To make my 17 year old son use the launderette because I am so sick and tired of him treating the rest of the family with disdain and our house like a hotel?????? Tis long.. Soz.

[Beelliesebub]

DS3 is in 6th form, he has a part time job where he earns about £300 a month and because dh was on a really low income last year ds3 also gets the full £30 EMA every week. Out of this we take no money from him whatsoever, it's his to do with as he sees fit. All we ask of him is to walk the family dog for 10mins a day and perhaps the odd chore like put the bins out or bring them in, unstack the dishwasher occasionally or put his stuff in it....
I decided in the summer that all my ds's would do their own washing as to be honest they were really taking the p*ss. I was doing three loads a day and where me and dh would try something on decide not to wear it we would then hang it back up my ds's put it in the wash. This included stuff that had been ironed and put on their bed but when they came in it got dumped on the floor, creased and they then decided to put it back in the wash. When I implemented this rule their washing load mysteriously reduced to 2 loads a week...
Anyway, over the last few months he's become increasingly more annoying.
He rarely takes the dog out, the one thing he's been specifically asked to do. If I ask him to do anything he looks at me like I'm an arsehole. He treats my home like it's a hotel. He's moody, arrogant, and dismissive with me and I really can't be arsed to appease him any more.... Little shit!
I run out of plates and glasses because they're all in his room with his very own special brand of mould growing in them.
Anyway, this weekend was the final straw. On the Saturday night when he came in he took 4 socks and a tea towel out of the washing machine that I'd put in there for the next wash, shoved them on the breakfast bar (dirty) and then proceeded to wash a half load of washing on a full load??? WTF! AND on the Sunday morning he ordered a taxi to take him the 1 mile to work and then let it wake the whole house up by being in his room while the taxi decided he'd had enough of waiting outside for him and knocked on the door at 7.50 on Sunday morning.... Knowing full well that his dad gets up between 4.30 and 6.30 all week depending on what shift he's on and only gets a lie in at weekends.
SO...........
Did I do wrong giving him this:

House Rules.

Since you behave the same (or worse) than a lodger, here are your new house rules as of Monday 1st December. If in the future you become less self obsessed and want to be part of a family again then we will look at relaxing the rules.

You will not be asked at any time to do any jobs or tasks.
You will be in the house by 11.00pm every week night. Unless arranged in advance.
You will be in the house by 12.00pm at weekends. Unless arranged in advance.
You have access to your bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen only.
Any other room is out of bounds (including ds4's) unless you are invited.
If at home you should be in your room by 10.00pm.
You can shower once per day between the hours of 7.00am and 10.00pm (Mon-Fri).
At weekends showers to be taken between 10.00am and 10.00pm.
The kitchen or anything in it are not for your use.
The car is not for your use.
Washing to be done at launderette.
The washing line is not for your use, nor is the drier.
The only reason you will be in the kitchen is to fetch a drink or have breakfast.
You will be offered 1 cooked meal per day.
Visitors are not allowed.
Loud music is not allowed.
The PC is not for your use. Homework to be done at schools computer.
If you phone for a taxi ask them not to knock on the door. Wait downstairs.
If your friends pick you up ask them to turn the stereo down before they arrive.

If you choose to ignore the above rules, or we end up working for you again ( clearing up the bathroom, having to fetch pots from your room because we?ve ran out, clearing up because you can?t tidy the kitchen after you) etc etc then you will be paying weekly board. There will be no more warnings. In consideration of the fact that you don`t eat here every night your board will be set at £30 per week with the same rules as above. In consideration of paydays you will be given two weeks notice that you will be paying for board and lodgings.

I have complete sympathy for you as it sounds very frustrating - he's not respecting your authority. But... a lot of your posts, including this sentence:
"I have taken it out for him and hung it on the line for him in the past and his return gesture is to stick my dirty washing on the breakfast bar!" make it sounds like you're referring to a housemate, not a child. I have no issue with insisting he does his own wash, but expecting him to be considerate enough to do yours, or look after yours is too much. I've had female, adult flatmates who haven't so much as hang up a t-shirt for me even when I've taken their washing out for them on numerous occassions.

PRoviding him with clear rules and boundaries is a good thing but I think you should consider which rules are fair for a 17yo son and which ones are housemate like - eg, insisting that dirty plates and glasses are removed from his bedroom and put in the dishwasher is reasonable but insisting he tidy his room every day is probably pushing your luck?

And I agree with some of the other comments that you and your DH need to do this together. We regularly ignored mum. We never ignored dad!

Dittany, I don't think it's money that's an issue with me, it's the needless waste. I've been hard up..... really hard up and all their lives I've tried to give them a sense of morals.
Dh and I always put up a united front, it's behind the scenes when the boys aren't about that I twine they're only kids, perhaps you're being too harsh etc. and the one brilliant thing about dh is the boys know that ultimately if he threatens a punishment and is then forced to go through with it, he always follows it through to the letter and that's why he doesn't get any of this crap of them.

