Anybody raising a loser?

[Anonymous]

My son, unfortunately, has a friend like this. They are on the same soccer team. According to his mom, soccer and video games are the only two things he does.

She's always holding her breath each school year at the very end to see if he'll pass or fail. He's so far skirted through and is now in the 11th grade. He has zero ambition according to her. He does the bare minimum and that's it. When they ground him and take away electronics, he sleeps. He does no chores and neither parent can make him do anything. Sad situation.

He's had 3 jobs and been fired at all 3 within weeks of starting due to his laziness and terrible personality.

[Anonymous]

Why is your son friends with him?

[Anonymous]

This is serious advice: Prozac.

[Anonymous]

Too bad everyone jumped on your use of the word loser.

I'd like to hear actual advice.

- not OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If so, how do you deal? I have my own ideas about how to succeed and that success matters and kid has no ambition, no goals, is passive and takes no initiative to create anything or solve any problem. No amount of encouragement or modeling or pressure or support has changed this one iota. Still thinks life will magically work out.

Sometimes you have to just let kids fail in order for them to turn their life around. There really isn’t anything you can do for an unmotivated child unless there is something like drug/marijuana use you can try to curb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If so, how do you deal? I have my own ideas about how to succeed and that success matters and kid has no ambition, no goals, is passive and takes no initiative to create anything or solve any problem. No amount of encouragement or modeling or pressure or support has changed this one iota. Still thinks life will magically work out.

First, he is not a loser. He is a late bloomer. Everyone has their own timeline and just because he doesn't do what his peers are doing, doesn't mean he never will. He might surprise you. From your short post I can only tell you're on his case constantly. Lay off. Give him space. Let him get bored. Just observe. Then go from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:raise the kid you have, not the one you want.

I feel for your kid. Hopefully they will post on here saying Anyone being raised by a loser?

Amen to all here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WTF is wrong with you, OP? I think you must be a troll.

Maybe OP doesn't want son to end up leaching off them for the rest of their lives. Or don't want to watch their DIL take custody of the grandkids because her son grew into a man-child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son, unfortunately, has a friend like this. They are on the same soccer team. According to his mom, soccer and video games are the only two things he does.

She's always holding her breath each school year at the very end to see if he'll pass or fail. He's so far skirted through and is now in the 11th grade. He has zero ambition according to her. He does the bare minimum and that's it. When they ground him and take away electronics, he sleeps. He does no chores and neither parent can make him do anything. Sad situation.

He's had 3 jobs and been fired at all 3 within weeks of starting due to his laziness and terrible personality.

First off, soccer is a super intense sport and commitment. If he's good at soccer, then he's not completely lazy.

Two, they're not making life uncomfortable enough for him if they're just letting him get away with sleeping all day. He'd be on a schedule that I dictate and he wouldn't like it and he'd have to get a wake-up call. If your first punishment isn't effective at shaking your child out of their lull, you need to keep trying others until he gets uncomfortable enough with his reality to do something different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too bad everyone jumped on your use of the word loser.

I'd like to hear actual advice.

- not OP

As I would say to my teen: I'd been happy to answer your question when you can use respectful language. If OP is getting uniformly negative responses for strangers, it's not surprising that they aren't able to motivate their kid.

[Anonymous]

Your mom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too bad everyone jumped on your use of the word loser.

I'd like to hear actual advice.

- not OP

I’ll try. I’m raising a kid who isn’t interested in school and doesn’t care if he passes or fails. He’s not motivated or pushed by consequences and will dig in further. He hasn’t applied for any jobs and does minimal things around the house.

We constantly try not to engage him in power struggles that will make things worse. Sometimes we let him fail because we have no choice since we can’t make him do the work but it’s also a good lesson.

My husband and I get angry and we fight a lot since this causes a lot of stress even though we agree on most things. We are still saving for college and will help him with undergrad, even if he decides to go at 25.

We try to find anything he’s interested in and support him in that. Right now he occasionally brings up various vocational training or the military. We remind him he at least needs to get a GED and either of those would be good ideas.

[Anonymous]

I mean, we can all pick on OP's choice of words, but we know exactly the type of kid she is talking about.

I'm not sure what to tell you OP. My neighbors who are both very social and have good jobs have two sons who just play video games. They did convince one to go to George Mason but the second is now saying he won't go to college at all. And he has no real plan. They don't know what to do. These kids got good grades through early HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If so, how do you deal? I have my own ideas about how to succeed and that success matters and kid has no ambition, no goals, is passive and takes no initiative to create anything or solve any problem. No amount of encouragement or modeling or pressure or support has changed this one iota. Still thinks life will magically work out.

Lucky for him (and you), being a Democrat is perfectly fine in DC.

He'd be a loser in Texas, but not here, he'll be fine, just chillax.

why texas? serious question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, we can all pick on OP's choice of words, but we know exactly the type of kid she is talking about.

I'm not sure what to tell you OP. My neighbors who are both very social and have good jobs have two sons who just play video games. They did convince one to go to George Mason but the second is now saying he won't go to college at all. And he has no real plan. They don't know what to do. These kids got good grades through early HS.

Really? You must be the type to also ignore learning disabilities and special needs, then. Go join OP in the dog house.