My son is a junior and has a 4.2 GPA, scored in the top 98% for PSAT and we are waiting on ACT score. He has not interest in visiting colleges or going to college. He also doesn’t want to work. He was diagnosed with depression earlier this year and statutes medicine which helped some but he doesn’t want to move forward. His counselor says he will work it out but I’m afraid we are running out of time. Him living at home and not working or going to school is unacceptable. Have any of you experienced this? Any advice?
Not trying to be critical but if he’s truly not healthy enough to work or go to school, how does forcing him to do either help him get better? Isn’t it unlikely that he will be successful academically until he makes significant progress with his mental health? There are so many students who have these challenges and they often show up in HS and University. Rarely do you hear a good outcome without the root cause being identified and healed.
You know him best - do you believe his issues are more trivial and he should be able to cope with University as things stand now?
Why is it unacceptable for your son to live at home while getting his life back together? Is he still in school full-time?
By the fall, he may be a lot better. Depression is often self-limiting but will recur without treatment. Give the meds and therapy a chance to work. You are projecting way way ahead.
If he does end up not applying, help him find ways to enter the world of volunteering, interning or working slowly as a way to launch. One of mine had a serious injury and lived at home at age 24. Once she was less wobbly I helped her with a list of volunteer opportunities while she waited to hear from schools. She tutored and learned German.
There are plenty of ways to do school. Life isn’t a race, and he needs to be well to move forward.
Depression is an illness. Believe me, it can kill, so please support your son. If finances are a problem I am sure he will be able to contribute at some point.
Good luck.
I agree with compmom. Another blunt way of phrasing it is, “You want to keep the ball in play,” meaning you want to keep him alive long enough that the meds and therapy can work.
You don’t want to look back and say, “If only…” — I know that from personal experience.
I encourage you to reach out to your local chapter of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). They have a class for family members that’s SO helpful. It’s helpful to hear stories from other parents, too. It will make you thankful your son is doing as well as he is.
Depression is a horrible disease and I’ve come to learn that it’s very difficult for people who haven’t had or haven’t had a loved one with depression to understand it.
It takes time-sometimes years- to get the right combination of meds and/or therapy. I have been on antidepressants for over a decade and was recently given a new med because the old one had lost its efficacy. It’s hard.
Why is it unacceptable for him to live at home and not work or go to school? Would you say this if he was dealing with debilitating cancer or some other disease?
Depression is an illness just like any other “physical” illness. Let him get healthy and graduate from there. School and work can wait. Depression can, and does, kill. Keep that in mind.
Good luck.
ps There are a few other threads about healthy, happy kids who are not interested in looking at colleges yet. Maybe this is the case with him. I didn’t mean to pathologize. If he is still functioning well in school that is good news.
It could be the more you try to take control and push for him to take action on your timetable, the more he will resist. Telling a young male that something is unacceptable can make it attractive (in a power struggle sort of way) if he is looking to assert his independence.
It is never “too late” to decide to go to college. The community college option will be available right up until a couple weeks before classes start. He doesn’t graduate high school for another year, so it is too early to job hunt as well.
I would spend time listening to his ideas, needs, and wants and try not to talk/push too much, especially if his mental health is not good.
Listen, listen, listen. What do you hear him telling you?
Go read the threads of students who went to college because they were “supposed” to or whatnot. He has an unresolved mental illness, and treatment/stability will take a long time and have many phases of success and failure. Nothing can be put ahead of that treatment and be successful. So feel sad for the plans you imagined or whatever you need to do , to get to a place where not being in college and/or living at home are acceptable.
It is a hard road but you are not alone. Depression can be managed and maybe his will resolve, but just let go of a timetable and breathe.
Yep. Lots of college options for working adults and non-traditionals also as well if he doesn’t go to college straight out of HS. Some of them great.
My son came to me January junior year saying he “wasn’t doing well”. I had noticed something was off, and he was behaving in a way that I characterized as “lazy.”
Top student, excellent athlete, 98th percentile ACT. He couldn’t articulate exactly what was wrong. He talked of wanting to quit his sport. I saw this as a call to action. We scaled his life back. Canceled the upcoming ACT test, SAT subject tests, test tutoring, withdrew him from his concurrent college class, etc. Told him I would support his decision to quit his sport if he wanted.
He met with a counselor. I stopped the college talk and grade scrutiny. He and I also spent more time together, just hanging out, watching sports. My husband also made sure he was connecting with him. I wanted him to feel supported and grounded. He did end up sticking with his sport, but made sure he tried some new activities. He started climbing at a local gym.
I worried about his future and what this all meant in the long run.
By end of summer he expressed he was doing better. He’s now thriving at UCLA.
Unfortunately, last month one of his former teammates committed suicide.
I feel lucky my son came to me, and we were able to help him.
This is really not a good attitude to take with someone who has been diagnosed with depression. As @romanigypsyeyes said, you wouldn’t say that it was “unacceptable” for someone who had been diagnosed with cancer not to be able to work or go to school while they were undergoing treatment.
