I cannot handle my 21 Year Old!

LegacyUser

My 21 year old dropped out of college 2 years ago. He picked the wrong course..it happens.
He picked a second course that he liked. It was closer to home. He dropped out at Christmas.
He had no idea what he wanted to do except vague ideas about playing music and enrolling in a music course.
I insisted that doing nothing was not an option and asked him to do basic office work in my business for which I would pay him. I needed staff so it was mutually beneficial.

He works about 10 hours a week, ( I have asked for 20), never turns up on time and has a general attitude problem when he is there.

Yesterday I asked him to turn up early today because we were busy in the shop and I could do with a hand. He laughed when I said it and turned up 7 hours late.Words were had and he has quit- he says.

I am getting grief from the Mrs for being hard on him but I feel that I am being treated like a doormat.
Am I wrong? What should I do?

January

No, you're not wrong. You wouldn't let any other employee away with that, so why would you let him?

My dad spent years picking up the slack from employing his brothers in law, not even his own brothers. Don't let it happen to you.

I would have sacked him, not let him quit.

mirrorwall14

I don't mean this in a bad way but maybe 'kick him out'. H is 21. Is he paying rent? Is he helping pay for bills and food? He needs a sharp shock from the sound of it.

At the very least my response would be fine to the 'I quit' and 'this is the rent for your room and your share of the bills/food is x. Please arrange payment. I will provide a reference if you require one'

Mrs cockett

I had a fellow dropped out of a college course, got a job which he quit after a year. He then stayed in bed until 2 every day for a year at home. Collected the dole which he spent at the weekends. He then returned to college and struggled through. Got a job and hasn't missed a day for the past 8 years.I don't know what the moral of this story is only that sometimes it takes longer for young people to cop on. Stick with him, things will work out.

Saipanne

He's an adult. There comes a time to let him make his own mistakes. It's the only way he'll learn.

hearmehearye

I'm 20, and if I ever pulled such a stunt with my parents (I don't even know if I could!) I'd be out on my ear faster than I could even contemplate.


If he's being a lazy layabout, which he seems to be by the sounds of it, what does he do? Where does he go? How does he have money to do things?


I'd give him the facts of life which he seems to need badly, before giving him the option of paying rent and finding his own job, or working for you to his full capacity. I think he has had it much too easy. This sort of attitude will only set him up for a life of being a scrounger. Shape up or ship out. He's an adult now! That sulky attitude should have gone at bout 17!

Deagol

backbarrell wrote: »

My 21 year old dropped out of college 2 years ago. He picked the wrong course..it happens.
He picked a second course that he liked. It was closer to home. He dropped out at Christmas.
He had no idea what he wanted to do except vague ideas about playing music and enrolling in a music course.
I insisted that doing nothing was not an option and asked him to do basic office work in my business for which I would pay him. I needed staff so it was mutually beneficial.

He works about 10 hours a week, ( I have asked for 20), never turns up on time and has a general attitude problem when he is there.

Yesterday I asked him to turn up early today because we were busy in the shop and I could do with a hand. He laughed when I said it and turned up 7 hours late.Words were had and he has quit- he says.

I am getting grief from the Mrs for being hard on him but I feel that I am being treated like a doormat.
Am I wrong? What should I do?

I told my now 21 year old daughter a simple rule when she finished her education, "No Rent, No Roof".
And I've followed through with it, disconnected her from wifi, then pulled power fuse from the room and turned radiator off. She got the message fairly quickly

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies. I am at my wits end and I appreciate the advice.

To answer some of the questions, he plays music at the weekends and earns a few quid doing that.

He stays at his girlfriends house and appears Tuesday afternoon and disappears Thursday.

His girlfriend stuck with college and is very smart and I fear she will see through him and give him the boot before too long.

He takes the path of least resistance a lot and if anything requires effort he gives it up.

He does not pay rent... has never offered.

We, his parents have a very strong work ethic. We have worked our way through college etc.
His dream is just to tool around playing videogames until all hours and sleeping half the day.

What kills me is the sense of entitlement that comes with this low level of achievement.

I am genuinely worried for him. But I cannot let this continue.

Mrs cockett

He is not that much different to a lot of students then, Only thing is they put in a bit of effort coming up to exams and pull through.

