OT- another not so great day here again...

The teenager boys are going to wind up getting me divorced.

14 yr. old "cons" my wife into replacing his cell phone screen, $50. This is after I said no due to his failing grades in HS. She did not share this "fact" with me.
Then 2 days later he pulls this pleading, demanding, angry, crying tantrum trying to get her to turn his cell service back on. The weekly progress report comes via email on Monday AM and he now has 4 F's.
She gets angry when I point out that the reason he started with the tantrum is because YOU got his screen fixed without him getting his grades up.
DUH.
Disgusted,

Pete

When I was young it was always: "ask your Father" playing one off against the other didn"t happen.But back then we didn"t have these "to die for" infernal mobile phones. Wonder how we managed.?
Still don't have one yet.

I think that you have to use both love and disaplyn to raise a child. My grandson who loves me very much got in my face one day at the beach a real good crack to the face told him who was the both. He never did that again, he about 17 at the time. I would think that a good whack on a 14 might let him know also but remember the love part take him places that he likes do things together work hard at being his friend not his mean old dad.
Walt

Have a serious talk with your wife and get on the same page and a united front. Been in your shoes. Good luck.

I recall when I was in 9th grade and was getting 3. F's dad was very calm and said ok next report card either has all A's or i will sell your drums. I had all A's next report card which ------ him off more. Lol. You have to get on the same page with your wife and then have a talk with the teenagers. Explain to them what wonderful lives will be waiting for them if they can't even pass high school. Cut the phones without hesitation that is a perk, grades suck no perk. Just the way it is.

Did you ever check out "The Total Transformation Program"? May be just what you need. Won't hurt to look.

Pete you have two problems and I am not sure you can fix either of them very easy. The one problem is obvious, the teenage boy. The second is your wife that is enabling the teenage boy in his bad behavior.

I would ask the wife if she wants your son to be a failure the rest of his life because she is teaching him bad habits that he may not grow out of as he gets older.

If I remember right, this is the kid that thinks he is the next NFL super star??? Well he is going to be lucky if he can even get a job flipping burgers as an adult with ZERO education.

Sounds like you need to keep the son's cell phone shut off and the wife shut off from the money. My brother had to get a separate checking account that his wife had zero access to. She had health issues that made money management hard for her to do. If I remember your wife has some issues too. So limit her access to money then she can't bail out the kid.

I am not saying this to be mean but I would bet that the $50 for the cell phone is not the only money she is spending on him. HE IS FAILING in school, so I would provide him nothing but food and shelter. Anything else he wants let him earn it himself.

Dont need no program he is 14 and it didnt start yesterday Mom is just as bad she cant see whats ahead. Sounds like the way things are going theres much bigger problems ahead.

Pete,

The teenagers are not the reason you will get divorced...it is because you and your wife are not on the same page. And sounds like you will get divorced (or simply live a miserable life) if things don't change.

Recommend Christian marriage counseling. I specify Christian because many other counselors will tell you or your wife to "find yourselves", or to "do what makes you happy"... not a good way to resolve conflict, nor improve communication. Marriage can seem like you are in Hades every single day or it can be wonderul (we have lived both - trust me, wonderful is better). It is up to BOTH of you to do the work to make it wonderful.

We are or was going through the same problem,I picked my Grandson up from school one day and drove by my house and went straight to the school board.I told them I wanted him in a court program.I was the worst and meanest Grandfather in the world,not counting a bad Father and husband.Three months later I have a Grandson who is on the honor roll,and is going into phase 3 of the court proogram.We had him councled,and he was prescribed medicine which did work,also went through drug testing,even put him in a class room setting that is strictly supervised.Was it worth it? YES No child wants to be a Failure,and actually there looking for disapline,dont give up.

jimmy

I was thinking last night about posting on here about a piece in the local news last night. It was about two large towns where there are major truancy problems, then in another town a kid in trouble and parents trying to defend him and proclaiming that he needs no consequences for his actions. Also in the towns with truancy problems there are a lot of parents calling police because their kid refuses to go to school. Why can't parents see the connection? Parents can't or won't discipline so they turn it over to community law. Why raise jailbirds? Laws against spanking the kid, make him a jail bird instead. Sweetfeet is right. Twenty some years ago I read an article in the paper about how a kid in a Christian youth group is TWENTY times less likely to get in trouble. Note; I am not saying never gets in trouble. I thank the Lord that my children are raising their kids the same way that they were raised. I don't see any way to buck this trend except to be politically active and try to help elect conservative legislators at both state and Federal levels to stop and reverse this trend of keeping parents from properly raising their kids.

