DS 17, who's deluded- me or him??

This is exactly the approach I will be taking with my DS13. He is very clever, but has been adamant he is not going to university, since he was 5 🤣Thinks school is a waste of time and needs complete overhaul. Puts his energy into his own interests eg learning Spanish independently , but has to do French GCSE 🤣

there only a very small percentage of creators in relation to the amount of users make a living from tik-tok. Tell him to get a real job and do something worthwhile with his time. Tik-tok will be gone soon enough...

His attitude stinks as well, no idea how to fix that though.

Boys do mature later. My ds eventually pulled his finger out.

Leave him to come to his own conclusions but make sure he’s paying you a decent sum for rent and board - even if you secretly save it for him. He still needs to support himself even if his head is in the clouds.

I would imagine the successful TikTokkers are probably actually quite intelligent and/or hardworking. Unless DS has a completely different attitude to TikTok than he does to schoolwork then I don't see him going very far. And even if he did work incredibly hard at it, it's a really risky path with no guarantee at success even for the talented.

This is the sort of thing they should warn you about when you're deciding whether or not to have children, isn't it? Because you're trapped now. As a fall back, consider moving house without telling him where you've gone.

He is totally deluded. I only managed to start earning enough money to buy a nice house and have a decent salary as a single parent by getting a degree and working my arse off. Not messing about on my phone.

You should definitely be taking rent from him, if you aren't already. Not a prohibitive amout that he can't afford. But something that means you're not subsidising something you don't want to subsidise. Also so it's not so comfortable for him to coast along not doing much. You can't really make him get an apprenticeship if he doesn't want one, as he's a grown man. But by the same token, he has to live with his decisions and not have Mummy bail him out.

It's not unreasonable of him to try something, but it is unreasonable to look down his nose at people - it's actually a really horrible attitude that doesn't cast him in a good light. Also will likely prevent him ever having a career or promotion doing what he's doing now. It's unreasonable for him to think it's a magic bullet though. Also for him to expect you to support it long term. I feel an equivalent of an earlier time, was teenagers who thought their band would make it big. Of course it did work for some people, but only a tiny fraction. And the ones it did work for, we're also in employment at the time, for the most part.

We have similar with DS (also 17) but he does currently go to college, learning a skill. He had a HUGELY difficult time at high school, struggled with MH, suicidal ideation and hardly attending the last two years. Thankfully college has been far more positive!

He’s dabbled with trading and bitcoin (bit beyond me) and did manage to earn around £1500 from it! We had obviously discouraged it but he was insistent he could make money and he did!

The problem is that even though he’s no longer trading, I imagine he has this belief that he could actually go back at any point and earn even more!

I think the problem these days is there are so many SM posts on ways to make money, many are blinded by this and are deluded! It can happen though but it’s good to have a back up plan.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship

a lot of companies need people to manage their social media content so that could be a career to aim for but he does need to try get qualifications/experience.

Let him get on with it.

He might make lots of money or he may not. But you can't force him to study if he doesn't want to.

But I think if he is working he needs to make a contribution to food and electricity. And don't help him out with other expenses. Just keep saying "use your tiktok earnings to pay for that"

Let him see for himself whether it's viable or not.

You can earn a lot of money from it but you need to have something interesting to say and be good at selling yourself and be willing to put in a lot of effort and work. Does he have that?

I think she should try not to be dismissive of it but also try and direct him to also having something else career wise alongside it.

We all thought we'd be earning a great salary in a great job by the time we were 18. I remember it well. Only now I see how unrealistic that was!

He's got a right cheek looking down on others because of what they do. That's so disrespectful. He doesn't know their behind the scenes family or health struggles or stories. He's bang out of order.

As others have said, he needs to get on and work towards his dream. He's had partial success to get any income at all but if he's not getting any more money as time goes on, it's clear he needs to change something because £50 doesnt pay the bills

A digital marketing course would help.

The first reality check is to start charging him rent and keep at a realistic rate.

The second would be to talk to him about his attitude towards his colleagues and others doing essential jobs to keep society going.

Thirdly, don't discourage him from his dreams, he may make it or find out the realities don't match his dreams by himself.

Why not encourage him to follow his dream up? We were talking about this a while back and DH said he wanted to be a footballer when he was a kid and pointed out becoming famous via tik tok, insta or whatever is probably more realistic.

Where do you go to see available apprenticeships pls? Thanks

Was it his choice to do A levels or yours?

Yes or apprenticeships in media

Get him to a careers advisor so he has professional input.

Maybe a BTEC in media production might be of more interest then A levels or supermarket work.

Looking down his nose at his colleagues. did ge forget he works there too?

What does he make videos about?

Maybe look into apprenticeships around media and marketing!

If he doesn't have a strong work ethic, as implied by your OP, and he already has a judgemental snooty attitude on people making on honest living I would say he is deluded thinking he'll be a tiktok sensation.

Successful content creators are extremely dedicated and many of whom base their content on specific skills they've honed. I too am curious as to the type of videos he's making?

He’s got a job, which is good and he’ll have to learn the hard way that unless he’s the next viral sensation tik tok is just a side hustle. I understand- from a relative who is an Instagram influencer that in the US you get paid megabucks but here it’s not as lucrative. Relative also has a ‘basic’ job here similar to your ds.
Im waiting for my eldest to realise their degree will be pretty useless in terms of income generation unless they really push and ‘sell out’ - but they have to learn these things.

As he’s not happy about working in a supermarket he needs a trade skill. What can he do? He shouldn’t look down on people working in jobs that support us all. He might earn money from social media as his job but he isn’t earning at the moment. He needs a skill and that’s through training. I’d advise a college course in a trade. He could apply now. He could look at website design as well as traditional trades.

It is possible, but highly unlikely he will make it big on Tim Tok, and even if he does, its a shirt lived "career" for most.

His attitude towards his co workers is very sad - when I was a student I worked for M&S, at the same time Calvin Harris (DJ, Musician etc..) was a trainee manager at another M&S store and was just breaking through.

We all followed his progress, and he spoke fondly of his time at M&S (it was in fairness a superb employer back then), we felt proud of his achievements and happy for him.

I think I would let him run with this whilst secretly rolling my eyes.

At some point a part time job in the supermarket at such a young age isn’t going to be enough for him or pay enough for him to have independence from you and something will have to happen. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility he could make money from tik tok but he’s got to put the work in aim for more than £50 a week. I think I would let it run its course.