My soon to 19 year old son is going to be entering his 3rd semester of Jr College this fall and has not covered himself with glory to date. The reasons are not mysterious. He is big fan of online gaming, not a big fan of studying, or getting to bed on time, or getting up in the morning. My ex-wife and I were divorced in 97 and my son has lived with his mother the past 7 years. While she has some good qualities her attitude towards the kids academic achievement since day one has been near absolute non-participation in their academic progress. Her notion is that she will provide food and shelter and the rest is up to them. The odd thing is that she has a undergraduate degree in early childhood ed which she never used as she decided it wasn’t really what she wanted to do, so this attitude confuses me as I would expect her to be pro-education and focused on helping them achieve, but her attitude is 180 degrees different and is (effectively) a hands off “they will sink or swim of thier own accord” scenario.
My son barely graduated high school and is now floundering in community college. His current community college cumulative GPA is a very low C at this point. He devotes massive amounts of time to online gaming to the exclusion of almost anything else. This has been years in the making, and his mother’s response to all this over the years has been to call me over to deliver yet another dad lecture when he is at the 59th minute of the 11th hour of failing yet another course, semester or school year. It took me almost 2 years to convince her to let me pull his Warcraft computer (which I had foolishly given him as a birthday present). Pulling the Warcraft computer at the end of the second semester of community college failure was a battle royale, that involved lots of crying, pleading, screaming and furious cursing. It was honestly kind of frightening to see how utterly invested he was in the Warcraft community to the exclusion of almost everything else.
I left him with an HP Pavilion Celeron based Win XP notebook for school work. He then proceeded to install the old school online game Diablo on that machine which he now plays. As usual all my exhortations to turn things around and offers of tutorial help (both mine and professional if necessary) were met with agreement while I am in front of him, and utterly ignored the instant I leave as he turns back to the console.
The odd thing in all this is that I don’t believe he is by nature a congenital slacker, and he is quite willing to put his shoulder to the wheel if given some structure and direction. He and I worked together to complete his Eagle Scout project and numerous other Eagle requirements, and we finally had his ceremony the other day with several other Eagles. He is very proud of this accomplishment.
I’m starting to think that he might not be ready for college maturity-wise, and that another direction might be necessary. I’m thinking of the military but after having attended the incredibly sad funeral of a local 20 year old killed in action 2 years ago in Iraq I’m not so hep on the Army or Marines as a vocational choice. Given his background is the military a viable option or not? I’m not looking for miracles, but if someone has what appears to be a “I’m happy to float along with miminal effort as long I’m being fed, housed and given access to a console” attitude is the military a viable solution to change that attitude?
“crying, pleading, screaming,and furious cursing”? :eek: Are you sure he’s not still three?
Sounds like everything has been provided for him (including, no offense, his Eagle scout accomplishments; would he have gotten them without your involvement?), so why would he change anything? He’s got it made in the shade. Has the boy never held a job?
Okay, what happens if he flunks out of school? He seems to think that things will carry on pretty much as they have in the past - him putting in the minimum and everyone else swirling around him worrying and doing for him. Stop it. And stop paying for school that means nothing to him. If he wants to go to school, let him figure out how to pay for it. I guarantee he’ll show up for class if he’s paying for it himself!
Personally, I’d encourage a construction job (since he’s young and inexperienced, he’d be carrying stuff, mostly - can be a powerful motivation for college), and require him to pay for his own keep. You know, rent, auto payments, auto insurance, his own entertainment, including internet and cable tv. So that if he screws up the job and doesn’t pay for stuff, he loses it - just like in real life. If he doesn’t like that scenario, invite him to move out. And mean it. Some kids don’t grow up until they’re forced to.
When you unplug an invested and dedicated Warcraft gamer you are (and I am not joking) unplugging the thing that defines a good portion of their social universe. Their brain is just as wired to receive pleasure from Warcraft gaming as any heroin addicts is wired to get pleasure from their high.
He was never very motivated to do well in school and barely passed his classes because he was online all the time. He’s a smart kid, but he’s never been motivated to do well. My dad was almost never around (classic case of workaholicism; his idea of Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. is to paint the house) because he’d be working on a project on the other side of the country, or at the office an hour and a half away. Because of this, my mom raised us. She’s quite the opposite. She’d much rather drink wine or gin and sit in front of the TV with a cigarette, and let us do whatever we want.
My parents divorced in 2005 and BruthaBay, MommaBay and I moved 2000 miles away to be near family. PapaBay stayed. So the Free Reign on the household became much more pronounced. BruthaBay did almost nothing but play WOW and his PS3, etc. MommaBay’s attitude is much like your ex-wife’s, so he barely graduated from high school.
Fast forward to 2009. BruthaBay is living with PapaBay now. He has a job and he’s doing well in community college. Why? Because PapaBay works from home now and can be extremely terrifying. He has a mustache and he’s very good at yelling. He’s disciplined and strict and it’s his way or the highway. He and my brother butt heads occasionally, but for the most part BruthaBay is well on his way to adulthood now. He still plays his games, but it’s not his number one priority.
