GIRL!! what is wrong with you!! call that man up and have the good ol boys SERVE HIM UP right then and there for REAL. I went thru that deadbeat issue too but i stayed on CSE like a PITBULL hunnngry enuff to eat the ass end outta a rhino!! now he plays games and the employer cheats my boy out of a week every month but hey! its a start!!!

OH! sorry ya'll!! i forgot to add you might try syrup of ipicac just a smidge in that baccy. Also mention MILITARY SCHOOL and see how fast he shapes up.LOL take the door from his bedroom, take his clothes, TAKE IT ALL!! YOU BOUGHT IT. Put his happy lil butt to WORK if hes old enough and summers here.
I was a little spitfire and handful and at 13 thats just what my mom did to me. I WENT TO WORK. WIN WIN really! she knew where i was, safe, and earning some spending money!

Use your ignore button .. leave the room he doesnt exist with that behavior. I did it to my son and he learned real quick he gets nothing and nowhere with disrespect. The more attention you give correcting him is still attention which only escalates the issues. Later you leave a note taped on his door with a list of chores and that you will inspect at a specific time. If its not done to your liking a new note/list goes on his door. My son has cleaned every floor and toilets in the house for running his mouth. He knows if a note is taped on his door that he messed up. This has to be something in addition to normal chores that he would absolutely hate doing.
My son has also apologized for the behavior after he thought it over and after having to do the unwanted extra work. Once I went in his room and took everything electronic out didnt say a word. He knew why. It took him a while to earn them back one by one and wow what a change in behavior for weeks doing everything right to have his priveleges. The note went on the door to earn your tv back 3 weeks of not running your mouth.
you can be as nice as he was to you think about it.

Then you sit back and wait ... wait for the time he comes to you asking you for something (hours or days later) believe me it will happen .. I need money for a movie ... or whatever he wants ... Then its NO! dont you know that _______'s (whatever he called you or did) are not providing you a movie this week.

So he learns that you are the parent and he is under your roof and rules and its not negotiable.

Thats exactly where the problem lies...the dad...i know it sounds funny but I pretty much raised my younger brothers and their dad was in and out. We went through the same thing...you need to get him into therapy. It is an emotional detachment he is going through. Now it is not about catering to the Dad it should of never been. He is either there for his children or he is not. Don't let him walk in and out of the kids lives,...it just causes emotional and mental trauma.

I hope you work all out.

I couldn't agree more. Don't let deadbeat parents be walk in and out of the kids lives either they're there for them or they're not. Kids have enough to deal with without that bs

