I need to vent - my DS is a shit

[RGPargy]

My DS (17) is one of the laziest people on the planet, i'm sure. When he was 12 he couldn't wait to be 13 so that he could get a paper round and earn his own money. When he turned 13 he couldn't be bothered to get a paper round and no longer wanted to do it. And so begins the pattern of behaviour that leaves me in tears today.

For the last year he's been at college doing a bricklaying course (or Trowel Trades as they call it now) but as he got EMA, he wouldn't get a part time job on the the days he didn't go to college. So now he has left college and i gave him a good couple of weeks grace for him to bum around, have his 17th birthday etc etc.

Now i have told him that he has had his bumming around time and it's time to crack down and get a job. Any job. Ideally he wants a labourer's job on a building site so that he can eventually start being a brickie, but for this he needs a CSCS card (i think it's a Health & Safety thing), which he hasn't got. My DP (not my DS's father btw) and I are willing to pay for him to do the CSCS exam so that he'll have more chance of getting a job that he wants.

Another hurdle he has come across is that most labourers need to drive to get to the sites and he doesn't drive yet but is taking lessons (paid for as a birthday present by DP and I). So we have said that he really needs to get ANY kind of job so that he can save up to continue his driving lessons (we only bought him 10), buy a car and then get the job that he wants. However he has made no proper effort to get work. He makes token gestures of going to agencies but always comes up with excuses, e.g. you have to be 18 to sign up with them or they're not recruiting for another week. He also wont go to the agency on his own as the walk there is boring. (He should try commuting every day for a gazillion years!) It's only a fruit packing agency, which is boring as f*ck, but it's MONEY and he needs to transition from boy to man (or at least half-man) FAST!

I had a long chat with him last night about his behaviour in general and how his sloppiness around the house and general lack of consideration for other people just will not do any more.

I suggested also that he get to the agency in the morning as by the afternoon, the temporary work will have been placed and he'll come back empty handed yet again.

I rang him at midday only to find that he'd not been down the agency yet. When i asked why he said "i dunno" (the usual answer). I told him he had to get up early and had he not listened to me last night etc? He said "Well i'm not gonna get up at like half nine am i?" I asked him why and he said "It's too early". Honestly, i wanted to wring his lazy little bloody neck!!! I pointed out that DP gets up at 5am and i get up at 6.45am to go to work so 9.30 is a friggin' lay in!!! I also told him he was being lazy, which he denied. I had to slam the phone down on him in the end because i was just sooooo mad and i cant really shout at him when i'm at work.

I also mentioned to him last night about him leaving cups etc everywhere and leaving his sodding tobacco everywhere and yet this morning i came downstairs and there was a cup on the floor and his tobacco everywhere. I knew then that he'd not listened to a word i'd said.

I really dont need the stress right now (I'm 23+2 pg) and the fact that he has reduced me to tears (not in front of him tho) has made no bearing on him.

I am sorry to say i am beginning to not like him very much at all.

My DP is in despair. He has been so patient and tries his hardest to encourage him to find work. But now he is at the end of his tether too, especially when he sees the state i get in over my DS.

To top it all off, my DS was at home yesterday and left the back door open as it was a nice day. Then he went upstairs and WENT TO SLEEP on his bed, leaving the back door wide open for God knows who to walk in. As it was, a cat came and had a vicious fight with one of my cats - fur and blood everywhere - and all because he was stupid enough to leave the door open. Now my cats are hiding under the bed and are scared and dont feel safe in their own home. We've only just moved and they were settling in so well so this has REALLY pissed me off too. I may have to take my poor kitty to the vet as he has an injured leg from the fight. All thanx to my DS.

I'm so angry i dont know whether to laugh, cry or just absolutely explode.

I told him that he has to come back with a job today or else. He doesn't look hard enough.

If he has no job, i will cut off his internet and if that doesn't work, i will then confiscate his phone.

I know it sounds drastic and childish, but i feel he is acting like a 14 year old, rather than a 17 year old.

I'm so unhappy with him.

Thanks for the hugs, RGP

Glad you have had a better day with yours - they will grow up, won't they?

And chilren differ. One of my daughters is working in the Carribean all summer. The other is away in Central America but my son is here all university holiday. However he is hugely helpful and I'm lucky that he is.

Sympathy from me, too.
My 17-yr-old does some casual work, but contributes nothing to the house, and is horrible to be around.
Yesterday he "tore me of a strip" for not having his clothes clean and ironed when he required them! The cheek of it. He is a master at making me feel like a crap mother, and I feel protective of him anyway, because he's unhappy, and feels inferior to his academic elder brother.
What gets me is his feeling of entitlement to everything, and how he has no responsibility for his own life. It is such a constant battle to get through to him.
Who'd be the mother of a teenager?

