18-year-old DS wants to drop out
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Anonymous
This. Sure he would understand and support him. Seems like he needs your son a lot more than he needs him. He can make that money or more in a restaurant right now. Great that he sticks to what he likes though. If he lives at home, puts $3k a month into top 10 stocks for the next 2 years, he can retire at 40. |
Anonymous
| Now think of all the redshirted kids who will be 19 and 20 year old HS seniors and want to quit but the parents won't be able to stop them. It's coming. Ironic, since parents thought starting kids later in school would hive them such head start. They didn't think about the other end of K-12, only kindergarten. |
Anonymous
It sounds like he in in his first year of college and wants to drop out.. |
Anonymous
| How can he be a journey man carpenter without a high school diploma or GED? His wages will be suppressed unless he moves up from apprentice to journeyman. |
Anonymous
You can’t force a 17 yr old to go to school and pass classes either. |
Anonymous
Sounds like a great way to force him to move out and destroy your relationship with your son at the same time. |
Anonymous
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Help your son look out for the next ten years.
Does the job include benefits? If it includes insurance, how much would he have to pay? Would he want to live at home or get his own apartment? What would his take home pay be? What happens if he is injured on the job? Does he get short term disability? Will his job be held for him? How stable is his boss's business? Are times when there is not enough work and everyone stays home without pay? Get the offer in writing including benefits. Google for other carpentry jobs in the area. If he needs to change jobs, would he get as much money? Would he need the diploma. Talk to a vocational counselor at the high school. What is the career ladder? If he wants to be a supervisor in future what credentials would he need? It sounds like a great opportunity and your son sounds like a hard worker and a skilled one. But i am sure that if he doesn't finish high school he will regret it in the future. Your job as a parent is to help him make an informed decision not to bribe him or force him. He has shown he can do the work. If he wants that diploma later, he sounds tenacious enough to go to night school and take the classes he needs. |
Anonymous
Good, he'll learn how little $35 an hour is compared to the amount he's used to having spent on him while he's young enough to reconsider |
Anonymous
He's a carpenter, not an accountant. Short term disability is workers comp and it is very common to have stents on comp as a skilled worker. Wages are pretty standard and it's very easy to switch employers. There is no career ladder unless he strikes out on his own, he can be a GC which required a day long class and an exam in Virginia and then he will need to get boned. |
Anonymous
| At this time in his life he needs to make decisions that provide him with the maximum number of options. Finishing highschool is the correct decision. If at some point in the future he doesn’t want carpentry anymore or if he wishes to fine tune his skill and get a college degree in wood design etc. he doesn’t have to worry about getting a GED first. |
Anonymous
| OP's kid should look at not in the next four years but the next forty years and it also depends on what he wants out of life. My DS got an IT job at the age of 18 that paid $45/hour with benefits and he wanted to quit UVA and work full time at that job. I asked DS if he would like to get paid $45/hr for the next twenty years or $150/hr in the next five years. He listened and finished his Computer Engineering degree at UVA and five years after graduation, he is making 350K/yr with amazing benefits. OP's kid should not be shortsighted and needs to look at the big picture of where he wants to be ten years from now. |
Anonymous
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The problem with carpentry and many trades us that there are so many recent immigrants who are going to be willing to work for less than $35 an hour. Carpentry wages have not really risen much because it. It used to be a job that could support a family. My uncle was paid well starting out in the late 60’s into the 80’s but when he was 40 he realized there was no future because so many new immigrants and went back to school to be a shop teacher.
Now with this current wave of massive immigration there are literally millions of new immigrants who are going through the asylum process so they will be a le to legally work after a year of being here if there cases aren’t heard and with such a big backlog they won’t be. Explain to your son he is going to have a hard time ever making more than $35 an hour unless he becomes a general contractor and has his own business. |
Anonymous
| I would move mountains to convince him (obv you can’t force) to finish high school. Including calling his boss, but I’m kind of shocked his boss wouldn’t care if he finished high school or not. It doesn’t sound like he is a good boss and definitely doesn’t have his best interests in mind- forget best, but just general interest. Surely he knows that finishing high school is a necessity |
Anonymous
| My brother quit school at that age, and later he really regretted it. It was harder for him to get a GED later compared to sitting through some classes for 6 months. Your son is so close! |
Anonymous
This is what I was going to say! I, too, have a brother who dropped out of school his senior year, and it took me years to get his GED. It was more time consuming study and prepare for the GED than just finishing his senior year of high school, especially senior year last semester is usually so light as it is. Studying for the GED on your own time can be hard because you don't feel like studying at night after you finished a full day of work. So if he doesn't get his high school diploma, it might take him years to get around to doing his GED and then much of his high school education Will be forgotten and he would have to study for it. It won't be just a slam dunk checkbox I've got my GED. |