Teenager Wobbles

Lady_E

I have a 16 yr old nephew who is currently doing his A Levels. He is an articulate, caring, witty and intelligent young man (to me anyway) but today his mother received a letter home saying that he is not performing at all well in his subjects and there are some concerns for his grades. At home he is bolshy , aggressive and seems top think everyone owes him something. He behaves badly towards his mother and sister , and when he sees his Dad , his attitude does not get any better. (Mum and Dad are seperated for the last 2 years). He receives £30 EMA and another £25 which he earns on a Saturday working in a shop. He does not have any goal in his life e.g to become a brain surgeon or a multi millionaire like his Auntie (lol) but sees his future as working in a local skate park for the rest of his life. My sister is at a loss as to how to approach the situation . The crowd he goes about with , all have jobs and one has a car bought by his Daddy, something which my nephew thinks is on the cards for his 18th ...ho hum .
Does anyone have any ideas on how to proceed? My sister and her estranged husband have agreed to sit down with him and discuss the situation , but in an ideal world he needs to realise that he will need an education to get on . Things are so different from when I was a gal , and I guess there is no such thing as jobs for life or job security but how can this be ezplained to him . I have suggested that she starts charging a nominal rent or grounds him for school nights BUT there must be something else ????
Any advice/views would be appreciated - Thank you

savingpennies

I teach A levels to young people such as your nephew. Have his school/college suggested a plan? If he is on EMA and he is not performing satisfactorily then he is unlikely to get the bonus. A hit in the pocket sometimes wakes them up. Do his teachers have any kind of monitoring/warning system (verbal, written warnings if things don't improve, the threat of being told to leave if things continue). This sometimes helps clarify things if they realise they are not going to be allowed to get away with it. His part time job may be one thing to use to talk to him. Many of my students have part time owrk and the low pay and tedious nature of their jobs is often enough for them to realise they can do better but only if they have the right education/qualifications. They are a difficult age group - they feel they are adults and that their parents/teachers haven't a clue and lead sad lives. I don't know if this is of any help but if his parents have a strategy with him and his school/college and work in partnership they may be able to salvage something. Good luck.

Savvy_Sue

Two things: one is that there was a thread started by aliasojo which is probably down in Discussion Time featuring similar challenges, it might be worth having a look for that. The other is that this is not so uncommon in teenagers!

Plus a son of my friends graduated last year and is working in the local sports shop. Yes, he could do 'better' for himself, but it sounds as if he's happy. If your nephew doesn't currently want to 'get on', there won't be a lot anyone can say to him. I've always threatened my sons with the thought that if they don't get their GCSEs they will be condemned to tidying the underwear at Primark, but maybe for some people that would be the perfect job!

Lady_E

Thanks for these replies , I will let my sister know and she can look and proceed with a plan .
Shows how little I know ,that if you are in receipt of EMA you can also get a bonus , I assume performance related. Things have really moved on . I will look at the discussion time (if I can find it) and have a little read . TVM X

bigburd

My own son is 15 just sat prelims and I know exactly what you're talking about Lady E!! Unforturnately I have it right here at home LOL!! We have the attitude, the lack of motivation for the exams, he has the same expectation that we will hand him anything he wants/need in the future and no effort is required on his part. BUT guess what, he's in for a BIG surprise!!!! I have moaned, shouted, blackmailed(sort of!!) discussed calmly, found internet study help sites for him - well do you know, I'm all out of making all the effort. At the end of the day 16 is still very young. When your nephew leaves school and starts his job there's a good possibility that the low pay and boredom factor will kick in and it's not going to be too late for him to go to college as a step to Uni. If he is in a good peer group at school his friends may start to lose touch too. With all the hostility towards them perhaps his parents should just let him have a taste of reality for a while - making it clear that they are there (but not as an endless source of money!!) to support his decisions.

aliasojo

Oh I do so empathise with you!

Here's the link for the thread I started.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=106303

Unfortunately I have had to accept that my son is going to go his own way and will not listen to anyone else now. I have tried EVERYTHING but nothing has worked for longer than a week.

In the last 3 weeks, I think my lad has been at school for around 3 days in total. He tells me (and his Year Master) that he intends to go back to school properly when the new term starts in the New Year. I don't believe him anymore, I've heard it all before.

