uppity teenager

[SouthernMdRocks]

Beerlover, how have you disciplined him in the past? Did he just out of the blue sass you? There are other ways to show him that was wrong without beating him. I would definitely say take away all priveleges though. Does he do chores? Kids need chores......

Hey I several several stalls that need mucking out!!! And when he was done, I'd tell him to make sure he shuts the f---ing barn door behind him.

 

[itsbob]

You should go out and buy a woodstove just to make more chores for him to do. A good day of chopping wood will do a lot to help build his character, and biceps!!

 

[mainman]

You should go out and buy a woodstove just to make more chores for him to do. A good day of chopping wood will do a lot to help build his character, and biceps!!

you dont need a woodstove to chop wood...

 

[huntr1]

you dont need a woodstove to chop wood...

Auxillary household income.

 

[huntr1]

Is she convinced yet?

I can't believe he has no chores. Making his bed, doing yard work, and helping around the house when needed should be the least amount of work he does. After all, he lives there (for free) and will be unprepared for life on his own if he cannot do these basic tasks. Does Mom plan on supporting him totally the rest of his life?

I mean this in a nice way....Your wife needs a reality check and your son will never grow into manhood if momma keeps babying him and doing everything for him. I pity the woman who marries your son if momma keeps at this the way she's been raising him.

Good luck!

Chores are a requirement for production of a decent adult. All my kids have chores. Youngest (4) has to clean her room, help clean up the living room and helps set/clear the table. Older 2 (6 & 8) clean their room, help clean the living room help set/clear the table for dinner and clean the hall bathroom. After her next birthday, the daughter will help youngest son w/ hall bath and older son will move on to cleaning the master bath.

 

[Ken King]

13, uppity, cusses at his Mom and you've let him slide all this time with no responsibility whatsoever? I hate to say it but it's way too late to make anything useful out of him. Might as well just go ahead and put a bullet in his head as he will never amount to anything worth a darn. It would be best to make a new one but start training them earlier in their life.

 

[Vince]

I grew up in a family with 2 other brothers. My older brother was about 18 and talked back to my mother at the dinner table for the first time in his life. It was the last. My father knocked him right out of his chair and rightly so. Then he was told to pick up the chair, sit down and apologize to his mother which he did. Needless to say, my younger brother and I never wanted to try that one. My children have never talked back to me.

 

[itsbob]

13, uppity, cusses at his Mom and you've let him slide all this time with no responsibility whatsoever? I hate to say it but it's way too late to make anything useful out of him. Might as well just go ahead and put a bullet in his head as he will never amount to anything worth a darn. It would be best to make a new one but start training them earlier in their life.

Did you see the therpaist on TV about the 13 yo with 128 felonies pending?

She said he wasn't beyond help, he just needed therapy and drugs and he could still be a viable member of society. nothing about discipline, setting rules, punishment, it can all be solved by making him a prescription drug addict...

 

[nachomama]

Is she convinced yet?

Does Mom plan on supporting him totally the rest of his life?

I mean this in a nice way....Your wife needs a reality check and your son will never grow into manhood if momma keeps babying him and doing everything for him. I pity the woman who marries your son if momma keeps at this the way she's been raising him.

Good luck!

I was married to one like that. Momma did everything for him. I thought it was cute at first, that he was soooo close to his mom, until after we got married and we moved in together. It was a nightmare. He literally couldn't do anything for himself. Then his mom died, we split up, and then what did he have?

My oldest daughter is away at college and has a room mate that was never made to do chores. She said her roommate feels terrible that she can't cook, and leaves all that to my daughter. She also said that she wished her mom had made her do chores, so that she'd be able to be more independent now that she's on her own. It's pretty bad, when one 20 year old has to teach another 20 year old how to clean a bathroom.

 

[riverrat]

I know this is Old School...but my mother would never had said, "Watch your mouth" and walked away......this is the problem with the kid in the first place. I watched an inlaws family, now being an outsider, I'm sure I noticed how the two boys, cussed, ignored and took every advantage of their "sweet, gentle mother", then I had a chance to see those helliuns with their grandmother (who had raised 3 boys), they were totally different people. They knew she wouldn't take their crap!

 

[Penn]

Not trying to be mean or anything- however - if at this point in a 13 yr old's life, he or she has not learned how to do the simplest of chores around the house, then how does a parent expect them to to take care of their own "business" when they move out on their own??

And make no mistake, there will be a time when they will want to get their own place.

Then what? Will that parent assume the responsibilities of maintaining the house or apartment for them? Sorry, but so far it looks as though there has been very little effort preparing the youngin' to live on his own.

