Kicked out 19 year old son

[Emilou88]

I feel awful, I have just kicked out my son because of his behaviour. He is 19 and finished education last May and has done nothing since. He lives in his bedroom, gaming all the time, doesnt help around the house, his room is disgusting, the only thing he likes doing is going to his mates once a week. I have been at him a bit about getting a job because it seems hes not trying that hard to find one, but hes adamant he has been. He will instantly blow up when I question it and he can say some vulger things to me, he does have ADHD so I don't know if some of it is down to that but I am at my wits end and last night I just snapped and I said I wanted him out. His little bother was witnessing it all and was nearly crying. I felt extremely uncomfortable and hid the kitchen knives because even though he is not physically abusive, I don't know if he could just snap. I now don't know if I am in the wrong but I have told him before about kicking him out and I felt like I couldn't back down now, or he would see it as an empty threat. He is gonig to the council offices now but I know they may not help him but he has an option to stay at his mates for a bit and I know my parents will let him stay at theres. I feel he needs a wake up call and see how easy he had it here because he seems delusional with his beliefs and I feel a lot of it is from him spending all his time online being brainwashed.

Some of us who think she did the right thing have ND children of our own and are also ND.

we support, we scaffold, but we do them no favors by letting them wallow.

God on you might be the shock he needs. Im adhd I get fed up of people using it an an excuse to be lazy and incompetent.

Good on you. It doesn’t sound as if he’s depressed. There’s only a certain amount of scaffolding you can do and he isn’t respecting you or the boundaries at all. Hopefully this will be the making of him.

I think it’s not nearly as simplistic people are saying. 19 is mentally very young, even more so if he is ND.
A friend of my son got kicked out at 18, he is now 25. Yes he works and has his own flat but he is very much still stuck and hasn’t really grown as a person at all. Don’t get me wrong I totally understand the frustration that comes with having kids that age but throwing a 19 year old out is rarely the answer imo with the exception of some very serious scenarios. How was he managing for money? Phone? Once kids learn the basic lesson of no work = no money = no life they are surprisingly motivated to get employment. Same applies to not doing your laundry = no clean clothes etc.
I think a lot of the time we expect kids to turn 18 and just suddenly be adults, it’s doesn’t work like that. You can’t put an old head on young shoulders.

I told my eldest to leave my house when he was 18 and told me to fuck off. I said he's an adult now and I don't have to house him and I won't be spoken to like that in my own house. He stayed at his girlfriend's for a few days and then came back and apologised. It didn't happen again. Sometimes you have to show them some tough love so that they learn the lesson. Hopefully your son will have a think about the way he's been behaving.

He probably isn't in a great state mentally - he might have given up after not getting in to the RAF because of his diagnosis. I think it's quite tricky for young people leaving education at the moment, and because it's easy to sit there gaming and that takes their minds off the real-life situation, that's what they do as default.
I personally wouldn't have thrown him out but I would have made the gaming all day very difficult. I am also a single parent on a low income, and my son is supposed to be going to uni soon, but if he doesn't for any reason I will need him to pay towards the increased council tax and electricity bill, because he uses a lot of electricity gaming on a PC.
if he wasn't able to game all day he might have a bit more mental space for looking foward in life. And whilst you can't tell an adult what to do in the same way you can a child, it is still your house and you are paying the bills.

If he is 25 and works and has his own flat then he is getting on with life as he should. Whether is grows as a person is really up to him. Maybe his parents also wanted to grow as people and not have an adult son living with them.

It's a difficult situation, I can see that but ultimately apart from very, very serious illness I don't think it's unreasonable to expect your offspring to move out and get on with their lives so you can have some parental downtime.

I feel like ADHD being an automatic excuse for not functioning/growing is a very recent thing - DP has ADHD, so did friends growing up and while there might be some adjustments, they were never an explanation for doing nothing. A 19 year old could manage a part-time, especially with OP being a single parent.

@Emilou88 I had to be really insistent with DD once she finished college, she’s also prone to spending far too much time online. They were some horrible weeks but sadly staying at home doing nothing just isn’t an option, especially when you’re single parenting.

I would keep checking in regularly and communication open though, even if he ignores you.

You are doing him a massive favour and helping him to grow up. Otherwise he will continue the same way until you eventually snap. I speak from experience. My brother was kicked out in his late twenties! If he goes to his local council and tells them he is homeless, they will put him in a hotel until they find a bedsit for him. It will kick him up the arse to find a job and move somewhere better. Keep firm and stick to it.

If you allow him to come home at any point please enforce some rules and make them clear before he comes back.

1. Switch off the internet at night so he can't game all night, take the router to bed with you
2. He must do some chores e.g cook dinner once a week, even if have to heavily support this to begin with. Clean the bathroom. Hoover the floor etc.
3. He needs a job, even if it's just bar or shop work.
4. If he has adhd then keeping his room clear and tidy might be a step too far for nowbut you could teach him to pick up laundry once a week and remove the plates / cups / rubbish etc and make this conditional too.

