Parent states: "I've been the worst parent..."

Hi Mark…I am SO upset with myself...major slipback. A month or so ago, my son asked if he and a friend could come to my house for the night (he had been living with his dad for several weeks) and "thrilled" that he wanted to come here, of course I said yes!! Well, from that point on, he has had as many as 5 kids here for the night and one has actually moved in with us. Here is what has happened.

I caught my son and the "live-in" sleeping with 2 girls. I had gone out of town twice and didn't get back ‘till the next morning. Yesterday, my son got very mad at me and started throwing my stuff around, breaking things, calling me names and basically attacked my whole being. He also threw something at me and hit me. This all happened in front of 2 friends who cleaned up after him. I told him to get out, which he did and is now back at his father's. I called the police but didn't get much satisfaction, I didn't really want to press charges but basically scare him. I really don't think he has mental issues but more behavioural.

I'm so sorry that I dropped the ball because it made ME feel good to have him and his friends want to be around here. I couldn't even see what was really going on and now what??? He'll be 16 next month and honestly I'm so afraid for him. Last week he was punched by a person driving his vehicle and I'm sure that he provoked it somehow by being a smart-ass even though all of his friends said he didn't do anything. It was wrong of the person to assault him but one of these days, I'm afraid it won't be just a punch. I've been the worst parent Mark.  ~ T.

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Hi T.,

Wrong! ...you haven't been a bad parent -- quite the opposite. You're TOO good. But being TOO nice and TOO good doesn't make you a bad parent - you're just an easy push-over.

When parents are TOO nice, they get nothing but disrespect. As I said in my eBook, "free hand-outs of stuff and freedom create disrespect."

You should strongly consider filing a battery charge so that you do not send the wrong message to your son ( i.e., if you intimidate, threaten, and cause property damage as well as personal injury, then people will be afraid of you and you will not receive a consequence). This is a bad message!

Do not beat up on yourself over this one, but I hope you don't let him off the hook. Receiving no legal consequence over this matter may cause him a good deal of problems in the long run (e.g., he may feel like he can bully whoever he wants and someday run into someone who beats the crap right out of him).

Mark

 

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

How can i tackle this phone issue?

QUESTION--

My 17-year-old has girl friend that i have never met. He talks on the phone to her anything from 3 - 6 hours a day at any one time. He will call her around 10 pm - 11 pm and they will talk until 5.00 am in the morning. We have told him that is not acceptable. He will sleep most of the day. He is so disrespectful when we confront him about this and defiant. He does not see that there is a problem. How can i tackle this phone issue?

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RESPONSE 1--

This is an eternal problem in all families, it seems. I have tried limiting calls to certain hours -- say between 8 and 9 PM (wouldn't *that* be great?) Nothing has been particularly successful in my household; all curbing of this problem seems to involve monitoring on the parents' part.

I have chosen not to provide my daughter with her own phone because (aside from the extra expense, which I can do without) that just gives her unlimited telephoning freedom and I don't see that as a solution to the problem. She does use the cordless phone in her room and when that gets out of hand, I disconnect it by taking the handset to the office for a while. This works quite well since under those circumstances her privacy is reduced.

Placing a "phone restriction" is sometimes helpful but again implies that I monitor it. During phone restriction she is not allowed to talk on the phone at all. If this rule is violated, I take away a privilege, like TV watching or getting together with her friends.

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RESPONSE 2--

My daughter is alone three hours after school. After her 1 chore (one for each day of the week-listed on calendar) and homework is done she can talk on the phone until bedtime. I am not a phone person nor do I get calls. This didn't work. Grades went down, etc. I now take the phone with me to work. If there is a problem she can go to 3 neighbors. Callers have complained that I must have "daughters" because the phone is always busy. My daughter's solution is to pay for call waiting. Not! She needs to spend more time studying. I have also limited her calls to 30 min. with 1-hour wait between calls. I let the answer machine pick up the call. We need more family time together and I am working hard at it. The phone is a barrier.

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Dealing with Out-of-Control Teenagers

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