#ParentingTips #ToughLove #ParentingStruggles
Hey there! It sounds like you’re facing a really tough situation with your son, and I totally get where you’re coming from. Dealing with a young adult who seems to be lacking direction can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening. But before you make any decisions, let’s take a step back and consider some potential options and advice that might help you handle this challenging phase of parenting.
Understanding the Situation
It seems like your son is going through a period of rebellion and uncertainty, which is not uncommon for young adults. However, it’s essential to address these issues before they become deeper-rooted problems. Here are some possible steps you can consider taking to support your son and help him find his way:
1. Open Communication
Have a heart-to-heart conversation with your son. Express your concerns about his behavior and its impact on your family. Let him know that you genuinely care about his well-being and future.
2. Set Clear Expectations
Establish clear guidelines for his behavior and responsibilities at home. Make it known that respecting others, fulfilling his obligations, and contributing to the household are non-negotiable expectations.
3. Seek Professional Help
Consider seeking the guidance of a counselor or therapist, who can provide your son with the necessary support and guidance. Sometimes, young adults benefit from talking to a neutral, outside party.
4. Encourage Personal Growth
Support your son’s interests and ambitions. Encourage him to explore potential career paths, hobbies, or educational pursuits that align with his passions. Helping him discover his purpose can make a significant difference in his motivation and attitude.
Applying the Teachings of the Bhagavad Gita
In times of uncertainty and struggle, ancient wisdom can offer valuable insights. The Bhagavad Gita, a revered spiritual text, provides guidance on navigating life’s challenges and finding inner strength. Here’s how you can incorporate some of its teachings into your approach:
1. Encouragement over Criticism
Instead of solely focusing on your son’s shortcomings, emphasize his positive traits and potential. Offer encouragement and support to uplift his spirit and inspire new beginnings.
2. Self-Reflection and Responsibility
Encourage your son to engage in self-reflection and take ownership of his actions. Emphasize the importance of personal responsibility and the impact of his choices on his future.
3. Patience and Understanding
Practice patience and understanding as your son navigates his journey. The Bhagavad Gita teaches the value of compassion and empathy, which can foster a deeper connection and understanding between you and your son.
Ultimately, the decision to ask your son to leave home is a significant and difficult one. Before taking such a step, exhaust all other avenues and alternative solutions. Your son’s well-being and future are worth the time and effort. You have the opportunity to guide him toward a path of growth and fulfillment, and with patience and determination, positive change is possible.
I hope these suggestions provide some insight and direction as you navigate this challenging chapter in your son’s life. Remember, you’re not alone, and with understanding and perseverance, you can help your son find his way. Good luck! 😊
This will either go maybe well , or extremely bad …. I’d discuss what he feels like he wants to do with his life and talk about the future . Not in a nagging way… but a way for him to think to himself also what he may enjoy doing or wanting to get into
If your son was competent, responsible, and respectful only a couple of years ago, and is now missing work, sleeping all day, and being selfish and irresponsible, it sounds like something is wrong and he needs help. Did something bad happen that could have triggered this? Don’t kick him out at this point – go for a walk with him, or take him out for a beer, and express your concerns. Tell him his behavior has become unacceptable, but you’re more worried than mad because 1) this is new 2) it’s out of character and 3) he’s hurting himself more than anyone else. Make sure he knows you’re there for him, ask him if he needs help, and encourage him to seek it. This all sounds like a cry for help, honestly.
You are his parent and he is living under your roof. You help mold him into the person he is. This is not normal young adult behavior. This is being lazy and irresponsible because he’s allowed to be. You don’t have to be harsh, but TELL him your EXPECTATIONS if he is to continue to live under your roof. Stick to your guns. Do not make empty threars or say anything you won’t follow through with or he is only learning there are no consequences. Good luck!
Have you considered charging him rent so that he has to hold down at least a part-time job? Where does he get money from? Are you financially supporting his lifestyle?
Did you and he not have a plan for after high school?
I don’t know how this happens if you actively formulate a plan for post graduation before graduation. Like going to college, living here, who pays what or when or how.