As most everyone has stated, a kid/adolecent has to learn how to take care of their own room, kitchen, animals, yard and etc. JMHO

 

[Richard Cranium]

I have a thirteen year old son who has gotten a little bit too big for his britches lately. I know teenagers are often hard to deal with and I expect the usual rebellion and moods and all that. But he has been disrespecting his mother more and more lately and this morning he told her to "Shut the f'ing door". Only he said the whole word. She didn't do anything to him other than say "watch your mouth". I think that kind of disrespect calls for a bit more punishment. My first thought is to give him a punch in the stomach and tell him never to talk to my wife like that again. I know "back in the day" that's how it would have been handled, but times are different now. What kind of punishment would you dole out for this kind of thing? Restriction from TV/Computer/PlayStation? Restriction to his room? Belt whipping?

She better have listened, if she knows what's good for her. Give the boy a ^5 and a raise on his allowance.

 

[mygoldnhorse]

It has ranged from spankings to restrictions. The problem I have is that his mom babies him too much, and he isn't a baby any more. I tell her that babying him and allowing him to get away with things is doing NOTHING to prepare him for life as an adult. He does not do any chores at all. Nothing. I've tried to implement basics like dressing his bed every day (mom says he doesn't have time) emptying and/or loading the dishwasher (mom says it's just easier for her to do it - he hasn't done it once) yardwork like raking leaves or hauling wood (she says raking the leaves is a waste of time, etc.) She even wanted to let him get away with this with no punishment until I showed her these threads to convince her that most parents don't think it's even remotely O.K.

I took away all his electronic priveleges for 2 weeks and made it clear to him that if he ever said anything like that to her again, he and I would be going a few rounds in the back yard. That seems really light to me, but the wife thought even that was too much. I've tried to convince her that chores are NORMAL and HEALTHY for kids, but she just doesn't buy it. She never had to do chores as a kid, either. It always seems to turn out that when I punish him for legitimate bad behavior, she gets mad at me and says I'm just being mean and then I'M THE ONE IN THE DAMN DOGHOUSE!!!! Maybe you guys could add some comments to this thread directed at her and tell her how right I am and how wrong she is....

OUt of my 4 children my oldest daughter was the one that tried to test me. When she was 15 she decided that her step-Father and I were so mean that she was going to live with her Dad and step-Mom. It didn't take long before she was in all kind of trouble. My daughter and I, along with her s-mother & s-sister were in a counceling meeting when she thought she was going to show her oats when the councelor asked me something and after I replied my daughter told me to STFU. I backhanded her in the mouth without blinking an eye. She went running out of the room. The others were shocked but I did not care. I can tell you this much she never thought about saying anything remotely close to that again to me. I absolutely do not or would not permit any child of mine to speak to me without knowing the ramifications of their act.

 

[thakidistight]

I have a thirteen year old son who has gotten a little bit too big for his britches lately. I know teenagers are often hard to deal with and I expect the usual rebellion and moods and all that. But he has been disrespecting his mother more and more lately and this morning he told her to "Shut the f'ing door". Only he said the whole word. She didn't do anything to him other than say "watch your mouth". I think that kind of disrespect calls for a bit more punishment. My first thought is to give him a punch in the stomach and tell him never to talk to my wife like that again. I know "back in the day" that's how it would have been handled, but times are different now. What kind of punishment would you dole out for this kind of thing? Restriction from TV/Computer/PlayStation? Restriction to his room? Belt whipping?

Wait untill he leaves the door open, then sucker punch him in the stomach/kidneys and yell out "SHUT THE F-ING DOOR!!!!"

 

[Inkpen]

A lot of violent answers here..and violance will not work on a 13yo.

Take away what he values:
Privacy, remove the door from his room for a few weeks.
Electronics, take away, replace with books..
And make him do chores..help burn away all that energy.
And take control of your wife..raising a child is teamwork.
Otherwise he will learn to play one against the other.
Work togerther to help him, as you say, gain the skills needed to be successful as an adult.
Disrespecting your mother is NOT the way to get there.

Oh, a bar of soap in a mouth washing is not harmful to his health.
Good Luck.

 

[CMC122]

It has ranged from spankings to restrictions. The problem I have is that his mom babies him too much, and he isn't a baby any more. I tell her that babying him and allowing him to get away with things is doing NOTHING to prepare him for life as an adult. He does not do any chores at all. Nothing. I've tried to implement basics like dressing his bed every day (mom says he doesn't have time) emptying and/or loading the dishwasher (mom says it's just easier for her to do it - he hasn't done it once) yardwork like raking leaves or hauling wood (she says raking the leaves is a waste of time, etc.) She even wanted to let him get away with this with no punishment until I showed her these threads to convince her that most parents don't think it's even remotely O.K.

