I'm finding it very difficult to find a way forward with my eldest son at the moment. He's 18 now. Whilst at school he was known to be very intelligent but never performed well and scraped through 3 GCSEs; his plan at the time was to join the RAF which didn't work out so we were left high and dry for a year whilst we tried to work out with him what to do next. In the end he applied for business studies at college. Although he came below the stipulated grades, he was allowed in because he showed potential and intelligence. After a little more than a term it was obvious he wasn't coping. He never gets down to self motivating himself to complete work and organise his time (he is much more motivated to look in the mirror, do hair and chat online). College were extremely supportive but in the end the situation became so bad he was asked to leave. He registered online for the apprenticeship programme and applied to a local marketing company (which sounded right up his street). Once again, he wowed in the interview and was accepted. However, once again, six weeks in he was depressed and stressed. Part of this I can understand because he was involved in doing lots of 'cold calling' which is never good at the best of times, but he coped with it badly and last Friday handed in his notice as he said he couldn't cope with a couple more years of calls.
So we're back to square one. He now says he wants to run his own business. I've spoken to him and told him the main thing he needs to do is decide what he really wants to do but also earn some money. How do you cope with a mixture of arrogance and defensiveness, the accusations that I don't have faith in him to get his life together and yet I can see he has no self motivational push or, really, any knowledge of the big wide world out there. We live very rurally so not easy access to resources (although buses from village four miles away so not impossible). His father and I are taking the approach that we will obviously take care of him, feed and water him, etc, but that he needs to get organised to earn money, even on a casual basis, rather than let everything take care of itself. Anyone else coped with anything similar?
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Teenagers
School, college, job...all ground to a halt :(
30 replies
whenigrowup · 25/05/2011 09:49
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