Time to change your locks!
When is it time to tell your adult children get the Blank out?
by avidbiblereader 42 Replies latest jw friends
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Brother Apostate
Depends on the kid and how they respect their parent's wishes and rules.
If they don't respect either, then they should get the boot on their 18th birthday, imo.
It's a common problem that numerous parents don't seem to be able to analyze and take corrective action in this regard:
"a rising chorus of psychologists and sociologists says parents simply aren't letting go when they ought to—not only impeding their children's adult independence but also hampering their own post-parenting lives. In the absence of an acute crisis or devastating financial setback, the consensus is that parents should look twice at the reasons they continue to shelter their grown offspring. "If parents can get over the idea that they're not being 'parent enough' or that their kids still 'need' them, then they can get on with their new lives," says Roberta Maisel, author of All Grown Up: Living Happily Ever After with Your Adult Children."
Write-up on this problem in Psychology Today entitled "The PermaParent Trap":
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-2993.html
Cheers,
BA
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jgnat
avidbiblereader, you are doing too much. This child has had it easy far too long. He is going to have temper tantrums for a while until you make it clear you mean business. I fear he will not pay a stitch of rent and will end up back at your doorstep. His life has been sadly short of direct consequences.
Is there a homeless shelter in town? When he gets kicked out after not paying rent/trashing the apartment you just fixed up for him, drive him to the doorstep of the shelter.
If, heaven forbid, he ends up back in your home, I suggest you do the same thing the group homes for teens do here. He is locked out of the house when you go to work in the morning, and it not let back in until you return. What will he do in the meantime, praytell? He may go to the library or career centre and hang out with the other unemployed. Or he might like to be dropped off at the local day-work pickup.
Give him strong motive to find work like regular peoples. Boredom and weather are a big motivators.
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Brother Apostate
Here's some good books on the subject that might help you out:
BA
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blondie
ABR, I hope you didn't sign the lease or co-sign any loans.
Get the locks changed too at your place and make sure your wife doesn't give her son a copy of the key.
Blondie
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jgnat
Now, I might mention, as a single parent my word was always bond. This was strictly for survival, otherwise I would have drowned. When I had to kick out my adult son for bad behavior, he never doubted that I meant it. I had no trouble convincing him he had to go. On the other hand, neither child doubts that I love them down to the core of my being. I just think it is a greater love to teach them to stand on their own two feet.
Your son has a long history of being bailed out NO MATTER HOW BAD he behaves. You have a few battles on your hands until he realizes you mean it this time.
When I lived in Innisfail, I would watch the teen raven chicks in the fall. That was about the time the parents had finished teaching them to forage for themselves, and suddenly cut off the food supply. The half-grown chicks would mournfully follow their parents all over town, cawing endlessly. The parents quietly fled from tree to tree, chicks following. After a few weeks of hunger and howling, the chicks caught on.
A lot of my opinions about parenting young adults came out of watching those raven chicks.
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Dune
I'm 20 and still live at home.
I'm in college and work part time, I pay $300 - $400 a month for rent depending on if i'm on break and have done so since I graduated from high school two years ago.
I've considered moving out, but a decent place in this area costs $500+, and with car insurance and school, I cant really afford that at the moment.
I have alot of friends who've moved out, but their parents are paying for their apartments and houses.
It does suck that i cant have parties and cant have any visitors( )over (family is still in the borg), but I think free homecooking is a pretty good deal.
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Junction-Guy
I would say you have done more than your fair share as a parent, and if he doesnt change his act, then out the door he goes.
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95stormfront
My son was finally convinced that he need to head for the door at 19. By then, I'd had it up to my neck with his BS. Running in and out of my house all night whenever he felt like it waking me and the wife up, disappearing for days at a time with us not knowing whether or not he was coming back and when, disrespectful, keeping his and the second bathroom filthy room ( I actually caught him pissing in the tub), dropping classes in college until finally quitting altogether, eating up all the groceries in contrast to the few bags he was bringing in, jumping from job to job all the while never having any money or it was always a problem of some type keeping him from paying rent, but finding money when it was time to go and party with his friends, and porn surfing all night and day on the internet I was providing. After coming home from one of his weekend disappearances, the look on my face told him everything that he needed to know. It was time for him to GET THE HELL OUT!!! And he did by the end of that month.
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Stealth453
He quit school at age 16 after being expelled now at the 10 day max everytime 22 times Can't keep a fulltime job and only works 20 hours a week Sleeps until 2-4 in the afternoon, Does drugs in and out the house Drinks our liquer and brings it back to the house with his underage friends, we have to chase them out Doesn't clean ANYTHING Refuse to pay $25/ week rent that we would give back to him when he leaves Has stolen from us a multiple times Gave him a car that he has trashed, paid 7 times to get it fixed, paid for first 6 months worth of insurance, paid his fines Leaves a mess everywhere in the house Yells and curses at his mother Throws his cig butts everywhere Has almost burnt the house down by cooking for hours in the early morning a cooking mit Bedroom trashed unless his mother cleans it He is completely difiant, immature, a complete mess, lazy and we are done with it. You are about 10 minutes late in my opinion. You have my sympathies.