17yr old boy driving me crazy

[Kristabella85]

Struggling with what to do with my 17yr old son , he is in yr 12 and likely not to pass yr 12. We have told him he can only leave school if he has a fulltime job or apprenticeship to go to .
He has a job on the weekends that with penalties etc 10hrs work yields him $500 , so he is motivated to get a weekday job for less pay. He has a car and has started to go out at night, my partner works away and we have 2 other children at school. We set a curfew for weekdays and weekends yet my son constantly breaks curfew. I understand and want him to suffer a consequence but my partner wants the consequence to be that if he is past his curfew that he is to stay out and not come home, my partner has also said i need to kick my son out to make him grow up.

I did tell him to leave previously when he was yelling and being rude to me and he stayed at a friends afterwards, i asked him to meet with me and tried to set rules together and it didnt last long before he went back to his old ways . I feel like i suffer the most when he was told to not come home as im upset and worried about him all night! Also it doesnt seem to be much of a punishment for him if we take his house keys as he will happily sleep in his car and is quite happy not to shower!
Tonight being a school night i said he needs to be home at 8.30pm and despite the reminder he got home at 10.15pm , what punishment/consequence would you recommend?

[Bre-RO]

Heya @Kristabella85 

Thank you for opening up about your son. It sounds like you’re doing everything you can to support him to carve out a career path despite the challenges at school. As you said, he’s motivated, which is a great quality. 

The flip side of that motivation could be that it’s a challenging time to hold boundaries and rules when your teen is driving, working and stepping into independence. You’re absolutely not alone in this struggle! In saying that, even though it's a normal transition, it can be really stressful. 

I can imagine you’ve had lots of discussions about curfew, and the more this boundary is pushed, the harder it feels to find a solution. Have there ever been times when you’ve been able to find common ground? Or even times you can recall your son responding well to a certain style of communication? 

We’ve got a bunch of resources that might give you ideas on how to approach the situation: 

Tips for having a difficult conversation 

Creating boundaries and open communication 

Negotiation and compromise 

If you like, let us know what you think of those resources and feel free to share your ideas about what to do next. There’s no one size fits all approach when it comes to implementing boundaries and consequences – after all, you know your son best!