[JeeberD]

For Butter:

This may not be what you want to hear, but college may not be the right situation for him right now. What he's going through sounds a lot like what I went through at that age. I struggled at Colorado State and convinced my parents that if I went to UTEP (which had become out-of-state since my dad retired in Colorado) that I would do better. I did...for a semester. A couple more semesters of struggling and I moved to Abilene, to live with a buddy. Attended some CC there before moving to Denton to attend UNT. Here in DFW I was in and out of various schools for a number of years, shifting between majors/programs.

I always did well at my jobs (always made it to some level of management), and when I moved to DFW I started working at Olive Garden. I wound up working there for 13 years. While I was there, my wife and I got married, I got promoted to a manager, and then my wife and I had a son. It was then that I realized that the restaurant life wasn't going to work for me. I always wanted to be the dad who was there for the family, who would coach his son's baseball team, etc. I couldn't do that working for OG. So I went back to school at the age of 33 and kicked some serious ass. Over the next three years I got all A's, except for one high B, and earned an AS then a BBA. That helped me to get an 8-5 gig that paid well.

It sucked that I was 13 years older than I should have been at that stage in my career, and it still kind of sucks. But I was motivated to do well because I had a reason that *I* was passionate about. That made all the difference. I wasn't going to school because my parents wanted me to. Or because it was expected of me. Or because my girlfriend/wife wanted me to. I was doing it because of ME.

If school isn't for him right now, I don't think that you should force the issue. Of course, that's easy for me to say...we'll see what I saw when my now 9-year old boy is in college. If he's able to be successful at work, support and encourage him there. Maybe point out some of the ways that school would help him to be successful in things that he is passionate about, but don't be overbearing. Let him decide for himself when the time is right.