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Advice needed! My son is struggling with university life

Eunica
7 months ago

Any advice will be very much appreciated.

My son, who is in his second year of university, has been struggling with his university life. The staff's lack of knowledge of autism has harmed his mental health, which has clearly deteriorated, yet it is also frustrating that I am unable to engage directly with the university. 

Academic staff do not know anything about autism - how autism impacts on his learning and daily simple activities. He has been misunderstood by the academic staff - for example, his mental health has been deteriorating due to lack of support but they told my son that his symptoms (depressions) is just his laziness. He has found it difficult to communicate with relevant staff and request to meet his needs - he is not able to articulate his needs. He is just suffering by himself.  Any reasonable adjustments were hardly made..
He has stopped talking to anyone and hardly communicated with me and my husband any more. He lives in the university accommodation but he talks to nobody & has been isolating himself . 
The university discourages parents' involvement, meaning that I have little chance to discuss his difficulties with university staff. The university clearly states that all students are "adults", thus, there is no need to get parents involved. My son has nobody to advocate his needs at university.
His university policy also clearly states that the students are deemed to be independent so that if the students need "unreasonable" support (other than functional support such as note taking), then they have the right to suspend/expel them under the Policy of "Fitness to Study". . 
The university has a disability team and they are aware of his struggle but it does not seem that they are liaising with academic staff so that my son is not able to get direct support from his academic staff.
I am aware that if the university obtains my son's consent, I will be able to work directly with the university, but I am also concerned that it will give them the opportunity to invoke "Fitness of Study," which could put him in an even more difficult situation - my impression is that (based on emails sent to my son), they are not sympathetic to autistic students.
Does anyone have similar experience? How do I best support my son? 
Parents
  • 7 months ago

    I’m really sorry to hear that your son is struggling at uni. My eldest son struggled too - and I know how upsetting it is as a parent to not be able to help as much as you want to. From what you write the university is not giving your son the support he needs. University can be an extremely lonely place when you’re struggling - I remember sometimes feeling this way myself too when I was a student. 
    Does your son feel able to open up to you about how he feels about the situation? Does he have a sense of what would help him at this point? 
    Universities can sometimes be very unsympathetic - I remember a girl in my son’s year had mental health problems and she got the feeling the college basically wanted to get her to leave more than they wanted to help her to stay. 
    My son felt very lonely at times - but gradually he made a few (neurodivergent) friends at a college society and that’s when things turned round for him - although it was always quite a challenge even then. 
    I think the main thing is to keep the lines of communication as open as you can with your son, and be led by him as to how he wants to deal with this. Ultimately his safety and well being is the top priority- and if he wants to not continue at uni then that might be the best option. However if he wants to continue hopefully you can sit together and work out what he needs to help him achieve that. If it’s any comfort I think an awful lot of people find uni extremely challenging at times - he’s certainly not alone in that. At times I think my son was made physically ill by the stress of adapting to being at uni. But he got through it - and is glad that he did, and hopefully the same will happen for your son too. I wish you both luck x 

Reply
  • 7 months ago

    I’m really sorry to hear that your son is struggling at uni. My eldest son struggled too - and I know how upsetting it is as a parent to not be able to help as much as you want to. From what you write the university is not giving your son the support he needs. University can be an extremely lonely place when you’re struggling - I remember sometimes feeling this way myself too when I was a student. 
    Does your son feel able to open up to you about how he feels about the situation? Does he have a sense of what would help him at this point? 
    Universities can sometimes be very unsympathetic - I remember a girl in my son’s year had mental health problems and she got the feeling the college basically wanted to get her to leave more than they wanted to help her to stay. 
    My son felt very lonely at times - but gradually he made a few (neurodivergent) friends at a college society and that’s when things turned round for him - although it was always quite a challenge even then. 
    I think the main thing is to keep the lines of communication as open as you can with your son, and be led by him as to how he wants to deal with this. Ultimately his safety and well being is the top priority- and if he wants to not continue at uni then that might be the best option. However if he wants to continue hopefully you can sit together and work out what he needs to help him achieve that. If it’s any comfort I think an awful lot of people find uni extremely challenging at times - he’s certainly not alone in that. At times I think my son was made physically ill by the stress of adapting to being at uni. But he got through it - and is glad that he did, and hopefully the same will happen for your son too. I wish you both luck x 

Children
  • 7 months ago in reply to Kate Kestrel

    I just wanted to add that if you feel there is any risk that your son may harm himself in any way then try to talk to him about that as openly as you can. Ultimately his safety is the top priority in this and it sounds like he’s under a huge amount of pressure at the moment. Often when people are struggling at uni it can be totally overwhelming as they feel their whole future is at stake. But nothing is more important than their health and happiness at the end of the day.