JD,
yes, this is the kid who's head has been filled with football star dream/nonsense by HIS coaches since 7th grade. I am academics all the way.

What blows my mind is that my wife has a totally useless 50yr old brother that her parents enabled.
She complains and loathes him, but feels sorry for him too. WHAT?

Sweetfeet, yes, we have had both. But with older boy with Aspergers, middle boy dillusional, immature and highly manipulative, very intelligent. He plays the "chess match" at higher level then my wife understands.

My rule is simple. Good grades get rewards, bad grades get nothing. He can't play HS sports at this point. We got him a tutor/s. The all say he is so smart.

As of now there is no WIFI in the house and he has no cell service AND he managed to break his laptop that he conned my wife to buy him for school so "he can do his work". Bull, all he did was music and social media.
So now he is desperate for social media and having withdrawal like symptoms.
And, oh, he now believes he will just sign up for the military on senior year and that is his new "out".
Why schools allow recruiters on HS campus is beyond me. They won't take advertising dollars to sponsor HS teams but they let armed forces recruiters on campus? Sorry vets, this is 2012, recruiting HS kids is wrong in my opinion.

Pete

My dad had a program. It was called a belt across the butt. Must have been a good system. Turned out seven hard working kids
Two Navy
Two Air Force
One Sheriffs Deputy
One Animal Doc
One runs a Feed Store.

I had an Aunt that treated her son that way.Anything he wanted she gave him. And nothing was ever his fault.

She ended up dieing at 55 all alone.

The kid ended up dieing in Oklahoma. On the back porch of a house he tried to break into. With both legs blown off at 25.

Two AIR FORCE??? Where did he go wrong......?

Just kidding! Sounds like he had the right "program", indeed.....

The wife gave both our kids everything they wanted, if i ever attempted disciipline they would just run to her and make me look like a fool. Weuns have been divorced for years now, both kids dropped out of school, and really want little to do with me and i think they hide in their own shame.

Sorry - this is a subject that really hits home, I'll try to be brief but probably won't be.

I speak as a complete and utter failure in school. Grade school through highschool, never went to college. I put my parents through living hell. Constantly failing in school, constantly in trouble. Drugs, drinking. I broke my family, and turned my parents against each other.

My father's approach was "beat some sense into him" - which only aggravated the problem. Fighting at home, fighting in school, so much fighting.

There were two people that turned my life around; A psychologist, and my highschool drafting teacher.

The psychologist (I went through many - they're not all the same) was a HUGE help. We discussed issues in a grown up way and she led me to be more open minded. She respected my opinions no matter how silly they were, she always brought me around to see it for myself. She gave me self confidence.

My drafting teacher saw that I had a good brain and had some talent. He encouraged me, and challenged me.

I was very used to being the problem child in any class - instead he made me feel like I was the best in the class, and that's what I became.

He continued challenging me into some very advanced stuff. He taught me more about math than any math teacher ever did or would. He showed me that I had more potential than I ever realized, giving me even more self confidence.

I went on to become a draftsman, learned about computers through CAD - rose up in the computer industry, and now own a software development company. Not trying to brag, but I can say with full certainty that it NEVER, EVER would have happened without those two people.

But it's hard to just "be" that kind of leader to a kid. even though that's exactly what some kids need - Somebody to have faith in them, to not assume they're stupid or lazy. Not to coddle them, but also not to try to force them into improving.

Give a kid a positive reason to do better, and it'll always work better than a threat if they don't. (and I'm not talking gifts)

Prove to the kid they CAN do better, on their own.

I wish it were as easy as it sounds, but it takes the right chemistry. Sometimes you have to admit you're NOT that person. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent or doing something wrong, it's just "chemistry" that you can't control.

I HIGHLY recommend counseling, keep trying till you find someone that HAS the right chemistry with the kid.

And watch the movie Good Will Hunting! It's a little over the top with the super genius kid, but it's EXACTLY what I'm talking about with chemistry. Problem children rarely turn themselves around - it usually takes a role model or external positive influence that they connect to for whatever unknown reason


The key is - don't give up. Don't let your kid rip your family apart. Know that there is hope, and all this teenage crap will just be a distant memory soon.

