Don’t know what else to try

[ladygoingGaga]

Was going to post in education thread, however reading how great everyone’s DC are doing has made me feel worse.

DS is 18 and doing 3 A levels, Maths, Chemistry and Psychology, in his second year.
He has struggled right from the start, particularly in Maths, scraping a D.
The heart breaking element though is he just does not try, in over a year he has never done any work at home, revised or written notes up - nothing.
He actually thinks he will do medicine no matter what we say or how we say it nothing has changed.
We have paid for tutors on promise of him putting in more effort, it never materialises.
We have supported him, been to see his lecturers, tried bribing him, everything.
It came to a head yesterday and I’m ashamed to say ended up in shouting and us having to tell him we won’t be funding the tutoring anymore.
He is a bright lad but is putting in zero effort, and seems to be literally living in a dream.
Now I feel a total cow

We're moving this thread over to our Teenagers topic at the OP's request.

ladygoingGaga, we hope you get some good advice and support - we're sure there are plenty of MNers who know exactly what you're going through.

Thanks DawnMumsnet

I think you're doing the right thing. It sounds very hard but he needs some tough love. Too many people see others succeed but not the hard work behind it. I see it a lot at work. This might be the harshest but most valuable life lesson he'll ever learn.

Thank you, not sure what else to try if I’m honest

There does come a point where you just have to let him (not) get on with things. You know he will not be doing medicine, so prepare yourself for the storm that is going to come when he doesn’t get the grades he needs.

You could think of possible plan Bs, but I wouldn’t present him with a ready-made way out when things start going pear shaped.

How are his uni applications going? Is his 6th form tutor not raising some sort of alarm?