17 year old who is addicted to Xbox and hates school, how can we help him brake that habit?

[Goleby]

Help, how can I help my 17 yr old son break the Xbox addiction? He spends all his time on it and hates school! He keeps promising to change but reverts back to his old habits not handing in school work and not caring. 

[Ben-RO]

Hi there @Goleby i can hear how worried you are about this and particularly the impact of missing school work, school is such an important time for shaping one's future and i can certainly understand the concern. It seems like there's a few things going on here, he hates school at the moment and reverts back to old habits after trying to change.

If you'd like to, I'd love it if you shared with me what you have explored with him so far, have you shared your fears about not engaging with school? What are your hopes and fears here? 

[Chalke5]

Hi @Goleby, this is very tricky because he is nearly an adult and this results in less control over how he spends his time.  Have you thought about talking to him about leaving school and getting a job?  This worked for one of my sons.  In the end I didn't care what job he obtained however, we managed to get him an apprenticeship and this provided a different focus and opened up a whole new world for him.  Please let us know what strategies if any you have tried.

[Goleby]

Hi and thank you for the welcome, we have tried many things, including changing schools at end of last year. He has never enjoyed school and finds it hard to get motivated where school is concerned. He was previously bullied and has anxiety issues. New School has been very supportive, giving him more chances and allowing change of subjects and supporting him and put him in a  program to help with work.  But nothing seems to work, he comes around for few days, then back to usual, skipping some classes and not completing assignments. Previously we removed his X-box during the week and only allowed on the weekends, then slowly we introduced again once he completed his work during the week and eventually we let him keep it full time as he promised to complete his work,but he is now on his away back to old ways. Just don't know what to do anymore, just today he missed 2 classes because class location had been changed and advised but he failed to read notices and wasn't particularly worried.

[Goleby]

Hi Chalker5, thank you, yes we talk to him all the time we sit him down and go through it all with him and he sits there and nods and agrees but doesnt last long. Yes we have tried to get him an apprenticeship, went for a day, employer advised that he wasn't what they were looking for, so back to school he went. So he got a bit depressed but snapped out of it, he was refereeing rugby through winter, half way through season he dislocated his knee which needed surgery and only just getting back to normality, so that hasn't helped either.