Can someone help please? :( VERY long post.

Lou67

PLEASE forgive the length of this post.

I have a bit of an issue which is niggling, and I wondered if I could get some advice from people who may have been through the same thing. Basically, I am hoping someone may be reading this who has a child who has gone to university.

My daughter is just turned 18, and she has just left college after doing her A-levels. She has worked very hard and did very well in her AS levels - she got A's in three of them and a B in the fourth. She wants to go to uni in September, and has a place lined up already in the uni of her choice - conditional of course, but I am sure she will get the grades required.

Upshot is, she has a part time job in a store in town, but she literally just does 1 or 2 Saturdays a month, and half the time, she turns them down, because she has plans or just can't be bothered to go. She works hard at college and did at school, coming out with 13 GCSE's : 5 of them were A stars, but she is rather lazy outside of her education. I do most things for her, and me and her dad run her around where she wants to go as I would rather see she is safe. I know I have made a rod for my own back, but I didn't want to burden her with domestic chores, when she had so much stress and hard work with school and college.

Well, I asked her today, if she is going to ask the store she works at for some summer work, and she said: 'I already have 4 Saturdays lined up there,' and the others over the summer are spoken for: I have plans. (She is going on several daytrips and on holiday with her boyfriend, which will take up some of the Saturdays.) As we are getting child benefit and child tax credits until mid August, I guess this is OK, to let her enjoy her last summer, especially since she has worked so hard on her A levels and only just finished this week.

However, when I said to her, 'what are you going to do next summer holiday? ' and 'you need to look for an employer that gives you more than just Saturdays,' she said 'I will have FAR too much from uni to do during the summer next year: I will have loads of uni assignments and work from uni: I won't have time to go out to work.

I was gobsmacked. She will be off for virtually 4 months (Mid June to Mid October,) next year, and she is expecting to just sit there at home apparently doing loads of uni work. But I didn't think people had stuff to do from uni during the summer holidays. Maybe I am wrong.

The problem with this is that we will have no income from her, (via tax credits and child benefit,) as she is now an adult and is expected to work, go on jobseekers, or go to uni. But she seems to be under the impression that she can go to uni from this September until next June, and then just lounge around for 4 months, living off us until she goes back again.

We currently give her an allowance of £25 a week, that she buys her own clothes out of, cinema tickets, phone credit, friends and family's gifts, train fares, cosmetics etc. We started this 2 years ago, as I got sick and tired of her constantly asking us for money for so many things, and fed up of coughing up for her friends birthday presents, at £20 and £30 a time... so we started giving her an allowance and got her to try to budget and buy everything out of that. I am under the impression that she thinks when she comes back for 4 months next summer, we will reinstate that allowance.

It's not going to happen, because for one, we can't afford it as there will be no income from her via wages (as she apparently does not intend to work,) OR child benefit or tax credits and so on. And also, why should we?! She is an adult, and should be earning something herself surely???

This is where I am struggling. What is the etiquette here? When people finish their first year at uni, do they have loads of uni work to do over the summer, as she claims? I know that some uni people get a job over the summer, but does everyone? Is it normal or acceptable to just stay at home the whole four months? This is bugging the hell out of me, because I don't know what to do. I find it unacceptable that she is expecting to just stay at home and not look for any work during the summer next year, claiming she will have 'loads of uni work.'

Her boyfriend who lives in another county, is working this summer holiday, for the whole four months, and I know many people do. But is it actually what some people do; just stay home for the whole summer holiday and not work? And where do they get their income? Because surely, we can't be expected to sub her for that whole time?

Can anyone advise?

SavingPennies_2

Depending on her course, it's very likely she will have little or no work during the summer. She will finish her end of semester exams early June and start a fresh term mid september.

I worked full time every summer, some of my friends also worked or spent summers travelling (ie on holiday). Depends how much financial support parents can/will give.

Edit: I agree with posters below, easter and christmas had loads of studying/revision...summer none at all.

jackomdj

I think it depends upon the course she is planning on doing. She may have loads on, or she may have nothing in the summer and not a lot at uni either. I would tell her that you will not be able to give her money so it will have to be from her salary.

What is she planning on doing once she leaves uni, could she do something relevant to that?

SisterSeph

Hi Lou,

This is going back ten years, so things may have changed now, but I never had any uni work to do in the summer holidays, especially after the first year! On my course, the first year didn't even count towards my degree - there were end-of-year exams at the end of term which you had to pass to continue into year two, but that was it.

