Nightmare teen

[Theoldyoungmum]

My 17 year old is driving me to despair. He’s got an apprenticeship and is on a decent wage for his age. He lives at home, we make him a packed lunch everyday for work, buy him clothes, shoes toiletries etc and pay his phone bill £56 an month and still take him away on every family holiday. For his 17th birthday we payed for him to undergo an intensive driving course so that he would be driving asap as he was really excited to learn to drive. The course cost in excess of £1500, and we had also given him a car. He passed his test first time. Prior to him learning to drive we had already had discussions on how expensive car insurance would be. We agreed that if we got a few quotes he would save half and we would pay the other half. The day he passed his test we were setting up the insurance and asked him to bank transfer his share. He told us that he didn’t have any money in his account and had not saved as per the agreement. Not to cause any further disagreements and to take the shine off him passing his test - I paid the half we promised and then set up a direct debit to cover the other half which he agreed to pay.

we are now 8 months down the road and he has only paid one months insurance.

since passing his test his car has needed 4 new tyres which I had to pay for, he broke a sensor which I also paid for, he didn’t pay his road tax when it was due so I paid for this also, and its recently had to have an MOT which it failed and then required £560 worth of repairs - he had cracked his rear lights and water damage burnt out the eletrics and he needed a new underarm as he has damaged the under of the car on speed bumps. There were also a few other bits and pieces that needed looking at. I warned him prior to the MOT that it needed some repair work and he should make sure he saved. When we picked the car up again the same old story he didn’t have any money to pay so I ended up footing the bill.

I then made a payment plan for him to repay £50 a week towards the repairs and reminded him that he would also need to start paying his insurance direct debit. We are now 4 weeks down the road and I am yet to receive any money for the repairs and he’s missed yet another insurance payment.

I'm seriously considering cancelling his insurance but then I would feel bad taking away his independence and he needs his car for work.

I keep asking for the money and he says things like ‘you must really hate me to be going on and on at em all the time’ or ‘You make my life so difficult asking for all this money all the time when I just want to go out like a normal 17 year old and enjoy!’ It’s really getting me down and causing a lot of atmosphere in the house between us and my husband.

AIBU if I cancelled his phone bill direct Debit and his insurance and refuse to pay for it anymore?

I think he's very normal 😂Moved away from home to a city in his early twenties, has had the same well-paid job for five years, saving to buy a house, good relationship with his parents but utterly confused as to why they've allowed and enabled this situation to develop. We've been together for nearly ten years so I was an eyewitness to the gradual change in their behaviour, especially after the first grandchild was born when BIL was 17 or so. MIL is baffled when my husband says he would never in a million years have been allowed to go on like his brother is - they had him paying £300+ for his keep when he worked a minimum wage job in his late teens and yet his brother had a decent job for the better part of a year and was charged absolutely nothing even though he, his first son, and pregnant new girlfriend had half of the house for their exclusive use. The brother will say absolutely unhinged things like "why would I pay rent to live in my own house?" and get no pushback at all. He has even complained about his mum using his son's child benefit bank account to buy food and toys for the child instead of paying for it with his dad's credit card!

You will be doing him a favour if you let him fail. Stop paying. Stop facilitating. He needs to become independent. There is time, he's still young. DH sister is 37 and still being bailed out by her parents, it's done her no favours to always have a safety net no matter how unreliable or unreasonable she has been. She still boomerangs back home, not a penny to her name. Do it because you love him - help him be a responsible adult (even if in the short term it's deeply unpleasant)

Bloody hell. As a PP said, he needs a kick up the hole. I'm bringing up dcs on not much more than that - a 17yo living at home should easily be able to save.
If you want him to grow into a mature, capable adult you've got to stop doing everything for him - especially as he talks to you like crap, too!
He wants a car - he pays for it.

This thread has boggled my mind a little! I have a DS 19 who has just finished his first year at uni. When he learnt to drive he was working part time along side doing his A levels. He paid for all his own driving lessons. We did help him with a car for his 18th Birthday. But he has always paid his own insurance. While away at uni between working and student finance he probably gets around what your DS gets every month and he has to pay student accommodation, car insurance and all other expenses we have helped him out with shopping a few times when he was given less hours at work etc. He is now back home for summer working as much as possible saving as much as possible so he can be comfortable when he goes back to uni in September. I don’t charge him as he is saving for uni but if he was home full time and working full time I 100% would expect him to contribute.
Your DS earns more than enough to at minimum pay his own insurance and food/lunch and a small weekly contribution to household expenses. He wants to go out like normal 17 year olds then he can’t afford a car. It’s a valuable life lesson you can’t always have everything if money doesn’t allow it.

