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Shouting does no good, unless he has a hearing problem. Speak firmly and LOCK UP the devices, and I used to take everything out of my son's room but his bed, dresser and alarm clock, until he could do the right thing. One time he shoved me, and I told him "Do again, and I'll call the police and you can go to foster care." No more problems after that as he knew I always followed through on what I said. Frankly, the child is out of control and may become a danger, so get help before this becomes physical. The child is in control of the house, and you must take control back, well, if you ever had it. I take with all the things this child is allowed, he must be a straight A student to have all this spare time for his devices, and if not, well, be the adult in the house, as I am guessing you always knew what to do, but waiting until he is 14 years old and acting out was not the best idea. So many parents let things slide, and suddenly when the kid is a teen, the behavior isn't so cute anymore!
All of this is 100% true but especially the last one. I knew some parents who thought everything their son did was cute. Now he's in prison for a serious crime. If you look at bad behaviors there's almost always a timeline. No accountability along the way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tennis_Dad
I told him it’s unacceptable. I said that he won’t get any devices anymore - at all - until they give me a night where the noise is down and we can get a good sleep. To his credit (and his sister) he was far quieter all night and I was not woken once. This is a big step, but I still feel there is a high level of disrespect, with the name-calling.
Parenting style:
One of the problems that has contributed to this situation, is that my wife and I have often been on different pages regarding our parenting styles. I do feel that I should’ve “layed down the law” more decisively over the years, but she is against it and accuses me of being too tough. So I back off and try and find a compromise, but my son is smart and he understands this dynamic. He runs to his mum frequently, usually embellishing stories of what happened. My wife sleeps with ear-plugs, so she has a good sleep every night. Personally I don’t want to sleep with ear plugs in, partly because I want to be alert if there is an intruder or if our 5yr old needs us in the night.
A good example of how it turns out, happened a couple of nights ago. I took devises at 10pm, but the kids stayed up making noise. Prior to going to bed I asked them to please keep it down as there are three of us trying to sleep. I had to get up a couple of times to ask for quiet, and then at 2am, I was up again and by this time I was annoyed. I went into my sons room and shouted at him to stop the noise as I’m tired and haven’t had a good sleep in days. He has a big stand-up fan just beyond his bedroom doorway, and I kicked it in frustration. The next day he told his mother, “Dad came into my room at 2am while I was trying to sleep, he picked up the fan and threw it at me”. This is the kind of thing that happens a lot, he will super-exaggerate things to get his Mum on side, when the truth is he was not “trying to sleep” and I did not “pick up the fan” or throw it. But thankfully lately my wife is getting wise to him and is realising that he’s very crafty with his stories.
I am pretty fed up with all the problems and the cursing. After the success of last night I’m thinking to impose a rule where each time he gives us a bad night he will lose devices, and if he sneaks a device into his room after dark, he will lose them for a week. The idea of switching off wifi at night is also a good one.
You should have been on the same page once you found out she had a bun in the oven. Now you need to be.
We have three kids: A 14yr old boy, an 11yr old girl, and a 5yr old girl.
The 14yr old boy wants to stay up all night gaming, swears in most of his sentences, and thinks we are the strictest parents in the world.
On school nights we take his phone from him at 9:30pm. It is often a massive battle. He thinks he should have devices until at least midnight, or preferably all night long.
Often he will sneak another device into his room by creeping into our bedroom and taking one while we sleep, or hoarding older devices that we were not aware of. I often catch him gaming in the middle of the night but if he hears me coming, he quickly switches off the game and then denies everything.
He refuses to go to bed either way and often keeps family members awake with all his noise. When approached, he will say “sure, I’ll keep it down”, but will be noisy again almost immediately. If I start losing my patience, and threatening him with “no devices tomorrow” or something similar, he will yell at the top of his lungs, call me the C word, punch the walls, tell me to "F off", tell me I'm mentally abusing him, tell me he hates me, etc. I will sometimes visit him five times in the night because his noise is preventing me from sleeping, to try to get him to stop making noise and go to bed.
He has zero interest in school or doing chores. His only chore is to do the dishes once every two days, and he says we should be grateful to him for doing this job for us, which we are but he makes out like it’s a huge deal and that he’s very hard done by.
When he doesn’t get his way he routinely threatens suicide or leaving. He feels he needs to get “revenge” for anything that doesn’t go his way and has a deep need to “win” any confrontation.
We don’t know what to do. We think we have all the devices over night but he often gets hold of another one.
What time are other parents seeing their 14yr old go to sleep? Are other 14yr olds doing more chores? Are we too strict? Any advice?
Too strict? Hilarious. You’ve already lost your son. He’s ruined, unless he, and no one else, makes a conscious decision to change his life.
Don't give up on your son. Do make sure he knows what the consequences will be when his conduct gets him in trouble outside the home. Don't protect him from the consequences of his actions unless they are life-threatening or close. He must know that he is the captain of his own ship and that he can sail it into the reef if he likes. You can be the lighthouse warning him of danger, and that is a critical role right now.
Our son was a chronic limit tester from age 2 until early adulthood. It seems to run in both sides of the family, and the only thing that seems to make a difference is growing into maturity. It became a challenge to get him to that point without too much major damage. After three juvenile arrests, he chose the National Guard Youth Challenge Program over long-term juvenile incarceration, where he earned his GED and 12 college credits. He didn't make it a year before he was arrested a few days after he turned 18. It still took a stint in the county lockup for three months to finally get it through his head that he wanted to make better choices. It's taken him a while, but now in his mid-thirties he has bought a semi rig and is now an owner-operator. It is a much better situation than we were able to hope for when he was your son's age. My son is very grateful that I never gave up on him, and he understands why we had to be so hard on him. His only explanation is that he just wanted to be a bad-ass. He just had to grow up and get it out of his system.
