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18 year old out on his own and NOT making it

Jacqueline - posted on 02/05/2010 ( 1 mom has responded )

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13

Good Morning,

I have been reading some of your comments on here and I would like to ask for some advice. I have four children. Ages 2, 4, 14 and 18. All boys. Whew! Anyway, my oldest son has a few mental health issues , but, not anything that impairs him to work or go to school. he dropped out of high school in 10th grade. Just quit going. I trid everything to keep him in including turning him in for truency, but, he didnt care. He is very rebellious and after he quit school he got caught up in drugs. My husband and i told him we were not going to pay for him to slepp all day and party all night. We gave him time and time to get a job, go to job core or the military. He purposely failed his ASFAB and didnt like Job core. He has been "looking " for a job for a year. We have drivin him to places to fill out applications, checked his applications and made sure that he went to interviews. Nothing. He finally left under our request because he was getting involved with gang activity. we could not have that kind of behavior in our house with our younger kids watching. He has been out for about a year and STILL has no job, no money and no drive. He wont do anything for himself. Sometimes he stays with friends and sometimes I dont know where he sleeps. This is killing me. I have tried to get him into rehab or hooked up with some kind of program that will help him move on with his life. he wont. He has always been very rebellious. He is very manipulative and will agree to conditions until it becomes time for him to put in what he promised, then he is gone. he stayed with my 75 year old mother for 3 months and he used her and took advantage of everything. he yelled at her and treated her terribly. She made him leave. WE DID NOT TEACH HIM THESE THNGS. I dont understand. he did not come from a broken home or a home with too many or too few rules. We gave him love, understanding and direction. he just refused to take it. Why? My 14 year old is homeschooled and he has had some problems also,but, we have been able to work through them and move on. He is maturing quite nicely. What did we do wrong woth our oldest?

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1 Comment

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Trish - posted on 02/05/2010

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asking what you did wrong won't really help now. Besides, who says you did anything wrong? did you do the best you could at the time with the knowledge you had? yes, Have ever purposefully caused you children harm? I am betting the answer to all of these questions is no we would never do anything to hurt our children we love them and only want what is best. Right? so quit beating yourself up and realize that no matter what we do or how good we are at it sometimes it just doesn't sink in. Let your child make his own mistakes and learn from them just like you did. be there for him when he figures out how bad he has screwed up help him then when he ask fo it. Forcing help won't work he doesn't want it yet but the time will come. Have your arms open. Forl your other home schooled children make sure they are getting exposure to people besides family. Children need to be around others to learn what is acceptable and what is not. Of course this is all just my opinion and having three children who are all above 17 teaches me something new every day even now. Good Luck Hope everything turns out OK

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