Wednesday 12 November 2008

when enough is enough and what happens next

The aliens have been back again.
Only its my sons who have felt the force.
Last night my boys were going to visit their dad for dinner. He now has a flat in a refurbished block which used to be the local B& B used by the council for its homeless people, which means that he is still within easy walking distance but more importantly has somewhere that our boys can visit him.

I had worked through my lunch so was rather hungry when I got in from work. finding the house empty I set about cooking my dinner which consisted of vegetables being cooked in a wok. I ahd almost finished when I heard DC coming in. He complained that I had cooked my own dinner, he had planned to cook for both of us. Apparently he hadn't wanted to have dinner with the others but had driven them there.

It seems that when he visited Charlie over the weekend the two of them had done some experimental cooking which he wanted to try out at home. But as I had already made my dinner he would cook for all of us tonight. I am wondering what has come over my newly domesticated eldest son. Earlier ET had begun to tackle the mountain that is the clean laundry mountain in the dining room.

This evening I phoned DC whilst I was in Asda before tackling the motorway, he had just been shopping for the food he needed to cook dinner (4 chicken pieces) I think he has forgotten there are 5 of us. when I got home ET has now tackled most of the laundry mountain. He had also washed up including all the pots and pans (with encouragement from DC).

There is a reason why ET has suddenly started doing more about the house.

He has decided that enough is enough.

If you were hoping from the title of this post that I had reached the end of the road with Romeo then I can only apologise.

ET has decided that he isn't going to go back to college. He wants to quit. He says he isn't enjoying college or any of the subjects he is studying. We went through all this 2 weeks into the term, but at that point I was able to persuade him to continue. I got the impression he had settled better and it was ok. But he says it had got better for a while but now he hates it.

We sat up talking until 1.30am on monday night. He wants to get an apprenticeship, very good but he wants to design computer games. I think he has a serious problem here. so we need to look at all his options. He knows that he can't just do nothing, he knows that if he is not in education I will lose 1/3 of the benefits I get at the moment so he needs to earn enough to give me that amount of money.

I am at a loss as to what is his best option. What I do know is that I will not allow him to think quitting college is the easy option. I ahve made it clear that he won't be staying up late playing computer games then staying in bed all day. He has to go to bed at a reasonable time and I shall get him out of bed early in the mornings, he will have a routine in his day. He will do chores around the house. He will go to the local connexions office at least 3 times a week. He will spend time each day trying to find something that suits him and at the same time earns him money. any suggestions will be gratefully received.

9 comments:

Dark Side said...

yes you are right it wasn't what I expected but if he has made his mind up it would be a shame to try and persuade him otherwise.

Well done on the reality check and I hope he abides by it..x

Lady in red said...

It is at times like this that I wish there was a male figure in his life he could talk to sensibly.

SF says he will talk to him at the weekend but I am not sure that is sensible either.

Mel said...

Boy. I still remember the girl's decision to stop her education. I panicked. I was darn sad--but she was relieved and free. She'd bound herself up with things that just weren't WHO she is.

Today, she's happily employed, doing something she truly loves and is awesome at.
And she's still 'free'.
I'll hope for your kiddo to have that same experience...that he'll be led to, or 'shown' something where he can BE all that he is. It's in those places that we truly excell, eh?

Oh, but I know the angst. I feared it was a decision to 'throw away' her life. Instead it freed her up to live and love it.

Fire Byrd said...

I've no advice, just sympathy. I live in dread of youngest telling me he is quitting college. Cause that is the only thing that is keeping him and me sane at the moment!
xx

Annie Wan said...

as parents there is only so much we can do - lead the horses to water and all that. it's their life and we can only be as supportive as we can. they will make wrong decisions from time to time, but the main thing is when they learn from their mistakes eventually.

i'm going through a similar thing with my son george, at the moment this is a gap year and i'm gently nudging, encouraging him to go to open days, look at prospectuses and hoping he is so bored during this gap year he'll be rushing off to college at the end of it! but if he doesn't and decides to bum around the rest of his life??

Trixie said...

I was like that, never finished high school, but mum made sure I went straight to work if I wasn't going to school. Started off as a check out chick, ended up as a area manager, making more money than my flatmate who was a pilot! It's not ALL about education, you can get just as far along without one, getting the education of life.

But if he wants to truly work in the gaming industry, you've got to find out exactly what he needs for that qualifaction, as I'm sure he'll need some sort of degree, and maybe he can change his course to lead toward that?

Sage said...

Can't be of much help, but having a plan will certainly help him achieve his aims (if not his desires). It will certainly be better than him enduring college, which he is clearly not enjoying or getting the most out. Are there any careers advisers at the college who could provide him with different courses/ideas while he figures out what he wants to get involved in - they might agree to him doing some classes part-time rather than lose him (and their funding) while he explores the apprenticeship idea.

Good luck

DJ Kirkby said...

I hope your N1S is more comliant with those rules than our N1S! Ours agreed to all of them and then, for ages, did none of them. Really frustrating and stressful. He is now working but as for the rest well...good luck honey be firm!

Lady in red said...

thank you all for your sympathy and advice. I know a number of people whose children have quit college and then gone on to get jobs. My fear with ET is that I cannot afford for him to be out of education and not working. He will need to find something that will earn him enough money to pay me the amount I will lose from tax credits.

But my biggest fear is that he will think he can just sit in his room all day everyday playing PS3 games.

I have been insisting that he goes to bed when everyone else does and when OJ goes to college tomorrow ET must go with him when he goes to get his train then he can go straight to connexions when it opens.