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Well, he is grounded from video games anytime he has grades below a C. He is also grounded from socializing when he has grades below a C. So, this has been the case for the last three years, so I haven't met any friends he might have at school.
So am I reading this correctly? Your son has been grounded for the last 3 years and you don't know his friends?!
I cannot imagine grounding my kids for 3 years and not digging deepter to the root of the problem. I'm not trying to be judgemental because I have not been in your shoes but it sounds like things got out of control a long time ago. Sounds to me like he gave up on himself. Maybe family counseling is in order. I just don't know what else to say....Good luck to you.
Well, he is grounded from video games anytime he has grades below a C. He is also grounded from socializing when he has grades below a C. So, this has been the case for the last three years, so I haven't met any friends he might have at school.
Hi, stopped by again.
Do you have access to any type of volunteer activities, it sounds like his social skills might be a little lacking. Maybe get him hooked into that as a "punishment". He will get some world experience.
Again he needs to get out there. It is easier to stay home because you are "grounded" if you are a shy teen, that was me decades ago.
Hang in there, it will get better. There are alot of things he could be doing that are so much worse. Breath often and deep!
Thank you. Some people wrongly believe they are supposed to be "parenting" a teenager It is bad advice to tell a person in this mother's situation to just "be the parent".
Experts will tell you by the time your child is a teen, you have to make the move from parenting to MENTORING in order to assure your child's successful move into adulthood. People who don't do this end up with kids like this one.
This DOES NOT mean you treat your child like a friend by the way. If there is confusion on the difference between a mentor and a friend people should do some reading on that.
I hope Sacto will search out some professionals at this point to help her and her son - it's late, but not too late yet
Some people call this "failure to launch". I see a lot of high school students who appear to sabotage their graduation so that they won't have to grow up. Like Peter Pan, these lost boys don't really want to grow up. They are perfectly content to live in their oyster with little or no outside contact.
Our own son is a bit like this. Although he is very bright, he was never motivated by schoolwork. From toddlerhood, he was defiant and noncompliant. He started seeing a counselor recommended by the school in the fourth grade. The main benefit from this was being able to live with ourselves because we knew that we always did everything we could. The boy never made it to high school, but got his GED almost immediately when he went to a military-style program for aimless youths. He always excelled when he was in a highly-structured environment, but once he got out, he was once again lost. We wanted him to join the military, but he had too many problems for them and didn't qualify.
We have issued our share of ultimatums, but we in the end we had to realize that you have to deal with the child you have at the time. We eventually decided that he had always been slow to mature, so that he just "needed more time in the oven". For the last year, we have basically been keeping him and trying to let him mature. He has gotten no clothes, car, or anything beyond basic living. He's been akin to one of our pets. Over the months, he hasn't really gotten better, but things haven't gotten worse either. After the last seven years, that has been a relief.
Just in the last few weeks, he seems to have started coming out of a great depression. He has made a few contacts about working, and he's started talking about needing to have some sort of credentials for his future. Part of the problem is that he doesn't understand why we parents want our kids to grow up so that we can enjoy being empty nesters. He really enjoys our company, partly because his friends are all losers (too) and they don't have the same kind of intelligent conversation that he enjoys with us.
We've decided that he's too insecure to hang out with more educated people, because he dropped out in the ninth grade. It's a shame, because he's very funny and interesting to talk to. We're glad that we dropped the ultimatums, because they always left us painted into a corner. We're now resigned to this taking possibly two or three more years before he will be able to fly away from the nest. We hope that he can manage by age 21, but it may take longer. We pray for patience and strength.
I can understand wanting to stick to your guns. But holding to a principle simply to be consistent doesn't necessarily give the consideration to what the reality of the situation is. Your son may be depressed or have a social anxiety. He may be slow to mature. He could even just be scared of taking on adult responsibilities and leaving the security of his childhood. Ask yourself what you would rather regret this time next year--Would you rather let him stay and possibly (probably) be unproductive? Would you rather kick him out with no social network and have him live on the streets or in a shelter? What would his likely response be if you did put him out?
We decided that we would rather err on the side of caution and keep ours off the street. It is galling to feed him, because he eats so much and does so little. But we see improvement that we judge to be part of the maturation process. Young men's brains don't complete their development until their middle twenties at best, and he has always been at the very end of normal. We are slowly reaching an equilibrium in our relationship, and things are looking better every day.
Well, he is grounded from video games anytime he has grades below a C. He is also grounded from socializing when he has grades below a C. So, this has been the case for the last three years, so I haven't met any friends he might have at school.
Seriously, if grounding him didn't work for a grading period, what on earth made you think that keeping him grounded for three years would do anything?
I think this is where you have failed. You don't ground children for three years---especially children who are respectful, not doing drugs, etc. Most children will completely shut down. Children, especially teens, need positive things in their lives to motivate them. If he has been grounded for three years, there is no happiness in his life. I wouldn't be motivated to do anything if I had no happiness anywhere in my life either.
And what's up with demanding a 3.0? I know he is bright; however, if he hasn't been performing for years, why set such a high standard? At this point, you should just be darn glad if he passes and graduates! Afterall, if you cared that much about his grade point average, you wouldn't be planning to kick him out of the house during his senior year since doing that will almost guarantee that he won't graduate.
Touching on lovesmountain's suggestions about mentoring, I'd like to add that teenagers benefit from mentors outside of the immediately family. Teenage boys especially respond positively to positive male mentors. Do you have any uncles, close neighbors or friends who can mentor your son?
I agree with the suggestion to add the GED option. Sounds like he is good at test taking. I would rather not steer a kid so close to graduation and still in school towards this, but maybe it will light a fire under him and effect positive change. Community colleges should take GEDs, he could get started this summer on a program (trade, academic, whatever) and if he wanted to transfer to a 4yr college later, he probably could if he takes the right classes and proves himself.
I also support the advice about the military being an unlikely option without a diploma. GED will get him in to some branches, for some jobs, but, esp in this economy, the services can be very picky. I know you said he is not interested, but just wanted to confirm what was mentioned.
My 19 year old son was very much like yours, and so were some of his closest friends. Very nice, intelligent, respectful boys that never gave us a moment of trouble...but LAZY like you wouldn't believe. We literally were holding our breaths until graduation. Because I knew of his intelligence and ability to learn I accepted that he would do things at his own pace and tried not to worry too much. Fortunately he is now going to community college and passing all his classes, and he has had the same job for 3 years now, so I'm cutting him a lot of slack. He's already talking about going away to a 4 year university in a couple years but he is a little behind the in the independence curve. And he is still lazy and does everything at the last minute. Like now, it's nearly midnight and he just started a project that's due tomorrow. ::sigh:: But he will get it done. He always does.
Maybe just talking about his plans for the future will help get him focus. When all his classmates start to leave for college in the fall his life is going to look very different and he should think about that.
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