Alright then unavailable I don't want to go back on my word but that was put him to show him how pissed of I am because he knows I very, very rarely go back on my word....

Beelliesebub ...You could be decribing my life, it's like reading about myself and my dh and my ds2!! Every detail is almost identical and sadly I have no magic wand to fix it. If I did I would be waving it like mad for both of us!
I think generally the replies you're getting can be split between those who have teenagers (from whom you will get nothing but empathy) and those who don't who will give you exactly the responses I would have given you before mine reached their teenage years.
I think some of it with me is I feel so sad that I have lost my lovely boy and he's been replaced with a selfish monster!
And it's all very well to have "tough love" spouted at you (as someone did to me) but it's easy to say "Out on his ass. It's the only way they will learn." but not quite so easy to put into practice because they are still your child and the need to make sure they are safe, happy and protected doesn't disappear when their hormones kick in.

Hello. Just thought I'd give the view of someone who wasn't a teenager too long ago. I have just turned 21.
First of all, I think it is great that you are laying down ground rules. I'm not sure about all of them but I get your point.
I'm actually shocked by the responses that say, he's a teenager, what do you expect? In one years time he will be an adult, but right now he sounds more demanding than your average toddler. Above all, he should have some respect for you and the rest of your family. This includes helping out, even when he hasn't been asked to!
I think you are right not to charge him whilst he is still at school, but if he decides to leave then he should pay full rent, in order to understand about saving, budgeting and controlling money.

I remember my Mum screaming at the 3 of us that we treated the house like a hotel - and I don't think we were all that bad actually . Try going back to toddler time - positive reinforcement, removal of privaleges - but if all else fails, he is old enough to accept tough love (and to know why it is happening).

Understand about not going back on your word - but hasn't your son gone back on HIS word if he's not doing his chores?

I'd say the deal's off and you're well within your rights to rethink the pricing structure at l'Hotel des Parents ...

Barring him from the living room, preventing him from having visitors and banishing him to his room after 10 pm is totally unreasonable, IMO. That's a sure-fire way to alienate someone. Also, if he can't drive and you don't want taxis at the door all the time, why are you a)pushing him out of family life and b)insisting he goes to a launderette, which is presumably a way away? And if he isn't allowed to eat with the rest of the family, won't that encourage him to take kitchen stuff in his room and leave it there?

It's good to have rules about when the washing machine gets used, and bathroom rotas are actually REALLY helpful, but you are taking it to extremes!

Also, he has learned that if he holds out long enough, you'll cave in and do stuff for him. I used to have a male housemate like this, and the only way to deal with them is to stop running around after them, completely, and make no exceptions. One girl I lived with was a complete pushover and pandered to him, and then used to get really cross and demand umpteen pointless and stressful house meetings to try and "sort things out". He only started behaving once she moved out.

Blinglovin, my bone of contention about my washing on the breakfast bar was that it was in the machine and actually warranted extra effort on his part to take it out of the machine in the first place and put it on the breakfast bar from an individual who has problems taking his own, clean washing out of the bloody machine, means to me that he did it on purpose and to say in his own way "F*ck you"! but for what reason totally escapes me. Up until that point I had been totally reasonable and by my standards a bit of a wimp where my boys are concerned....

omg, he sounds just like me as a teenager.the only time i took myparents seriously is when i came home from college and found all my clothes thrown over my dads car in the garage.
i now berate my parents for not making me pay board, i had 3 jobs whilst at college and earned a bomb. when i left home i didnt know how to pay a bill, food shop, cook. i also wondered after 2 weeks why there wasnt any clean knickers in my draw.

as long as my mum was doing it for me i let her. he needs some tough love.
i am now very embarrassed about my behaviour at the time.

I think setting aside one evening a week when he is allowed to use the machine would be a good step forward. Then, the boundaries are clear, and power-play like the breakfast bar incident cannot happen.

In the op you said he has become increasingly annoying since the summer . Did that coincide with him starting his part time job ?

It sounds like he is getting quite a lot of money for someone with no responsibilities . What does he do with it ?

If he has become more and more moody since the money has appeared I would be worried what he was spending it on .

I've tried settin by a day a week for the boys to do their washing and it doesn't work, he just sticks it in when he remembers regardless of who's day it is.
And going back to the sock thing, it was a power play because he'd nicked two pairs of his dads socks, again and I'd spotted them and put them in the washer while I happened to downstairs, before his dad saw and the tea towel is everyone's! And besides it's my machine and I did allow him to use it so I can put what I like in it, as could he had he paid for it!

Belliesbub - sorry you are going through such a hard time

no teens yet so shouldn't really be posting but fwiw when we were teenagers, my mother allocated one day a week to me and my sisters when we could use the washing machine - the rest of the time it was out of bounds - that made us plan ahead and look after our clothes a bit better

We paid a very small amount to lodging - a symbolic amount really -but again good training for adulthood

We had a list of jobs we had to do each week (taking out rubbish, gardening, pet duties etc and if we didn't do them we had to pay double!)

