Hmmmm.
Bare with me as I've been up since 4am after only 3 hrs of sleep and spent the day in nursing clinicals. So I hope I can put this right, instead of having it come out wrong or harsh. Cuz honestly, I'm not meaning it to.
I am a fulltime college student and am in my 4th year. I'm a nursing student and also on the cusp of attaining 2 associates degrees at the same time. (sort of an accident there. lol) I am a wife, a mother, and a grandmother as well. My husband has been unemployed twice since I've been back in school, and currently still is.
My point, and one you need to remember when difficult child attempts to lay this school guilt trip on you......... If the boy really wants to go back and finished those degrees, nothing will stop him from working to make it happen.
My easy child works fulltime, is a wife, a mother to 2 with one on the way, is a full time student earning her bachelor's degree in nursing going to school full time. (already has her associates).
Yup. It may be hard, but if you want it bad enough it can be done. That' is the bottom line. It isn't up to you to make it happen either with motivation or finances.
Maybe difficult child was burnt out with school. My easy child, now 25, has never stopped going to school fulltime since hs. I know she's burnt out. And I've finally convinced her to take a year off once she graduates in sept. But his being burnt out had nothing to do with you. You didn't force him to go to university once he finished Jr college. That was his choice. His doing poorly in classes to bomb out of his last term was also his choice.
Yes, he may or may not have been depressed. But as you so accurately pointed out to him the school provided services he could have used and he chose not to. The reason he chose not to tells me that he was burnt out, not depressed. Huge difference. I wonder if he's playing the depression card to gain your sympathy and is not happy it doesn't seem to be working?
Having to pay to his own way, or find funding (FASFA which he does qualify for at his age) is a natural consequence for messing up his last term. I know I wouldn't even consider handing money to a kid that threw it away like that to risk having it happen a 2nd time around.
Of course he could have me for his mother and I would've made him pay his way the 1st time around. lol I flat out refuse to pay for college for any of my kids, yet all 3 are currently enrolled in college. So even with us horrible parents who won't pay the bills, kids somehow manage to get an education. lol
Sounds like difficult child has got some entitlement issues going on. And those, trust me, you want to nip in the bud as they only get much worse as they grow older. When difficult child has a snit, and he most certainly will, you need only to calmly to remind him that he is an adult and responsible for his own actions.
As for the friends............sounds like he was so hyper-focused on school for so long they just drifted away. Pretty normal. Odds are he was just too busy with school to worry about replacing them. And now that he has nothing to do, he's come face to face with the fact his social life is basically nil. Also not your problem. Nor does it necessarily point to depression. I don't attempt to maintain a social life while in school, easy child doesn't either.......can't really say my youngest 2 do for that matter. If it isn't depression, once he starts working or whatever, he'll begin to make friends again. My tactic would be to make myself less available to him.
I haven't a feeling your difficult child's biggest problem is that while going to school all that time.........he simply didn't realize that he grew up and became a bona fide adult along the way. He is no longer a kid with Mom and Dad to save him, but a man who must make up his mind what he wants out of life and to go after it. This can be a scary realization for many adult kids.
Learning to detach takes practice. No one is an expert at it right off the bat, it's a process. So don't beat yourself up if you stumble and fall along the way.
Hugs.