Sorry OP but this is a situation entirely of your making...you have provided everything for your DS on a plate and he has no incentive whatsoever to be financially responsible.
You need to sit down with him and talk about budgets etc and how money doesn't grow on trees. If he wants a £56 a month phone then he can pay for it, or you give him a reasonable contribution and he tops up if he wants something better. So many life lessons here!

Stop paying for everything. Right now. You’ve taught him fifty times in a row that when he doesn’t save up and doesn’t pay his share, you step in and do it for him. He’s earning well and at home with minimal expenses. He can comfortably afford what you’re asking, he just knows he doesn’t need to because you will pay.

Let him know from now on his expenses are his own and he can figure out what he does about them himself.

For God’s sake, OP, sort him out. I’ve got two DSs - 24 and 16. Let me tell you where you have gone wrong. He gets everything he wants, by the sound of it. And, not surprisingly, he values nothing. He is, quite frankly, spoiled rotten. Time for him to learn some lessons. Take the car off him and cancel the insurance. He needs to learn how to save up. Learn some responses to the inevitable whining - ‘well, that’s how it’s going to be from now on, sunshine, until you’ve learned to value what we provide’.

DH and I earn well over 6 figures - and we did not buy our DS1 a car. He bought one when he was 21. Until then, he was insured on my old fiesta. He was very grateful. When the cost of living hit him hard in his masters year I paid his car loan for 4 months until his salary started. He didn’t ask - I realised he was struggling and I told him I would do it. Again, he was very grateful. I’m not saying my two are perfect - but yours has turned into a selfish, ungrateful monster and you need to address this right now.

He's incredibly lucky he is doing an apprenticeship where he is being paid on the job to learn meaning his free time is his own. Many 17 year olds are studying and working every hour they can to afford what your son has.

Sorry but he'd be getting a final warning to pay his due. Explain that you will be stopping his insurance payments, his clothes, phone and luxuries. Give him the ultimatum of one month and then do it. Make sure you tell him the car is SORN first so that he doesn't get a criminal record for driving uninsured. Wants to be treated like every other 17 year old then he needs to pay his way ready for becoming a man

What exactly is going to change if you stop doing things for him/paying for everything?

It's not like his behaviour is great anyway.

Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb....

You need to set some boundaries and stick to them.

Stop making lunches, paying for toiletries/clothes/mobile phone and his car.

You are providing free rent/utilities and food and the agreed 50% of the car insurance. That's a good deal for him.

He needs to learn how to budget and prioritise his finances. If he needs his car for work then as a start he needs to treat it better and stop damaging it.

You are doing him no favours letting him behave like an entitled little shit (sorry but that's how it is).

If he doesn't like this deal he is free to move out.

Needs his car? Does he not go to the same place each day? Are there not buses, trains, or he can get a lift?

Let him fail, stop bailing him out, and the point about the SORN for the car is important.

Child's mother left when he was under two, and now sees him for supervised visits whenever she wants (which in practice is every few months, I see him more often and we live multiple hours away). New girlfriend looks after her baby and starts arguments with his parents. And that was a brief interlude - he gave his mum the bank card to spend on things for the child but apparently the £10-£20 a week MIL was spending from the child benefit account was too much and now BIL keeps the child benefit for himself while his parents support his child! Keeping in mind like I said MIL has this child with her literally all of the time, so she's paying for clothes, shoes, toys, food, treats while out with her own money. If she left him too it he'd probably stick his son in front of the TV and go back to gaming in his room 18 hours a day. I would feel bad for her but honestly I think she has brought a lot of this on herself by allowing it.

Stop giving him money!

You could sit him down and talk through changes that are going to happen (now? When he turns 18?)

Definitely stop making lunches and buying clothes for him
Phone contract seems v expensive?
Ok maybe pay insurance for a limited number of months
Car repairs- some sound like his fault? He needs to contribute to these

"I know that I need to stop enabling him but it’s so hard when he makes me out to then be the worst person in the world and that he thinks I hate him"

He knows full well you don't hate him. But he also knows exactly how to shut you up and press your buttons.
Don't play into this game. Don't let him get you into argument mode. THERE IS NO ARGUMENT as he doesn't have a leg to stand on. Calmly say - I hate your behaviour and the way you broke your promises about paying for your car" And repeat. If you cry or react to this "hate" business.. you are giving in. Grey rock it and repeat whatever prepared sentance.

So given that he's still only 17.. I think its more of he has to learn, and quickly.

I would draw up a clear and simple list. In one column.. every itemised penny you have spent on the car, driving lessons, tax, insurance. Then include his share of food bill and house bills, council tax, what you pay for his phone, clothes etc.. - Keep it very simple and clear.
In the next Column - every penny he's earned since he started
Every penny he's paid on insurance, tax or given you. Show the total surplus which could have gone towards his bills.

