Son dropping out of college-am I still entitled to tax credits

justthisonce_2

Not all people want or need a job with prospects of great advancement. One of the happiest, most fulfilled people I know has been a street cleaner in Finchley for 20+ years. He has no aspirations to aim higher. He takes the utmost pride in 'his' streets and literally has to be forced to use his annual leave.

He is extremely well respected for the excellent work he does. This guy never has to buy a coffee or sandwich, in fact they are always prepared and waiting for him each day from the food establishments whose pavement frontages he keeps clean.

MissMoneypenny

dktreesea wrote: »

Yes, encourage them, but say you tell your DS/DD it's either an education or a job. They can't get a job. They haven't got a place at college, and may not be able to get one. So what exactly is your "or else?"

There are plenty of low skilled jobs out there. They may not want a boring, low paid job, but if their education is that low then that is all they will be able to do.

When my daughter talked about dropping out of her A levels, I encouraged her to find a job in a local factory over the holidays, so she could get a taste of what her life would be like without education. She soon realised that that she wanted a career, instead of just a job and resumed her education for another 6 years.

The "or else" can be help to show them what their life would be like if they drop out: a life of a boring, low paid job and jumping through welfare hoops when they have to ask the state for financial help. No wonder many low paid are more stressed than those on a high wage.

dktreesea

bestpud wrote: »

Crikey! :eek:You are kidding, aren't you?

You're going to let them all wallow on their beds all day, playing computer games and whatever else they do, because they don't fancy doing anything too boring or strenuous, like getting up in the morning?!

Ok, here is what I'd do in that situation:

No money for them whatsoever - nothing!

Internet off after 10pm and all day while we are working or out of the house.

No food treats - I'd leave basic, healthy food and that would be it. No hot drinks - council pop will do.

They definitely wouldn't be bought clothes/fancy hair products, mobile phone credit.... I bet most of these precious layabouts have mobile phones - well, how?

All the kind of things they will need to consider before deciding whether working for a living is that bad after all.

They won't hold out long once you stop pandering to them and treating them like a delicate little flower who deserves to be looked after.

Getting them off their butt isn't the easy option, but our job is to put in the effort for long term gain. Good parenting isn't easy!

Let's be honest, parents are failing their kids if they let them behave like that. It's easy to blame the world and his dog, but really, you need to look closer to home.

We're talking about 17 and 18 year olds here - not adults. I wouldn't dream of insulting my children by control freaking them like that.

Parents who do what you are proposing are in a time warp - their children have never progressed in their minds to their teenage years. No wonder the children remain immature and incapable of makuing appropriate decisions for themselves - like deciding on a course of studying that they are interested in and, hopefully, being given the opportunity to follow it instead of being subjected to parents forever trying to fit their children into the same , sad, wage slave, restricted income model that they themselves are slavishly following.

poet123

Do you have teenage children?

Blackpool_Saver

justthisonce wrote: »

Not all people want or need a job with prospects of great advancement. One of the happiest, most fulfilled people I know has been a street cleaner in Finchley for 20+ years. He has no aspirations to aim higher. He takes the utmost pride in 'his' streets and literally has to be forced to use his annual leave.

He is extremely well respected for the excellent work he does. This guy never has to buy a coffee or sandwich, in fact they are always prepared and waiting for him each day from the food establishments whose pavement frontages he keeps clean.

Do we really still have these people? I remember with great fondness a chap called Sydney who used to do this along the road I lived on as a child. I used to take my little dustpan and brush outside and pretend to help him. He was a lovely chap.

dktreesea

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

There are plenty of low skilled jobs out there. They may not want a boring, low paid job, but if their education is that low then that is all they will be able to do.

When my daughter talked about dropping out of her A levels, I encouraged her to find a job in a local factory over the holidays, so she could get a taste of what her life would be like without education. She soon realised that that she wanted a career, instead of just a job and resumed her education for another 6 years.

The "or else" can be help to show them what their life would be like if they drop out: a life of a boring, low paid job and jumping through welfare hoops when they have to ask the state for financial help. No wonder many low paid are more stressed than those on a high wage.

I'm all for encouraging children to try out low skilled jobs for that particular purpose, i.e. giving them first hand experience of what their life could be like stretching over the horizon, in a boring, brain dead job for the rest of their lives. At least then their decision not to resume an education that is still open to them would be 100% their decision.

