AreaCode7O7
Senior member
Get him a job at McDonald's, or as a janitor at Wal-Mart. Drive him there every day and pick him up, make sure he isn't late, doesn't miss a day, doesn't skip out. Start volunteering together at a soup kitchen as well. Visit a prison, if you can.
After a few weeks of both activities, take him out for dinner to a really nice restaurant. Ask him to observe the difference he's seen in lifestyles at the soup kitchen, at his low-wage job, and what he sees around him at the restaurant. Talk him through how his choices now, his application of effort now, will lead him down different paths, and that he has a lot of control over where he goes.
Remind him that your family cares a lot about him and that, while he's starting to grow up and make some of his own choices and have some responsibility over himself, he's still under the authority of his parents and that they will continue to enforce his good behavior in school and out of it until he is old enough to be on his own. Point out that he should be mature enough to make the right choices simply because he wants his long term life to be good, but that if short-term negative consequences are the only way he keeps on the straight and narrow, that's what will happen.
Hope he gets the message but make sure your parents are willing to dish out some heavy short-term negative consequences if his JD behavior continues.
[edit] If he seriously doesn't give a shit and is constantly acting like a badass, check on who he's hanging out with. If he's getting recognition and praise from his peers because of his behavior, messages from home aren't going to do much to change him. You may need to put some enforcement in his choice of company.
After a few weeks of both activities, take him out for dinner to a really nice restaurant. Ask him to observe the difference he's seen in lifestyles at the soup kitchen, at his low-wage job, and what he sees around him at the restaurant. Talk him through how his choices now, his application of effort now, will lead him down different paths, and that he has a lot of control over where he goes.
Remind him that your family cares a lot about him and that, while he's starting to grow up and make some of his own choices and have some responsibility over himself, he's still under the authority of his parents and that they will continue to enforce his good behavior in school and out of it until he is old enough to be on his own. Point out that he should be mature enough to make the right choices simply because he wants his long term life to be good, but that if short-term negative consequences are the only way he keeps on the straight and narrow, that's what will happen.
Hope he gets the message but make sure your parents are willing to dish out some heavy short-term negative consequences if his JD behavior continues.
[edit] If he seriously doesn't give a shit and is constantly acting like a badass, check on who he's hanging out with. If he's getting recognition and praise from his peers because of his behavior, messages from home aren't going to do much to change him. You may need to put some enforcement in his choice of company.