There is a man in this kid'd life that has a lot more power than you do; his coach. You need to have a sitdown with the coach and make it clear what your kid's "house rules" are and see if he wants to help you with and attitude check. If your son is pretty good ball player chances sre even better but you have to be very clear that no immediate improvement he is benched for games. That doesn't work you can put him on extra drills or yank him from the team entirely. I would probably add the school counselor to this little pow wow.
Next time he opens his fresh mouth don't even respond go to his room and confiscate his stuff. He knows this behavior is wrong or he would be doing it at school so no explanation is necessary. The first rule in your home is you are the parent and you make the rules. Second rule is you get to change the rules at your desire. When I say confiscate his stuff I mean everything. To the bare walls and the bare floor if possible. I wouldn't necessarily do it while he is home if you don't want a fight. You only have to give him three changes of clothes and one pair of shoes and a coat if the weather warrants it. I would make darn sure they are the most obnoxious things you can find in his closet or better yet at the thrift store. Your house is heated I assume so I would give him nothing more than a sheet on the matress and no pillow. He doesn't deserve a door but if you are not strong enough to remove it you can certainly take the handle off of it with a screw driver and I recommend it. I would also turn off the hot water and take all cosmetics except a bar of soap, a box of soda to brush his teeth, a tooth brush the really cheap ones and a comb. I would also get the roughest cheapest toilet paper you can find. And nothing more than a hand towel to dry himself with. No hair dryer either. Put all this in a gallon pail and lock the bathroom door except for 30 minutes a day at your convienence. If he wants to use it he has to ask and say Thank You in a civil tone or ignore him. Make it clear to him that from 8:00pm to 6:00am he won't have that privilege that he has to use the bedside commode you have positioned by his bed as the only chair in the room. You can buy and alarm that will sound if he opens his door at Home depot. Make it clear to him you will see him attempting to leave his room with out permission as grounds to have the police come and take him to detention on an out of control petetion. I would leave a copy of the paper work and an explanation on his bed with a detailed list of the new very harsh house rules. If he has a cell phone have the service suspended for a month. For at least the first 24 hours I would would refuse to tell him when or if he gets his stuff back. I would give nothing back for at least 72 hours. This little lesson is most effective when it starts on a Friday night and goes across a weekend but you defintiely don't want him going to school or having company. If you have to pull this to coinside with your days off you can arrange with the school counselors to to pick up his assignments. The whole thing might seem extream but if you are looseing control those things never end well and you could easily be packing your kids stuff out because he is in jail, drug rehab, or dead in the next couple of years.
What you have to be prepared for is he is probably going to try and run off. It is quite likely if he does that he will find some idiot that will believe he is kicked out and let him crash. The cops won't look for him for 24 hours. You might be able to prempt that if you have included a health and welfare officer in your plan and have him have a chat with your son when he comes home and discovers the new ways of the world. But you need to know He can probably borrow enough money from his friends for a hotel room and enough beer to get drunk if they don't already know a place that is empty. Also Your Ex will probably see it as an opportunity to be an even bigger zero and might even try to step in. You have to be prepared to stand your ground and go the distance and tell him he takes him it is for good. I have to say most Mom's are too soft to do that. If you are one don't waste everybodies time starting this little exercise. Sometimes you can do a preemptive strike by dropping off the kid for a weekend and giving Daddy darling a taste of juniors lip but it is highly likely he will do one of two things ignore the kid and let him run wild for a weekend or refuse straight out. You also have to be sure no extended family will step in such as Granparents.
Then the only other alternative you have to the consider if they will actually take him then in a treatment facility. That will depend more on your having insurance or being poor enough to then qualfy for welfare insurance. Eiher way he will magically become well on the day the insurance runs out and he will be ent home. Since they are allowed to smoke and drugs are readily available he will start that mess in treatment. If you have put him on an out of control petetion you will not be making the decisions a welfare worker will be and you will be paying child support for the priviledge. Since my experience is they only get more out of control and loose whatever social skills you have taught them. It will be your fault and the cost of the detuctibles will probably bankrupt you. Your child will most likely be brainwashed to hate you and make you responsible for all his problems. He is quite likely to be put on an array of drugs some of which he will not get consistently and will make him anxious and even more angry. So either of these step can turn out quite badly. It can also mean he will disrupt his older siblings lives and they might join him in being "bad". Military school will be just another treatment program and whatever treatment program they put him in as a ward of the state which is what and out of control petetion makes them they will sign him into the military at 17. Most kids do not graduate highschool in treatment and if they do it is a worthless diploma because they are chronicly absent, are not forced to do their homework and usually end up in a theraputic foster home which is a fancy name for a group home with ex addicts with associate degrees half ass babysitting them. You might or might not be court ordered into visitation and family counseling sometimes great distances from your home. They are abandoned by most oft thier current friends. In foster care they can be moved frequently and they don't tell you so you can drive to visit your child and them just not be there because one depart of the system doesn't know what the other one is doing. As a single working Mother you can just about count on looseing your job after you have exhuasted your sick days and end up stressed out even more than you are now.

PacificStar you mentioned the older siblings. Sometimes the older siblings can get a point across where parents can't. For example my youngest sister used to think it was cool to drive herself home after partying and getting drunk to the point she couldn't stand much less drive. I broke her of the drinking and driving. I introduced her to a friend whose in a wheelchair now because he got drunk and had a wreck. He killed 3 people that night. 1 was his own twin sister. Like I said older siblings might be an asset or a hinderence depending on the family.

Siblings and extended family can have a huge positive influence but not always.

Once a kid gets in the system and figures out how to beat it for the most part which is not really hard it gets really bad. That is because when people who try to use the system find out how badly flawed it is are ignored when they report it.

The children see that their parents are powerless and they feel powerless too until they find someone that they can't steam roll. Rarely is it anyone in the so called "treatment" programs where they skip school, smoke, do drugs, and get taken on field trips regardless of their behavior until they age out of the system. Sometimes it is prison but often they see that a "houseing arrangement" where they have it better than they do on the street.

That is true.To me it seems like when power was taken away from parents is when things went wrong. When I was a kid if we did wrong we got spanked. Now the same behavior we got in trouble for is accepted in public, or atleast some people think it should be. My feeling is warm the seat up and the crime rate will come down. Now don't go beating the life out of the kids. Just spank them hard enough they know as a parent you mean business. Maybe I'm wrong but looking at the crime rate of 1960 and today's something happened somewhere.

you start stripping their room

and if they get to the point of nothing in it (not even a bed) then you remove the door

if that does not work

then you put them on a low cost survival diet

like nothing but beans and fritters with water to wash it down

have supplemental vitamins +minerals available for them

they are your kids

you are responsible to raise and take care of them

you do not have to coddle them