Careless teens - what to do? Now with new dilemma.

rosstheboss":6qidrjpq said:
My wife works with children and there is a book called 'Blame my Brain' which is very insightful into the mad and frankly disturbing world of a teenage brain - every wondered why they occasionally seem so completely random/retarded/bonkers? During puberty your entire brain slowly rewires itself and during this process different parts of the brain are affected, and ct scans show this as having a similar pattern to brain damage after physical trauma!!!! So the next time he plays up just tell him it's not his fault he's done wrong, he can't help it as his brain isn't working properly, it's perfectly natural to think completely the wrong thing!

We found the best way to punish him was to take away his boredom killers - i.e. tv, computer, phone, ipod, bike etc. The phone had the greatest effect, that and grounding. The cash thing would personally be irrelevant as I see my lad spend it like water and it doesn't seem to matter whether he has any or not... lucky boy!

The brain rewiring this is something I was aware of - but I can't just leave stuff like this unresolved- can't afford to!
 
so basically all teenagers are somewhat brain damaged?
that'd explain some of the behaviour from kids on West Street on a friday night.....
joking aside, i'm sure the chimical imbalances dont help (i just finished a stint of living with the mother-in-law for a year and she's all menopausal(?) and she would randomly go a bit bat sh*t crazy over the most random of things).

but thats a different topic i guess. DBMTB sounds like he has a son he can reason with somewhat - so maybe count your self lucky on that point!

just find his weakness.....
everyone has a weakness :p
 
CTK":1ugb0ph9 said:
Get him a really crap bike to use that wont get nicked.

They'll nick anything on wheels round here if it's not locked... Last bike he had nicked was one of the granny shopper bikes I loan to punters who have bikes in for repair. Even that didn't stop the inevitable..... What's most annoying is he didn't tell me till I noticed it was missing and wondered why he had locked up his mums' Dutch shopping bike which would probably also have got nicked by this time next week.

Anyway... I'm a total bastard so I've taken
1) £350 off him for the second bike
2) Told him that he's not getting another bike till he's worked off the money for the parts to build a new one.....

Which resulted in a major attitude outburst which resulted in
3) Confiscating the I-pad, his laptop the PS3, PS2 and removed his gaming user profile from the house desktop.

Wife thinks I'm being too hard on him.
 
Whatever you would have done would have resulted in him being narked at you. Unless of course it was plain rolling over "oh well we'll get you a new bikes son..."
 
dbmtb":329l7ot3 said:
Wife thinks I'm being too hard on him.

Far be it for me to tell you how to parent but that will be your downfall, you need to stand united whatever action you take, he will end up playing you off against your wife and she, without doing it on purpose, will end up making it worse.

One of my best friends has this kind of problem with his 6 year old, it drives me mad because I can see it happening, so can he, but he is either powerless or needs to grow a pair, which I have also told him. The 6 year old called me a wanker a couple of months ago, yes that's right, a wanker, because we were messing about in the garden with a football and he couldn't get his own way. I couldn't believe it, it was all I could do to stop myself from tanning his arse, my mate laid in to him and he went off crying to mummy but when she was told what he had done she just disappeared upstairs with him to give him cuddles!!! No berating him, no naughty step, no form of punishment at all, I can only imagine what he is gonna be like in his teens, so far as to say, he better not mess with me!
 
dbmtb":2xtebmu3 said:
twain":2xtebmu3 said:
if you take too much away from him in one go, he may become too resistive to your actions and the message would be lost.
!

This was my main worry.
Take away his phone, and it's like flipping a turtle on it's back...
It works!
 
1210tech":1gehhdoo said:
Far be it for me to tell you how to parent but that will be your downfall, you need to stand united whatever action you take, he will end up playing you off against your wife and she, without doing it on purpose, will end up making it worse.

Tell me about it....

Being brought up the British way and having to bring up kids with a wife from a culture that is more (shall we say for the sake of ease) "relaxed" about discipline - while living within that culture, this has been a recurring theme... And I'm frequently "on my own". But never the same place as your poor mate.

But wife is with me on the points 1 and 2 - she just thinks I'm being too hard on him for the outburst (which to be fair - I would probably have reacted in the same way when I was that age) and that I can't just pummel him into psychological submission. And deep down I think she's probably right - but don't really have a better suggestion as to how to deal with it - and neither does she. I think she misunderstood too - that the punishment was still about the bike which it wasn't.

But he's taking it like a man so far.... walked the mile and a half each way to his sports class and back- in the rain and dark this evening....
 
I think that is quite harsh, you should have been expecting the attitude. I agree though but think maybe he can earn these things back pretty quick (the ps3 etc.) as bear in mind it would have most likely been heat of the moment for you both.
'one more word'
'But'
'Ok ps3 gone'
'But'
'Ok phone gone'
...
Again it is tricky. Cant seem to harsh or he will just hate you.

My mrs is too soft on son. Pretty damn annoying!
 
dbmtb":1w3kcryq said:
CTK":1w3kcryq said:
Get him a really crap bike to use that wont get nicked.

They'll nick anything on wheels round here if it's not locked... Last bike he had nicked was one of the granny shopper bikes I loan to punters who have bikes in for repair. Even that didn't stop the inevitable..... What's most annoying is he didn't tell me till I noticed it was missing and wondered why he had locked up his mums' Dutch shopping bike which would probably also have got nicked by this time next week.

Anyway... I'm a total bastard so I've taken
1) £350 off him for the second bike
2) Told him that he's not getting another bike till he's worked off the money for the parts to build a new one.....

Which resulted in a major attitude outburst which resulted in
3) Confiscating the I-pad, his laptop the PS3, PS2 and removed his gaming user profile from the house desktop.

Wife thinks I'm being too hard on him.

Good for you. Ok, so you've taken his stuff, but on what terms? You have to have terms as you are going to give it back, eventually. So you need to say I'm taking this for two weeks, and nothing other than arranging world peace will get them back sooner. If you fold, don't bother trying jack again, and you need to say three weeks to the wife and meet at two in the middle and a united front.

I manipulated my parents something chronic, playing stupid, lieing, stubborness, sidestepping, distraction - I always managed to lead them away from actually doing anything, mean really. (I never did anything truly serious or harmful to to anyone mind)
 
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