Your kid used to )(#*$ his pants too - and that's behind you, isn't it?

Remember the cell phone isn't the problem - whether he gets one or not really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Using the phone to alter his school performance probably isn't going to work. It's not the root cause of trouble, so don't get too hung up on it, and certainly don't let the issue (or simlar issues) divide you and your wife. Talk with her, work as a team - remember if there was a definitive Right and Wrong way to raise a child, there'd be a manual and this would all be very easy. So don't be too quick to say she's wrong and you're right - it's never that simple. Discuss it.

Start with couseling, and be involved with it.

I have my mother to thank for forcing me through counseling. Trust me - I didn't want it and my father CERTAINLY didn't want to pay for it - but she stuck to her guns. It was a last resort.

The results were anything but immediate, but in the long run it did me a lot of good.

You won't change a person overnight. Look for little wins. A good decision they make here, a slightly better grade there. It'll slowly come together if you keep trying.

And if not - you can at least take comfort in the fact that you tried your best.


Good luck

Nothing wrong with military recruters in school. They are there to learn and they learn they have other options. What you need to do is 1. like the others stated is get your wife on the same sheet of music, make her stop doing things for the kid when he has not earned em. 2. take him in to see a recruter so that he can hear first hand what the requirements are to get in. Last I checked they have to have a HS deploma or GED to get in. 3. make him do every crap thing you can find for him to do around home. Tell him that seeing as isn't concerned about his future you are training him for the jobs he is going to qualify for with a HS deploma and further education after that. 4. set down with him on the internet and look up the facts concerning getting in to play pro ball. The odds are amazing. 5. take him to see college coaching staff if possible. He could darn sure find himself in college and off the team because of grades.


In other words talk to both him and your wife. Talk not yell!

Rick

I also got divorced 4 years ago due to a wife that would pit the kids against the two of us.
She told the boys, (4 of them), that they didn't have to listen to me and enabled them to do as they pleased.
Its a tough row to hoe, but keep your heels dug in and don't give an inch. I have 2 of them out of school, 1 graduated from Carpentry school and the second is in Diesel Mechanics.

JRSutton - that is a very good post.

You are a wise man.

Several years ago, marriage counselors realized that the advice they'd been giving couples for about 30 years wasn't working so they did a study to find out what it took to make a successful marriage. They discovered that what it took to make a marriage successful was for the husband to do what his wife told him to do. No joke. In another study it was shown that women, on average, utter three times as many words in a day than men do. Again, no joke.

Old,
The problem with the recruiters in HS is for the kids that are too immature (which a whole lot more of HS kids are these days then 20-30 yrs ago) see it as a plan Z and check out of doing well in school.

I signed him up for a NFL recruiting web site and showed him his grades DO matter a whole lot to get into a college football program. He got the msg and instead of trying harder, gave up, using it as a excuse to even bother.

I know I am not a good leader, teacher, or instructor. Was better 10 yrs ago but have lost my patience. Burned out of me dealing with Aspergers child. And other reasons. ( I built my biz not the government.)

Tks everyone for the advice and support.
Sent my wife flowers at work apologizing for being too direct. I never had great "people skills". As a software guy its all 0 or 1 and $'s and cents to me. Dr. Spock like when things get difficult. All logical, no feeling. I am afraid it is past the point of no return with the wife.
"Opposites attract, then drive each other crazy!"
Kinda surprised we lasted this long actually.

Hate to say it again, but last summer when this kids was away for 10 days, my wife and I and our other 2 kids got along well and the house was peaceful.

Pete

"In another study it was shown that women, on average, utter three times as many words in a day than men do."

If that, then, is true, then February must be the month that women talk the least???

Tim :>)

Pete the whole thing there is they are going to check out anyway.

Heck he gets in the military and pulls what he's pulling with you he will get told to "pack his bags, a ham sandwich and a road map cause yer going home". He's going to have test to take, things he has to know and schools to attend if he wants to make rank. That's why you need to tke him to see a recruter. Talk the the guy first and tell him whats going on grade wise and let the recruter tell him that if he isn't into learning the military don't want him.

The big problem with recruters isn't them. It's the system that convinces a kid he can learn a job that is marketable. In most cases that just isn't true.

Rick