Along the way, we had to take some drastic measures to get his attention. That is what you need to be doing with your son. He needs to be paying attention to you, whereas right now, he has you paying attention to him. I don't mean that you shouldn't be aware of what he is doing. I mean that he needs to be perfectly clear that for the time being, you are putting the roof over his head in a very literal way. You owe him food and lodging, (along with healthcare, of course), but you don't have to feed him well. He needs a place to sleep, but not necessarily a door. He must earn anything that isn't a right, but is instead a privilege. He needs food, but a bread and water diet will keep him alive until he accepts the fact that his food comes from you. Cereal and milk might be a reasonable compromise, but he is not living up to steak and potatoes standards.
Let him know that the New Way starts now. If he doesn't get his act together from the first moment, strip his room and remove all electronics. (Our kids didn't have permission to own games. My in-laws broke the no-TV rule, which in my opinion, started them down a slippery slope.) If things are really bad, get rid of them all permanently, with no option of replacing them until he is grown and out of the house. Once he is treating everyone in the household civilly and demonstrating respect, he can earn back his privacy privileges. If he refuses to get with the program, let him know his options as an emancipated minor.
More than likely, things will get worse before they get better. Make sure that he sees a counselor regularly, so that you can demonstrate that you are providing for his mental health and he can hopefully work through whatever issues he may have. He may just tell the counselor what he wants to hear, but you will have documentation that you sought help.
I wish you courage and stamina. Hopefully your son is just a spoiled brat who will realize quickly who butters his bread and not a disturbed young man who is just beginning his reign of terror. Just remember, as I began, where there is life, there is hope.
That goes for you too! Keep passing those open windows and don't jump out!
When my son was around 8-9 or so he was doing something that was unacceptable. I actually don't remember what it was- maybe talking back to Mom.. Whatever. You know how I nipped that crap in the bud? We were going to talk about it every day. I woke him every morning at 4:30a.m. and we went for a looooong 2 mile walk up and down the hills on the gravel road. I said "Gotta be out before the crows call".
About a week into the regimen he got the message.
Another time I had to resort to taking things away from him. I didn't go after a video game or tv time. I took things of value (to him). I took his antique alarm clock first, only to find out that wasn't 'it'. I then took away an old metal die cast P-51 Mustang that his grandfather gave to him (it was from grandads collection). That was it and it HURT.
I nipped crap in the bud before it became a big problem. Good luck to you.
We don’t know what to do. We think we have all the devices over night but he often gets hold of another one.
What time are other parents seeing their 14yr old go to sleep? Are other 14yr olds doing more chores? Are we too strict? Any advice?
If I pulled a stunt like that with my old man (who was never abusive, BTW), I would find myself sleeping in the park. As far as your son is concerned, I'd take all his devices away, lock them up and tell him he can only earn them back by following your rules. As far as his language goes, If my son had ever called my wife a C U Next Tuesday, I would have tossed his ass out on the street.
Tough love can be harsh, but it certainly teaches very important lessons about entitlement and respect. Regardless if you choose that path or another, it is very important to follow through with any consequences you have told him will result from his behavior. By giving into his demands and/or making empty threats, you are only reinforcing the bad behavior by giving him control. Take it back.
I would take him to a professional. His kind of behavior is not normal. It's hard to know what the whole situation is but he needs an outlet. It's not about strictness, it's about his anger over something. Or nothing. Do get him some help and some support for yourself. Good luck.
My goodness. All of these suggestions of book-educated and wealthy therapists taking over the role of the parent who can't handle a situation with a stupid kid are almost as disturbing as the contents of the OP's post. Good God!
My goodness. All of these suggestions of book-educated and wealthy therapists taking over the role of the parent who can't handle a situation with a stupid kid are almost as disturbing as the contents of the OP's post. Good God!
I agree both parents should have been on the same page, consistent and setting up the healthy boundaries since long time ago, and it’s the parents’ job to raise the child. OP’s son is demonstrating the text book addictive behaviors, it’s time to get the outside resources to be involved.-it takes a village to raise a child, it takes more than a village when the child is showing behaviors that are beyond your normal teenagers’ schticks.
Please don’t tell me you agree with Tom Cruise when he criticized women’s Postpartum Depression (in this case, Brook Shield’s very public struggle.), a legit, real and possibly life-threatening (to both Mother’s and the infant’s lives.) medical condition with his cavalier comment that we ought to treat the PPD with “vitamins”.
Screen obsession caused by dopamine deficiency is real.-just ask those fully grown adults (who are otherwise highly functional, law-abiding and “normal” citizens.) on social media posting and oversharing everything in their life, “live” broadcasting, constantly seeking for “likes” and followers and validations.
My goodness. All of these suggestions of book-educated and wealthy therapists taking over the role of the parent who can't handle a situation with a stupid kid are almost as disturbing as the contents of the OP's post. Good God!
Easy to criticize suggestions, harder to actually be helpful. What are YOUR suggestions for parents who have let a situation get out of hand because they obviously didn't know what to do? How do they learn what to do to get the situation back under control? Osmosis?
OP, your son is an addict. He needs some kind of intervention and mental health care. He's in the process of flushing his life, his future, down the toilet. As a first step, find a therapist who deals with gaming addiction, and make an appointment for yourself and your wife, so you can learn about this condition, what the prospects are for treatment, and what you should be doing to support your son's recovery.
I honestly don't know if there's treatment out there for gaming addiction, but by now there should be. Do some online research to find out more about it and who is leading the charge to deal with this in terms of theory and development of treatments.
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