16 year old possibly dropping out of college

Treevo

Will he not be able to resit the January exams in the summer? Rather than giving him the option of dropping out, you should force him to continue and pull out all the stops to make up for his laziness. How you do this will depending you, obviously. If he were mine, he'd be losing all privileges until he'd earned them back by passing his exams.

How did it get to this point? Was he lying to you each time you asked how his day was? Did you not sit down as a family for dinner and talk about your days? Did you not take any interest? If not, why not?

I do as my parents did - every evening at dinner, everything is discussed and we take an interest even when it's boring as hell. We read everything they've written and look at everything they've created. Not just homework but their class and course work too.

19lottie82

silvermist05 wrote: »

Thanks I have tried bribery it just dosen't work. To be honest apart from a mobile contract he dosen't get much.QUOTE]

Well tell him this will be removed. Also, I take it you have the internet in your house? Tell him this will be deativated during the day.

If he wants to quit college and do nothing, OK, but he must realise that this will have consequenses.

Also, I agree w the post above. Why / How did you not cotton on to the fact he wasn't doing any work?
Do you think he IS capable, IF he worked at it?

peachyprice

Are there any other courses at college he would rather do? Something more vocational or practical.

TBH, neither of my boys were enamoured with A Levels, but it's all the school pushed towards, they gave the children the impression that if you didn't do A levels you were never going to get anywhere.

Mine both gave up after the first year, one is now doing a photography BTec, which he absolutley loves the other is doing C&G electrical engineering with a view to going into design, neither options were ever offered by the school.

Could he investigate as to whether there's someting more inspirational he'd rather do come September and just do the best he can with the rest of this year?

Or have a look at apprenticeships.or.uk there may be something there that grabs him.

You really need to get across to him that there are options out there other than A levels, but sitting at home on his butt isn't one of them.

RAS

Hi

He needs to sign up with Connexions as this will allow you to recieve CB for another 20 weeks. They will look at alternative courses/jobs for him.

Make is absolutely plain that if he leaves college, he will not be allowed in the house during working hours.

victor2

19lottie82 wrote: »

What do you provide for him now, in terms of non-essentials? i.e. mobile phone, lifts, clothes, pocket money, treats in the food cupboard?

You need to sit him down and tell him that if he insists of dropping out of college because he won’t make the effort to do any work then he MUST get a job and pay his own way. If he can’t get a job, which from what you have described, is the most likely outcome, then all of the above will stop, and his life will not be very pleasant at all.

Make sure he knows that you mean it, and if it comes down to it, carry the threat out.
If he DOES drop out and you carry the threat out, I’m sure he will realise that life isn’t so peachy outside of college / work, and will jump at the chance to re-enrol after the Summer.

As 19lottie82 says.
It's tough on you to be tough on your offspring, but it sounds like that is what is required.
Younger people today seem to rely on their mobile phone for life. Assuming he falls into that category, explain to him that he will be responsible for paying for it if he drops of college.
A lot of people that age don't seem to appreciate that a majority of working people do so to earn a decent living. Having to look for a menial job might give him a reality kick.
Dropping out tends to be a one-way trip and you could end up helping pick up the pieces, but it may be the only way he'll "learn" something.
Good luck. Got to admit I'm glad mine are well past the teenage years!

Treevo

silvermist05 wrote: »

Thanks I have tried bribery it just dosen't work. To be honest apart from a mobile contract he dosen't get much. He's never had many friends so never asked for things however since going to college he has come out of himself and is now socialising with friends, this is the main reason that I don't want him to drop out. I know if he loses these friends and dosen't get a job he will become a recluse and I don't want that for him.

Then you remove his option of dropping out. He leaves the house when you do and doesn't get let back in until you return. He gets an hour supervised internet usage for job seeking and his phone is taken away from him and replaced with a £10 cheap PAYG handset that can be used for job seeking and emergencies only.

He spends his weekends doing work around the house to pay for his keep and he gets nothing from you at all.

When faced with that reality, I'm sure he'll soon buck his ideas up and start fulfilling his educational obligations.

silvermist05

Thank you for the replies. This was picked up on in December we spoke to his tutours and he promised us that he was going to improve. Tonight dh will be missing his own college lecture(we are both working full time and studying to better ourselves) so we can sit down and discuss his optitions though so far it has been very difficult to talk to him, he prefers to grunt than talk.

RAS

I would suggest that rather than trying to discuss, you lay it on the line in as few words as possible.

19lottie82

silvermist05 wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. This was picked up on in December we spoke to his tutours and he promised us that he was going to improve. .

Sorry if it feels like I am having a go at you OP, but surely you should have been keeping on top of him studying between then and the exams? Or did you just accept his word?

A Levels are HARD work, he can't just attend the classes and think he'll scrape by.
He won't, as he has discovered.

Joons

Career Service in the area? What about volunteering, looks good on a CV. He's 16 so don't go threatening him with being thrown out the home, give him the basics, food, hot water, bed, lighting etc but that is it, he'll soon realise how bored he is after a couple of weeks of doing nothing. There is no way you can force him to study, he clearly does not want to.