Thread 49 - Covid GCSE Cohort - The nights are drawing in...

[OrangeSpicedBun]

Autumn 🍂 well and truly underway, has been chilly this week !

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 :

www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children/4880640-thread-48-covid-gcse-cohort-summer-before-year-2-uni?latest=1

DS is coming in the morning just until Sunday evening but his train has been cancelled. There is another one showing on Trainline app which takes a longer route so we’ll have to see if that still runs tomorrow

Morning, and another well done to DS @EwwSprouts

Hope your DS gets home OK @Fiddlersgreen

We have been out of the way of the worst of the storm here in the SE, I hope everyone is safe and dry.

DS is going to a darts tournament at another uni today, he has loved playing darts ever since he was tiny and had one of those velcro boards, then a magnetic one and then proper ones since he was about 9 or 10. We went to the World Championships last year and had a blast. He has also been successful in getting a part time job on campus this week, it’s been a while since he had any paid work because of having to do a lot of volunteering relevant to his course, this is flexible and term time only which suits him.

Found you all!
Sorry to have missed the last couple of week's posts on the other thread and hear, and sending support to anyone's DC's who are struggling.DC
DD seems to have settled into year 2 surprisingly well. I think uni life suits her really well, as she enjoys being with people all the time and needs constant stimulation. I've just started to get a few messages, telling me she feels stressed that she can't balance work and life stuff, and also that scabies seems to be doing the rounds in Sally Oak so she's panicking about catching it. (I've advised her to sleep in her own bed...On her own! 😆)

On a less happy note, we found out a couple of days ago that someone has gone into DS's UCAS account and withdrawn his Conservatoire apllications, the day after the deadline a few weeks ago. We have our suspicions who and how, and school are taking it very seriously, but the stress it's causing is horrendous.

Oh wow...how is that even possible??!

And, as for scabies. Bleugh.

Oh no @Alsoplayspiccolo that’s so spiteful 😮 What would anyone gain out of that? Glad your dd is settled. Re the juggling, my dd is on a very long waiting list for an adhd assessment, but she just got a grant from a charity and she’s going to use it to access some support - someone she knows is a HANDLE practitioner, and sounds like it could really help with the organisation/procrastination type stuff. I’ll let you know how she gets on!

We have DD home 🥳 The train upstream of her (Glasgow to Preston) was cancelled, but it managed to materialise for Preston to Birmingham. Then Birmingham to home was cancelled, so we split the difference and picked her up from Bromsgrove (uni station plus purple Bournville spotted on the way).

@Alsoplayspiccolo I hope the Conservatoires take an extenuating circumstances approach to the deadline. Such a malicious action.

@EwwSprouts congrats to your DS on his driving test pass!🎉

@EerilyDecorated well done to you DS on getting a part time job, seems as rare as hens teeth at the moment.

@Alsoplayspiccolo I can’t believe someone did that, how on earth did they get into his UCAS? Poor lad, I hope it all gets sorted and the culprit appropriately punished. 😡. Also 🤢 about the scabies.

I hope those of you affected by the terrible weather are all OK.

@Alsoplayspiccolo that is shocking. I’m so sorry to hear it, I hope you get it sorted. And that the person involved is disciplined or has consequences.

I’m am hoping that such a malicious act is dealt with severely Picolo, and that overriding his applications from withdrawn to submitted is possible for you all.

Thanks, as always for the new thread.
@Alsoplayspiccolo what a horrid thing to happen. I do hope everything can be resolved quickly.
@PaddingtonPaddington i hope your dd is feeling better now that she’s left. I did the same thing and left university but within the first few weeks and remember feeling such relief. The angst making the decision was horrible. I’m sure she’ll regroup and go on to great things.

Found you.
Congratulations on driving tests, part time jobs and Liam tickets (another team Noel here).
Bleughh to scabies. And I'm shocked at the UCAS situation @Alsoplayspiccolo .

I'm just back from spending the day with DS in Nottingham. It was lovely to visit when it didn't involve rescuing him from a MH crisis. I was even allowed to go and watch him play football for the Law Society team. It's a while since I've stood at the side of a pitch in the drizzle.
@crazycrofter DS is also convinced he has ADHD. The more I read about it, the more I agree. I attended an online seminar in the week where I ended up being the only attendee so got a really good one on one chat with the host. She said so much that made sense. I told DS what she'd said and he happy cried cos he finally felt understood. He's decided he wants to try CBT which I can get access to through my work .
Meanwhile in deepest Wales DD has tonsillitis. I've been getting daily pictures of her throat which makes a change from photos of pasta. As is the norm when she has a virus, she now looks like she has a bad case of chicken pox. Her friend was supposed to be visiting this weekend but the train line across mid Wales is flooded. She's a tad jealous that I could nip up to Nottingham while she's trapped and feeling crap - I did warn her when she chose Aber.

