Hi
Well my dd is only 17 months so teens aren't my strong point.
My nephew is an incredibly bright, polite, likeable lad. My brother has custody and he's lived with his dad since he was about 5 years old.
I don't necessarily subscribe to my bro's parenting style but he's done his best under difficult circumstances. He's always had a turbulent relationship with his son and they are both far too competetive with each other IMO.
Recently nephew has made friends with a new boy and has been spending a lot of time with him. He was caught with cigs at Xmas.
Friday night nephew told his dad he was staying with a friend round the corner. At 2am bro was called by police. Nephew had been "tagging" phone-boxes with this other boy.
Both boys were very contrite and the police didn't even give them a warning, just a reprimand. This on the grounds that they were very polite, didn't try to deny the evidence and were very remorseful.
Apparently just recently the other boy was chased home by other "taggers" who's work he'd gone over. A 3rd boy was beaten up recently for the same thing.
Having inspected their phones it appears they've also been experimenting with skunk!!!
Schoolwork isn't as good as it should be again the teachers aren't so hard on him because they really want to encourage him and help him acheive his potential.
My bro wants me to talk to him as he knows his kids have a good and friendly relationship with me. To be honest I think whatever I say will wash over nephew. He's learned from his father that he must always be right even when he's wrong! He always promises to mend his ways but he never puts the effort in.
I've tried to get bro to spend more "quality" time with him but to be fair he works a lot of hours and struggles to make ends meet.
The mother isn't really on the scene so her only influence is expensive gifts at Xmas and birthdays.
Honestly I think the boy will always land on his feet and this is probably teen shennanigans. But, if only he could see that getting his head down now would make the coming years so much easier and more pleasant for him.
He lives in a wealthy area of London, hangs out with some very priveliged kids most of whome are very well behaved. But he doesn't go to their private schools and he thinks these other kids are just the bees knees.
At Xmas he said he wouldn't get into trouble because his friends went to a 30k p/a private school. I said all the more reason why they wouldn't have any respect because Daddy would always buy them out of trouble!
Sorry it's long, am really quite worried about him and want to help.
Anybody got any advice?
TIA
ps: I should say, all this happened not a million miles from where that poor boy was stabbed to death last week.