IM disaster, would you lend advice?
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| Thu, 09-06-2007 - 10:19am |
My 15 yr old son is a good kid, but he messed up today big time. First of all he constantly gets himself in trouble by leaving his evidence all over the place but on the plus side it makes it easy to help steer him in the right direction. For example I found a condom in his sports bag two days ago, he confessed that his friend (one of the four I'll get to in a minute) stole a package from our local 7/11 and assurred me he has no use for it, and kept it for reasons he does not know other than it's common for boys at school to have these in their backpacks etc...After much talking about it, I told him stealing it was so wrong and that having a condom at his age IF he needed it (I really doubt he does he has not had too much interaction with girls, that I'm not privy to and are always supervised)(but between you and me, he's just as culpable of taking it I hate to say) and I was troubled that he thinks this is no big deal especially since he didn't steal it, and so he was grounded for 1 week. In addition his attitude towards me has been rude lately and yet he and I have a good relationship, it's just that I'm stict, more so than any of his friends and he's having a hard time handling that, but as I've told him, he's my third of four kids, and I didn't just fall off the truck yesterday. And I tell him constantly that I do this out of love for him and am doing my best to raise a man who can be proud of himself not just today but in the future.
Imagine my disgust this morning when I found his IM exchange with a summer girl (who's gone back home). In it he brags about how he's sitting drinking Captain Morgan (can you imagine with us right there, he was actually eating an apple) etc... in addition, he calls her a bitch, asks if she's gotten any XXXX lately(use your worst imagination, and other really raunchy stuff. She hahaing to all of this and at one point he does say "sorry that was uncalled for". I copied it off the computer and called my husbad and we are both just completely disgusted and so very sad for him. And what do you make of this girl who seemingly comes from a nice family but must be really messed up to let a boy talk to her that way. Ugggghhh!
One side note, he has about six good friends. Two he hangs with separately because they do not hang around the other four (different grade etc) and it's THIS group of four that my husband and I do not care for. Why? Well it's mostly their families, they do not supervise very well. BUT, so far the kids have only broken two rules that we know of. First, this group got into internet porn which we stopped at our house for sure, but we approached the other parents and it was pretty much just "we will talk to them of course but boys will be boys". And secondly while they are polite for the most part, they act stupid and lazy (they do pretty good in school though and much of the time they ride bikes and play sport after sport after sport). But, they just bugs us, and we are always suspect that they could be a bad influence on my son, although honestly, he's doing a pretty good job on his own wouldn't you say? But we decided last year that he's known these neighborhood kids all his life and we'd be unfair to cut him off, but we put him on notice that one really bad thing and we'd intercede. And, we do not let him spend the night with them but on rare occaisions when the more supervising parents are hosting. This experience though is unrelated to them, but it has me wondering how much this goes on with them in their IM world and how accepted it probably would be. And my husband is really at a point where this is time to cut off his ties with them. I'm not sure it might not backfire, but I'm all for him having to really limit his time with them and find other options.
As for him immediately. My husband leaves for a business trip late today and we are hopefully going to hit the high school and grab him before soccer practice and have a talk before DH leaves town for three days. Or it'll be me alone (trust me, I'm not pushover, just very sad right now) and then my DH on the phone tonight. What DH and I've decided it IM is gone completely, forever, and anything else he might have Myspace, whatever...the computer (the family one and only)is in the living room smack dab in front of everything so no worries there and he's goinn to be socially grounded for an extra two weeks. Toss in a heavy dose of talk about this and how very sick it is to talk to anyone much less a girl like this...do any of you have any other advice?
What do you think about limiting his time with the four "just okay" friends. And what more can I do to improve his attitude toward himself and us?
Mostly here's what I think. He's a great kid but has self esteem issues to a degree. And lately while I think he's going thru normal growing pains he's been extra testy and sometimes angry or moody, but I think anyone who engages (even if he honestly thinks it's no big deal) in this behavior can not feel very good about themselves. Don't you agree? I mean it's so degrading not just to others, but to yourself.
We have a good family, and he's a good kid who needs to be reined back in, any other advice?
thanks so much.

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Honestly, this sums it up IMO.
They are young; they do stupid things. Sometimes we catch them and, more often, we don't. Being that there was just another post on the raunchy IM and texting, I am wondering how common this is. I will ask my college son-he tends to be pretty honest, especially not that he's out of the house ;)
I personally would only take away the IM for a set period of time-no point in overkill as it usually means your emotions are in overdrive(BTDT)That's JMO
The friends? Is it realistic to limit time? Are they on the same sports teams?
You could certainly increase 'family' time. Rose on the board always advises that they need us the most when they are acting the worst and I think she is very wise
So, more hikes and picnics for the 'family' and perhaps a DVD night or board game night that is mandatory? That way you aren't saying you are limiting his time with the kids but doing so in a round about way. Even if he makes the connection, you can insist his behaviors tell you he needs more time with the parental units.
