To be starting to tire of dh's view of ds

[slugz]

Ds is 14, and imo a great kid.

He's doing well at an ok comp, and is forecast 'A' in every subject he's taking. I've had teachers come to me to say how impressed with how well he works despite there being a lot of very disruptive kids in his class.
He plays for a football team, plays basketball for fun and is in the cadets. He has recently stopped going to badminton (not enjoying it) and athletics (has to wait a ridiculous amount of time in the cold to get the bus home). He does volunteer work with sn kids in the holidays.
When left to his own devices at home, he is prone to spend large amounts of time on the x-box. I have no problem with telling him to turn it off when it gets out of hand.

Dh seems to have got it into his head though that ds will grow up to be identical to the son next door who literally never leaves the house, plays games consoles continuously and generally just sponges off his mum. He's in his early twenties.

He says ds is immature because he makes fart jokes, leaves his stuff around, never reads apart from for school, and generally plays a bit too much x-box. Is this not quite normal for a 14yo? I don't quite get the jump from there to complete recluse. He forgets to hand in homework occasionally (maybe once a month, I know because they send emails)for which he knows the sanctions. For dh though this is a symptom of how extremely unmotivated he is and won't do anything with his life.

It's getting very tiring, because it's coming up more and more as dh is genuinely getting more and more concerned for his future, and I know he's only doing it because he cares, but i really feel like his view is massively unreasonable.

If it's relevant, dh is not ds's father.

Slugz,

The pivotal thing here is that you love your job and your DH hates his - you say you have not been anywhere near a career - so what? You have a job, you have a family and a roof over your head, presumably you are warm and fed?

Given all that and your brilliant DS, you have every reason to be happy. I think your DH should probably hang in tehre until the job mnarket improves and then look into changing jobs. Meanwhile you have much to be happy about and he should learn that.

Neither my DH nor I has a stellar career - we both have decent jobs - I love mine, he has ambivalent feelings about his (likes the work and the colleagues, loathes the management) - and we are happy with our two lovely DDs.

Material goods aren't everything.

And to be an outward bound instructor is ambitious - there is huge competition for these jobs, you need lots of training and the skills you will learn during that time are very, very transferable.

Your DS sounds lovely.

You are not unreasonable. However, I'm not sure your DH is either.

He sounds like he just wants the best for your DS. Chances are, he could do with lightening up a bit. However, it is also possible that your DS could do with playing a small bit less xbox. I'm not definite on either count - they are just both possibilities.

I certainly don't think your DH sounds half as bad as some people here do. I don't blame you for being frustrated either.

I think your DH sounds anxious. But he needs to keep a lid on it. It will undermine your DS's self esteem if he keeps on. He can keep thinking the way he does, but he has to learn quickly the destructive effects of expressing it and keep schtum.

Yeah, I have tried to talk to ds about careers, unfortunately it becomes very quickly clear that neither of us have the faintest idea what we're talking about.

I ask him if he wants to go to uni, he says maybe, what jobs can I get if I go to uni? I realise I have no idea. We try to do some research and immediately become baffled by the variety of courses, and have pretty much no idea what the course content means or what it's useful for.

I then realise that I might be mentioning uni because that's what you're supposed to do, but maybe that's not the best way anyway, but then we have no idea what other routes are even worth pursuing.

I'm hoping there's a good time to figure all this out yet.

Oh, and he did quite fancy being a copper for a while, but he seems to have gone off that.

Which is a shame, since that's actually a job title I recognise.

slugz

www.cumbria.ac.uk/Courses/Coursesbylevel/NewAtoZ/UndergraduateCourseAtoZ.aspx?AZListing_AtoZLetter=o

Try copying and pasting that (can't do links ). I believe they're well-known for doing outdoor leadership stuff.

If it doesn't work, google University of Cumbria and then go to their undergrad course finder and look for 'outdoor leadership'.

Of interest?

Thanks

Slugz - if you are worried about the careers stuff ask at school about an appointment with a careers adviser so your son can discuss some ideas.

At school we are doing options at the moment so have been thinking about careers. Out of 25 kids I am working with, 5 know what they want to do. 3 of them have chosen something very appropriate to them, researched it, started to try it out, and would succeed in what they have chosen. The other 2 have chosen totally inappropriate jobs which for different reasons they do not have the right skills and personality for. The other 20 have no idea. Some know they want to go to college, but thats as far as their thinking goes. Most 14 year olds have no clue.

My brother is one of those adults who spends all day on an x-box and does not work. In his case it is combined with excessive cannabis use when he was young which led for a while to paranoia etc. Playing on your X-box for ages is only a problem if that is the only thing you are doing! If your son has a range of different activities and can turn it off when told to then I don't see a problem.

And... if your schools only negative thing to say about your son is that he occasionally forgets homework, then he is clearly a good kid. If you are worried, then request a quick update from his teachers - tutor or head of year will normally do that for you. But I think you are totally right and have nothing to worry about. Some kids are a big worry by 14, your son sounds great.

Slugz, let him do what interests him education/vocation wise.

If he goes to Uni, make sure he is studying what he enjoys, whatever that may be. Tell him to always do the best he can and if he sees something he wants to do, to look into and go for it.

A grade A student can pretty much write their own future if they put the effort in.

Don't let this misery of an H kill off your gorgeous boy's spirit. I think your H sounds sad, bitter and jealous. His treatment and attempts at programming your DS for failure would be really off-putting for me.

My DS is 5. I genuinely hope my boy is like yours in 9 years time, you sound like you have done a really good job with him and I am sure he will do you proud, in spite of Mr Dampner.