To ask how you are supposed to discipline 16 year olds

[B1gL1ttleStar]

I really am at a loss.

Ds is rude, disrespectful and lazy. Will be doing ALevels next year and I foresee much laziness as regards school work and X Box time.

Dh helpfully said in front of him that it’s time to leave him to it and the parenting days are over. Ds keeps firing that at me now.

The polite suggestion that he do the small amount of homework he has been set today was met with rudeness, foul language, disrespect and the fact that my parenting days are apparently over.

I really am at a loss as to what to do. Dh doesn’t like the stress taking phone away as a punishment brings and says he’s an adult and it’s an infringement of his rights. He also says we should have nothing to do with school work or trying to get him off his xbox now. All in front of him. The consequences of him having no future is a big enough punishment apparently.

Seems to me that giving ds all day Xbox time and no consequences for not carrying out his responsibilities is ridiculous. Surely us working full time, cooking, cleaning and washing for him whilst he sits on his backside is educating him that you can put in zilch and get back everything.Surely at 16 you’re still learning and need guidance/ immediate consequences.Why should we fund him to do very little?

I have taken away phone and Xbox as punishments( when he swears at me ) which causes WW3. I have suggested during lock down he has 3/4 hours out of 16 hours away from screens and is off them by 10pm.Both of them say I’m a dictator.Apparently I’m a Hitler and doing it all wrong as regards discipline so with that in mind I’d like some proper guidance.

If you have a 16 to 18 year old in full time education what are your expectations and consequences re laziness and rudeness/ disrespect?

What are your expectations and consequences during lockdown/ holidays?

I've learnt the hard way.

My ex constantly undermined me. It's shit. It causes problems. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

My suggestions. Never raise your voice. In fact, lower the volume as you speak. They instinctively have to concentrate more to hear you. A little bit more goes in each time.

Never tell. Ask. With a smile. However false it feels

Rewards not punishments work better imo. You want them to do xyz by a certain date, and then of course you will be happy to authorise the direct debit and pay their phone bill the next day. They have a lot of input in what xyz.will be. Teenagers like to tell parents. So let them, within a controlled manner.

Kitchenware. My favourite bugbear. Each person in the household has one of each item. They are responsible for washing and keeping their own clean. I am more than happy to dump soup in an unwashed milky cereal bow if they couldn't be bothered earlier.

Basically, living with bolshy teenagers is like controlled warfare. Pick your battles, smile serenely and don't show a hint of weakness. Or they'll have you.

He wants to be an adult
Treat him like one

Stop doing:
Laundry
Cooking
Tidying his room
Cut the internet to his devices - Change the wifi code.

Untill he can have some respect for you

Shocking confession here...I don't discipline and never have. Mine are 15 and 12 and both well behaved and doing well at school. Both polite and sensible. I have always discussed and explained consequences....and allowed them to learn by mistakes made. They've never been mean or disruptive, never been aggressive either. The only thing I did that resembled consequences was to remove toys when they were small and had arguments over them. When they made up I returned them.

We sat ours down at this age and had a family meeting.
Explained that we are all grown ups and we all contribute to the mess in the house so all needed to contribute to the clean up.
We then divided all chores and produced a chore chart that lives on the kitchen door to this day.
DD’s are 22 and 23 now.
The do their own washing and clean their end of the house, including bathroom and toilet.
We do our end.
Everyone cooks at least once a week and cleans up once a week as well.
Chores allocated depending on uni and work requirements. His work is school at the moment so that needs to be in the plan as well.
They see us stick to the plan and stick to it themselves.
If he chooses not to stick to the plan, then you have the right to treat him like a child , his choice.
DH needs to be on the same page.

