Start insisting he become an accountant and nothing else will do. Then he can rebel by deciding to be an architect or something just to piss you off.
Maybe I am dense, but I don’t understand this carrot/stick dichotomy you’ve got set up.
Ok, so you already have a car for him. Why not tell him that it is his when he’s ready, but he’s required to pay the gas and some portion of the insurance? This way you don’t have to feel guilty about being a hardass (or whatever…I’m honestly confused what’s got you twisted up), but you still can have him take ownership of something.
at this point? When he’s 18, give him the “college, military, or job” ultimatum and boot his ass out.
You need to give him the ultimatum earlier so he has time to go to college if he wants to. Otherwise, it won’t really be an option since deadlines may have passed and his grades will be too low.
If you graduate from high school or get a GED, you can go to an open enrollment college. Most two-year and some four-year colleges are open enrollment. After two years with a good GPA, you can transfer to a more competitive university. Many state schools even offer guaranteed transfer admission with a certain GPA.
So it is absolutely never too late to go to college because you’ve gotten bad grades.
Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.
Oh, that’s a given. He’ll have to pay for gas and routine maintenance (oil changes, tire rotation, etc.).
I’ve accepted the fact that CC is in the cards for him if he chooses the school route. Even if by some miracle he got accepted to a college, given his attitude about school it would be a complete waste of money to have him have a party year of college before he’s sent home packing because he’s failing half his subjects.
Incentives (“carrots”) haven’t worked, punishments (“sticks”) haven’t worked.
Something that might work a bit now is to convey this message: “It’s apparent you don’t care about your future. I think we agree it hasn’t been working these last couple years for me to care about your future when you don’t. Henceforth I refuse to care about your future either.”
Tell him now that at 18 he is on his own, period. He will move out of your house on his birthday. Between now and then your only demand is don’t do anything illegal inside your house. He’s welcome to attend any school he can pay for and live anywhere he can pay for. Point out there is some charity help for paying for school and you can help him find the applications if he asks for your help. Him actually completing & filing the apps is 100% his problem.
If he doesn’t want school that’s fine. School or no he’s gonna need a job. You’re willing to teach him how to try to get a job if he asks for your help. But getting the job is his problem, not yours.
And then stick to it. After 6 months he’ll either decide that your indifference is painful to him, or he won’t. Either way it’s not your problem anymore.
Said another way, he has already decided that you are not a parent figure to him. You’re a meal ticket, but not a figure he chooses to follow. And he’s mature enough to make that choice and to make it stick within the safe confines of middle-class US teenager-hood. And unfortunately the law doesn’t permit you to fully remove the training wheels yet by pointing him at the street and applying boot to butt.
Ultimately, your parenting stopped at about the kid’s age 12. Not because you’re a bad guy or didn’t try your heart out. I bet you’re a good guy who tried and is still trying like heck. But for whatever combination of circumstances in his life and head and your life and head and his Mom’s life & head, he’s chosen to abandon the parent/child relationship for the welfare state/freeloader relationship.
And you can’t change his mind. All you can do is extract yourself as soon as possible with as much fair warning to him that it’s coming. And be ready with an opportunity for a second chance with thick strings attached when he falls on his face and admits to himself that he can’t hack the world with his present attitudes and degree of preparation.
As he approaches age 18 this will *probably *turn into a game of chicken. He will keep doing nothing and assume you’ll cave on his birthday and support him in the style he’s accustomed to for another few years.
This is why offering a carrot of college is a totally bad idea.
Telling him now that you’ll school him and house him for 4 more years after HS graduation will NOT lead to any change in his behavior until that good deal has run its course. It will probably take you and you ex-wife until he’s at least 26 to admit defeat.
This is a terrible thing to contemplate doing to your own offspring. I get that. We all get that. But his birthday is coming; his 18th, his 25th, and his 45th. Some people launch easily, others fall flat then get up. And others simply fall flat and stay there.
Ask yourself now what you’ll do if at 22 he’s a vagrant alchoholic. No need to tell us, but think about it yourself. If your answer is bring him into your house and feed him & buy him booze until he dies of cirrhosis at 45 that’s one approach. If your answer is “Damn that’s a shame, but I can’t carry him now; I’ve got to let him be until/unless he gets it together” well that’s another approach. Both approaches have costs and benefits.