The thing we found difficult though was when our mother asked us to be responsible but then still treated us like children (ie we had to do the washing or the food prep exactly "her" way - she didn't allow us to make our own mistakes or take ownership of a task ourselves). So I think yabu (a tiny bit!) if you expect your son to do the washing and then not use the dryer for example. Other than that, I think you are a saint for not evicting him!!

Would he respond to a letter from you if you wrote all of this down?

oh sorry x posts about washing machine rota

He's not on drugs, I'd know if he was having been a delinquent myself when I was younger. He's spending it all on clothes and taxi's...

I don't have teenagers so anything I say could be utter nonsense. If communication has got to the stage of written letters (which isn;t good) could you make one last-ditch attempt to appeal to his better nature. I'm sure that even in the worst-behaved teenager there must be some bits of common sense and decency somewhere deep inside. whilst the opening lines of your note did make me smile I doubt they will be effective - am I too naive to think that a heart-felt explanation and appeal would be more likely to achieve the results you want? I'm talking about a guilt trip. I'm talking about telling him, how sad you feel that there is such distance between you, how tired you are because of the housework he seems to think is solely your responsibility, how stressed you are because of the obstacles that get in the way of you having some form of life beyond looking after house and family...tell him you appreciate he wants independence but that you are offering him teh chance to learn to be independent - jobs in the house aren't signs of being tied to your parents, they're signs of someone who's geting ready to control their own life...

maybe it's possible that expressing sadness and disappointment might work better than anger - he'll presumably kick against that anger (and certianly against at least some of those rules)

rider: when my dds are teenagers I give all of you on here full permission to laugh at my naivety /quote me back at myself.

Dittany while I agree with some of what you have said and you have made a lot of sense in some respects, I haven't thrown back in his face "I've paid for it" I said it to you....

And

At the end of the day, and I truly don't want anyone to take this the wrong way BUT ultimately it is mine and dh's house with mine and dh's possessions that me and dh have worked hard for. NOT ds1,2,3 or 4 for that matter. When we were hard up they still never went without and we have provided for them the best that we could. We've always been to work and we've tried to instil in our children that if you want anything in this life you have to earn it, it does not get handed to you on a platter. Everything for them is provided and in return I ask for very little..... and for what little I do ask I expect that it be respected.... He is not ruling the roost.

An example ds3 wanted a lift to 6th form this morning so he went to my friend over the road and I spotted him scraping ice off her car.... so to get what he wants he'll scrape ice off my friends car. What has she done that warrant's such care???
But me, the person that only ever treats him with respect and run around after him gets nothing but aggravation.... and why? because I'm his mother..... and he has to learn that I'm not going to sit here and let it happen any more.... and it is my house.... and I am in charge......

Seems the resentment comes from him not paying and you doing all the work. I would have simply said to him, give me X amount a week housekeeping money and walk the dog etc myself.

TBH it's probably too late to teach him to care. The "brainwashing" should have started much earlier as I know from my own experience:

Was brought up to do washing,ironing, proper cleaning etc from 12yo onwards myself (including parent's and household laundry eg spare bed, towels etc too not just own!!), walking the dog etc, and would expect to get shouted at if it wasn't done/done properly rather than praised for doing it or earning something in return.

So have never known any different. It is the other side of the coin and was a bit of a miserable existence however it made me very capable and responsible at an early age.

Unless you are extremely good at issuing rules or ultimatums and sticking to them rigidly, I wouldn't bother as you will only lose and look weaker.

As he has a well paid PT job you can't use withdrawal of cash as a bribe, obviously.

Therefore I would certainly charge him board because I don't think you will change his behaviour. Although I still think you should randomly tell him (not ask him) to do jobs here and there, ie walk the dog, load the dishwasher, clean the car, pop to the supermarket etc, just to remind him you're boss and stop him treating you as the hotel manager .

This is the key TBH IMHO. If you ask you are implying they have a choice, so if they say "no", where do you go from there?

If i didnt have a clean plate because they were all in my ds's room. He wouldnt eat again until i had a clean plate to put it on.

Expecting a 17 year old to start doing chores, instead of letting him pay his way is treating him like a child. If you treat adults like children, they act like them.

Don't have personal experience of teenage kids (apart from being one) but the first guy I lived with was just like your son - he somehow imagined that if you loved him, then clean clothes and miraculously full food cupboards would just happen.

I remember sellotaping a five pound note to the tumble drier as he simply could not connect actual money with bills that came later.

There's a book called 'The War Between the Tates' by Alison Lurie, it's about a woman whose DH has an affair, but it has a truly heartbreaking subplot about the woman's changing relationship with her kids. She too feels as if her beloved and adoring children have been taken from her forever and replaced by rude, lazy and unpleasant people whose company she doesn't enjoy at all.

It's a salutory tale for anybody who has small children and thinks they'll always be lovely and biddable.