I think you need to find ways to tap into what they're interested in although it's not easy and I also think as they get older they're better. My just 19 year old is much easier than when he was 17 as if emerged from a mid teens crysalis.

Xenia - you are very lucky. A friend of mine at work said that her brother was the same as my DS and then suddenly something just clicked and sorted himself out. i'm really hoping that this is the case with my DS. i'm waiting for the click.....

boysarenteasy - my sympathies to you too! Your DS sounds very cheeky to expect his stuff as and when he requires it! We have a rule in my house - washing day is saturday and if his wash basket isn't brought down on Saturday morning it doesn't get done til the next week!

I know what you mean about feeling protective. it's so tough to get the right balance, isn't it? As for not taking responsibility, if i tell my DS off for something he's always saying "it's not MY fault!" which drives me nuts because it certainly isn't anyone else's fault!

Probably depends on the child and there in o reason you have to have him living with you if that's difficult with a new baby coming.

Sometimes boys in particular need you to organise them in a way girls don't. So my daughters have always fixed themselves things like working abroad, travels, university etc and I've had a lot more input into my son.

Can he not do a 6 months stint in South America building houses for children in need or something?

Xenia - i wouldn't have a clue where to start looking at stuff like that!

not under 18 surely.

you can check this stuff out at your local volunteer shop. - your council should have details.

i always thought that teaching soccar to american kids had got to be fab

I started work (eagerly) after leaving school at 16, and moved away from home, but when that contract ended, my parents invited me back to stay with them and encouraged me to do the princes trust volunteer scheme - most productive, confidence building 3 months of my life.

Tried to find info on their site, but had better luck typing in the princes trust volunteer scheme into google. Got lots of keyskills, cv writing and interview advice, work experience (I chose volunteer work, but everyone else did something job based - mechanic etc) and we did 3 local community projects. Gave me a lot of confidence, and I had a job to go to before the course ended (Im still in the same company 6 years on, but have moved up a bit)

You can do google searches. It is possible he needs to be 18 so you make him a plan - you work at this job for 6 months here and you save enough to pay for XYZ volunteer scheme in Chile for 6 months. It's what some sorts of children do when they're a bit aimless like this I think. It gives them something to aim for and it's exciting. I just think it may give him better chances in life and opportunities if he tries a kind of gap year thing abroad than if he is trying to get a brick laying job.

Xenia has the right idea. I'm sure your DS must lack motivation - it must seem so boring to live at home with his parents and get a manual job. He needs to expand his horizons and you need to help him do that - he isn't yet an adult.

Could you send him off to Spain to learn Spanish with a view to going to S America in due course? Would open his eyes a bit...

www.volunteering.org.uk/IWantToVolunteer/volunteeringoverseas/

there you are babe

Brilliant, thanx Custy.

is there something wrong in sending out teenage sons away nahhhhh

Absolutely not!!

Keep your fingers crossed for me & my little shit, please

He has a 2nd interview next week for a winter season as a chalet assistant with a ski-ing company. (RGP, yours could maybe do this next winter if he still hasn't settled down!)

Oooo keeping everything crossed for you Wendy!!!

Well, after offering to help him with his CV over the weekend, we agreed that we'd do it on Sunday night, but he mustn't be late home coz i would want to go to bed for work etc etc. He came home at 5ish, had something to eat and then said he was off out again. I said "What about your CV?" and he said "we'll do it when i get home. I'm only going out for a couple of hours". 10.45pm comes along and i have to ring him to find out where he is. He says he will be home in 15 mins. I'm fuming!!! I tell him there's no way i'm going to do his CV now and he said "oh I thought we were going to do it earlier" to which i said "no you didn't because if you did, you would have asked me about it and you wouldn't have f*cked off out after being home for 15 minutes!".

I told him that i felt he had just "f*cked me off" (for want of a better phrase) this weekend and that i was really really disappointed because i'd been going on about doing his CV with him all weekend but he'd chosen to go off out with his mates instead.

Anyway, i couldn't be bothered to be stressed about it as i'm really not up for getting that worked up again. I told him yesterday that he had better be home when i got home from work so that we can do his CV - or else. Thankfully he was home and we knocked it up in about 20 minutes (nothing much to go on there!).

I really dont know what he was scared off about doing his CV.

Anyway, it's done. It's printed out. He can have NO excuse not to distribute it now!

RG - can you get him in touch with your local Princes Trust. I worked as a mentor for them last year. As you know I have no kids of my own yet (2 stepkids aged nearly 11 and 12). I volunteered with them because my company sponsors them.

