welcometowitsend
Member
This may sound like a stupid question but I am wondering if you would help your difficult child find an apartment after you've kicked them out. I'm not talking about paying his rent or signing the lease on his behalf. Just going online to look at ads and forwarding him the ads that I think might be good leads for him.
We have asked difficult child to leave and we gave him some time to find a place. He has chosen to not take the time we have given him but to leave and couch surf / stay in the shelter until he can figure out where he is going to live. In the last week he has stayed at 2 different friends places, the shelter and a couple of nights at our place. He stayed here last night but then insisted I return his knives and lighters to him. I told him that if I return them to him then I can't let him sleep here anymore. I just don't trust him with the lighters as he's been caught lighting off books of matches in his room before and doesn't see any reason NOT to do it (ie. you could burn the house down and kill everyone). Or he could wait until he found his own place and then I'd give him his belongings - then he'd be welcome to stay here until he found a place. He chose to not come back and take his knives and lighters.
He works part time but has no money saved for first/last. I have considered selling his dirtbike and using the $$ to help him with first/last. He could probably pay about 4-5 months rent with that money depending on the place he finds. What do you think? We paid for the dirtbike but it is his.
He is only 16 but where we live he is legally allowed to live on his own. He wants to be on his own but needs us to say we kicked him out (and we have because of his choices) so he can collect social services $ to help him pay rent. They will deduct his part time pay off his social services cheque.
So, I guess my questions are - How much do you help? I'd like to do things like have lunch with him once in a while, drop off muffins if I've cooked some, offer him our old couch and some extra dishes/pots that we have, the type of things moms do for young adults once they are out on their own. I'm just not sure if helping him find an apartment is overstepping - is this something he needs to do on his own? Or should I change the situation from being one of some animosity because we 'kicked' him out to "Hey, I'm so excited that you're finding your own place. I saw these ads online and thought you might be interested."
On the one hand I'd love to help and on the other hand if the apartment I found didn't work out then he'd surely blame me... or he'd come to expect very quickly that I would do these things for him instead of them being his responsibility and I was just nice enough to help out.
He is the most inert person I have ever met. He doesn't seem to have an ounce of ambition, no perseverance to pursue things that require any effort whatsoever, no motivation to accomplish anything. So part of me wants to help push him past that and part of me wants to let him find the motivation on his own - even though it may come out of necessity because he ends up sleeping outside one night because the shelter is full and his friends won't have him.
So, how have you handled these types of situations? What worked for you? What didn't? Thanks so much
We have asked difficult child to leave and we gave him some time to find a place. He has chosen to not take the time we have given him but to leave and couch surf / stay in the shelter until he can figure out where he is going to live. In the last week he has stayed at 2 different friends places, the shelter and a couple of nights at our place. He stayed here last night but then insisted I return his knives and lighters to him. I told him that if I return them to him then I can't let him sleep here anymore. I just don't trust him with the lighters as he's been caught lighting off books of matches in his room before and doesn't see any reason NOT to do it (ie. you could burn the house down and kill everyone). Or he could wait until he found his own place and then I'd give him his belongings - then he'd be welcome to stay here until he found a place. He chose to not come back and take his knives and lighters.
He works part time but has no money saved for first/last. I have considered selling his dirtbike and using the $$ to help him with first/last. He could probably pay about 4-5 months rent with that money depending on the place he finds. What do you think? We paid for the dirtbike but it is his.
He is only 16 but where we live he is legally allowed to live on his own. He wants to be on his own but needs us to say we kicked him out (and we have because of his choices) so he can collect social services $ to help him pay rent. They will deduct his part time pay off his social services cheque.
So, I guess my questions are - How much do you help? I'd like to do things like have lunch with him once in a while, drop off muffins if I've cooked some, offer him our old couch and some extra dishes/pots that we have, the type of things moms do for young adults once they are out on their own. I'm just not sure if helping him find an apartment is overstepping - is this something he needs to do on his own? Or should I change the situation from being one of some animosity because we 'kicked' him out to "Hey, I'm so excited that you're finding your own place. I saw these ads online and thought you might be interested."
On the one hand I'd love to help and on the other hand if the apartment I found didn't work out then he'd surely blame me... or he'd come to expect very quickly that I would do these things for him instead of them being his responsibility and I was just nice enough to help out.
He is the most inert person I have ever met. He doesn't seem to have an ounce of ambition, no perseverance to pursue things that require any effort whatsoever, no motivation to accomplish anything. So part of me wants to help push him past that and part of me wants to let him find the motivation on his own - even though it may come out of necessity because he ends up sleeping outside one night because the shelter is full and his friends won't have him.
So, how have you handled these types of situations? What worked for you? What didn't? Thanks so much