TLDR / Bottom line: Do the things now that most greatly expose him to the real world. Not a Dad-imposed extension of high school busy-work. Prior to 18 there’s not a lot you can do, but zeroing what you spend on him beyond food served at home is a good start. He already owns a phone and a PC. But next month the voice/data plan is his expense, not yours. He owns enough clothes. New ones are his problem, not yours. etc.
The only discipline that will work on someone in his mindset is the discipline imposed by the real world, as utterly indifferent to each of us as it is. Let as much of that as possible leak into his world today. The more you do and the sooner you do it the better the chance he’ll wake up before it’s too late.
Late add …
I’m curious about his Mom. I assume she’s nearby and he lives part-time with her. Obviously the next couple of years will be easier if the two of you take a mostly-common approach. If he can play you two off against each other he will do so, and with more skill than you thought humanly possible.
If you go tough-love as I suggest and she pampers him instead, well … she’ll be paying for him at age 30, not you. But the intervening years will be very hard on all three of you. And much harder than need be.
I am sorry you’ve got this mess in you lap. In all 5 pages here I haven’t seen too many expressions of sympathy. You’ve got mine. Sometimes life hands us problems with only bad, worse, and completely awful solutions. I think this is where you are now. The sooner you admit to yourself that good solutions don’t exist, the sooner you’ll be OK to start implementing the least bad one.
Let’s hope it never comes to that. But I realize it’s important that he understands ASAP the very real possibility that it just might, given the current state of affairs.
I’ve tried repeatedly. She makes all the right noises when we talked about this stuff in the past. But never follows through. I very recently decided it was a waste of my time to continue these conversations with her.
So true.
I believe that’s exactly what will happen for a variety of good reasons which I will not itemize here.
Thanks for that. Much appreciated.
Sorry I have read the first and last page only; have you tried the outdoor life - fishing, hiking, camping, a lot of people are cash poor but life rich working as rangers,etc?
Or how about stuff with his hands - engines, working with metal or wood?
And creative stuff - theatre work shops, music?
Based on what you’ve written, her husband isn’t about that freeloading life, though. Following through on unpleasant consequences doesn’t seem to be a problem for him. Is your ex in favor of giving him menial tasks?
I think you’re using the carrot and stick wrong.
First, you show him a carrot. Make sure he notes that it has a nice, tapered point on it, and that the sides are fairly smooth yet somewhat ridged. Even the greens on the end are fairly soft.
Then, YOU RAM THAT FUCKING CARROT RIGHT UP HIS ASS!
Next, you show him the stick…
I don’t understand why there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground in your parenting style. But I think it’s more my misunderstanding than yours.
OK, that’s good to know. I don’t see anything wrong with gifting a car to someone, even a pampered slacker. But he’s got to have some responsibilities. Takng care of a car is a good one.
If it’s not working, then why continue with it?
I realise that this is the opposite of what everyone else is saying, but, to me, you are not enough his friend. You don’t know what motivates him, what he cares about, how he sees his future, what’s going on his head at all. We probably have very different parenting styles, but I would spend some time just talking with him, finding out how he sees things. Then you have some information to think about when you are making plans about what to do. Driving around in the car seems to be a good time for this kind of conversation. My kids often tell me things while we are driving.
Also, if he is 15, teenage years seem to be a time where they go through a lot of change. Just because he is on a certain path now, doesn’t mean he will stay that way. I don’t know how it works in America, but if there is a community college option, then that can always be a backup plan, so you don’t need to fret too much about the future. In a year’s time, his attitude might be completely different. I’d just focus on issues that affect right now. You can’t get a 15 yr old to plan 3 years in advance.
The third thing that comes to mind is that if he is going to be an adult at 18, then he needs practice now. He is practising making his own decisions already, in fact. The fact that he manages his part-time work well seems very encouraging to me. You said he also does chores? I think the more opportunities and responsibilities you give him to look after himself, the better. Can he cook? Budget? Do household repairs? It will be easier to kick him out at 18 if you have some confidence that he knows how to look after himself.
Good luck!
I’m really not in a position to make highly informed comments on that household. Based on what my kids have told me, she pretty much folds to how he chooses to met out punishment. He’s got a couple of kids of his own that live far away and they don’t seem to hold him in high regard either. But again, all second hand information to me.
That’s what I’ve been asking all of you! 
but you’ve shot down everything we’ve suggested. This is what I meant when I was talking about asking for advice then ignoring it.