Advice please for 16 year old left education

jacques_chirac

To be blunt, she needs a kick up the backside. You come across as lovely, wanting to do the best for your daughter, but if she wants to leave education and be an adult, she needs to be treated like one.

I would give her two options - contact college in the morning and arrange to go back (if she is very apologetic it should not be too late), or she can get a job and start paying you rent. Maybe she'll be more motivated if she realises she is already accruing arrears?

susiewuzy

spacey2012 wrote: »

Agree, who is topping her phone up, giving her pocket money, that kind of thing.
If it is you, you need to tie these things to turning up for college and see if they will give her once last chance with a shaggy dog tale.

We were doing these things right up until last week when I got the call that she hadn't turned up.I had been told by her all was going well at college. She was leaving in the morning on time, but just never arriving there. I have refused any pocket money or top ups since, and will continue to do so until she sorts something out. I don't want her to think she can get pocket money, sleep all day till her friends finish college and then go out bowling etc... I don't want to encourage that at all.

[Deleted User]

I've been your daughter and I don't agree with the advice given here about taking away the things that she cares about. I was 16 when I left high school with 3 GCSEs and from 16 to 19 I had dozens of meetings with connexions, attended numerous employment courses and went through (but failed) 2 BTECs in college. None of which provided me any value whatsoever.

Your daughter is only 16 years old, she's not old enough to drive a car let alone expected to support herself, so pushing her into the real world is not the best idea. She needs the help and support of her family to understand where she wants her life to go and she needs the support that allows her to fail or change her mind without criticism or disappointment.

Do you know why rich people are often more successful than poor people? Rich people can fail and not be scared that they can't eat, or that their family will disown them, rich people can take risks that poor people cannot even consider, because a person with everything on the line can't fail, so they play it safe and greatly limit what they could achieve had they no limits. Forcing your daughter into something that makes her unhappy is not the right way to help her, it will just drive her into depression.

As long as your daughter is always moving forward, whether that's through an apprenticeship or a college course or working or learning it's okay. Teach her that it doesn't matter if she fails, because I'll bet if she's anything like me she has a huge fear of failure, because that's what school does, it teaches you that if you fail you are worthless and your life is over. The focus put on GCSE results is absurd, the reality is your daughter has every chance to succeed in life if she just tries but school hasn't taught her that. She probably thinks she's worthless...

Talk to her, support her, encourage her to try new things. Sure, if she gets to 20 and is still floundering around then maybe it's time to take things more seriously, but 16... give her room to breathe and learn, let her learn that it's okay to fail.

My sister for example is 21, she got fantastic GCSE results and went on to sixth form... within a month she found it was awful, then my parents let her decide what she wanted to do so she did a business course at college while working part time in a restaurant, she eventually gave that college course up because she wasn't happy and spent a year out of education, then she decided what she wanted to do was accounting, so she started on a course in college at 19 (that she had to pay for herself) and after she finished that course she contacted an accountancy firm... they hired her based on one email and now at 21 she has a job she enjoys that is paying for her to go back to college and get even more accounting qualifications. She was 19 before she knew what she wanted to do... now she has a career, because she wasn't pressured, because she wanted to do something.

I could talk for hours about the problems I have with the current education system and the behaviours it encourages because I have a huge problem with it, but I won't drag this post out any more. Here's a summary of what I think matters most:

1. Support her, help her, encourage her to try new things
2. Let her know that as long as she tries doing something, she has your support
3. Help her understand that failure doesn't matter

As long as she is moving forward, it's okay.

AP007

citricsquid wrote: »

I'd like to think that based on my own experience and what I have observed that this is the correct thing to do. I'm in my 20s now and make more money than most people in this country, with less GCSEs than most people in this country... all because I spent my time discovering what I wanted to do.

How much is that? I hear Alan Sugar left school with NO qualifications.

[Deleted User]

AP007 wrote: »

How much is that? I hear Alan Sugar left school with NO qualifications.

Haven't checked in a long time, top few percent I think. Although in hindsight that part of my post was out of place as money really doesn't matter that much, I'll remove it.

And yeah, there's lots of good examples of people that have gone on to achieve after not doing well in school and not being sure what they want to do. Just got to try things and see what sticks!

Funky_Bold_Ribena

citricsquid wrote: »

As long as your daughter is always moving forward,

It would appear that the only moving forward the OP's daughter does is to grab the remote to switch channels on daytime tv though.

OP - you have to let her realise that's what she wants to do...you can't force her.

dawyldthing

it sounds like she needs to sit down and really think what she wants to do in her life in 5, 10, 20 or 40 years time. I did a-levels as all i have wanted to do was teach and if it wasn't for a supportive English teacher (abeit a bit of nagging too as I didn't take it that seriously including going on a 2 week holiday just as i handed coursework in) I don't think I would have ever have gone to uni. At times detested them as it bored the daylights out of me and really was fed up of being in education.

Then I went straight to uni and failed second year as I failed an exam, had to take a year out before I could retake said exam and started a year later to do my final 2 years and then broke my ankle on final placement to be put in a different school which I struggled at and finally failed final placement so I have my degree with qts.

But what i'm trying to get at is that all throughout this I have had about 15 part time jobs. I've worked in supermarkets, customer services, desk jobs, call centres, bar work, warehouses and cleaning which helped tied me over and I always said I wanted to help others and if it wasn't in teaching then it would be in care and it is what I have fell into. I'm not saying it will be forever, but sometimes it takes a long while to decide.

I've got another friend who started uni like I did at 18 and I stayed friends with her on facebook. The other year in her mid 20s she started a childrens' nursing degree. Plus one of the teachers I shadowed years ago went into teaching after spending many years as a physiotherapist, so people swap and change jobs all the time.

Peoples lives run differently, there is no one size fits all. Even if she does some agency work to try different jobs she may then chose to go back to college in January, but at the end of the day only she can decide what she wants to do. I know 2 years ago when I went travelling around Thailand I met a 18 year old on her own travelling the world and she was having the time of her life. Just because the education system seems to think it should be a prescriptive system of ongoing education really doesn't mean it will work for everyone.

Personally I think everyone should have a 'bank of government' that gives you 2 years paid for training whenever you choose after 16 in whatever field you choose and upto 4 years of uni funding to try and help as I really don't think getting everyone into education all the time works. Either that or give these NEETs different options to see what is out there as what happens for young people not being given chances in the workplace could be covered by it while doing some essential work in the community or voluntary to try different areas.

It really is a bugbear of mine

Shoey1610

I think you should be there for her, encourage her as needed, perhaps kick her up the bum as needed, but understand that she is only 16 and if you can't make a few mistakes when you are 16 when can you?

FWIW I dropped out of A Levels when I was 17, had a play with life and found out the stuff school doesn't teach you and now aged 32 I have two degrees and a lot of school of life. I needed that real world experience to make sense of life and I'll tell you it involved a lot of !!!!!!ing around between the ages of 16-18 and being a pain in the !!!! to my parents. Stick with her, let her learn consequences and scoop her up when it all gets too bad. This is now, it is not forever.

19lottie82

Apprenticeships are very competitive these days I'm afraid. You need very good grades as well as references and a good attitude. There are multiple applications for every vacancy.

I'd advise your daughter to go back to college and get her GCSEs. She will struggle to get very far without at least a C in English and Maths at a bare minimum.

19lottie82

Ps re the immediate future, I think shops are still looking for seasonal staff for Christmas, but if she wants a chance she will need to get in there QUICKLY

If she can get a minimum wage job full time and you take the market rate for rent and bills off her she might realise that her prospects without any qualifications aren't so great and suddenly decide college is an attractive option after all.