The list on your side will probably be much much longer and then you can ask what he's done with the surplus money he's earned and why he won't start paying for his own items. Add in red the amounts he promised but failed to pay.

Print several copies and stick on the fridge, his bedroom door, the bathroom mirror.. He will read it if only to argue about it. But you are going to say its not up for discussion.

You probably won't get any money back that you've shelled out so far, but the idea is to teach him to budget and and make it achievable to pay his current debts going forward... (maybe he could pay a small amount montly back, even a token is something. )

He needs the car for work , Clearly spell out a sliding scale with the aim of taking away things every time he doesn't pay and building up to him paying his own insurance. End all helpful chores or lunches for him.
He pays his own phone bill and something else. He has to supply proof - screenshot on the date - If he doesn't do that , then you will move onto stage 2, which will be to stop paying for something else, then he will see that you mean it and the more he doesn't co operate the worse it gets.
The final thing, if there's no progress is to stop paying the insurance, but you'll have to take the keys because he is a 17 year old twit, he will probably think its OK to stop paying insurance. you have to Put something up on the fridge with the penalties.
He has time then to think about how he's going to get to work if you do that. He will have been warned.
Tough job, good luck x

Please stop saying so I had to pay for it, you don't have to pay for new tyres or insurance or whatever- he may be young but he's old enough to know he has to pay his own way. He knows if he whinges you'll let him off- why would he pay for anything when he can guilt trip you into doing it? If you go on like this Op you will end up with a 30 year old who still lives at home and expects Mummy to do everything for him and pay for him, meanwhile he'll be out having a grand time spending his wages on his pleasures. Woman up and start telling him No- his future GFs will thank you

As Judge Judy would say, "You own the air he breathes."

Take away the car keys. You can sell it and recoup some of your expenses.

@Theoldyoungmum he doesn’t think you hate him. He’s guilt tripping you into paying. As others have said, you’re enabling him. He should be paying rent, managing his income, cleaning up after himself and running his car, paying insurance, fuel and putting money aside for MOT, servicing etc.

Oh yes. Just to say. you will be accused of being passive aggressive.
Don't crumble and act hurt .. come up with some phrase ready to respond...with an annoyingly happy proud smile.
"Oh, you've seen the figures! Actually was going for passive progressive, teaching you to pay your bills like an adult" (well maybe something less lame than that but you get the gist.)

I don't even have £1000 left as spending money so he's being completely unrealistic to expect to have all that money to himself and it won't end well.

If you take his car keys (and the spare set) and hide them well, that should stop him driving. You'll give him the main keys back as soon as he pays. But you'll keep the spare set.

Any default in payment plan = no car.

And if he hides the car at a pals house so he can secretly drive it without paying you I'd cancel the insurance then. And tell him he will lose his licence if he drives without insurance.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Mummy's boys don't do well in life because they are spoiled brats.

I'd take dogs money off him too. I'd not tell him but I'd keep it as a nice surprise for a house mortgage or rent deposit for him later if I could afford to do that.

He sounds very spoilt and entitled, giving in to him all the isn’t doing him any favours

You're turning him into a spoilt brat if he isn't already there. Stop paying his way and stop letting him make you feel guilty for it. You need to set him right to be an independent adult or he'll live with you for free forever guilting you and making you pay. Failure to fledge I think it's called.
Start with stopping paying for his phone and let him know it's his bill to pay, then next month the insurance, and so on. That way he knows you mean it when you hand over his bill paying one by one.
Stop making his lunch he's not a baby.

Could he cycle to his work pick up point? If so, get rid of the car. He's damaged the underside on speed bumps, he can't be arsed to insure it - it's a disaster waiting to happen.

decent wage for his age.
He lives at home,
**we make him a packed lunch everyday for work,
**buy him clothes, shoes toiletries etc
**pay his phone bill £56 an month
take him away on every family holiday
we payed for him to undergo an intensive driving course. The course cost in excess of £1500
we had also given him a car.
**Insurance I paid the half we promised and then set up a direct debit to cover the other half which he agreed to pay.
**his car has needed 4 new tyres which I had to pay for,
**he broke a sensor which I also paid for,
**he didn’t pay his road tax when it was due so I paid for this also,
**MOT which it failed and then required £560 worth of repairs - so I ended up footing the bill.

All the things marked with ** above are his responsibility now. You’re not helping him. I bet you do his laundry too, you can stop that also and he can cook for the family once a week.

Stop giving him money.
Tell him that from the end of this month you require x amount a month as rent. For example £50 a week. What ever you deem appropriate.
Stop giving him money. His brain isn’t developed enough to be appreciative and teen boys can be lovely but they are also arrogant. They have to be unfortunately - they can’t help it: their brains are still developing.
No more money.
It’s for his own good.