TheBanyanTree: The dark art of raising a teenager

[Julie Anna Teague]

Quoting Anita Coia <anita at redpepper.net.au>:

> You know what I want here, don't you, all you parents of grown-up teenagers?
> Yes, I want reassurance that he will grow out of it, mature, turn into the
> man I know he can be, full of potential with a great life ahead of him.  Is
> the dark art of raising a teenager that of guiding him to this future, or is
> it actually letting go and letting him get there by his own path, however
> rocky and stumble-prone it may be? Or should I just be stepping back and
> letting him reach his own future, not the one I (or his father) envision for
> him?

You have just described my youngest son. 'Lack of motivation' is nice, 
but, ok, I have to call it as I see it, my son is, I am starting to 
think, the laziest human on earth.  He has a part time job that amounts 
to 2.5 hour shifts two or three times a week.  He carries food from the 
kitchen to the table at an old folks home.  You'd think he was an 
indentured slave toiling in the fields the way he goes on.  I don't 
always get home in time (after 8 or 9 hours of work) to fix dinner 
before he goes to work.  I keep teen friendly crap (his preferred food) 
in the freezer for him to cook.  He rarely will manage to haul himself 
in there to even put a pizza in the oven.  He *might* microwave 
something, but even that is sometimes too much effort.  I just stopped 
worrying about it.  You have to think that if he got too hungry, he 
would eventually eat without me fixing it for him.  That's my theory 
anyway.  He also does the lying thing and never tells the truth until I 
have proof and he is backed into a corner. He will lie to me about 
pretty much anything.  He is a senior in high school and even though 
when he puts out a minimum of effort he gets straight A's, he doesn't 
put out a minimum of effort and so he gets C's or D's.  He thinks he's 
going to college, but of course he has blown his chance of getting into 
the local University, a really good school at which I get half price 
tuition for him.  He refuses to take the SAT test, hasn't managed to 
get any application materials together for the local tech/community 
college, and didn't manage to ever get home with the information about 
senior pictures, cap and gown ordering, or anything else which, 
according to other parents I know, has all been given out to the 
students.  I don't know.  It was just so much easier with my older son. 
  He is more motivated and hard working and has always been straight up 
with me on just about everything.

I'd like to think, like you, that he will find his way.  I've tried to 
guide him in just FINDING a direction, any direction, any motivating 
thing, but that has proven really pointless right now.  I have to think 
it will get better, but I don't have proof positive of that right now.  
I've heard it does happen and I hang my hopes on that.


Julie

~O
<I~ love to run
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