Tske a hammer to the xbox

I've had similar problems over the years with 2 x DS aged 22 and 17. Not willing to help around the house, bedrooms like pigsties, glasses and plates left in bedroom etc etc.....if you have the opportunity (which may be difficult at the moment) change your Internet over to Sky. They have this great app called Sky Broadband Buddy. This allows you to monitor which bits of kit log onto your internet in the house. You can set it so that certain things cannot access the internet between certain hours, and also you can just randomly block items from internet connection. So now if our kids are asked to do something and it doesn't get done within a reasonable period of time, internet access goes off. It's amazing how this focuses the mind !!

You do need support from your other half with this, and it's worth the short term pain of being called 'power-crazy' and 'you're loving this, aren't you?' type replies that will almost certainly come your way, because they will realise that you do hold a little bit of a bargaining tool against them.

Just look forward to one day when you visit your children in their house when you will be able to slam their doors, leave all their lights on, prep some food in their kitchen and leave the place looking like WW3 has happened, and generally create an absolute stink when you don't get what you want and then walk out. When you walk back in, act like nothing has happened and ask them to lend you a tenner that you promise to give back when you are next paid. I will be flamed on here for suggesting this, but you have to do the above at least once when you get the opportunity.

Sorry OP, none of the advice on here will work unless your OH is on board.

You must be so lonely. I have two boys, younger than your DS. I can’t imagine what it would be like if DH didn’t have my back (and me his) when we need to tackle this kind of thing. We don’t always agree on how to handle situations, but we do manage to find a compromise usually.

Has your oh always been like this? Opting out, sitting back, undermining you. How did it get to a stage where your son thinks it’s ok to swear at you, in your house? That doesn’t just happen overnight.

Discipline or rather learning what is acceptable and what is not starts at a young age or should do. You are reaping the absence of not putting boundaries down from an early age. Teens are hard because apart from the fact that their brains are going through a complete rewire during puberty, raging hormones, inability to fit into a category as they are neither children or adult, confusion, wanting to be independent but wanting to cling to childhood blah blah blah! You have to be the adult here. Maybe it's time to try and sit down with your son alone and try to talk to him bearing mind the above frustrations on top of lockdown. Then you need to do the same to your husband and explain to him that he is not acting as a responsible adult and father. If all else fails then go on strike. And yes I would have took a hammer to the x box a long time ago or removed the wifi a long time ago! Good luck but remember you reap what you sow.

You aren’t responding to people suggesting you change WiFi password etc: what are your thoughts on this?

i don't think your parenting days are 'over', i think it's about learning to parent differently.

It's confusing because none of us are sure where adulthood starts anymore: sure, age of consent at 16, legal adulthood/ voting at 18, but in the past few years we've discovered human brains don't fully mature until the mid twenties (and looking back on my life I can see this was absolutely true for me).

So you still have a moral obligation to go on providing support until you feel your teen/adult child is mature enough to go it alone but I guess the discipline side is going to be really tricky. My eldest is 14 so i still have all this around the corner so no advice as such. Watching with interest though.

Turn off the WiFi! That was always the magic threat when mine were that age and being arses. Also being an adult does not mean you are surrounded by magic cleaning fairies and get to sit on your bum all day!! When he does leave home he will probably house share and will need to have an idea about pulling his weight. My laziest teen has now successfully houseshared for the last few years so I like to think that the nagging paid off.. Putting energy in now does, in my experience, lead to happier and more confident young adults with more cop on on how the world works

Your husband and your son are ganging up on you.

Neither show you respect and it sounds like they enjoy winding you up.

Your husband won't change now.

Turn Wifi off/remove Xbox but I suspect your husband will help your son get round whatever you try to do.

What a waste of your son's potential.

