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Original poster

To ask how you are supposed to discipline 16 year olds

219 replies

B1gL1ttleStar · 15/04/2020 11:29

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. HmmHe 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?

OP posts:
steppemum · 18/04/2020 17:42

I want to illustrate how teens minds work.

When schools shut, ds who is 17, and in sixth form, immediately went into holiday mode. Get very cross when I woke him in the morning (even though it was 'school time') and insisted that it was up to him how late he played x-box. He did bare minimum of schoolwork, just about handing in what he had to, but none of the other work he was supposed to do.

So, I said, fine, you are 17, you are accountable to your teachers. It is up to you how you work out the time in the day etc.
2 weeks of bare minumum, 2 weeks of Easter holiday.

2 days ago I dropped a suggestion to my kids that they start to think about how they are going to plan their school day. Ds' reaction - I'm not getting up in the morning!!! I did suggest that he would find it easier if he was at least working for part of the actual day, rather than 100% at night, when everyone wants to play x- box. Then I left it for him to think.

Today in the car, I asked him - what is your plan for school work. I said something about how there will be a difference between those who just scrape through the bare minimum and those who knuckle down and get it done, but that he has to make those decisions for himself. I will support him with his plan, but I'm not going to impose one as we both know that won't work.

His reply? Yeah, if it is going to be for a whole term, then I guess I am going to have to get myself organised. I think I need to come downstairs and work on the dining room table, (which is also where I am trying to work from home!) because when I am upstairs it is too tempting to just go on my phone. So we started to talk about what that might look like. I made a few comments and suggestions and then left it.

Tomorrow we will sit down and come up with a schedule. He will come up with it and I will enforce his schedule, eg wake him up at the right time and so on.

By backing off and giving him some space, and also allowing him to not do well with his school work for those 2 weeks, he has realised for himself that he needs to do more, and now he will. If I had nagged at him, he would have pushed back hard and refused to conform to any of my plans. Teens always respond better to their own solutions

Busymum45 · 19/04/2020 12:22

I told my dh that your son called you the C word, he said if that happened here he'd get a hammer and smash that X box, he wouldn't have one anymore, total disrepect.

merrymouse · 19/04/2020 13:02

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.

Are you providing free phones for any other adults?

steppemum · 19/04/2020 13:06

I told my dh that your son called you the C word, he said if that happened here he'd get a hammer and smash that X box, he wouldn't have one anymore, total disrepect.

great. Teach you son that violence is the answer.
the response to an immature 16 year old being disrespectful = immature violence?

MogeatDog · 19/04/2020 13:11

My son told me to fuck off when he was 13 years old. It precipitated a change in my parenting style - I was treating him like a child and swearing at me was the only ammunition he had. He never told me to fuck off again and I never put him in a situation where he felt powerless.

Theresnobslikeshowb · 19/04/2020 13:17

Change the internet password

Busymum45 · 19/04/2020 15:33

Shut.up

Busymum45 · 19/04/2020 15:34

It's not teaching violence it's taking away the x box , obviously destroying it wouldn't actually happen but it would be disconnected and sold.

CharlotteCollinsneeLucas · 19/04/2020 20:44

What would happen to DH he started, say, taking little bits of money from the office? Would his boss say weekly, you can't do that mate, but be all chummy with him? After all, he's an adult! Or do adults actually get consequences for anti-social behaviour?

CharlotteCollinsneeLucas · 19/04/2020 20:45

Weakly, I mean!

Iadoremylabrador · 19/04/2020 21:10

Your 'D'H is a dickhead. I think that's what DH should stand for!

I honestly don't think there is much you can do when your husband is giving no support.

I think you either need to move out or give up.

steppemum · 19/04/2020 21:11

It's not teaching violence it's taking away the x box , obviously destroying it wouldn't actually happen but it would be disconnected and sold.

but that is not what you said. Many have said remove x-box, only you said you dh would smash it with a hammer.

steppemum · 19/04/2020 21:14

I honestly don't think there is much you can do when your husband is giving no support.

