What do you do when your young adult agrees with everything you say — and then does none of it?
A question from Andrea:
I just listened to the podcast about Rachel’s question about her young adult son. I can relate in many ways, and the podcast gave great advice about an initial approach to take. However, what if the young adult agrees, and has good intentions, but doesn’t take action due to various factors including: ADHD, some level of depression, lack of skill and practice in self-discipline & self-motivation?
Is it appropriate for us to have consequences – such as taking away some of his screen access if he doesn’t complete reasonable responsibilities at home, or stays in bed until 2 pm? We don’t give him money for things; we do pay his car insurance and have considered charging him for that or for rent, but he’s not highly money motivated and we think it would backfire into him feeling entitled.
How do we distinguish between what he CAN do vs. what skills he still needs to nurture – such as self-discipline to do non-preferred tasks?
When it is a situation outside the home – such as getting to his job on time – he does it, which may be because there is a clear external consequence (he’ll get fired if he is late too many times).
But for things such as normalizing his sleep schedule, reducing his screen time, doing tasks at home, taking steps to improve his mental health and toward future career/education possibilities – there are no natural short-term consequences, unless imposed by my husband and me.
We don’t want to create an environment where he does things just because we impose a consequence if he doesn’t, because we want him to have personal ownership for doing what is right. However, if he isn’t making sustained changes due to lack of ability (yet) or any other reason, how should we respond? Is it OK to create “external motivation” while he is developing skills in “internal motivation?” We’ve tried reward systems in the past, but it has not been enough of a motivator for him.
Note: Family therapy is not a likely option, and even if it were, our questions would be the same as above – about how we (parents) respond if our son doesn’t follow-through. Our son has been in therapy, and the therapist seems to understand our son’s struggles and need to change, and our son gets good advice that he agrees with – but just doesn’t follow-through to execute.
Thank you!!
Thanks for your important question Andrea. Your questions boil down to the issue of accountability. You would like your son to take personal responsibility and be accountable to himself for living in a productive way; a way that will help him move forward in life.
In fact, that’s a truly important developmental task of adolescence; to see one’s future and to embrace one’s future in a productive way. Often a young person’s way may not look like it to parents, but as long as a youth is taking responsibility for what they’re doing, it will be part of their journey, part of learning and growing. For instance, a youth decides rather than go to college, they really want to ski, so in the summer they go to South America and work and ski at a ski resort and in the winter, they come to the US or Canada and work and ski there. Fine, they’re learning and growing and presumably will take other steps when the time is right for them.
In your son’s case, it sounds like he isn’t moving forward towards any interest or goal, although I’m sure he has some interests, but he isn’t choosing a path to pursue them. It appears that he hasn’t grown that critical step of taking personal responsibility, being accountable to his own goals, his own future. And Yes, not having structure can be challenging to some kids.
So what should you do? The question parents have to answer in this situation is: What am I doing that supports the problem and what do I need to change so that I support my young adult, not the problem.
First of all, lose the concept of “consequences.” That’s what you give a 10-year-old for putting gum in his sister’s hair. It’s a punishment and that’s not appropriate. However, you are giving your son support, room, board, I guess a car or use of a car, car insurance, I’m guessing cell phone service. In this case, these support elements are supporting the status quo.
You already know your son can do better. When he had a job, he got up and got there on time. Therefore he has capability and you are believing in his inability, or disability related to ADHD, depression and a lack of experience.
Start with believing in his abilities to do what’s necessary to get up and get going.
Then make it clear to him that you’ve been supporting an unacceptable status quo, and that that is going to change. Apologize for seeing him as unable when you know that he is able and that the support elements you are providing, are going to go away unless he is:
- Clear that he intends to get himself going.
- Has a plan to do that.
- Demonstrates actions according to his plan.
This should not be offered as a threat, but as an awakening that you realize that you’ve been seeing him as unable or disabled when that’s totally disrespectful of him and his abilities. Going forward you see him as a capable young adult with a usual set of personal and societal challenges. Going forward you will support his efforts to move forward but you won’t support the status quo.
You’ll need to be clear about what you expect to see but should include:
- Healthy sleep and awake schedule
- Clear goals and a daily plan for work, training, education or therapy
- Participation in home cleaning, cooking, maintenance
And not doing this with an attitude of resentful compliance and doing a minimum to satisfy the letter of the understanding. You want to see a waking up and a revised attitude that says, “I can and I will.”
If you see him not taking this seriously, without threats or warning, cut some things off. Let him know that when he’s serious about doing some serious growing up, you’ll be happy to put these things in place to support him.
Andrea, once these things are in place, therapy for your son can be productive. In order for therapy to be useful, the person motivated for change has to be in the therapy room.
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