Jonti

Unfortunately your kindness is seen as a sign of weakness/entitlement by your son. It's time for him to get a reality check.
Next time he leaves tell him that you are changing the locks in the house and he's not getting a key as he's now 21 and does not contribute to the running and upkeep of your house and that he can find somewhere that will take him in under his current circumstances.

Unless he provides proof to you (show you 4 weeks payslips) he is not welcomed to stay in your house, he is more than welcome to visit but
he will not be allowed to stay overnight.
Collect his gaming materials and give them to him saying that as it's his he'd better take them otherwise they'll be going to the skip as you have no use for them. Tell him when he can come back and pick-up the rest of his stuff.
At this time you must be strong and mono focussed otherwise you will have a bum in your life forever.

nikkibikki

Ye're doing him no favours being too soft on him. Even when my brother dropped out of college and went on the dole, my parents had him pay some rent. They didn't keep it, they were putting it away for him but didn't tell him that. He was upset about it coz none of his friends parents took rent from them but my parents felt it would have made him get stuck in a rut getting money for no work. He qualified as an electrician since and has a fantastic job now. Works hard and has worked hard to be where he is.

backbarrell

You and your wife may have a good work ethic, but your son sounds like a spoiled brat to be honest.

backbarrell wrote: »

I am getting grief from the Mrs for being hard on him but I feel that I am being treated like a doormat.

A conversation needs to be had with your wife moreso than your son. There's no point laying down the law to him (which you're perfectly entitled to do) if she's going to undermine you.

You can only change this behaviour if you and your wife act as a team and at the moment you're not ... it's you against the two of them.

Alkers

Do you have a relationship with his girlfriend? Could you talk to her about his attitude?

toadfly

Christ OP you are far too soft and your wife even more so.

He is never going to offer to pay rent, tell him how much every week he has to pay and what day it has to be paid by. He doesnt pay, he gets kicked out. Simple as that.

HelgaWard

Yourself and your wife, need to discuss this between yourselves and come up with a plan ye are both happy with.

At 21 he should be contributing for his bed and board. When he fails to turn up for work, or turns up late have you been paying him his full wages? He should only get paid for the hours worked and should be treated the same as all other employees with regard to disciplinary procedures. You should not have let him continue to turn up late.

I would lay it out for him:
You don't work for me anymore,(explain that he has been a sub standard employee)
You need to pay X towards bed & board a week and it must be paid weekly/monthly and if you miss a payment you are out. I like the idea another poster suggested of turning off access to wifi, heating in room etc.

Lay out the terms and conditions calmly, clearly, leave no room for questions. Tell him he either accepts these conditions or he moves out and looks after himself.

He is acting like an entitled child, not a young adult. You don't have to accept this behaviour, you have done your job, raised him, educated him (as far as he was prepared to go) and the next thing you need to do for him it force him to grow up by stopping facilitating him being a loser.

Any chance there is drugs involved?

maggiepip

Have you spoken to him in a productive way about any problems he may have? There's often more to this kind of behaviour than pure laziness. How does he interact with groups of people?, does he suffer any form of anxiety or maybe an underlying depression which is holding him back. Its easy for people to condem but maybe theres an unhappiness causing this.

Matt_Trakker

Why not try something completely different and try and send him off to do some charity work for a couple of months? Send him to a country where they speak whatever language he did for his Leaving.

Somewhere poor where he'll come back with a new look on things and it'll give him a new appreciation for how lucky he is.
WOuldn't even cost you much, you'd probably only need the airfare since charities mostly provide bed and board.

Just google 'volunteer abroad' and you'll find 100s of sites.

Mrs cockett

I think everyone is over reacting here.
What you have to ask yourself is do you want to lose him altogether (I am sure your wife doesn't) cause that's the way this is heading if you go ott and change the locks etc. He sounds like he can be stubborn (wonder where he got that from) and will stick to his way of doing things.Hopefully next year he will have a different attitude to life.He is only 21 and I know I am now going to get people saying they were working since they were 16. Everyone is different.
Is it possible that he is suffering from depression?

mattaiuseire

How about sitting down with him and checking out other educational courses he could do? If he's into playing music, why not suggest the idea of him teaching others his skills, mentoring youngsters - give him some responsibility - point him towards maybe a degree in music which he could use to become a teacher?

Make him think about where you guys have come from and what you've sacrificed in order to run a business, with the aim to make him consider if he could also use his brains to make himself some money. Could he advertise and start teaching and charging people to learn an instrument?

