Have i been too harsh
- Thread starter teulk
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I'M NOT YOUR SLAVE! HUGHGH..
All I wanna do is do it
he said he wanted him home by half nine. the op never mentiond once that the kid has a 9.30 curfew every night. he said he wanted him home, that night, by 9.30
good game reading skills.
Wow at kicking a kid out at 17. I barely did any chores at home even though I was told to. If that happened to me, I'd be seriously ****** off with my dad for the rest of my life. I'm sure other ounishments such as taking away the xbox or something would have been much more productive. Since he works, he obviously feels that he can get away with a lot, so you should have put a greater burden on things like rent or food just to show how hard life really is.
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I see no mention of curfew in the op?
shoulda went to spec savers
you know what a curfew is right? doesnt matter how many times its put in place - its a curfew.
Still kicking someone out at 17 is extreme and is something that should never be done. He is your responsibility regardless of what he does. No matter what a teenager does they know what they are doing is wrong and realise that you are his dad and should follow the rules. But when you resort to kicking someone out, it creates more angst and begins to justify his aggression towards his dad.
This can only end in 2 ways, and while he may come back a reformed character, the other is obvious. gambling with your son's relationship like that is ridiculous.
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If that happened to me when I was 17, theres no way I would do anything.
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actually, you'd be the one in the wrong, he never said he had a specific curfew, but he very much said that he had given him special permission to sleep out that night. The only, and i really do mean only logically conclusion is he is not allowed to sleep over and friends as and when he likes. If theres some limits on what he can do, he's simply not being treated as an adult.
There is no alternative way to interpret what he said. The kid has restrictions and is in no way remotely close to be treated as an adult. He's doing that very common parents saying they are treating their kids as adults while actively treating them like children. Adults don't get punished for not doing the dishes, the dishes simply don't get done, adults don't get thrown out for forgetting to shut a door, they just have to deal with the consequences, in this case maybe fixing furniture or cleaning up some cat crap. Adults don't get called in the middle of an evening out and a demand that they come home instantly , unless they are married
By every single last definition you are not treating your kid as an adult.
Its this simple, pick anyone you want, your boss, a coworker, the person behind the till at Tesco's, a bus driver, your mum, your best friend, your wife, your vicar. THese are all adults, did you treat your kid like you treated them? or did you merely say you were.
Whats more frustrating than adults treating another adult like a kid, is when they do it but insist its how they treat adults. If your kid has ever, even once seen you speak to any of the people I listed above he can see you aren't doing as you say. SO please explain to me why he should respect him.
I guarentee that if you really treat him as an equal, incredibly quickly he'll do his share around the house and get on with his life. As long as you treat him as not a real adult yet, you'll distance yourself further and lose more respect.
I grew up in an innercity London borough and went to a top UK grammar school. The difference in parenting is ridiculous. I'm obviously generalising here, but middle class parents tend to gain the respect of their children, perhaps thats due to wealth and being able to give the child a nice childhood. But respect between adults and children is what determined how the child behaved in my opinion. Respect you don't earn by kicking a child out and asking them to reflect on it, but it happens throughout your life. Parents tended to be much more liberal as well but that didnt harm the child's development.
ok yes its technically a curfew
he was told to be home by 9.30 on one night which isn't unreasonable considering his sons lack of respect, hardly the end of the world
anyways so many people have differing views on what the op should have done, there is no right or wrong answer
it was completely unreasonable given the fact the kid was alreayd out. by saying what he did he was only ever going to get one response, that was the kid not being there by 9.30.
all teulk did was throw petrol onto the fire with that move.
My son can do what he wants (within reason) on the condition that hes does what he's asked to an acceptable standard. As already pointed out many times what i ask him to do are very trivial (once again its not all about the chores) so there is therefore no reason why they cant be done. If he askes to say out then the answer is generally yes. He does not have a curfew, he does not have to be in for a set time, as long as i know what time he is expecting to be in that is fine. The whole point of telling him to be home by 9.30 was to enforce there are consequences to the actions you take - this rule applies very much to adult life and especially in the work place.
Now we are talking about a boy/young man who works in a large clothing store and only the other day said he was going to apply for a supervisors post - ok good on you i said, however there he is as a supervisor having to supervise people and ensure that things are carried out and if not make sure they are. It may be a case of making sure the cloths are tidy or picking them off the floor - now how can he do this and expect other people to take notice if he cannot follow simple and at times seemingly trivial rules himself ? Take the shutting of the livingroom door - yes in its self it may be trivial but the implications of not shutting that door could lead to the cats 1. destroying the furniture 2. The cat using the livingroom as their toilet because he hasnt cleaned the litter tray out. (anyone that has cats will know they do not like dirty litter trays). Who has to pay for the furniture well of course i do but its not really about who pays is it, its about trying to teach him that he's closing the door for a very good reason and there are consequenses him not carry out this. At work he has to pick cloths off the floor im sure 100 times a day, why does he do ? Well probably because he's told to and not because of the consequences of him not - ie, someone trips on them, hurts themselves and puts in a big claim.
