Son wants to leave college - help!

majorstress

Thanks all for you help and suggestions.

We managed to get him an appointment with Connexions yesterday and they are going to try and find him a course to fill in the time between now and september. As Rachbc said (many thanks), there is a 20 week run-on period for the tax credits now he is with connexions so it has bought us some time to find him a source of income.

He can't help us in the business as it's a very specialised area.

We do work from home though, so to the posters who were concerned with the diabetes issues (a whole other story!), he won't be home alone most of the time.

zcrat41

majorstress wrote: »

Sigh...NO, the Child Tax Credit is to support him, not the business.
Whatever your opinion of the system, it is a fact that the vast majority of people with children in the education system are in receipt of CTC.

This only stops when the child leaves education, or the household income rises above £45000.
If he chooses to leave college, my business is not yet in a position to support another person who is bringing in no income.

If your business cannot support him then he has to earn an income or study. End of.

If he chooses to leave college he has to understand he's then choosing to find a job and work.

What did he hope his art course was going to lead to?

System

When our middle son left school he was given the option. Go to college, get a job or leave home. Leaving home wasnt really an option as he couldnt support himself so he went to college. He hated it but couldnt be bothered to get a job so it was his only option, yes he bunked it a few times and yes i had to go and collect him once or twice but at least he left with a few qualifications because quite frankly he would have rather lay in his bed all day.

Oldernotwiser

majorstress wrote: »

I would love to able to wave a magic wand and have the means to let him stay at home until he is 18 and can qualify for jobseeking help from jobcentre, but that is a year away as he has only just turned 17.

If you had a magic wand I'd hope that you'd come up with something better than having your son sign on!

Savvy_Sue

majorstress wrote: »

I have explained all the financial stuff to him and he seems to understand that he can't just do nothing but I guess I'm struggling to see how I can force him to stay somewhere he hates for almost 2 more years just so that we aren't worse off.
I do have concerns for his mental health as he is very down at the moment - My elder daughter spent much of her late teens/early adulthood with severe depression including suicide attempts and it has been a long hard road for her to recover from it, so I am very wary of pressuring my son in case he becomes depressed too.

Do you think that pressure increased your DD's depression? Do you think it is a factor in your DS's 'down'-ness? Can you get him to the GP to start getting help for that?

Although - and this is not a 'pull yourself together' statement - there is an element of attitude involved in sticking at something you don't enjoy. What if he hates whatever Connexions finds for him? What if he starts a new course in September and hates that? What if he finds a part-time job instead of or alongside his studies and hates that? It's very easy at 17 to hate everything ...

majorstress wrote: »

I would love to able to wave a magic wand and have the means to let him stay at home until he is 18 and can qualify for jobseeking help from jobcentre, but that is a year away as he has only just turned 17.

I'm not sure that the jobseeking 'help' available from the Job Centre is that good, and I'm not sure he'd get any JSA, certainly not for long because it would become means-tested, and as he's a young man living at home ... plus ...

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

If you had a magic wand I'd hope that you'd come up with something better than having your son sign on!

I'm sure that's true too, and there are quite a few things we'd ALL change if we had magic wants!

onlyroz

If he won't work and won't study then I'd be tempted to cut all allowance, and stop cooking and cleaning for him.

WolfSong2000

As others have said, I'd be very concerned about his attitude towards his diabetes - failing to take control of his condition can not only result in serious health issues - it can also kill him. One of my best friend's (adopted) daughter's was of the same age and had a similar attitude and also had poorly controlled diabetes. She was a lovely girl, but got very unlucky and died in a very unpleasant way due to ignoring her condition. Her death still haunts my friend to this day, so please, please do everything you can to try and help him get his condition under control.