What my parents did. What i did with my kid.
Big Difference between kicking out a teen under 18and a 21 year old. If he has no mental or physical issues then there needs to be clear expectations and boundaries set. Figure out what you expect then sit him down, discuss and negotiate if needed. Discuss repercussions if he fails to follow thru in what was agreed to.Also give him a time frame. Just be prepared to follow thru if agreed upon boundaries are broken.
When my youngest graduated, it was just the two of us. His dad bounced and things were desperate. He refused to get a job, refused to go to the JC, or trade school, and just wanted to party with his friends. I quit feeding him. I literally quit buying groceries. You don’t work? You don’t eat. I ate fast food in my car for 4-6 weeks? His pals fed him for a minute. He got hungry and got his ass to work. It wasn’t a very happy year. I’m happy to say we survived. He’s 30 now and has an amazing job and work ethic.
You say you still have younger kids at home, so my solution won’t really work for you unless you want to padlock the cupboards. Desperate times…desperate measures. Best of luck 🤞
First of all, he’s an adult, not a child, even if he is YOUR child. Second, it’s not wrong to have moving out as a consequence for not following certain rules. Those rules could include work/school, showing up to his commitments, and going to therapy and/or drug treatment. Missing a flight to see his dying grandmother due to being hungover is a red flag of something more serious. If he won’t do those things then he should move out. You can always leave the door open to him to return when he’s ready to do those things
Stop giving him money, stop buying him food, charge him rent, disconnect him from your internet.
You are enabling him. Plain and simple. I see you started rent but that ended. I imagine you provide food for him too, gave him a car, he can blast music that affects everyone else.
I think you can do what people are saying and talk with him, try to figure out something that will change this and tell him his behavior isn’t acceptable but ultimately…
I think you have this conversation in conjunction with kicking him out. No matter the conversation you have, you have been enabling him by not being able to set/enforce rules with him. Even if you charge him rent consistently, he is 20 years old. He is going to resent you if you try to control his gaming, music, other habits.
Kicking him out he can still do all the gaming, blasting music he wants, but he will learn quick that he can’t blow off work because he won’t have the luxury of a dad that will pause rent.
Start with changing the wifi password. Wifi password costs $20 a day and only if he went to work.
Start charging rent.
Stop being a doormat and give him rules, if he doesn’t follow them, he gets evicted.
What have you tried? You post outlines the issue but not the methods you have employed to try to correct the issues.
I’m assuming that your son is the product of a different relationship than your other children. That always makes the situation harder as even reasonable rules and boundaries may feel like favouritism.
My advice would be to sit your son down and explain the house rules and your expectation that he either follows them or moves out. Make the rules fair and not too strict – things like, go to work everyday, no loud noise after 10, must be up by 9, must do XYZ chores etc tell him if he gets more than 3 violations within a month you will ask him to move out with 30 days notice. This gives him warning that his behaviour is going to have consequences and provides the opportunity to change. If he doesn’t heed it, well he will have been warned and maybe life in the real world will straighten him out.
The issue is enabling him. Of course he’s not going to change when he’s given a place to lay around and be lazy with no consequences.
Post graduation depression and increased suicide is becoming more common with this age demographic, partially due to burnout after highly rigid schedules and academic rigor, but there are other factors. It’s also possible he might have a chemical dependency. Has he been prescribed opioids? Would he be willing to go to therapy?
Did he go to college? Does he have something that could be described as a career type job, or is he just earning enough to support his gaming, drinking, or partying?
Is it possible he has something else going on (mental health issues, alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling problem)?
If it’s just standard laziness, you need to start enforcing grown-up consequences. Make him pay rent, chip in for groceries, help pay for utilities, share in the chores around the house (the less he works, the more responsible he is for chores). Give him a deadline by which you expect him to move out on his own. Offer assistance in creatine a “launch plan.”
Have him sign a lease agreement that has a finite end date.
You are enabling your son’s irresponsibility. It’s leaving you resentful and allowing him to live like a 16-year-old.