I think the military might be a good option for your son, albeit it’s a bit extreme. To say the least, it will definitely be a huge eyeopener for him. Threaten him with the “Find a job and get out!” method, and if that doesn’t work, drive him to the recruiting office and kick him out of the car.
astro, I am very sorry to hear your son was so invested and dedicated to WoW. I hope he has recovered by now and can be as invested and dedicated to his studies. I personally don’t think the military would be the answer here, but you know your son, and I’m just an anonymous voice on a message board.
But my advice still applies. If you want him to act like a man, stop treating him like a kid.
Military seems extreme to me. Say he gets deployed to Iraq or Afganistan and gets his legs blown off. If I were him, I wouldn’t appreciate having been “pushed” towards that particular outcome. And not to mention your own guilt and future responsibility towards him.
What he does need is a reason to grow up. If people are catering to his immaturity, then he can’t be fully held responsible for acting like a child. Tell him in no uncertain terms that he must “buck the fuck up”. That could mean everything from bringing up his grades to getting a job to laying off the computer games on the weedays. Just something. Tell him you’re just looking for incremental progress towards self-sufficiency. Tell him what he doing is NOT that and if he doesn’t change, then drastic measures will have to be taken because he’s turning into a giant pain in the ass.
I would put more emphasis on getting a job than than the military. Flipping burgers is a lot safer than avoiding IEDs, and will might give him the kick in the butt that he needs to buckle down in school. I know that when I was working at Six Flags as a 15-year-old teenager, seeing 23, 24 year olds with GEDs who were doing the same thing I was doing (except worse, because they had no motivation) made me see the value of going to college and doing well.
He probably wouldn’t be deployed and if deployed, probably wouldn’t get killed…odds are low.
As long as your ex wife supports him, he probably won’t change anything. What happens when junior college is over? What does he do then? Maybe stay at home and play online 24 hours a day? She’s going to have to give him an ultimatum or charge him for rent or something.
IMO the military would be an excellent choice. A buddy of mine’s son was just like your son… just played around, no real direction in life, a real slacker. Last year he went into the Army at the age of 19. He was miserable the first couple of weeks, but eventually got with the program. He now loves it and is completely turned around. He stands straight, is motivated, and looks you in the eye when he talks. I can’t believe it’s the same person.
If you believe your son can do well in school if someone pushes him, have him go in the Air Force. IMO his job prospects will be much better after he gets out. I work with a lot of former / retired Air Force folks at a local AFB, and they do very well for themselves. (Air Force bases tend to hire those who are former / retired Air Force, and they get paid well.)
My little brother was in the same situation. My mother forced him to sign up to the Marine Corps. He later decided that he didn’t want to go and kept asking to defer for enlistment. Finally, he flat out refused to go and they literally sent armed MP’s to our house to get him at 8:00 am one morning. He had a choice; go to boot camp or go to military prison. He was on a plane to California a few hours later for boot camp and then on to South Carolina and finally to Okinawa, Japan. This was a very smart, good-looking, and fit kid who was scared to travel more than 100 miles away because he might get culture shock. The Marines broke that mentality down instantly. He got married proudly in his Marine Corps dress uniform 2 years later. Today, he is successful, a model husband, and father of two beautiful kids and freely admits that wouldn’t have happened if my mother hadn’t forced him into the Marines.
Compare that to case number two. My nephew ended up in a similar situation and I urged him to join the military. His father, a complete wuss, freaked out because he didn’t want his son to die. Well, his son become a heroin addict shortly thereafter and is still alive only by the grace of god and it is getting worse every day. He will die from that but the chance of dying in the military is still pretty low.
I don’t know anything about either the military or parenting, so my advice may not be worth much. I do, however, know a fair bit about slacker eighteen-year-olds who are struggling in school, and it sounds to me like the problem is that he hasn’t learned how to be an adult yet – he’s floundering because he’s had no experience making grown-up decisions and living with the consequences. Therefore, I’m not sure joining the military would be much help. I suppose it might if the idea comes from him and it’s what he genuinely wants to do, but if it’s just one more decision made by his parents, it becomes yet another way to delay growing up.
I think legalsnugs and monstro have the right idea: cut the cords, stop supporting him, but also stop lecturing him and making decisions for him. Confiscating a computer is a punishment for a kid; having to find a job and a place to live after flunking out of college is a reasonable consequence for an adult.
Even if his legs don’t get blown off, there’s PSTD and all sorts of “invisible” trauma a person may go through being in a battle field. Kid sounds too immature for college. Don’t see why going to to the military would make him suddenly more mature, but of course I could be wrong.
Just seems like there’s a lot of options in between being a lazy slacker and boot camp. Military should be brought up as an option, something that he chooses to do, not as some last resort tactic.
Why does everyone think going in the military means you’ll be in infantry? There are many many jobs in the military that don’t entail a great deal of risk and danger. There’s logistics, flightline maintenance, intelligence, information technology, engineering, planning, etc.
Yes, there is some obvious risk if you’re sent to Iraq or Afghanistan regardless of what you do. But the risk is low. And IMO it’s very much worth it when the only other option is leading a slacker, aimless life.
Seconded. But your leverage is going to be limited so long as he lives with your ex. Have you shared your concerns with her? If the two of you can make common cause - and stick to your guns in providing both encouragement and consequences for failure - that could make a huge difference.
