Pointers for 16 year old

westernpromise

aliasojo wrote:

The issue I have is that son doesn't want to stay on at school BUT he doesn't have any alternative options either. He seems to feel dossing about all day is a viable alternative. He doesn't bother even getting up until gone lunchtime these days and the only people he bothers with are lads who have 'dossing' down to a fine art.

Surely he can only do this if you are prepared to let him?

If one is at school, it can seem like an option to simply prolong one's childhood because work sounds so awful. It is, however, only an option to do this as long as someone else is going out to work and funding it all for you. If that stops, what then?

I have never personally had to deal with a teenager. I have had to deal with an other half whose mentality is basically that of the pampered teenager she was. She was once routinely in the habit of threatening to leave if she didn't get her own way, or had arbitrarily decided I was having an affair (don't even go there).

My reaction to that was to say Fine - you want to leave? You go; you go right now, this minute, not at your convenience but at mine. I'll call you a cab and it'll be here in 30 minutes. Then while I'm the phone I'll cancel your credit cards, because those go too, and don't forget to explain to your 80-something parents exactly why you are leaving and why they are now going to have to keep you.

Eventually - and it took years - she got the message. Once she thought about the life she could look forward to, with no cocoon of someone else's money and effort renting her all that insulation from the big hard world, the penny dropped. We don't have those sorts of conversations any more.

I think you had it right when you said elsewhere that his Dad's indulging him would do him no favours. Someone, at some point, has to force him to sample the life he is arranging for himself. You know who that's going to be, don't you?

Boot him out; tell him that you are not prepared to keep house for him and subsidise him so that he can avoid earning a living. That is a career choice made at your expense, and it requires your co-operation, which is not available. So he either stays in education, he gets a job or he gets a ****ing job.

Sometimes you have to be confrontational I'm afraid...and perhaps a start would be to tell him you are going to rent his room out, because you need the money, so he had better be in a position to move somewhere by the time its new occupant is ready to move in. Go in and measure it and write the ad for the newsagent's window. What are we, mid-November? He's moving out on January 1.

I think you have to force him out of the cocoon and see how he likes the crappy dosser's life he thinks is the way forward. Remind him that he has 60 years of that to look forward to and have a nice life.

jobbingmusician

Don't be so hard on him!!!!

Give him till January 2nd....... :rotfl:

aliasojo

I was so tempted to reply to this thread yesterday but I didn't want to tempt fate again so I thought I'd leave it to this morning.

I have to admit to being on a massive downer about son over the last week and I lost my usual coping mechanisms somewhere along the line, which is why I posted so much on here. I just needed to talk about it and I am so grateful to you all for sticking with me and continuing to reply.

However, yesterday morning I woke up with a nicely developed attitude problem and by 9am I had everyone turfed out of their beds and up and dressed. I phoned the Career's Advisory Service and told the poor woman who answered the phone that I intended landing on their doorstep very shortly with my sullen uncommunicative teenage son and I desperately needed someone to talk to him about his prospects. Lovely lady was a bit taken aback and tried to make an appointment for later but I think she heard the desperation in my voice and relented. :rotfl:

Son was only told where we were going when we reached their car park so you can imagine the kind of mood he was in. (Stare at the floor moodily and grunt type of thing.) I have never beat my kids up but by God I wanted to right there and then.

Anyway, very helpful and down to earth lady asked son a few questions and soon realised he was paying lip service to things. She told him that it was his future and he had to start playing an active part in it. She showed him the jobs that were available (7!) in the local area and also told him about apprenticeships but they didn't start until next year.

She said that there was no point in her even bothering to help him find work if he didn't make the effort himself and that future employers don't see months of dossing at home doing nothing as a plus sign and they would be unlikely to seriously consider him compared with other kids who had been doing something even if it was only stacking shelves. We were in there for about an hour all told and by the end of it son had relaxed and was more talkative.

She also mentioned lads who son knew and told him how well they were getting on, on the apprenticeships they were doing.

Upshot of it all was that by last night, son had decided to go back to school this morning. He says the work is hard for him but he will try to catch up as he thinks he might want to apply for one of the offshore apprenticeships that was mentioned, when they become available again next year.

However, he has now also admitted that one of the lads who turned up at our house at 4am over the weekend has apparently been hanging around the school and threatens son regularly and this has played a part in him not wanting to go. He never told me as it made him feel embarrassed to admit to his Mum that he was scared. He asked me if I would run him to school and pick him up which I've agreed to do but it's not something I want to do long term as I would have to run him to school before 9am, pick him up at 1pm, back after lunch at 2pm and then pick him up again at 3.30pm. He wont stay in school for lunch as the lad who has been after him has friends and relatives who are at school at lunchtime. They haven't done anything but son feels really uncomfortable. All son's friends left school as soon as they could at the end of 4th year so he's pretty much on his own right now and is an easy target.