I know it's gonna be difficult to be hard but sometimes you have to be to try and help them become better in the long run. At the end of the day though, he doesn't have to listen to you. Just remember you don't have to put up with him treating you like freebie hotel managers.

Mrs cockett

I think its a sad day if your child can not have a room in your house,
The day will come soon enough when he will want to move out

toadfly

Mrs cockett wrote: »

I think its a sad day if your child can not have a room in your house,
The day will come soon enough when he will want to move out

He is 21, no longer a child, he needs to be taught how the world works. His parents are doing him no favours by being pushovers and not teaching him responsibilities.

mattaiuseire

Mrs cockett wrote: »

I think its a sad day if your child can not have a room in your house,
The day will come soon enough when he will want to move out

There comes a time when a child is not a child any longer but still behaves like one.

Nobody wants to throw their kids out, but most of the time a gentle push into the real world will work wonders.

maggiepip

mattaiuseire wrote: »

There comes a time when a child is not a child any longer but still behaves like one.

Nobody wants to throw their kids out, but most of the time a gentle push into the real world will work wonders.

Forcing him to follow a path he doesnt want, with the threat of being kicked out if he doesn't won't do him any favours.

thisistough

Hi OP

I also dropped out of college in first year, still living at home. It was made perfectly clear to me that while I was in full time education I could live at home but that once I had dropped out I would have to pay rent. I wasn't happy about it at the time and probably threw a bit of a strop about it but honestly it was the best thing my parents could have ever done for me.

I moved to Dublin, got a job and basically learned how to survive as an adult in the real world. If I turn up for work 7 hours late then I lose my job and can't afford to live. I worked up the ranks as best I could but came to the realisation that there is no further I can go without a degree so now I'm back in college at 22.

My parents always let me know that the funds for my college fees were still there when I decided to go back but they knew that it has to be a realisation I came to myself.

The whole experience made me grow up a lot and I now really appreciate what my parents have done for me. I'm so happy that I'm not still living at home with no direction in life, it wouldn't have done me any good in the long run

Long story short, he should pay rent or move out. He needs to take accountability for his own life and there should be no more handouts. He may resent you for it in the beginning, and that probably will be tough to deal with, but it'll do him a lot more good in the long term.

eviltimeban

No one has mentioned one thing I find interesting - he plays music at the weekend and earns a bit of money from it. This is interesting to me, as someone who has played music for a long time and made virtually no money from it. Does he play in a covers band, or originals?

Perhaps you should encourage his musical side - doing a course isn't really going to do anything, it'll just delay the process and keep him as a "student" for longer. Do you think he is musically talented? Would he have a chance of doing something with it?

Perhaps speak to him, but say it like this: You want to help him get off the ground with music but the free ride is over. So, if he earns money from gigs, half of it goes to you and half of it he keeps. If he doesn't pay, he's out. If he wants more money, he needs to get more gigs. You can negotiate the split, but the general idea is there.

If you are willing you could say you will help him with either recording a demo / buying new equipment / any other expensive music-related thing (and it isn't cheap) but only, ONLY if you see him making some contribution to the family home.

Fair? That way you aren't pushing him to work a day job, and at the same time you are being constructive while he sees a way to get what he wants to do.

mirrorwall14

I don't think you should change the locks as that's going too far from where you are currently.

However I would be doing
A) Confirming that he has left his job with your company. If he rows back on that then you need to sit him down and explain the employee code of conduct and disciplinary procedures he is subject too. And you MUST implement it at the first screw up he does. If he is late he gets a written warning etc. It's a good opportunity to review your own paperwork in the company
Explain that as he is now 21 you need to see him contribute financially to the house as you cannot as parents (you mustBOTH have a United front here). continue to support him indefinitely. You are aware he is currently unemployed. Lay out your household budget, how much it costs to run the house monthly (shopping, bills (Internet, heat, electricity), mortgage, everything applicable). Do not argue with him, do not allow him to argue. Don't make it a row. Have all of your facts, figures and paperwork to back it up. Tell him exactly what a fair split would be (An equal share of the bills+the cost of renting a room in your area). Stay calm.
Ask him to take the figures for 2 days and to come up with a resonable figure that he can afford to pay towards the upkeep while he is unemployed bearing it mind what it would actually be if he lived independently."
C) Explain that you are concerned he has no focus on life currently and suggest a few avenues of research. Finding a job (give him some job applications emphasising his skillset rather than berating him for failure). Offer him a reference. If he wishes to return to college explain that you won't be able to afford his registration fees so maybe taking the chance for work now would help fund courses or even travel if that's what he wants to do.

