Can someone help please? :( VERY long post.

Mojisola

Lou67 wrote: »

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.

You really have created this problem and it's not going to be easy to resolve. Your princess has had two adults running around seeing to her every need - she's not going to be happy when you stop being her personal assistants.

You and her Dad are going to have to agree on your stance, be very supportive of each other and be very strong when the tantrums start.

Savvy_Sue

katy721 wrote: »

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

I'm probably in a minority in that I think we did go back to exams at the start of 2nd and 3rd year, but this is a few (or many!) years ago, and they weren't exams you had to do a LOT of work for. Plus there was always a reading list, which I managed to ignore ...

katy721 wrote: »

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.

Working at the local cinema has been an absolutely ACE job for my boys. Don't think they've ever done full-time, but started in 6th form and kept it up during holidays. The older two were so good that the manager actually asked if DS3 would be interested.

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Is she going away to Uni, or will she still be living at home? If she is going away, personally I wouldn't get into too much of a tizz about it. I certainly wouldn't broach what will happen next summer hols after she has completed her first year at uni.... that is a whole lifetime away!

If she is going away to uni she will have such a fast growing up curve, that by next summer hols her opinions and values will probably have changed a lot. She will also be mixing with other students many of whom will be working and making plans to travel etc.

There is no point in locking horns unnecessarily. The time to explain the facts of life about living at home during the summer vacation is next year, when she broaches the subject of coming home for the holidays.

Actually, I disagree with this. I think that unpleasant as it might be, she needs to know NOW what you're planning to do. If she's assuming you'll carry on giving her £25 pw, and you're not able to do so, she needs to know NOW. If she's assuming that you'll pay her rent at Uni, leaving her student loan free for a social life, she needs to know NOW. I agree that a kitchen table discussion would be worthwhile.

FWIW, I've had 3 at Uni, only the last left now. Obviously the situation has changed wrt student finance, but DS1 was assessed that we should have been topping him up by £1000 pa. It would have been very difficult to do this at the time so I asked if he would be OK without it, and he said of course - he'd been saving from his paper round and cinema job, you see ... DS2 got a small amount of grant. DS3 has been neutral, I believe.

The point is, they chose to go to Uni (although I'm pleased they did), and they've lived with their choices. I didn't charge them rent, even if they were working, until they graduated and came back home. At that point, they started paying rent, even before they found a job. They learned to manage.

Ames

I'm a part time student and I've just finished my second year, so I've done the first year of the full time course. Last summer I had work to do in the holidays because of August resits (I'd been ill for the June ones). This year nothing to do in the holidays (I hope! Results come out next week). In fact, at the moment I still haven't decided what modules I'm doing next year, and until I do I can't do any work for them. Even when I have done, the 'work' will be just reading the key texts to get a feel for the subject, which is completely optional.

stir_crazy

I lived at home when I was at uni, and even though my parents didn't charge me rent or board, I was expected to support myself so I worked throughout uni (those books don't come cheap!). Your daughter is still going to have travel/ books/ etc to pay for so she'll have to have an income of some sort.

The course I was on didn't require any work in the summetime so I worked full time in those months.

valk_scot

I do think you should have the talk re finances with her now. That would give her the chance to do some extra work time this summer and if she proves to be a reliable employee one year the chances are she'll have first shot at any jobs with the same employer next summer, not to mention that she might be able to pick up a few shifts over Christmas if it's retail. When I was a student (dark ages now!!) I had a p/t shop job and two pubs that I worked for regularly when I was home for the holidays and I made a point of telling them the dates I would be home so that I was on the list for shifts. I had more work than I could handle most of the time because I was 100% reliable, even at short notice, and I managed to avoid having to work during term time because I made enough cash in the holidays to finance all my extras, including three weeks of summer holidays.

It's good that she's got a job, it's really bad she's turning down shifts. There are plenty of girls out there who are keen to take every hour going, they'll be the ones that get offered shifts first and who'll get any more lucrative offers for p/t or f/t next summer. Keen and hard working wins over half hearted any day! And what about references? It's worth gold to have "Honest, punctual, hard working" on a reference.

And she certainly should be pitching in with housework over the summer! (And most of the rest of the time.) By the time I was 18 I was doing all the heavy chores for my mum, she was on her own and working a 40 hour week and I was doing school hours + study so I still had a lot more spare time than her. And I had a Saturday job. I still got top exam results.

BitterAndTwisted

If you are going to withdraw her £25 a week allowance (and I think you should for reasons of independence never mind not being able to afford it) then you should tell her this now, while she still has a chance to change her mind about what days she makes herself available for work over the summer.

Once she gets to Uni she will find herself among young people who have to work part-time all year long just to be able to afford to study, never mind a couple of days during the summer break.

Nearly all young people find themselves jobs during the long summer holidays and I think you should make it clear that if she doesn't work you won't be able to take up the slack.

Maybe you should start cutting the apron-strings by not voluntarily acting as her personal chauffeurs any longer. Doesn't matter what the excuse is: perhaps you and OH are going to start being terribly, terribly busy from now on.

She's young, she has no experience so she doesn't have a clue but she will soon. But only if you try to help her now.

Pixiechic

I worked when I was at uni and so did all my friends.

I didn't know anyone who didnt work a job when they were studying, not just due to finances but it shows good character and experience on your CV for when you finish.

I think that setting some expectations now, will help her in the future. If you subsidise her now it will help short term but it will do her no good in the long term. She does sound a bit spoilt!

She sounds intelligent and more than capable of working during the holidays. It will be beneficial to her in many ways like managing finances too. You should also advise her of the change in your financial situation.

Future employers look for more than just grades now.

zzzLazyDaisy

I thought we were just talking about what would happen next summer holidays!

I agree, if she is thinking you will be funding her through Uni, giving her pocket money, paying her rent etc, then of course you need to have that talk with her NOW. Perhaps rather foolishly, I assumed that while she is away at uni, she'd be sorting her own life out as a young independent adult, like every other student I know....

tea_lover

Also, if she's going to be sharing a house (pretty likely) it's worthwhile getting her to help a bit more around the house before she leaves home. It won't do her any favours if she gets a reputation as the lazy one in the house.

Ah uni... so much to learn... so little of it anything to do with your course!

Yolina

Although I had financial help from my parents when I was at uni, for which I will always be very grateful, I also worked term-time and during holidays. I'm sure things have changed quite a lot in the last 20 years but I budgeted according to what I had coming in and managed to leave uni with no debts and some small savings