What I'm not so into is parents whose children deserve a gap year not wanting their children to languish and relax for a short time in their lives before they resume their education. 13 years in an institution like school deserves a break, imho, no matter how well or otherwise the child did.

paulwellerfan

i was really intrested in the first couple of pages of this thread.
then, like most they just go down hill and seldom offer any real help to the original OP.
the remainder of the pages are just spent !!!!!ing at each other.

**Patty**

Anyone who thinks budget-retail is beneath them should try getting on the Lidl graduate programme.

It's not as simple as giving someone the opportunity to receive an education. It started when red-brick degrees became *equivalent* to one's in mickey mouse subjects from jumped-up polytechnics.

Now everyone wants a degree in media studies (seriously??) and thinks they're a brain surgeon.

dktreesea

poet123 wrote: »

I will try to avoid rant mode but statements such as you have made in the above post drive me to distraction.

A teenager doesn't just get to 16 and decide to sit at home all day unless they have been allowed to get into a mindset early on that such a choice is acceptable to those around them. You cannot start to mould a 16 year old, you have to start very early ti instil a work ethic and stress the importance of education.

I'm only talking about for a short time, a year at the most. A gap year. Some space in their lives to be allowed to consider their futures, to make a decision instead of going from being p[ushed around and disrespected at school to the same treatment at home.

poet123 wrote: »

There are, and increasingly there will be places available for every youngster leaving school who wants further training or a college course. The key is to apply early to get the course which interests you, do your homework, go and look around at open days. Be pro active.

Colleges spend ££££ on marketing and advertising, and yet in September there are students who wander in off the street and want to get on courses which are, by then, oversubscribed. They are the ones who moan about not getting what they want, and finding nothing interesting.

So the kids took their time to decide what to do. They weren't ready, straight away, even before they left school, to decide on a future, so now the courses they want to do are closed to them? Disgusting. Our education system should be flexible enough to absorb people into the courses of their choosing even if they are 24 by the time they decide and commit to a course of action. it isn['t just 16 to 19 year old NEETS we have. If you look at the 16 to 29 age bracket instead there are nearly 1.9 million of them in the UK.

poet123 wrote: »

And as for not fancying being a "wage slave" is there really an acceptable alternative? Benefits, private income? Most of us are wage slaves, such is life, the sooner a youngster learns and accepts that the sooner they can make sure they enter a "slavery" which is passably enjoyable and pays enough to fund their choice of lifestyle. That is all any of us can really aspire to.

We do no our kids no favours by pandering to their whims about "finding themselves" or bolstering their desires to be a dotcom millionaire without any effort beyond gaming. They need to see that truly successful people are innovative, lateral thinkers, organised and driven, and that they see opportunity not obstacles. If parents send out the message that if you don't feel like doing something don't bother, we fail before we start. And as for nagging, persuasion and insistence leading to MH issues, words fail me.

Seriously? That's the only viable option that you see on the horizon, to join the ranks of the masses, marching to the low paid monotonous hum of the wage slavers for the rest of their working lives?

I would be for doing that, if it so happens to coincide with your passion. Some passions fit in with that kind of lifestyle. But if those parents who follow that lifestyle are always penny pinching, maybe even arguing about money, and struggling to make ends meet, all because they were too scared to give up their security blanket and believe in their ability to give themselves a better life, is it any wonder that the children don't want to follow in those parents footsteps?

dktreesea

**Patty** wrote: »

Anyone who thinks budget-retail is beneath them should try getting on the Lidl graduate programme.

It's not as simple as giving someone the opportunity to receive an education. It started when red-brick degrees became *equivalent* to one's in mickey mouse subjects from jumped-up polytechnics.

Now everyone wants a degree in media studies (seriously??) and thinks they're a brain surgeon.

My point about media studies was that a student goes to college and wants to get on a design course, or childcare, or hairdressing, and gets told there are no places on those courses, some of them 3 times oversubscribed but they could offer them a place in media studies instead.

I'm all for people studying media if that's what they are passionate about. But if they were trying to do something else, it's about time the government put more funding into the "something else" and stopped wasting taxpayers funds on funding courses that students don't want to do at the expense of what they do want to do.