Scott Ervin, Tribune News Service
Dear Kid Whisperer,
How do you handle a 17-year-old who refuses to contribute to the household in any way? She doesn’t want to help her siblings or do her chores. She doesn’t have any interest in getting her driver’s license, so there aren’t many privileges that I can take away. She is so unmotivated that I don’t even know if she will leave the house after she graduates from high school. I don’t know what to do anymore.
Answer: The pain of knowing that you have not yet taught your soon-to-be-an-adult kid how to be a person in the world can be overwhelming, and the horror of having to live with that person can be even worse. I am so sorry that you are going through this.
Your daughter must assume her proper place in your family: that of a child. A person who is subordinate to her parents. This is an essential part of a family structure. The parent or parents are in charge because kids’ brains are never fully functional, and 100% of parents in the history of the world have been on the earth longer than their offspring and therefore have had more time to gain wisdom.
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If I were you, here’s how I would set up a new world for your kid, one in which she is first required to contribute to the family exactly in the ways the leaders of the family require.
Kid Whisperer: I love you, and I need to apologize to you. I have failed miserably at something. I’ve led you to believe that you have no part to play in this family. You have lived in this house and benefited from being warm and comfortable and eating the food that I have bought for you, all without contributing anything to our household. By allowing this, I think that I have tricked you into thinking that you are entitled to things. This has led to you being very ungrateful — and acting ungrateful, too. I’ve allowed you to become un-useful, which must have made you feel useless, and I’m so sorry for that.
Kid: Whatever. Is this little talk going to have a point?
Kid Whisperer: Oh, dear. It’s stuff like that. I also worry that if this doesn’t change, you are going to be really sad, maybe forever, because it’s very hard to be happy if you’re never grateful and you feel useless.
Kid: I’m bored. And that’s sad.
Kid Whisperer: From now on, while you are living in this house, you will be required to do the chores that are on the chart that I put on the fridge. It includes mowing the lawn, washing the dishes every night, and several other chores. Since you are nearly an adult, they are as numerous and time consuming as my chores are.
Kid: Why in the world would I do any of this?
Kid Whisperer: You’ll have to figure out the answer to that on your own. Once you start making and then continue to make contributions to this household, I will start making contributions to you. I’ll start driving you places, packing your school lunch, etc.
Kid: How dare you!?!?!?!
Kid Whisperer: Also, you will be able to live your life outside of this house the moment after you have taken care of all of your responsibilities. Otherwise, you’ll stay in this house instead of living life outside of school. Those responsibilities include everything on the daily chore chart and anything I assign to you. In real life, you get things by giving things. If you don’t give, you don’t get. I’m sorry I kept you from real life until now. Real life starts today.
Kid: It’s not really real life! Real life is when I’m not living in this stupid house anymore!
Kid Whisperer: You have a point. Real life — you moving out of this house — will be happening any time before the end of three months after your high school graduation day. At that point, you’ll be living a “real life,” filled with rent, buying your own food, and so on.
Kid: But how am I going to pay rent or get a job? I don’t even have a driver’s license!
Kid Whisperer: I don’t know. I love you, you’ve got 15 months to figure it out, and I believe in you!
As you can see, your kid’s life will change drastically and forever on the day that you have this conversation. Better late than never!
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