Cool. I’m sure I was wrong. So that means they have 2 years to put up with him…
Nuke 'em from orbit - its the only way to be sure 
Brian
Actually, Jodi left out the underlying reason for #3-
It may be my problem that I can’t sleep before my kids are home for the night- but I expect them to have some consideration for my little quirks just as I do for theirs. If my son doesn’t think that’s a good enough reason to come in when I ask, I really can’t make him come in short of physical force. I can and will however, stop accomodating his quirks- you want a ride to school, the mall, a friends house- okay, but it’s not my problem that you want to be dropped off three blocks away. I’ll drop you where it’s most convenient- and if that happpens to be right in front- deal with it or take the train. You don’t like to be out with me when I’m wearing the bright yellow shirt- you choose your clothes and I’ll choose mine. You don’t like the way I’m cooking the chicken breasts for dinner- tough. Why should I bother leaving a couple plain for you?It’s not my problem you don’t like sauces or spices.
Doesn’t sound like a particularly pleasant life for me or for him- but I’ve laid it out pretty much that way ( he got it without the examples) the few times he’s implied it was my problem that I couldn’t sleep until he was home.
This sounds like a much better way to deal with the situation. Kudos.
Would they rather hear that their son may probably have a drug problem or that their son is definately having a Very Legal Life Changing Problem as in Jail and Stuff Like That There or, Your Son Died of an OD/bad drugs/DUI?
All three are nightmares, only one is permanent.
When you hide from the truth it only becomes uglier and bigger.
When a parent cancels a vacation because a teenager balks, they aren’t being a parent. They are being a Buddy. It will only get worse until they get a spine.
There is a lady I know who has a 17 year old that is, her words, addicted to porn. He won’t stop watching it on his computer at home. Apparently she cannot take away the computer she bought for him or disconnect the service or take the door off the hinges. It is so pathetic. pardon me while I :rolleyes:
Well, at least she knows where he is and what he’s doing.
Bullshit. Just because you don’t *like * the reasons doesn’t make them not valid. I’d say that he can live his life as he likes when he pays his own bills, just like everybody else on the planet. You get to manage your own life when you take responsibility for your own life. That’s the difference between between being an adult and being a child, and the only way on earth to convince people to treat you like an adult is to act like one. As long as you’ve still got your hand out for movie money, you don’t get to make your own rules.
Seems to me he is trying to be independent and take responsibility for himself, and his parents are the ones opposed.
What makes you think he’s asking for money?
loopydude, this kid sounds very much like me when I was that age. I’d rather not share my experiences with the board (these crazed parents with All The Answers might gang up on me) but I see very bad things coming.
I must say one thing. Locking him out (or in) may be the push it takes to get him to runaway. Is that good or bad? In my case it was both.
16 isn’t legally old enough to take responsibility for himself. He has refused to get a summer job - how is that independent? He wants his parents to support him, but he doesn’t want to cooperate as part of the family.
This is a sad situation, and one that I am sure didn’t develop overnight. I really have no idea how the parents can force a child to cooperate short of involving juvenile authorities, which I am sure they don’t want to do. If he refuses to go on a family vacation, how are they going to get him to go to counseling?
And again, bullshit. The day he says “You know what, you’re right. Your home, your rules is perfectly reasonable. So I’m leaving.” and actually TAKES CARE OF HIMSELF, *then * he’s taking responsibility. As long as he simply comes and goes as he pleases while expecting his parents to feed, clothe, and house him, he’s a leech and a twerp.
You seem to think he should be treated as an adult, but tell me, would claiming complete independence while living at home and not contributing anything be acceptable behavior for a forty year old?
He’s not claiming complete independence. He’s claiming some independence. It happens that the area(s) in which he is claiming independence are areas in which his parents do not think he should have independence. I can’t pretend to know whose view (his or his parents) is right in this regard. Maybe he’s asking too much, maybe they’re giving too little, I don’t know enough about the situation to say.
My kid’s only 18 months old so I know not whereof I speak. But I suspect that even were my kid, around age 16, to decide to stop providing any contribution to the family whatsoever, I would still feel perfectly happy providing him with a room to stay in. As long as he’s not endangering the family by doing anything illegal (or really really stupid) in there, he’ll always (until some as yet undecided age) have a place to stay in my home. If he doesn’t want to participate in the family as a member of the family, that will be a sad decision which I will strongly discourage. And his actions (or inactions) will, I’m willing to bet, be reciprocated.* But by the time he’s that age, if he’s serious about his decision, I don’t imagine there will be anything I’ll be able to do to force him to do otherwise. And why should I? Why demand that he act falsely around me? Decorum I can demand. (If he decided to act positively destructive around the house, as well as refusing to participate as a member of the family, then I’d start to think about kicking him out. 
) Love? Respect? Those are his to give, and mine to earn, respectively.
Anyway, I don’t expect things to ever come to this in my family. But kids can suprise you.
-FrL-
*By this I mean I’m sure that, if things were to actually get as bad as this, me and his mom would probably not be in much of a mood to treat him very familiarly, either. Still, I think, there would always be a standing invitation.
I have a buddy who tells the story on himself about how, when he couldn’t be bothered to make it home by midnight, his parents took his house key. I think it only took one night of sleeping in the garage before he got the message.
I’ve met some kids kind of like the one in the OP. I’ve wondered why their posessions don’t start disappearing. “Oh, your chores are not done for the second week. Maybe that’s why your stereo is missing.”
I swear, I’m already doing this with my toddler daughter, she has a will of iron. Yesterday my son was acting out in his carseat & wasn’t playing with anything I could confiscate. I threatened to take his pants.
(It took me forever to find that!)
Also, you can’t legally eat ice cream on Sunday while riding a horse within 500 feet of a post office in Podunk, Idaho. There sure are a lot of crazy laws, huh? 
Um… how is it not independent? He’s making a choice about what he wants to do with his own time. If he were to get a job just because his parents told him to get one, that would be less independent.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s tried doing exactly that.
Heh, read the OP again: his parents object when he tries to leave! You seem to think it’s his idea to live in their house, under their rules, but I see no reason to make that assumption.
Parents with the kind of resolve to start taking stuff usually don’t have to go through with it.
That, or they raise children who learn from example and begin taking their things in retaliation.