It’s time to set real consequences for choices and make his living arrangements less comfortable. No rent, he gets 30-days notice to vacate. No excuses. I personally would turn the wifi off after you go to bed if he stays up all night it and disturbs the household.
Nothing will change until you change it.
I fell into a depression/some severe anxiety in my early 20s.
Turns out it’s a lot easier to do well in school/college where expectations are very clear as opposed to being an adult where you flounder and have to figure things out yourself.
I decided on grad school and did eventually sort myself out. I’m glad my parents never went nuclear and, for the most part, allowed me some time to sort myself out. When they did nag and demand, it only aggravated me further and pushed me further away. As a fully grown adult, I understand their frustration, but it’s not productive and most young adults do struggle, so at the time it just felt like more people were against me. I’d definitely settle on some sort of action if you feel it’s necessary (charging rent, for example, and saving it for him in the future) as opposed to simply harping and acting like he’s a failure. I’d also look into therapy.
Unless he is actively harming your family, I am sort of failing to see why this should result in you kicking him out. If you do that, I’d definitely expect the relationship to be permenantly damaged. If my parents did that and they had little ones at home, it would definitely feel like they chose them over me.
I’m 35 years old and a parent myself now, for reference.
i assume you pay for his phone and internet? if so, change the wifi password. he really doesn’t need internet access if he’s not in school, it’s not a need. and if you paid for the phone take it back and give him a pay as you go phone with a very cheap smart phone($30) and pay for a couple hundred minutes and texts a month with a very limited data plan.
so you’ve ended the gaming problem and in my experience 21 year olds can’t find a ton of parties on 2G data. at the very least, this will motivate him to get a job to improve his phone.
however, i’d stop taking rent money. that can potentially open a whole can of worms if you start treating him as a renter, he can come and go whenever, cook whenever, etc. instead, make him pay for his own groceries for any food outside of designated family meals. he should also prepare one meal a day for the family if he’s not working and once he starts working one meal a week.
all this takes is follow through. sit him down and tell him with the new year these are the new rules. if the first day he doesn’t cook, he doesn’t eat. he won’t starve and the next day he’ll cook. he’s a grown man and he needs to become responsible. i understand he’s your child but he’s not a child. these are not things you do to a kid but an adult who’s not pulling his weight, tough love.
and no changing wifi or the phone. ever. he can apply to jobs from the library and once he gets enough income, he can move out and get internet at his apartment.
the little bird isn’t leaving the nest, time to give him a nudge.
> Sleeps all day, constantly misses work, and has little to no desire to care about where he’s going in life.
Have you considered asking him to speak to a doctor? This all sounds like Depression to me, his only interests are escapism, and he’s barely able to function in actual “life”.
Considering he was a responsible kid who didn’t give you issues, this change in personality would make me concerned as a parent, not angry and frustrated… yet. I would tell him if he doesn’t see a doctor to see if there’s a diagnosis for Depression there, and he can start taking medication/getting therapy before I start threatening to kick him out.
I was similar to him at that age, but when I was 21, my grandmother had a stroke and I was told by my parents that this was likely to be the last visit to the hospital and no way did I miss it. She was an amazing woman. I’d still be feeling massively guilty even now, 23 years later.
I would say that you have been lenient, because if I had had a much younger sister and I was coming back like that, I would have been dragged out of my bed/room and told just exactly how much time I had left at the house, it is definitely a generational thing though, because my parents grandparents were predominantly born in the Victorian era.
My drinking actually stemmed from several problems, a heap of undiagnosed medical issues and a few problems from my childhood that I really needed to address, confront and deal with.
I would say that he needs to know just how thin the ice is where he’s skating. Sometimes words mean nothing, actions and consequences mostly send a strong message.
Disconnect the WiFi from all of his devices and change the password: he only gets it once he’s gone to work consistently for an entire month so he can pay for rent/utilities. Remind him that this will happen EVERY month too bad so sad. I also agree with putting his rent $$ in a high-yield savings acct so if he moves out then he can use it (but do not tell him the plan!). If he hates his trade then HE needs to start working to save $$ to get into another program…do NOT pay for it! He needs to learn responsibility & consequences for his actions/inactions. If he fights it then give him 30days (with no Wi-Fi) to move out.