It is normal for teenagers to be a bit lazy, messy and aimless. He will need lots of encouragement from you given he has adhd but also really firm boundaries.

I think he may have mental health issues, maybe a personality disorder... The things he comes out with is what alarms me the most.
The recent outburst he had he was going on about him being the most independent person I know?! I can't fathom how he could think that. He got a level 2 in plumbing but didn't really try to get an apprenticeship after and said last night that he didnt want to do plumbing because people who do trade jobs like that are stupid?! He only applied for The RAF because he thought it would be good pay and he could do the minimal amount of time in it and then leave. He said he would only join for the money but doesn't want to represent the Country.
Heard him saying to his mates online last night after the blow up that he thinks hes near level genius in intelligence. That his little bother is dead to him and he is a good judge of character and my whole family are bad people and his friends are his new family. He also said to my face that he doesnt like me and never has and was I just threatening to kick him out so he would say he liked me?!

There’s plenty of agency work available all the time. He’s just lazy.

He cannot continue to stay. He needs to go.

Depends on area - there’s pretty much no agency work available in my local area.

If he does, surely he'll think,i'll go home and apologise to my mum,promise to clean my room and look for a job..........

He lives in his bedroom, gaming all the time, doesnt help around the house, his room is disgusting

How did it come to this? Do you take any responsibility for it? Why have you allowed him to become a young adult with no focus, plan or a job? Why have you allowed him to be lazy and not even know how to do his washing?

He’s only 19 and ND. You think he ‘may have mental health issues, maybe a personality disorder’. Yet you have given up on him.

Good on you, I would do exactly the same.

More parents need to take your attitude and then there would be less Entitled children making their parents life hell.

Bringing up children is expensive and hard, you do not deserve this. Take this as an opportunity to enjoy your life and not feel guilty.

@Emilou88 you did the right thing. You have 2 sons and your younger one will now be safe and also understand that abuse is not acceptable in the household.

Your oldest isn't a child anymore. Let him go out into the real world and face real world consequences. ADHD doesn't give him free reign to abuse and freeload off those that love him.

Tell him that he can come back when he a) has a job and b) has adjusted his entitlement and shitty attitude.

You have as much of a right to live without fear under your own roof as anyone else and now your sons both know where they stand - it is MUMS house and there will be respect and decency or they can go find somewhere else to be arseholes.

This is a man abusing his mother, his little brother witnesses this abuse and is distressed, people need to stop pandering to abusive teenagers/adults.

@Emilou88 if anyone from the council housing department contacts you, tell them what you have had to deal with,

We let dsd do nothing for 6 weeks then imposed job hunting rules, help with housework and generally set expectations, there was no choice if she wanted to stay living here with an allowance from her dad. The flip side was at least twice a week I went through job ads with her, I helped with applications and coached her for interviews, my dd also helped out with this to get her interview ready. It took 8 months to get a job, it’s tough but we were on her back too, didn’t let her hole up in her room

Exactly.

‘Enjoy your life and not feel guilty’?

This is a ND 19 year old who needs help and support. What he doesn’t need is a parent that can happily wash her hands of him without guilt or regret? What kind of parent does that?

When DSD quit college we were very clear that we were supportive of her decision but she had to be doing SOMETHING.

Between her parents and me, we took her to career fares, sent her job ads. The jobs didn't want her because she had no experience and she had no experience because she didn't have a job. So we helped her secure some decent volunteering opportunities which helped build her confidence and her CV with customer skills, and recognised training in first aid, food hygiene, safeguarding and more. This is what helped her get the job.

She had a grand plan to move in with friends aged 17 so we had to have a very clam grown up conversation outlining all of the financial responsibilities of a household and they finally realised it was pie in the sky.

Why am I saying all this when it's a different situation to yours? Um, I think I'm trying to show that even when it's hard to find a job (and it is hard at the moment), it's not hard to find SOMETHING, to find volunteering or community groups or something constructive to do with your day.

That's where your son has cocked up and he's responsible for his life decisions.

Our kids are told that they don't have to follow a set path set by us but they do have to at the very least be on a path.

19 is hard. At 19 there will be people mid uni, working abroad, travelling, getting through professional exams, in the armed forces, training, all sorts. When my DSD was 19 she had a bit of a wobble but we all helped her recognise that she's doing well, she loves her job, it's in the right direction for the long term career she wants, she's earning enough money to pay for travelling with friends and having cool experiences.

I am very concerned that you felt the need to hide knives. Very concerned. I understand that he didn't try to be physically violent but that your mind would even go there terrifies me as it suggests such a high level of danger from him.

How old's his little brother?

He sounds like he's part of the manosphere/incel cult.