I agree that the dh is being a prick. I agree that things would be much easier with his support. But there is plenty OP can do.

All kids know that parents can parent differently.
if the OP basically says - regardless of what anyone else says, I am saying that this is not acceptable and therefore there will be a consequence, then that is between her and Ds. That can work, if she is determined to do it.

Busymum45 · 19/04/2020 21:25

Yes but it's not the exact way it would happen it's an exaggeration, but I would agree it would be destroyed.

MogeatDog · 19/04/2020 23:03

So you get respect by showing disrespect? I’ve always thought you show your kids how to behave by mirroring good behaviour. Stop take a breather - remember the kid you love, don’t be vindictive- d Sd how kindness and love - walk away from disrespect. Your son loves you but the arguments and aggression are clouding his thinking - think the best of your son, don t give in to bullying language from him - but don’t use it against him either.

bettybattenburg · 19/04/2020 23:13

Swearing at me in unreasonable anger results in the internet suddenly stopping working - I can do it from my laptop. Occasionally the PlayStation remote has been known to end up in the boot of the car when I've been going to work. Profuse apologies and a cup of tea were proffered before I'd even got in the house, he must have been hovering by the kettle Grin

billy1966 · 19/04/2020 23:26

My husband removed the fuse in the plug and that was the end of the ps4...they don't know how he disabled it, to this day.

Controls have gone missing as well. I have messed with out internet too.

It has always bdought them round. They don't pay for it so it is a reward for working as a team.

These are luxuries provided by the establishment.....not entitlements.

One of my son's went through a phase at 16 of comparing our home to a Gulag and complaining about the inhumanity of having wifi privileges removed....oh how I laughed.😂

Your husband's blatent undermining of you and dismissal is such an awful example to your son of a relationship.

Personally I wouldn't be able to look at him, much less share a bed with him.

Your son is learning from his father to be a disrespectful pig to you.

If either of my son's used language like that to me...it wouldn't be easy to move past it...but then it does depend on what you are used to.

I certainly wouldn't be lifting a finger for either of them, thats for sure.

SleepOhHowIMissYou · 20/04/2020 01:45

I'm going to come at this from a different angle.

Your son and husband get on well and seem to be coping with the lockdown in a way that helps them. I assume your husband is working from home? Your son is on Xbox gaming which presumably is with others so this replaces social activities he would normally have at school or outside the home.

Are you working OP because you seem overly invested in how your son spends his time in lockdown?

Respect earns respect. Your husband does not try to dictate how your son spends his time and their relationship remains strong. Your relationship with your son is poor and your behaviour is starting to impact on your relationship with your husband. Your husband doesn't agree with your behaviour. He tells you this. However, you are determined that your son is the problem and are also happy to accept that your husband is the problem but actually you are failing to recognise that within your family unit, you are the odd one out.

Your son thinks you are the problem, your husband agrees with him, how about taking a moment to assess your own behaviour to see why they think that?

Why do you need to control what your son does? These are unprecedented times. If your son chooses to cope with enforced social isolation by using his Xbox to maintain some normality and stave off boredom, why do you get to decide that this is wrong? He is the expert in what helps him to cope with this situation, not you.

Stop setting him up to fail. He made his own lunch, like you asked. He left a mess but, as you said yourself, you were next to make lunch for yourself so why put everything away just for you to get it all back out again?

My advice is to leave your son to cope with this strange situation in his own way and take a look at your own behaviour as it sounds like you're making everyone's life more difficult than it needs to be, including your own.

Before you inflict rules and punishments, ask yourself if you would be happy to have the same restrictions placed on you by someone else. Think about how you challenge unfair behaviour, is it similar to how your son does? You may find an answer to your problem by doing this.

BubblyBarbara · 20/04/2020 21:40

My husband removed the fuse in the plug and that was the end of the ps4...they don't know how he disabled it, to this day.

A teenager who couldn’t diagnose this simple issue doesn’t deserve a games console so win win.

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