Reply to 17 year old son planning on tricking us to spend night with gf -gf’s parents away

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Reply to "17 year old son planning on tricking us to spend night with gf -gf’s parents away"

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[quote=Anonymous]The thing that actually jumped out at me from your post, OP, was that he "berated" you. That's totally unacceptable. Nobody should berate you. Not ever. The lack of respect in the form of insults and outright lies -- this would be a cause of grave concern for me.

How would you react if you husband berated you or lied to you? Without suggesting that your reaction should be the same, this is a useful frame of reference. Because you are preparing to launch this person into adulthood, and your reaction should therefore be somehow congruent with another trusted adult berating your and lying to you.

As for the posters who ask you to focus on your relationship with your child as you prepare to send him off -- I agree, but I see the other side of this: Do you want to have a relationship with him where he lies to you, does not respect your wishes, berates you -- and you just let him, because you don't want to rock the boat?

OP, you deserve more from your son. You deserve more from yourself.

It's time for a frank conversation with your son. The question shouldn't be what power you're going to wield in order to coerce him into compliance (i.e. "consequences", i.e. punishment.) Rather: what kind of relationship do you want to have with each other? Tell him how it feels to be deceived. Tell him how it feels to be insulted. Tell him that you will always love him, and also you will not tolerate being treated that way. Or will you? Be honest with yourself: What are you willing / not willing to put up with? What are the very real and likely consequences here? Not, what am I going to do to him if he doesn't comply, but, how am I going to protect myself in a relationship in which the other party is not being respectful?

On the cusp of adulthood, I would insist on being respected, and I would also look hard in the mirror and see if I am treating my child with the respect I am asking for myself. Are you listening to him? Or are you dishing out rules and punishments in a way that might feel infantilizing or arbitrary? The question isn't whether the rules are restrictive or permissive, but why is this about rules at all? There is an underlying "why" to all of the rules. Is your child aware of these? Do you talk about it? Does he take responsibility for his actions?

Our job is to launch them into adulthood. We don't do it all at once, in one fell swoop. At 17+, he should be making his own decisions and communicating with you, and you should be there as a sounding board, to help his baby-adult brain connect dots he may have missed, to help him see what he may have missed. We want them to be able to come to us for advice, we want them to make their own good decisions.

I don't care a whit whether he sleeps here or there, is home at 9pm or 1am or 7am the next day. What I care about it how he treats the people in his life, and in particular the people who support him and love him and on whom he depends. [/quote]

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