I took away all his electronic priveleges for 2 weeks and made it clear to him that if he ever said anything like that to her again, he and I would be going a few rounds in the back yard. That seems really light to me, but the wife thought even that was too much. I've tried to convince her that chores are NORMAL and HEALTHY for kids, but she just doesn't buy it. She never had to do chores as a kid, either. It always seems to turn out that when I punish him for legitimate bad behavior, she gets mad at me and says I'm just being mean and then I'M THE ONE IN THE DAMN DOGHOUSE!!!! Maybe you guys could add some comments to this thread directed at her and tell her how right I am and how wrong she is....

My 13 year old has been doing her own laundry for 4 years now, my 5 year old sets the table and my 4 year old loves to put his own laundry away. And that's just the beginning of what they do.

My 13 year old tried to show her britches a week before her 13th birthday and had her birthday bash canceled and her birthday present taken away just for starters! She's currently still grounded and when she pulls her grades back up she'll come off. (this all started back in December)

My husband was rarely punished as a child and neither were his brothers. They never had to do chores either. His oldest brother turns 43 in May and still lives at home, can't hold a job and has to get money from his mother to do anything.............. not cool. Now the other brother found a wife to keep him on track

Take up the offer on letting him muck stalls! If I had that offer back in December I would have seriously took it up for her to do! 13 may seem late but if you dig in your heels and be consistent with your consequences you may still have a chance

And good luck with the wife! As long as your son see's she thinks this stuff isn't fair he'll continue his actions because you guys are divided!

 

[Penn]

I had a talk with a guy today, who is in the middle of the same kind of problem. It surfaced quite innocently, but the conversation came around when he mentioned that he and his wife(married about 7 years, he is the 2nd husband), live in a house that is over 5,000 sq ft. I had asked him "who cleans this place?"

He said she does and I help, but none of the kids(3 living at home - either in college or high school, and one(21 yr old) recently moved back in, because she found it too expensive/difficult, financially, to live on her own.) Mom lets them get away without doing any chores, whatsoever! I literally did a double take on that one.

He is at his wits end over the situation, has recently suggested he and his wife see a counselor, which they did; a pastor at the church they attend. It seemed to make sense to her at the time of the counselling session, getting the kids involved with chores around the house, but later, when they got back home, she reversed her feelings.

He's still looking for a way to get through to her - especially, and get this one! - SHE was the one to make it a condition of their marriage that he, the new husband, would have to make a serious commitment to discipline the kids as a partner in this contract. Yet she is the one who calls him mean to the kids, and that he does not love them! U F B!!

He told me he still loves her dearly, but this ongoing battle IS driving a wedge between them.

 

[bcp]

Couple years ago I was in a parking lot out in front of the store.
I was loading my daughter and the stuff we bought into the car when this car load of teens came up and got pissed because I was taking too long to get her in the car seat and they couldnt pull right in next to me.

I ignored their complaints.

daughter strapped in, Im now walking around the back of the car to get to the drivers side when one of the teens got out of their car and started to cuss me out.

so I backhanded him hard enough to spin him around and land him on the trunk of his car.
I asked if he had anything else to say, or if anyone else in the car had anything else to add.

They all insisted that everything had been said that was needed.
I told them to move their car out of my way before I backed into it and pushed it out of the way.

they were gone before I could get the truck started.

I wonder if they think twice about mouthing of at people they dont know now?

 

[Penn]

Couple years ago I was in a parking lot out in front of the store.
I was loading my daughter and the stuff we bought into the car when this car load of teens came up and got pissed because I was taking too long to get her in the car seat and they couldnt pull right in next to me.

I ignored their complaints.

daughter strapped in, Im now walking around the back of the car to get to the drivers side when one of the teens got out of their car and started to cuss me out.

so I backhanded him hard enough to spin him around and land him on the trunk of his car.
I asked if he had anything else to say, or if anyone else in the car had anything else to add.

They all insisted that everything had been said that was needed.
I told them to move their car out of my way before I backed into it and pushed it out of the way.

they were gone before I could get the truck started.

I wonder if they think twice about mouthing of at people they dont know now?

That's good question. What did they learn from that exchange, is maybe more to the point. Did it cause them to question their own set of values, possibly in the way they were reared? Did it make them think twice about butting in to a situation that they shouldn't have nosed in on? You were taking good care of your child, seeing that she was properly buckled in, mindful of her safety; perhaps that might have dawned on them, and they thought best to let it go.

Down the road, that example that you set, just might revisit them, in their memories.

 

[thakidistight]

daughter strapped in, Im now walking around the back of the car to get to the drivers side when one of the teens got out of their car and started to cuss me out.

so I backhanded him hard enough to spin him around and land him on the trunk of his car.
I asked if he had anything else to say, or if anyone else in the car had anything else to add.

Awesome! I would have applauded you on the spot!