I’m assuming you’re remarried and have new children with your current wife? Was there split custody of your son? How much were you involved in his life prior to him becoming an adult? Sounds like there are things that he’s keeping to himself in regards to divorce.
The main motivation for young adults to move out is freedom. They want to live life how they want to and so they make it happen, then they struggle and have to get themselves straightened out, their priorities align, and they fall into the groove of life.
Baby birds don’t leave the nest until they feel too crowded and like they’re suffocating. The amount of freedom and comfort your son has at home outweighs his motivation to grow up and create his own path, create a life for himself.
Get ready for an explosion of feathers as this one takes flight and leaves the nest! It is your house, your rules, and you need to start restricting his comfort and restricting his freedom.
For me, my family gave me an early curfew, 8 pm. And they gave valid reasoning behind it, the dogs would bark when I got home at 9:30 pm or later, and my nana needed to get up at 5 am for work. I was affecting her life. So it was fair, but that didn’t make it any more convenient for me! And that was what did it for me!
Obviously if your son stays in and plays video games, a curfew won’t motivate him. You need to find other ways. He games a lot? Does he slow up the wifi? Then tell him he cannot game when you are using the wifi.
Oh he likes to lay in bed all day? Well you want your home to be family centered, so tell him to come out of his room, we are watching a family movie together. It is not optional. Come play with your siblings and I, now, we are taking turns reading. Doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like it. Come help me make dinner, you need to peel the potatoes. He does not get a choice, he is living in your house and is obligated to join family activities.
He will likely hate you. He will have an attitude. It sucks but you have to be the problem for a little bit so that he can move out and learn that he was the problem lol.
When I was his age, my mom gave me two options. Go to college or get a full time job. I chose college. In order for her to support me (I worked in college but she helped with tuition) I could not take semesters off and I had to keep a certain GPA. 20 year old me seriously thought my mom was a controlling slave driver. 29 year old me is immensely grateful that she set firm boundaries and had high expectations. Despite what the internet may say.. tough love is necessary. You can love your kid so much you allow them to rot and do nothing with themselves.
Charging him rent is a good start. The next step would be asking for a year long career plan. He might not have himself completely sorted out, but he needs to think about his future and career in the long term. Also, apartments institute quiet hours all the time. Create a quiet hours rule and if he breaks it, charge him. My old apartment complex would charge $50 for the first complaint, $100 for the second, and the third time they may or may not allow you to renew your lease. It sounds like your son needs some fire lit under his ass, and it may suck for him right now but he will thank you later on.
Is it possible he might be depressed? Don’t kick him out. Support him. Have open discussions about what might be troubling him.
There feels like a lot of missed info here: why do you have a 3 year old, as well as calling his grandmother “your ex mother in law”?
What happened to his his mother in the time that he was a “respectful, responsible teenager” to now?
The answers to these questions will probably shed a lot of light on why he is the way he is now, cause it sounds a lot like you and his mum split up/she died, and then you moved on, leading to resentment from his end
He sounds depressed. Has he been to a doctor or spoken to a therapist? What have you done to help him?
Sounds like he’s depressed and maybe has an addiction problem.
There are places that offer treatment for both issues. I’d go to him and say that with an abundance of love and caution you are taking him for a mental health exam.
I’d make it all happen quick so there’s no time to shut it down. Some ERs even offer this service.
I’m a parent with a son who had a similar issue, but he was younger than your son, he did have mental health and addiction issues. He’s doing fantastic now but what he needed what mental health/addiction help not rules/consequences.
I could be wrong that that is the issue, but it’s worth pursuing.
Has he ever been evaluated for depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, etc?
Have you sat him down and asked him what’s going on? Not in a like “you’re in trouble if you don’t get your act together” way, but a “I’m genuinely worried about you and want to help you feel better” way.