My son has gone right off the rails

wipeout wrote:

Markmiles wrote:

He's agreed to go and stay with his grandparents for a month to give us both some breathing space. As a single parent with a full time job it's incredibly difficult to juggle everything, along with meeting the needs of his younger sister.

Jesus Christ. He threw a can and broke a couple of glasses at home, and you cannot handle this? How does that even cross your mind as a problem? It probably cost like $3. That seems less serious than listening to music loudly on headphones in response to something frustrating.

What? You think throwing objects and potentially injuring people is a better outlet for frustration than listening to music? Then when he's an adult instead of having healthy outlets to stress, he will shoot up the local school or mall and you'll say, "thank God he did that instead of listening to music too loudly!"

It seems pretty obvious that he threw the can against the wall because he was thinking about his mother. If she were there, he would not have to eat canned spaghetti.

So, are you able to talk to him about it? Maybe it's time to cook a meal together. Show him you value him and explain to him how his mother did not leave because of how she feels about her boy.

Send him to a military school

Either a brain infection or genetics, but probably a brain infection. His brain is swollen and nothing is working right upstairs so he compensates with destructive behavior. Try antibiotics.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

Uncle B wrote:

Great idea. Maybe they will kill him.

This had me laughing on the train dude. I did not expect that.

I saw someone else post something about the "glory days" of parenting when parents hit their kids more frequently not resulting in better parenting.

1. I think that parents back then became super-hands-off by high school, so less kids went to college (there was less need for a degree though...), so sure, overall parenting results didn't seem all that much more successful.

2. About zero kids back then acted like the one described here because they all had at least some healthy fear of discipline.

This kid needs discipline and structure in his life. What I said before wasn't meant to be mean-spirited. The parent in the situation described is unwilling to provide discipline, so the kid isn't going to learn discipline at home. Eventually discipline will find him when he pushes the boundaries too far in a public setting and breaks rules or laws. The military and/or boarding school suggestions here are reasonable. Discipline will be provided in those settings. The kid would be better off if the parent provided structure and discipline, but if the parent is unwilling to do that, discipline will need to come from somewhere else.

"About zero kids back then acted like the one described here because they all had at least some healthy fear of discipline."

Nice anecdote. There was no LRC forum for you to read back then either, so how would you know? The kids didn't change, you're just experiencing more and more events that always happened which conflict with your corner of the world due to increased connectivity.

the real question wrote:

WTF is a "tin of spaghetti"?

It's a British word. Usually Americans say, "a can of spaghetti".