I have very mixed responses to this query.
my eldest g.son (now 23) is autistic, highlh intelligent but very childlike social graces. Despite his secondary school being vey carefully chosen by parents with a good SENs department, it was bad almost from the first term. By year 8 he was not even permitted to come into or leave the school at then normal times, and was confined with with his teacher's aid to having lessons by himself. Only after a huge and expensive battle with the Ed. department did his parents manage to get him to special school for autistic pupils where he thrived.
With four good A levels under his belt he went off to University, where the first two years was top of his cohort. Then he developed Long Covid which has left him terrified of mixing with people. Lectures online are not the same, and he has fallen further and further behind. He has been given a years extension, but we do not think this will help
Next g child down, always a B pupil, coped with A levels during covid lockdown, fortunate that her two closest friends were very high attainers, She is in her final year of Social work degree, a lot of it on work placement, loving it all and I am looking forward toher graduation later this year.
Three of my gchildren are in the same school year -9 (all at different schools. Two (one boy, one girl) are doing fine. No problems whatsoever. The third, puts social life first and has got herself into lots of problems due to this. It is hard being 14 years old!! She is a highly intelligent child, but is now falling behind her class mates. Boy friend problems and then the falling out with other girls in the school, left her truanting, etc. (Her Mum is an Education Psychologist!!!!).
However, I look at my own children. One of them had a horrific late teenage years, constantly truanted during her sixth form years, she ran away just before they were due. for a week she was missing, I was frantic. When found refused to come home, stayed with a friend, did manage to get a part-time job in a shop.
Over the past thirty years all my children have done well in their careers, but that one has done the best and is the highest flier. Found her way eventually into a career that she loves and got her degree when she was in her early thirties (she was then hungry for success and despite having a baby during those study years, breaking up with her partner (the father), and getting through the tragic death of her youngest sibling - she got a first, and began the slow but continual climb up the ladder. Now, she is virtually at the top.
Just saying, not doing well during the school years or getting on course for job/career whilst very young is not the end of it. Many people change course in their thirties/forties often with great success.
People eating and drinking on the go