Above all you must get yourself and your wife on the same page before this. And you must both stick to your guns. And you must do this calmly without losing your temper at all.

Finally I would say that it will not be easy. I would write down a little note for yourself with all the reasons why you are doing this so you can read it when you are stressed!

Day Lewin

OP, he's not likely to pay any rent if you don't even ask for it.

Make it clear that family is family BUT you don't have to carry passengers: his contribution is expected.
In fact, now that he's over 21 and not a full-time student, it is required.
He is free to live elsewhere if he doesn't like your home, of course. No hard feelings, but there's no such thing as a free lunch.

seamus

There's a halfway house here, there always is. You don't have to put up with his crap, but at the same time giving him the boot is the nuclear option that has the potential to ruin your relationship.

For a start, make sure you're treating him like an adult tenant, not a child. He needs to be paying rent, even if it's a token amount, and he shouldn't be getting anything done for him like making meals, cleaning clothes, cleaning his room, etc. Just don't do it. He's an adult, he can do it himself.

Sit him down and address your concerns with him, but not in a critical manner. He wants to earn by playing music and enroll himself in a music course. Find out what his plan is to get there, and see what you can do to help him. A problem a lot of people run into, especially in our early twenties, is expecting things to just kind of go our way and sort themselves out.
He's probably expecting at some point to land some big gig because someone notices him. You need to get the point across that things he wants to happen aren't going to happen unless he actually does something. There's no successful musician on this planet who just accidentally fell into the business with minimal effort.

Push him, but in the direction that he wants to go, not the one that will make him the most money.

In terms of the work, yeah accept that it's done. Treat him like any other employee; he has quit so he's gone. By all means if he asks for more hours you can explain that you need him on time and you need him to do more hours, and if he doesn't, he's gone. My Dad used to get us to clean his office once a week. You went down, gave it a clean and a hoover, came back and he'd throw you 20 quid. Grand. If you didn't do it one week because you forgot or whatever, he'd tell you to come down during the week and sort it. If you missed the second time, you were done. He'd tell you he'd hired a cleaning company to look after it because it needs to be done once a week.
This is the line you've got to take; that this isn't a little household chore you're asking him to do. It's proper honest work, and you have a business to run, so if he's not pulling his weight, he's dead weight and will be cut.

LegacyUser

Hi OP,
dont listen to any of this crap other posters are saying. do NOT change the locks or threaten to throw him out. your son is a CHILD. 21 is NOT a time to be forcing them into this so-called "adult world". you dont seem to be scroungers yourselves, as you said you run a business, so that reason alone will pretty much mean he most likely wont end up being a junkie or dole-waster down the line.

in short - don't bother fighting it, it will lead to mutual resentment down the line.
everything will be grand, and you seem to be forgetting that being in your twenties is actually these days being a teenager. they're children until about 26/27 in my mind, unless you're a culchie with absolutely ZERO opportunites at home and must work up in dublin or whatnot., it's a different ball game.

dubs and city people tend to live at home with their parents for that little while longer, and that's normal, and so is the behaviour of your son. dont go hard on him with all these rules etc. he's a child. you may not see the cute baby/child you once saw, and see a physical man, but he's 21 and has the brain of a child. simple as.

Speedsie

backbarrell wrote: »

He stays at his girlfriends house and appears Tuesday afternoon and disappears Thursday.

He comes home Tuesday afternoon & disappears on Thursday? Does his mother do his laundry for him at that time?

Perhaps introduce him to a local laundrette? Or appraise him of the cost of running a washing machine.

eviltimeban

Speedsie wrote: »

He comes home Tuesday afternoon & disappears on Thursday? Does his mother do his laundry for him at that time?

Perhaps introduce him to a local laundrette? Or appraise him of the cost of running a washing machine.

Or shrink every single item of clothing he has!

No, I don't think these tactics will work really. You need to get through to him on his level. Appeal to his better nature. He isn't a 7 year old child, he's a grown adult so you should speak to him as such. It's telling that you are posting this in a parenting forum.