It was amazing we worked with these teens aged 16-18 all of whom were interested in doing sports type stuff. The lad I mentored was basically good but lazy as f**k. He hadn't worked since leaving school 2 years earlier and didn't do anything all day. His mum worked 3 cleaning jobs and he sat in front of the tv whilst she did it.

Amazingly he hadn't seen it from her point of view and the fact that I was a stranger seemed to ehlp it sink in. He expected to wait for his perfect job to come along before working. I pointed out that whilst I was a bank manager and I earnt good money I still f**king hated every minute of it. Working is to get money to pay for the lifestyle you like and they need to realise that. If we get lucky we end up in a job we enjoy.

Is there anyone else who can influence your son? A relative? Neighbour? Friend of the family? Because in my experience they take no bloody notice of parents at all but if someone else says the same thing they are prepared to listen.

Hi I just wanted to pick up on something said earlier about agencies not wanting under 18's. Was that a building trades agency or a general agency for all soerts of work.
I remember when I was 16 my Mum took a few days off work and 'escorted' me round a few agencys until we had a few offers of work starting off on temp contracts Aug - Dec. We then went home and discussed where any of these jobs could take me and the type of careeer path they would take me down. It gave me a kick up the butt and an idea of what was going on 'out there'

Possibly he just needs his hand holding a bit more? He has a good reason for wanting to earn money - more driving lessons- a car. The interesting bit is that he only goes to agencies or connexions when he has someone to go with?
He could just be feeling out of his depth in the adult world and not knowing quite which way to turn?
Our DD1 (only 16 admittedly but then girls mature a little earlier than boys so probably comparable) needed a summer job to go on a music course in Romania at the end of August. We had to tell her we couldn't afford it as times have been financially rough lately (another story).
She dossed around for the first 2 weeks of her holidays bemoaning her lack of funds (fair enough - she'd just finished GCSEs) and then we thought "enough was enough". DH simply went ahead and put together a CV for her and then drove her round all the local pubs with restaurants to distribute it. Within a few days she had been offered six different part-time jobs and took four of them. She has worked four night shifts waitressing and three early mornings cleaning for the last four weeks and even took on cleaning a private house as well for a week to replace the regular cleaner whilst she was on holiday. Everyone she had worked for has been so pleased with her and two of the pubs have already asked her if she'll be around at Christmas! Turns out she wasn't lazy at all, just unsure of herself and how useful she could be. She's earned a packet and is off to Romania in another two weeks brimming with new found self-confidence. She even takes vacuum cleaners and dusters out of my hands voluntarily with a cheery "give it to the professional mum!"

RGPargy - blimey he's really been putting you through it hasn't he . I just wanted to support a couple of points as my brother was like this. The shock tactic really works. In my brother's case it was either crack on with a list of housework whilst the earners are out or get locked out for the day. He also had to learn how to use the washing machine, iron for everyone and prepare dinner. It was a case of OK, fine you don't want to go out to work so you have to support those who do.
I think there's a lot to be said for the fear of joining the big world too, as Fiddlemama pointed out. My DD has done absolutely nothing to prepare for going to uni & recently admitted that it's because she's scared of having to be responsible for herself (even though she's perfectly capable - though a bit dippy ). As was said a bit of extra handholding may work (as it did with the CV prep?) Hope it gets easier for you soon hon.

RGPargy I don't really have any advice as I don't have teenagers, however I thought I would tell you about my brother to give you some hope that not all is lost.

My brother was exactly the same as your ds. He left school at 15 and started a few jobs that never lasted more than a few weeks. He started a painting apprenticeship and lasted only 3 months before throwing it in. He was a slob around the house leaving wet towels everywhere, dishes in the sink and general mess in the house everyday. Out every night with his mates, sleeping all day and no motivation whatsoever. He would spend any money the first day he had it. He also managed to crash a car and a motorbike during this time and get into debt. This went on for a couple of years until he met a girl and fell in love. Motivation kicked in and he applied to the police force and got in. Fast forward 16 years and he is a private detective in a high paying job, can't stand a speck of dust in his house and is fanatically tidy to the point of annoying. Funny thing now is that he has children and complains about their mess!!

My mum generally had the same attitude as you and kept pushing him and supporting him and eventually it all came together. It is obvious you love him and just want the best for him.

I just want to say that the overseas volunteering idea is genius. I have 2 DSS (21 and 16) and although the eldest is just finishing his degree in psychiatry I feel the younger would benefit enormously from doing a gap year like this.

Ooops, didn't mean to actually ignore you there RP! How's it going with DS now? Has he sent out his CV?