Good luck OP

Difficult at this age, as they are struggling with being isolated from their friends which may add to bad behaviour or result in them feeling down. My ds 17 is in same year at college he wasn't working well before xmas so i cut off all financial support for anything social, clothes etc. No more £20 to go to the pictures etc. He realised how much he took for granted and is now working at his expected levels He swore at dd in early lock down. I have warned him about this so i said nothing and quietly went into his room and took his xbox controls which i kept for 2 days . During this time he really turned around - he knew it was childish and gave hime time to think about whether he wanted to be treated like an adult or a child. Be strong and don't give in ( your dh should so this too!) Anyway sometimes they need a nudge and time to work it out for themselves. Being too punitive about too many things will not achieve anything - they need to make mistakes as well as successes-difficult to stand by and watch with college work but he needs to do it himself - you cant sit the exams for him - good luck !

Your Husband is an arsehole, OP, and until he decides to grow up and parent, you're fighting a bigger battle than one person can handle. I don't think this battle is about your son at all - he's a bolshy kid caught in the crossfire of a Dad who is categorically a disrespectful piece of shit. Whilst your son is equally rude, any real parent would have pulled him up on his nonsense way before this point - your DH is your issue here. I can't even imagine DS14 here speaking to me like shit let alone DH laughing along with it - DH isn't perfect by any stretch and our DC can be fuckers, but disrespect gets met with an immediate "fuck, no" from both of us because it crosses a line.

As pp's have suggested, think about switching it so you treat him as an adult; rent, food, laundry are all things he can now organise himself.

Your DH isn't going to back you on this, though, so only do it if you're confident you can maintain it. Personally I'd be questioning continuing to be married to someone so fucking stupid. I'd also be disengaging with the pair of them; they want to live their "lads, lads, lads" lifestyle of treating you like shit, switch off and ignore them both. They're hungry? You made your own supper a while ago, they can sort themselves out. No clean pants? They know where the washer is. No food in the cupboard? Etc.

I think you need to stop the focus on them. Focus on yourself; work out a plan so that when quarantine ends, you have an idea of what you want to work towards. If it's removing the shithead Husband, read up on how you'd go about that and make one change each day towards completing that goal.

I’m sorry but I think with your DH’s attitude and the fact that your DS is 16, I’m not sure you can change much now. They don’t respect you. That’s what it boils down to sadly. And there’s nothing much you can do to fix that.

Like a PP says - focus on you now. Sadly natural consequences of failing will be waiting for your DS and he can thank your DH for it.

In a couple of years your DS might wake up and realise he’s been an arse but when he’s been raised witnessing your DH disrespect you and allow DS to swear or be rude to you, he probably won’t. Sorry to say it.

Are you any good with a screwdriver OP?

After the next bout of rudeness/poor behaviour etc, wait until your DS is out or in the shower, in the sitting room or somewhere else in the house and remove his bedroom door. The conversation will go something like this I expect:

DS:"where's my effing bedrocm door etc"

You: "no son, not your bedroom door, MY bedroom door, in MY house, therefore I get to choose what I do with it. At the moment, due to your choosing disrespect, swearing and general crap behaviour etc, I CHOOSE to take MY bedroom door off and put it elsewhere. A choice from you to improve may mean I make a different choice."

He'll probably tough it out for a couple of days but then you'll see some improvement.

You can of course ramp it up with things like WiFi passwords "no son, not your WiFi MY WiFi etc"

You will of course need your DH's backing

100% agree that this is a DH problem. He straight up does not respect you, not even enough to disagree behind closed doors. This is what is driving your son's lack of respect for you.

You need to get some time alone with your DH and try to get him to understand that his lack of respect for you is the cause of the problem. If that fails, go on strike. Do nothing for either of them.

Your son is mimicking the terrible behaviour and disrespect your husband is showing you. Nothing will improve until you sort out that first.

I’m with the DH TBH. Beyond a certain age you can’t treat your offspring like a baby and you have to let them find their own way. Does this mean you should wash their clothes or feed them? No. That’s the quid pro quo.

Ultimately if he wants to play Xbox all the time BUT he contributes towards the house in other ways like with chores, money, or whatever, that’s his choice. You need to work out the quid pro quo. Another poster above put it quite well

Treat him like an adult then. Demand rent. Lock up the food. Cancel or password restrict the wifi. Don’t do any washing or cleaning or cooking for him.