The school can't really do anything as this lad has left and it's outwith school hours and not on school property.

I'm hoping that since we called the Police at the weekend, this other lad will know that although he can intimidate son, there is no way I will put up with his rubbish and will get fed up soon. Hopefully once son has been back at school he will settle in again and might feel easier about things and will be happier about walking to school himself, although if the worst comes to the worst, I expect having to play chaffeur for a few months will not kill me.

I have no idea if this will all work out or not. For all I know, son might come home tonight and say he's not going back again. I don't have the same belief in him as I used to so I can't be confident he will stick to what he says.

It is a start though and things appear to be a little more positive this morning than they were last week. At least today he actually did go to school rather than just talking about it.

On a negative point, my lovely tree in the front garden has been overturned and it's support snapped last night. It may well have been the wind but the weather didn't seem that bad and I'm inclined to think it may have been that lad again. (I wonder if I would be recognised if I wore black and put on a balaclava and beat the little sod up. :think: )

Oh btw....I've also developed a new 'coping mechanism' to add to my arsenal. Instead of being known as the Mum with the problem kids (and as such have to sometimes put up with the 'useless parent' tag).......I have now decide to tell everyone I adopted them! At least that way I now look like a hero for taking on 'difficult' children. :rotfl:

Spendless

Really hope things will settle down for you now:j . Re running to and from school is it the lunch times that will cause you most difficulty? Couple of ideas here-does your son have dinners or packed lunch? I work in a Primary school on a lunchtime and packed lunches go in last, could you find out how schools dinner system works and out him on the opposite to what he normally does so he's having lunch at different time to the others and so is limited in how much contact he has with these other teenagers. Also could your son volunteer to help in classroom either before or after he eats-either helping the younger kids with reading/maths etc or at some sort of lunchtime club which may run (they used to have this sort of thing when I was at school don't know if still do), or in school library. This sort of helping out would be useful to put on a CV when he does start job-hunting.

aliasojo

Yes Spendless, the lunchtimes really cut the day up which means I only have a few hours instead of a full day. Doesn't matter too much if I'm at home anyway, but the days I have to do stuff usually means a trip into town and that's a round trip of an hour before I start. It is manageable, just a bit of a pain and will mean I will have to be efficient and manage my time well. (Not sure I can still do efficient. :rotfl: )

Son's school is one of those modern laid back affairs where everyone just piles in together regardless of class or type of lunch. I've also just found out the common room meant for 5th and 6th year pupils has been closed due to vandalism.

(To think I moved here all those years ago as I thought a quiet Highland town would be a good place to raise kids. :rolleyes: )

As for the volunteering thing, I'll run it by him but tbh...I don't think he's that good a kid at the moment.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

Hurrah - really pleased things have changed for you and your son.

If things carry on as they are you both may be home and dry, however if they don't then you really need to find out what's happened to change his good intentions. Bullying had crossed my mind earlier, and also substance misuse - not necessarily his but amongst those he knocks around with.

Looks like what the careers worker gave him is solid information without them being emotionally involved. If school doesn't work out as you hope, can he move to a sixth form college which would remove him from his school problems and also let him feel he was a student as opposed to a schoolkid? If he has to stay at school can a longer lunch break be negotiated so he can get away earlier than others and return later? making up the time through extra home study? That might increase his confidence and also lessen his dependence on you which should make him feel he's in charge of both the problem and his life.

Lots of luck with this, I don't think you lost the plot I think your posts helped you to get stuff off your chest and work things through which is what helps everyone struggling with a new scenario. Take it easy and keep posting if it helps - Dora

Savvy_Sue

Great news, aliasojo, what a star you found at the Careers Office! Sometimes, the only thing to do is lose it! And I love the idea of saying you've adopted them!

About his fear of lunchtimes: that IS the school's problem, even though no-one's done anything yet, and I would strongly recommend that your son speaks to his tutor or the head of 6th form about it. If he won't, I would.

And I know you feel a bit let down by your son at the mo ("I don't think he's that good a kid at the moment"), but volunteering might be just the thing he needs - and maybe if someone other than you asked him he'd respond better? A quiet word with the head of 6th form, maybe? I know at my sons' school they practically insist the 6th formers do 'good works', because it looks so good on their UCAS forms and job application forms!

Best of luck!