My teenagers have turned into rich spoiled party animals...

Make them take a year off between high school and college. During that year, send them off to Latin America (or some other undeveloped place) to volunteer with a NGO.

After a year of cold showers, food-born illnesses, unstable electricity/internet, and exposure to the real world outside of US suburban utopia, they will come back much more worldly, appreciative, and well-rounded.

Stumped Old Geezer wrote:

My wife and I have been disagreeing about forcing my son to get a job. He is an honor roll student and a varsity soccer player. My wife feels that he shouldn't have to work and should just focus on school, sports, friends etc. I will try to press the issue further.

In terms of college, we are definitely going to cover tuition, rent, and textbooks. After freshman year, we will probably have my daughter pay for her food and entertainment costs. We will see how that works and adjust accordingly when my son starts getting ready to leave. My daughter will be attending Tulane University and received a 5k per year leadership scholarship due to her involvement with student government in high school.

A summer job would be a good idea for your son next summer before senior year. Frankly, I wish my parents made me work after my senior year, but I had so much cash from graduation gifts, that there was no need. After my first semester at college, the savings were low and my parents told me if I wanted more cash, I would have to get a job. I had fun at that dining hall. I still wish that I was less timid with Hannah.

If he works during the school year, a job could interfere with performing at a high level with his other activities. But if he is not a three-season athlete, there is no reason he can't get a job during the non-competitive seasons. My brother did it, and he still played varsity baseball with some small-time scholarship offers.

Heck, I had a paper route my freshman year and still made varsity in CC and T&F, and played freshman ball. I would have kept the route all through high school if the newspaper did not eliminate my route.

Also, with your daughter, I would prioritize giving her cash for food rather than textbooks. Don't want her to starve. Give her a set amount for food each month or buy the on-campus meal plan, and say that if she wants extra for eating out and such, spend her own cash. Huge discounts can be found with used textbooks or renting textbooks, and then she can also resell those at the end of the semester for a couple hundred bucks. Then you can use that money from the sold textbooks for next semester's books. The process might stimulate her entrepreneurial instincts.

You're the boss, buddy. Lay down the law. These kids are gonna have to learn to be independent someday, or you will spoon feeding them for way longer than you want to be.

My parents also did not let us drink because, well, it is illegal and dangerous for teenagers.

América Latina wrote:

Make them take a year off between high school and college. During that year, send them off to Latin America (or some other undeveloped place) to volunteer with a NGO.

After a year of cold showers, food-born illnesses, unstable electricity/internet, and exposure to the real world outside of US suburban utopia, they will come back much more worldly, appreciative, and well-rounded.

Yea, something like this, too. They will have a greater appreciation of all the things that they have available to them when they see how the "other half" lives.

Whoa--- The weekend drinking does not bother you!!! Your son is 16 F***ing years old. THAT is the problem!!!

my 12 year old daughter is like trained diplomat

my son 13 is errrr great at xbox

Stumped Old Geezer wrote:

I have also caught my son smoking marijuana in his room.

Two questions:

1) was it a joint, blunt, dirty glass pipe or out of some exotic water pipe? If he's kept an exotic water pipe concealed and has kept it clean then at least he is showing responsibility.

2) was the grade of the pot good? Like when you took a whiff was it a dirty 60s mexican schwag or was it a top caliber bud he shopped around for?

Who cares about the sex, if your son is smoking top notch bud out of a nice and clean exotic water pipe, I was your son ten years ago. Boys will be boys.

I make over 90k per year, have two degrees and a great life. Id be more worried about your daughter.

10/10 to OP for inciting a lively thread tackling the issue of entitled millennials in the subtle context of class envy

Like Bob Dylan sings: "helpless as a rich man's child"

From what I've seen, the kids who do the best in college are not on either extreme of the spectrum when it comes to financial assistance from their parents but rather somewhere near the middle.

Somebody who has everything handed to them may or may not become an "entitled millennial", but somebody who really has to start working & paying for everything on their own as an 18 year old is much more likely to struggle academically & socially... in addition to drowning in loan debt if/when they do manage to graduate.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/college-the-great-unleveler/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html

Stumped Old Geezer wrote:

My wife and I have been disagreeing about forcing my son to get a job. He is an honor roll student and a varsity soccer player. My wife feels that he shouldn't have to work and should just focus on school, sports, friends etc. I will try to press the issue further.

In terms of college, we are definitely going to cover tuition, rent, and textbooks. After freshman year, we will probably have my daughter pay for her food and entertainment costs. We will see how that works and adjust accordingly when my son starts getting ready to leave. My daughter will be attending Tulane University and received a 5k per year leadership scholarship due to her involvement with student government in high school.

See, you have not established a CHAIN OF COMMAND! ANY organisation without a solid chain of command will FAIL! Who is the BOSS, your wife or you? Decide who the boss is ( I recommend the wife) and EVERYONE (including you) DO WHAT SHE SAYS! If everyone follows the chain of command things usually work well.

Um, again is son's gf hot ?

tough love will straighten them out.