He’ll soon change his tune. It is no longer your job to chase after him or steal his possessions

I don't think you necessarily got it wrong wrt the mess other than engaging in further debate about it with your dick of an OH. I'd be making it quite clear to him that as he's clearly given up on ds you won't be seeking his opinion or approval of your parenting in future but nor will you tolerate him undermining your or butting in. Either be with me or shut the fuck up.

I'd be taking a very firm stance with ds on his attitude and lack of contribution to the family in terms of chores but do think at his age school work and screen time may be on him (although our WiFi goes off 10pm-8am so the whole family have to switch off then regardless). I have a 14 yr old so slightly different but he is testing me right now with backchat and inability to engage with the rest of the family so today he's found himself without a phone or PS4. He then swore at me so has lost both for a 2nd day. And so it will continue. He sulked for an hour but is now sitting in the garden reading.

Big DH problem.

But also basic principles. You don't get rights without responsibilities. Make him earn everything he thinks he has a right to, by showing he has the responsibility for it

You have ALL my sympathy, OP.
But, you are not going to get anywhere now by trying to control or directly change your DS (or DH). Your son is too old. And if you DO get cooperation from either of them it will be grudgingly.

The consequences for your DS will come naturally.
Look at what those consequences could be:
If he DOES play x-box 24/7 and do zero school work, he may potentially down the line: a) get headaches b) get lonely c) get fat and spotty d) fail his exams (assuming he’s taking them) e) struggle to get a job he likes.

But if you keep nagging and trying to be in control, the consequences could be seriously damaged relationships, and still no change.

My suggestion would be: Give up and back off, don’t be bitter about it just become more focussed on yourself and self-care amid the chaos so that if the shit does (it may not- this could just be a phase) hit the fan for your son, you have both a good enough relationship with him for him to ask for help and the ‘zen’ within yourself to help him effectively through to the other side.

It’s really all you can do once they’re in their teens. No form of punishment is ever going to work without breeding huge resentment. Teens are notoriously difficult. It’s part of learning how to be an independent person, like being a toddler. He has to learn through experience but this time the world has to be his teacher, not you. Good luck.

I wouldn’t fight him over the xbox or phone, but since your DS is parroting that ‘parenting days are over’ - agree with him! No problem DS, welcome to the ‘real world’ (not actually the real world bc likely you’ll still cook meals for him, as it would be unproductive to ‘leave him out’ of meals you’ve cooked and much more wasteful / expensive ingredients wise if he is having to prepare his own separate menu) but he definitely should be: doing his own laundry, cleaning his own space (perhaps once a week to your standards before wifi password released for that week?). He likely doesn’t have his own income, but can ‘earn’ his keep either by continuing with his education - actually doing his school work for x hours on weekdays and/or by contributing to household by helping pull his weight - helping cook/clean communal areas. Try and have a frank conversation with him that you won’t be policing his online/screen time but if he really does want to grow up and not be parented this is what’s happening.

If your DH is not willing to parent any longer than I would say he would have himself no way in how your are choosing to parent.

1- take away the Xbox

But a big box with a pad lock and hide the key from your husband too!

2- change the WiFi password, if you don’t know how to then google it.

If your son has data on his phone then!

Step 3- take away his phone.

I don’t give a flying shit if people are like “ his right” you don’t get to treat your parents like shit because you think your a big man.

Anyway where’s he going to go with a nationwide lock down?

Until homework and chores are done then he doesn’t get his little treats.

This includes chores!

They don’t have to be big but maybe once a week make dinner for the family, empty the washing, sort out old clothes.

The more he knows he can pit you two against eachother then the more he will get away with it.

Oh if your husband complains that he has no WiFi simply say that he gets it when DS has completed chores and homework 🤷🏻‍♀️