Most of my uni friends worked all the way through the summer (and Easter and Christmas) holidays. Some had evening or weekend jobs during term time, too. I went to a uni that had a high proportion of kids that came from very rich families, but those of us from a more modest background certainly worked through the holidays.

HTH.

butler_helen

I spent my summers working (to pay back my OD from the year), working in placements or traveling if I'd been good all year with cash/been given some. My parents were mean they didn't finance anything "fun"... E.g they would supply food or textbooks but nothing more - soon makes you work hard when you want to go drinking and can't.

I would say in the Christmas / Easter breaks I had loads of uni work but summers were free whilst waiting for the next year to begin.

She might Change her mind once she gets there and realises its quite expensive to live away from home?

Lou67

Thanks guys...... so the upshot is that it seems more normal and acceptable to work during summer then (after your first uni year?) And people are not generally given LOADS of 'homework' from uni? I thought this was odd, as I would have thought the end of year would wrap everything up, because not EVERYone decides to go back right away: some people take a gap year.

I am hoping that she will grow up a bit (or a LOT) at uni and realise that spending 4 months bumming around and expecting to live off your (poor) parents is not on. I have yet to to break the news to her, that she will not be receiving anything from us... and I will ask her 'where will you be getting your income from then?'

I didn't say anything this morning, as I didn't want to spoil her her day trip with her pals, and when it came up the other week, we were at a family meal, and I didn't want that spoiling either: but it's an issue that needs addressing, clearly....

sulkisu

I don't think 'etiquette' comes in to it. It's a question of what you can afford as a family and what values you wish to instil in your daughter.

I would make it clear to her that from the start of the new academic year, she will need to be supporting herself out of her student loans and finances, plus any money that she can earn.

If you have had enough of her asking for extra money for things, you have to learn to say no. She gets £25 per week and that's it. I believe that tax credits and child benefit are to help with the additional costs of raising a child, I don't think it is necessary to hand the full amount that you receive for her, to her every week (I know that some people feel differently but that's my opinion). Once she realises that he can't afford the life and luxuries that she has now, her priorities will change.

Wellyboots6

I had a bit of uni work to do over the summer but not loads.

I also worked 2 or 3 part time jobs at a time during term-time, at the student union. In the summer I would work full-time for the whole summer at places back home such as the local cinema etc where their trade picks up over the summer holidays.

My friends who didn't work term-time still had summer jobs, I can't think of any that didn't work at some point during their time at uni.

It is also good for your CV and gives you references so you stand a chance of at least getting some work once you graduate.

Be honest with her, explain that you are not going to be able to support her financially. You may find that when her friends are all making their summer plans and she cannot join in due to finances that she decides working is not so bad after all.

It was a struggle finding time to do assignments and work during term-time, but it was manageable and it meant I wasn't out every night and actually got some sleep occasionally!

valk_scot

My nieces have very recently graduated and no, they didn't sit around all summer. Nor did either of them had any uni work over the summer, no. They had jobs lined up before they got home, worked their butts off for three+ months, went on holiday then back to uni. Last year Niece#1 had two jobs, the other was doing ironing and cleaning as well as her day job. They both liked to have a bit of a cushion of cash for extra clothes and treats while at uni because goodness knows the student loans don't go far.

Which is another thing, how much is your DD expecting you to give her while she's at uni? If you're on a tight budget your ideas as to what's enough to live on might be a bit adrift of what she's expecting and having a good summer job this year would give her some extra spending cash at uni.

Might be time for a sit down at the kitchen table and some straight talking. At the very least (say if she can't actually find a job) as an adult and with no studying to do until she goes to uni, she should be pitching in big style with the housework and such.

monty-doggy

Wold she qualify for some sort of job seekers allowance or similar?

Lou67

Thanks so much to you guys too So it pretty much IS normal to work through the summer for most uni peeps then? Like I said, I did think it was odd, when she said she has no intention of doing so... I am hoping that her attitude will change, after she has been there for 9 months, and I will be telling her soon that if she doesn't work, she will have no income. Even if we COULD afford to sub her; why should we?! She shouldn't expect to be sitting on her bum for 4 months while we 'keep' her; not at 19!

Re; the last reply: I did wonder if she would be allowed to sign on when she came home, but I am not sure that is possible.