I know it’s hard to have everything up in the air when it seems like every other student is visiting colleges and getting excited about applying. But you really can’t make him “move forward” if he doesn’t want to. This is his life and he’s the only one who can ensure that he succeeds in college (or anywhere else).
And as others have said, please don’t minimize what he’s going through. Respect the very real pain he is feeling, and do everything you can to help him get through it. His path may not be what you expected – but it will be HIS path. You can’t choose it for him.
Our oldest wasn’t that smart a 3.4gpa kid, mid 20’s act, just couldn’t figure out what she wanted to be or do. Always said “All my friends know what they want to be I don’t!”. She went off to school and quit after 2 months…hasn’t gone back that was years ago. Turns out she did have some anxiety and depression issues spent years in counseling which ultimately did nothing. Refused to be on medication because “it isn’t natural” and finally last year start a small anti depressant she has been happier and less moody then ever “she says”.
Met a guy (he sorta sucks) and they just live together and work barely make it. have been for years now. No desire to do more, no dreams worth fighting or sacrificing for, and she still doesn’t know what she wants to do or be.
She often talks about “wishing she had stayed”, “I shoulda stayed I screwed that up”, but now there domesticated life with 7 animals, renting a house, a car note takes precedent over any school dreams because “animals are like my children”.
etc etc etc etc etc
Good luck wasted potential it doesn’t get easier I bet it took 5 years for me to finally come to grips she would probably never do anything but be a modern day hippie.
@browndeck I am so sorry that your son and your family are going through this. It’s such a difficult thing to have this illness, particularly since it is not visible nor talked about much. It can LOOK like disinterest or laziness (character flaws), which can make the sufferer just feel worse about himself, more concerned about the future, and maybe even more likely to shut down any future planning.
Nobody knows your son and your family particulars but you. And I have NO training in psychiatry! I’d just say to go easy and try to settle in, focusing on your son’s current health, trying to help him to focus on his life in the present. Looking forward might be too much for him to take on right now. His caregivers can help him figure out what is going on, why he feels the way that he feels when he thinks about the future. For MANY kids his age, planning for their post-high school lives can be overwhelming, even without mental health struggles. For him, this transition might be more difficult. But kids DO get through this and come out the other end as happy, productive adults.
Your son is lucky to have a family that loves him and supports him. Just be reassured, and reassure him, that he CAN have an amazing life regardless of how smooth or linear the post-high school transition may be for him.
The OP says he is worried they are “running out of time”. For what? Going to college isn’t some kind of race or marathon. Some kids go right out of HS and others don’t.
This young student has a health issue that should be the paramount thing this family is dealing with…not work…not college.
Please, work with this student and his doctors, and counselor to help him now.
College and work decisions will be much better made when the health concerns are well managed. And this could,take some time!
This really ought to be capitalized. It might have gotten lost in the sentence.
KEEP HIM ALIVE LONG ENOUGH THAT THE MEDS AND THERAPY CAN WORK!!!
Your S has a life threatening illness. You need to treat it as such and drop your own plans and demands for him. Those are all out the window now. Some therapy for you so that you know how to deal with a loved one suffering from depression would be incredibly useful for you.
All kids eventually find there way. There is no set time limit. I too get frustrated when my son sits around with no job. It is just the sign of the times. His friends don’t work either. I think it is normal for kids now a days to not work. There was a time when kids would have part time jobs but that was a long time ago. It is different today.
But your son has possible issues of depression. I agree with above that this needs to be handled first. You must get him well before he can begin his college years. College will always be there for him. No rush. Get him healthy first.
Echoing the mostly good advice here–
- This is not a race. college is waiting out there forever.
- you can’t force him to not be depressed. You can’t force him to cave to your will any longer. He needs to become his own person.
- Once he really and truly wants to go to school, that’s the time for him to start, not a minute before then
Adding:
There are many fine ways to spend a gap year or decade–
- volunteer.gov
- Workaway.info
- hike the appalachian trail -- http://www.appalachiantrail.org/home/explore-the-trail/hiking-basics
- Student Conservation Association -- https://www.thesca.org/
- "unschool" for a year or so . . . . let him do what he wants no questions asked for at least a year
- https://www.coolworks.com/ etc.
National Outdoor Leadership School (I know a young man who was depressed and deferred and went there, and improved dramatically…hiking in the Rockies)
WOOF
And, again, many seniors are not looking at schools yet. Hoping the meds help soon…
My D went to college several states away, and her depression flared while she was there. In two semesters she dug herself into a GPA hole that she’s now struggling to fix.
That’s important, but her health is more important by far. I agree with the other responders that your son’s mental health has to be the priority. Work with him and his doctors to stabilize his mental health, then worry about school. It’s actually to your advantage that you have this time to prepare (or to help him develop alternate plans.)
The problem with mental health is always “how do you know?” and you dont. For every good story where meds and therapy worked there is more than 1 where meds and therapy did nothing and excuse after excuse until before you know it the person is 30.
Its all “how you feel!”