It's a bit of a long one but I just can't decide whether we are being unreasonable or not.
We don't give our 17 old pocket money as he doesn't help out around the house, we have had lengthy conversations explaining all the responsibilities of a household and asked him to just help out with something every day, ranging from feeding the fish to putting the bins out, but he just can't be bothered. We tried GoHenry a couple of years ago with good opportunities to earn money but he wasn't interested. He had a job in the summer and we advised him to save up for when the job ended but of course he didn't listen.
He has now changed colleges and we have said he has to pay for the bus himself. It's a bit of a long walk but it is walking distance and not much further than his old school which he used to walk to every day. He doesn't want to walk and I don't know if we are being unreasonable expecting him to pay for the bus if he wants to get it.
We put him on our insurance to try and teach him to drive but he wasn't interested as it's too much effort. This puts me off giving him lifts as he has had the opportunity to learn to drive.
He is making minimal effort to get a job. We are reluctant to start giving him money now as I don't want him to learn that he can just get handouts if he doesn't bother doing anything, we really want to instill a good work ethic in him but it's really hard.
I think if he was to make an effort in looking for a job, make an effort at college (third time sitting GCSEs and he is doing no more work than the first two times), help out around the house (even if I do persuade him to do something it's always half arsed so I have to redo it), put the effort in to learn to drive, I might feel differently but I am really reluctant to enable his laziness by giving him money every week.
Are we being unreasonable?