His behaviour now is difficult to put up with and I turfed him out to stay with his Dad last week. He's back here again just now but I don't know how long I can put up with him.

He came home at 2.45am this morning with seriously dilated pupils and acting 'twitchy'. He smelt slighty of alcohol but my gut feeling is that the dilation is down to something else.

This is yet another step down the slippery slope for him, but he's not interested in talking anymore and he's too big to lock in his room.

You have to try everything in your power to influence or advise, but at that age......be aware that at some point you may just have to step back and let them get on with it.

Loads of kids at this age will try similar things and act in a similar way, but I think the majority just dip their toes into the rotten side of teenage behaviour and will straighten up and get their heads down again.

I hope your nephew is one of them, Unfortunately I fear my son is not.

hilstep2000

My son is 15, and has recently turned into "Kevin"! He's asleep for most of the day, watching telly or on his playstation for the rest, occassionaly coming down for food!
But then, he also comes to me for a cuddle, makes me a cup of tea without asking, and is a lovely boy underneath.
His schoolwork isn't that great at the mo, but my daughter was the same, she never worked that hard at school, but at college, she shone, and was the best in her year!
I've decided that it's a faze, he'll come round, as she did!

Cariad_3

I have a nearly 13 year old who has a lot of older friends and his hormones are up and down. He is constantly pushing the barriers.
We regularly ground him, cut his pocket money but I give him opportunities to earn his "rights" back like helping around the house, making sure his homework is up to date etc. I'm not sure if this right but it seems to make life a little easier for us all to live with. My o.h and I constantly talk to him and explain to him about "values" and the reason for consequences etc We try and compromise but we are firm with him. He's 5ft 8inches now & very strong so how things will be when he's 6 ft plus I don't know.
It seems to be a constant battle but we try to be consistent. He is a lovely boy but of course he wants to be like all his other friends and some appear to have no boundaries. He's a great lad but who said being a parent is easy? I keep on telling myself this!
Whenever I pass a posh sports car I always comment to my boys that they could have one of those if they do their homework and work hard in school!

Savvy_Sue

aliasojo wrote:

He came home at 2.45am this morning with seriously dilated pupils and acting 'twitchy'. He smelt slighty of alcohol but my gut feeling is that the dilation is down to something else.

Hope it's not as serious as you fear, but in case you haven't seen it I refer you to the sticky Drugs in the Family. Sorry things are still bad: hope he doesn't spoil Christmas for you all.

aliasojo

I haven't actually read the sticky SS, but I was all over the net this morning looking for info and signs. I'll go look shortly though, thanks.

Seems alchohol can give the same appearance so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for the time being......along with a serious drug talk! He swears he hasn't taken or done anything, and since he's usually of the 'so what if I did' type of answer...he may be telling the truth, who knows?

Small glint of positivity........I received a letter today asking for my permission to publish a poem written by my lad. Seems all the schools took part in some poetry competition and his work was chosen from his region to appear in print. Wouldn't credit it would you........stroppy, unmanageable, off the rails, truanting teenager has a flair for poetry.

He'll be telling me he's just a misunderstood soul next. :rolleyes:


Sorry to hijack your thread with more about mine, Lady E. I was thinking about your post a while ago and I think the fact that the crowd your nephew hangs with, are working, is a good sign. Peer pressure counts for such a lot these days, I expect it would probably be better if they were all still in school sticking in and working hard.....but at least his group aren't dossers.

When things look bad to you, you really have to make the effort to look for positives, otherwise I think a self fulfilling prophesy arises. He plays up and underachieves......you almost expect it of him.......he then complies and carries on in the same vein.

Praise any positives you can find. Hopefully a part of the 'previous' lad is still buried within the bolshy 'present' lad and will reappear in time in civilised 'future' lad.

ditzymuppet

Heya......

Sorry, replying to someone elses post :S

https://www.talktofrank.com might have some hints about drugs, and signs of what to look out for...

HTH

As for the original poster, my brother was exactly the same, he's now at Uni after 'scraping through' his A levels (well he was being compared to me that did all okay in my A levels).... He had very little motivation

My mum and dad found that taking the fuse out of the PS2 helped a lot... gained him some social skills anyway (and as he couldn't work out how to get it to work, my mum gave him the fuse in a box on the last day of his exams) *evil cackle*

Good luck with your Nephew (and Happy Christmas Y'all) :rudolf:

~ditzy x