I work shifts and my partner on occations works very long hours and is sometimes at work until 11pm, my son works part time and generally weekends only so why should we not ask him to contribute to the daily chores as he tends to sit in his room and play his xbox all day when not at work. So as you can see he does very little and we ask very little of him but what we ask is that its done and done right - i do not see anything wrong with that.
When he was at college he was going through a tough time and finding college difficult (although i knew he shouldnt have went onto 6th form and only did as he thought it was easier than getting a job, he has since dropped out of sixth form) so we told him if you make a promise you will stick in and try harder we will buy you a moped - he promised and we did. We also told him that it was his responsability to buy his own petrol and tax. So by buying the moped we have tried to teach him that there are good consequences to his actions. Now he has more independance and the responsibility of looking after and running his moped. I hope it is also teaching him to buget as putting money aside for petrol comes first before blowing his wages on crap.
I asked in the OP if you thought i was harsh not if you though i was a bad father as some of you have quite readily pointed out i am. Im only a bad father because i have done something that you dislike but that does not in anyway shape or form make me a bad father. Im sure there are things that you have done as a person/parent that i may disagree with,you saw fit to handle it a certain way and that was your choice - again though it doesnt make you a bad person / parent does it and i wouldnt say you were.
I do not ask anyone in my family to do anything that i do not and will not do myself. I wash the dishes when i get in after nightshift, i wouldnt expect anyone else to wash them after nightshift but i do expect them to wash them. I hoover, clean the litter tray and i close the trivial door. If i work full time and can still do all these then there is no reason on this earth that my son who works part time cant do it aswel. I do it because 1. it has to be done 2. i live there and should be doing it - these rules should apply to him also.
So shall we recap on exactly what my some gets and does - he gets rewards for doing well, he can come and go as he pleases, he can stay out when he pleases, he doesnt pay board. He works part time and sits in his room playing on his xbox all day. For that we ask he does the simple and trivial things which are set.
Now we are talking about a boy/young man who works in a large clothing store and only the other day said he was going to apply for a supervisors post - ok good on you i said, however there he is as a supervisor having to supervise people and ensure that things are carried out and if not make sure they are. It may be a case of making sure the cloths are tidy or picking them off the floor - now how can he do this and expect other people to take notice if he cannot follow simple and at times seemingly trivial rules himself ? Take the shutting of the livingroom door - yes in its self it may be trivial but the implications of not shutting that door could lead to the cats 1. destroying the furniture 2. The cat using the livingroom as their toilet because he hasnt cleaned the litter tray out. (anyone that has cats will know they do not like dirty litter trays). Who has to pay for the furniture well of course i do but its not really about who pays is it, its about trying to teach him that he's closing the door for a very good reason and there are consequenses him not carry out this. At work he has to pick cloths off the floor im sure 100 times a day, why does he do ? Well probably because he's told to and not because of the consequences of him not - ie, someone trips on them, hurts themselves and puts in a big claim.
I work shifts and my partner on occations works very long hours and is sometimes at work until 11pm, my son works part time and generally weekends only so why should we not ask him to contribute to the daily chores as he tends to sit in his room and play his xbox all day when not at work. So as you can see he does very little and we ask very little of him but what we ask is that its done and done right - i do not see anything wrong with that.
When he was at college he was going through a tough time and finding college difficult (although i knew he shouldnt have went onto 6th form and only did as he thought it was easier than getting a job, he has since dropped out of sixth form) so we told him if you make a promise you will stick in and try harder we will buy you a moped - he promised and we did. We also told him that it was his responsability to buy his own petrol and tax. So by buying the moped we have tried to teach him that there are good consequences to his actions. Now he has more independance and the responsibility of looking after and running his moped. I hope it is also teaching him to buget as putting money aside for petrol comes first before blowing his wages on crap.
I asked in the OP if you thought i was harsh not if you though i was a bad father as some of you have quite readily pointed out i am. Im only a bad father because i have done something that you dislike but that does not in anyway shape or form make me a bad father. Im sure there are things that you have done as a person/parent that i may disagree with,you saw fit to handle it a certain way and that was your choice - again though it doesnt make you a bad person / parent does it and i wouldnt say you were.
I do not ask anyone in my family to do anything that i do not and will not do myself. I wash the dishes when i get in after nightshift, i wouldnt expect anyone else to wash them after nightshift but i do expect them to wash them. I hoover, clean the litter tray and i close the trivial door. If i work full time and can still do all these then there is no reason on this earth that my son who works part time cant do it aswel. I do it because 1. it has to be done 2. i live there and should be doing it - these rules should apply to him also.
So shall we recap on exactly what my some gets and does - he gets rewards for doing well, he can come and go as he pleases, he can stay out when he pleases, he doesnt pay board. He works part time and sits in his room playing on his xbox all day. For that we ask he does the simple and trivial things which are set.
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teulk its nice to get an update on what you think, I would still like to pose the question in my quote though.
It might shed a bit more light on situations imo
My partner is of the same reasoning as me - where she may not agree with the way i initially handled the situation she agrees that it is time he had a kick up the backside and this may be the kick he needs. Yes its a risk and may back fire but it may not.