Dear Mary-anne. My son doesn’t want to go back to university now the lockdown has lifted.

QUESTION: 

My son had been at Uni, exactly four weeks when lockdown began and he came home.

He’d settled in well to Uni, made new friends and was happy with his course selections. He didn’t seem worried about coming home either, but now that he’s back, he’s decided to throw it all in and look for a job.

We’ll lose money on his room and I think he may regret this decision. It’ll be harder to find work now so many jobs have been lost. Everyone’s been talking about mental health of students, but I don’t think that’s the issue. He’s not talking much, but that’s how he always is, and I don’t think he’s unhappy.

I’m gutted for him and don’t know if I should try and dissuade him or leave him be.

ANSWER: 

Sending your boy off to University, mid February, must now seem a lifetime ago. You probably waved him goodbye, hoping to see his degree in a frame one day. Things were settled – and now they’re not.

It would seem he’s had time, as we’ve all had, to do some thinking. There are several things that could be going on here and pretty much all of them are out of your control. You can’t send him back if he doesn’t want to go. He’ll be 18, nearly 19, so he’s an adult.

Whether you like it or not, he’s making his own decisions. It’s possible he went to Uni just because his mates were going, or because he didn’t know what else to do. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be at university now, in the new normal with its social distancing and changed rules.

University doesn’t have to happen at 18, he may go back to it at 25 or 75. You need to support your son, especially in front of his peers and their parents. If you roll your eyes about him, he’ll not tell you anything — even when he’s ready. It maybe that he’s gained perspective on his life.

I would pretty much wait and see for a while, except on a couple of matters. Remind him that no-one gets a free ride, so if he’s home, he must contribute to running costs and pull his weight with food prep, etc. And also tell him that the age and stage he’s at now is unique in his lifetime. He doesn’t have other dependants or big financial expectations. If he could keep learning, be it a trade, an app he’s developing, or whatever way he wants to use his brain, now and in the future, then now is the time to be working towards it.

It could turn out that quite a few students don’t rush back to Uni and they all change their minds in a month or two. Whatever the outcome, just give him love and support, keep talking with him, even if it’s not this subject, and you’ll possibly look back one day and say, "he made the best decision".