuff but once she's back at college it will go very quickly and if she wants to go to far off open days it gets complicated at short notice. She isn't even sure any more what subject she wants to study, it was biomedical science but she seems to be less sure now (history is her best and favourite A level). Oh well, it will sort itself out.

I'm also worried she hasn't been doing enough work this summer, her textbooks haven't moved for the last couple of weeks, she says she's working during the day when we're at work but there's not much evidence of it. She used to be such a hard worker, slogged away and got good GCSEs. But again she'll never listen to any advice, or suggestions to help.

It’s hard to watch them making mistakes or not doing things the most optimal way isn’t it @EversoDetermined . But then I often look back and realise I was just the same! And it all worked out in the end…. Ds keeps his room spotless but is totally nocturnal at the moment and keeps waking us up talking on his Xbox late at night - nothing we say seems to sink in and we don’t really have any ‘consequences’ to use - and he’s a bit old for that anyway. He just seems selfishly oblivious but I know that’s fairly normal for teens!

Well, I partied my way through 6th form and got away with it. Although I did work too my grades were awful (the teaching was dreadful in our college which didn't help). Things could be worse with DD, far worse.

My oceanographer DS is starting this year after his action packed gap year. He is really excited about it!