My middle son(the one I will ask about the IMs)did most of what you speak of-dont know about shoplifting but I wouldnt be surprised. He seems to be getting his act together, finally. I don't think he is worse for the experiences(about killed us, of course)
Sadly, this is common among the peacock type males-and that usually includes kids who are out there playing sports. They are popular, they get away with things even with school administration, they have a built in comradery from the teams, and, what one doesnt think of, the others do. DS2, at your sons age, told me he could go to a party any weekend and have sex if thats what he wanted-I about fell over. DS1 said "Really, where?" LOL DS1 is not a 'peacock male'
This seems to be a common topic on this board lately....
I forgot one other thing I wanted to say...
Maybe its just me or maybe I'm just one of those too liberal people (?) but I think you are overreacting. Seriously.
Yeah, he's having highly sexualized talk with a girl (who lets him btw). Yeah, his friends are not perfect models of behaviour. Yeah, he's rude and testy sometimes. And yeah, he's looking at porn. I don't want to minimize the issues or say the old "boys will be boys" thing but really, who is he hurting with all this behaviour in your view?
We adults don't always "get" our kids. Sexually charged "talk" on IM is just that -- "talk". And some people will allow you to get away with it and some won't. And when I was a teenager, this sort of thing happened in the cafeteria or at the local mall or whenever groups were together (sometimes even in class). And it was rude and stupid and immature and yet...relatively...harmless. The vast majority of those kids grew up just fine.
As for the lazy friends, how BAD are they really? Aside from the one who shoplifted (and that's the ONE kid I would be pissed off about quite frankly), what's really wrong with the rest besides being, again, silly, immature teenagers? Are they criminals? Do they take drugs? Are they violent? What is it?
And the porn...well...when I was a kid I remember finding my dad's dirty magazines as well as his playing card deck with the topless women and the funny pens he had where if you turned it upside down the girls bathing suit disappeared and she was naked underneath etc etc. That was my DAD. My DAD looked at porn. And to me and to his family he's nothing less than a very decent, upstanding person. But he, I guess, had a very healthy interest in naked women!!! LOL. It might not be everyone's cup of tea and you might want to ensure that you limit how much of it he sees and especially that it doesn't get into really raunchy, hard-core stuff but otherwise...I don't see the big deal.
If you want to have a good serious talk with him, tell him EXACTLY what you know about what he's been doing, embarass the heck out of him by letting him know that you know what he's been up to, maybe take him away from IM and other sites for a couple of weeks or whatever but what I see doesn't need that type of radical reaction.
Or am I just not familiar enough with all the sordid details?
Yeah, I am kind of with you on this. I remember my ex (who had 3 older brothers) saying that his mom found Playboys in the oldest brother's room and my ex just thought that was great. I'm sure all boys have looked at this at one time or another, now it's just easier to do it on the computer rather than getting a magazine. That doesn't mean that you can't block porn sites on the computer, and I think that if my son was doing that, I would have a nice talk about respecting women, but I wouldn't think he was abnormal (rather the opposite) if he looked at porn once in a while.
The same w/ the talking to the girl using bad language. I have to say that it's no wonder kids these days use that kind of language what with the rap songs and movies. I tried to explain to my kids that in my olden days, we didn't have to worry about getting the cleaned up versions of songs because noone would make a song using any bad words. Plus my DH & I went to see Knocked UP (we must have been really bored that night). The premise of the movie was actually kind of good, that even though this woman unexpectedly got pregnant, she & the guy were going to try their best to be good parents to the child. But there were a lot of raunchy jokes and the man's friends just seemed to be this group of losers who just hung around getting high and their "job" was starting an internet site that was a list of finding all movies where certain stars were seen naked. Now I'm sure my 18 yo DD thought this was the funniest thing ever, even though some of the jokes made me pretty uncomfortable.
I also agree w/ the thing about the 4 friends. I dont' see that any one of them is really doing anything harmful or illegal and the more you try not to have your son be friends w/ them, the more attractive they will seem.
I've had it up to Here with the way that boys speak to dd#1. Why does she allow it? Sometimes she tells me she deserves it. She almost never gets upset by it. Yesterday she was repeatedly called a "fat ho." You guessed it, she was upset about the "fat" part. She took no notice of the "ho" part because it is said so much.
Also, there is a lot of "ha ha" when something raunchy is said. (yes I'm sneaky to know this stuff.)
I just wanted to thank you for being a real stand-up mom in calling attention to the way boys talk to girls. Maybe some of what you said got through.
Thanks from my dd's and I.
L.A.
P.S. How do you password the internet so that homework time is actually homework time. (And yes, my computers are in the living room, too, but you'd be amazed what they get away with.
OMG, I got quoted!!
Re the songs from "back in the day" ... I remember songs with raunchy lyrics and sometimes I listen to a song from my youth now and go "OMG I never realized THAT is what it was saying!!!"
There was "The Bitch is Back" by Elton John -- no ambiguity there. And there were other songs with those words. I remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood "...when you wanna come..." and I remember Salt n Peppa -- "Push It"... and I'm sure there were a few Blondie songs, punk rock songs, disco songs that were inappropriate for us to listen to. But we did anyway.
Surely there are alot of hard core rap songs with alot of the 'f-word' and the like but, honestly, songs with inappropriate lyrics whether you actually REALIZE they are inappropriate or not, were there even in "our day"....
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