@crazycrofter and @mummyinbeds mny DD thinks she has ADHD too, as soon as she turns 18 we will be getting her on the adult waiting lists (too late for paeds now, the wait is longer than it is till her birthday). I know part of it will be questions for us as her family so I have started making a list of all the possible signs of neurodivergence, thinking there wouldn't be many, I have filled two pages of an a5 notebook so far.

Update on the Eng Lit A-level-in-a-year discussion. DD and her teacher (who I have now met) have agreed its too much especially as she is so dyslexic and as she was planning a gap year anyway she will do it in two years with an EPQ in the third year too. This also means we can hopefully get the ADHD assessment done pre uni too.

@Alsoplayspiccolo that is absolutely shocking about the UCAS tampering, I hope the conservatoires are sympathetic and that the school find the culprit.

@Alsoplayspiccolo, sorry to hear this. Disgusting. Is there much hope/good chance it will be resolved successfully, the actual application?

@Alsoplayspiccolo I'm outraged on your DSs behalf! How could anyone do that - morally and practically?

Looking for tips to help my heartbroken DS 🙁 I didn't really have any serious relationships until I met DH when I was 22, so no experience of getting over the loss of a 2.5 yr relationship. He seems completely devastated. He's been home for a weekend, and I've sent Brownies and fluffy socks are arriving today just so he knows we're thinking of him. Endless text conversations. I'm really worried - he is supposed to be finalising his dissertation topic in the next few days and then getting started on that, and is inundated with other work, but obviously his mind isn't really on it. I know it's early days - couple of weeks at most - but just not sure how to deal with things.

That's awful, @Alsoplayspiccolo! Hope that UCAS can restore the application.

@Seeline, you've already done so much. Supporting him by text, brownies. I'm a very practical person, I deal with the job in hand. so I would text him, that the loss of a relationship, grief is actually quite a long process, it takes time. But at the same time he must focus now on dissertation because he mustn't let his 3 years of hard work, his course, make him end up getting a lower mark than he deserves.

I got dumped in my second year and was devastated, barely ate for a week, I remember just lying in bed crying. But I never missed lectures or got behind with work. Somehow you just carry on. Not sure when my parents found out TBH, this was in the days when you called them once a week from a phone box, I wasn't close to my mum. My housemates looked out for me and I got over it gradually. He married the girl he dumped me for but honestly I was well shot of him with hindsight. It just takes time. He knows he can turn to you if he needs to. Hopefully he has got enough in the reserves to finish the dissertation stuff and not get behind with the other work.

Aw, your poor ds @Seeline . I don’t have any tips, but you’re doing the right things. Does he have good friends he can turn to? He needs to keep himself busy - his work might actually be a welcome distraction in a week or two.

Thanks all - was worried I might be missing something. He knows I'm here for him, hopefully that's enough.

Please be reassured Seeline that you've done more than enough, your very best. It's enough.

I’m back to thank you all for your kind words for DD and realise I’m far too invested in this thread to bow out.

@Alsoplayspiccolo so sorry to hear that, have you been able to contact UCAS and explain?

@Seeline young heartache is overwhelming, sending best wishes.

Been looking at options for DD and she is thinking of transferring to the Open university so she can stay at home. Has anyone done this or have any knowledge of it being successful? I will google lots but this group is a great resource. There is a Music BA Hons degree which the third year is in conjunction with Trinity conservatoire which DD likes the look of.

I think OU is a great idea @PaddingtonPaddington . A friend’s daughter decided to do an OU degree whilst living at home and working at Tesco, rather than going away. The last I heard it was going well - and it seems to be that OU degrees are well respected these days.

@PaddingtonPaddington one of my colleagues did a degree and masters at the OU at normal university age for complicated family reasons and it was absolutely the right choice for him. I did about half of an OU degree about 10 years ago and loved it but just couldn't justify the time it was taking so didn't finish it (I didn't need it for career reasons, just my own interest). I loved doing it. One day I'd like to pick it up again but the tuition fees put me off (no finance for me as I already have a degree)