Sending your daughter to college will only turn her into more of a party freak so make her get a job. Send your son to live with your third cousin in Montana,that'll get him squared away.

You're straight disgusting

My three are 21, 19, and 17. Similar upbringing, never wanting for anything, (their mother and I both have masters degrees and high paying jobs) all have their own laptops, trips overseas, Hawaii vacations, etc. but they all knew they better work for it and that at some point they were going to be on their own.

A few years ago the youngest decided to get caught in a car on NYE with three of his buddies behind some warehouse with pot and pipes. He was let go but the other three were arrested because they had those items on them and mine did not. He had not smoked that day but admitted to past smoking.

We grounded him for 90 days, meaning he could only go to school, running practice and home. No social media, no texting and was banned from associating with his best friend for life ( his older brother was the dealer). We made him tell his coach and the high school athletic director what happened. He missed all indoor meets that year. He was told if he ended up in a cop car again he would be grounded for a year and no running.

But he later told his older sister that he felt cared for and loved by what we did. We've had no issues since then.

My 19 year-old wants to be a guitar player. This is highly distressful but I told him I would give him 6 months free living in my house to do that if he got a full time job while he was playing. Though he got a handful of gigs in the six months, he did not get a full time job ( he had a part time busboy job). So I told him he had 90 days to get out. He is now living at his drummers house. Tough to watch as a parent but he'd have never left and never figured out how to be an adult (or at least have to fund his own way - I haven't given him a penny and he has $1200 to his name) if I let him stay.

So you can be a parent and have them turn out okay.

My 21 yo daughter will graduate college a semester early in December after getting he first two years cover by her D1 running scholarship. I've never had any issues with her.

You never know how they'll turn out.

As a teenager who would be considered "a good kid", I can say with certainty that 90% of the adults commenting on this thread are idiots. There are 2 types of kids in the world: The one's who develop under the pressure posters are suggesting, and the ones who crack. You probably won't have any idea which kind your kids are until its too late.

I was kicked out of my house senior year, for some things I did do and some things I absolutely didn't. I was a lot worse than your kids sound, though not nearly as spoiled, and I now go to an Ivy league school with a full ROTC scholarship. My expenses are paid for entirely. I will never have a good relationship with the parent who kicked me out, even though that parent has offered to help me out with a lot of things recently. I also look at most of my peers as pussies frankly. They don't know what harsh parenting is like, or what it means to really work for something without a safety net.

My twin brother was worse than me, but both of my parents always spoiled him. He's been in trouble with the law recently, and my parents have tried all of the things posters are suggesting and more. It wont work, cause he just doesn't have "it". The parent he lives with could kick him out of the house, but doesn't because that parent has realized that he would just keep doing what he was doing resent that parent in the long run. You could try cutting your kids off or locking them in their rooms for 3 months, but it might backfire in the worst way possible.

What you need to do as a parent is incentivize (something our government could learn a thing or two about as well). Make your kids work for the things you provide them, but don't make things black and white. Ultimatums rarely work, and you don't want a daughter who has found success but refuses to have any kind of relationship with you. If your son wants you to help with school, demand that he keeps his grades at a high level (3.5 is my suggestion) and pay half of his bills instead of the whole thing. Making him pay the other half will give him a reason to buckle down instead of partying, and you can always give him more cash for a car or house when he graduates. Don't pay for your daughter's "music festivals" (lol I still can't believe this) unless she gets a job for the summer. And DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT force her into a state school education in the middle of nowhere. I have had several tremendous opportunities in college that I wouldn't have had if I had gone with my cheap state school, because (1) private schools offer great connections/extra services, and (2) because I go to school in a city.

Bottom line, the best course of action for any kid is to teach them to really work for themselves, while still helping them out. They are basically adults already, and you can't make their decisions for them. If they want to party, they're going to party! That ship has sailed. What you need to do is start giving them a reason to become hard-working, functional members of society without having them resent you for it.

I am absolutely amazed at how much parents spoil their kids these days.

Excellent post^^

[quote]Stumped Old Geezer wrote:

I love em and they're not bad kids.../quote]

Sounds like they are 'bad' kids; you need to change your definition. They don't listen to you and your son had sex in your car?

Dude, that's really fcked up.

I feel your pain, but this is a problem of your own making and in the short term, there isn't much nothing you can do about it. My advice, make it clear to your girl that she has exactly 4 years to finish school and have her finance her extracurricular activities while is school, which means she will need to get a job. You are paying for her education, so you should not have any guilt about this. When she finishes school, give her 9 months to get a job and save up for an apartment and then was your hands of the parenting. None of this is probably not going to transform her from a brat, but at least you can pass the problem off to another man. At this point, your son undoubtabley hasn't developed the backbone to adjust to strict parenting. Having allowed him to be brat his whole life, Any sudden adjustment in your parenting style will only create a lot resentment and conflict in the household. However, you have to have a few things that you will absolutely not tolerate, like drinking, drugs and sex in the household. If that crap happens again, go ape on him.

The problem with rasing low morale entitled kids is they often become the same way as adults and they end up being a lifetime problem for you.