Counting down to Launch
So SS17 "lost" his #1 stoner buddy friend over some drama a few weeks ago. He'd been lying & saying he was at BM's every weekend but I was on to him. Stayed quiet as part of my disengagement practice, an sure enough, pretty soon DH guessed at the b.s. and called SS17 out. So DH is seeing SS better without me thinking I have to point it out, which means less conflict! Very grateful for that.
So graduation and military are allegedly on the horizon but SS has himself in a box of closing-in hard deadlines for meeting graduation requirements and studying/training for the ASVAB test & fitness tests. Not studying, running, chin-upping, or push-upping; also not completing the high school requirement of 40 hours of community service (which he's had 3.5 years to do). There's also the pot habit he's spent 5 years trying to conceal & lie about in spite of countless failed drug tests and busts by us. Also months away from 18 and has a car, but no drivers license or job (which is required before he drives as he's responsible for his own gas & insurance).My task is to remain disengaged until this summer, and if (when?) SS isn't employed and A) enlisted, and 
Employed, and/or C) signed up for college classes, he's out. He's blown the possibility of college classes out of the water, no interest because, "I'm gonna join the military." So we'll see. I'm just glad I'm disengaged because it is so clear to all that I am not the problem. SS is acting like we buy his story but we certainly do not. Especially the recent excuse that the high school service coordinators are "racist" and son't inform him of the opportunities they notify other students of... DH told me that and I didn't say a word, just let him share the story, and by the time he was done he'd realized this is just SS setting up the Victim/can't graduate and not my fault story. We are astounded at how he thinks like BM, always wanting to cheat & find the lazy way. Very sad but not my training, not my circus, not my monkey...
ridiculous! my bioson,
ridiculous! my bioson, "awesomeson" is half african american, made it into the airforce and is completing grad school as a math major. he's married and sub teaching calculus to 11th graders.
racism, my ass. just another pathetic excuse for laziness.
Well the military is a no-go
Well the military is a no-go with his drug use. Not that any pot smoking in the past is an automatic rejection (so they say) but if you lies about it and/or is a current pothead they will not take him. If he gets in and they find out about it later (and they will) he is administratively separated, possibly with a dishonorable discharge.
He is 17? As parents didn't you have to talk to the recruiter or sign anything? I would be very careful if you know about illegal drug use.
We struggled with our kid (my
We struggled with our kid (my SS now adopted)during his HS yeas. No drugs or crime ... just head up his butt teen boy brain fart stuff.... persistent gaming and his SpermIdiot helping him hack the firewall at the top notch boarding school he was at then the two of them gaming all night every night until SS flunked the first semester of his Sr. year.
We yanked his butt out of that school, brought him home to our local HS where he knew no one... and gave him the ultimatum that he either graduated on time or he would be dropped off at the local homeless camp on what should be his graduation day. I took him up to spend a couple of hours with his potential new neighbors when I dumped him out of the car at the homeless camp. That scared the crap out of him enough to extricate his head from his butt.
Meanwhile 7 years later and back at the ranch... he graduated on time and with honors, last year he completed his first 6 year commitment in the USAF, re-enlisted and they moved him to Germany this past Sept. He will be up for E-6 this year and indicates that he intends to make a career of it.
Tough love works. Set reasonable performance expectations, hold the spawn to those standards, apply consequences when they fail to deliver, and celebrate their successes when they do deliver. It has worked for my bride and I with our son
His mom and I were on the same page and did our best to mitigate the toxic influence of the shallow and polluted end of his gene pool. It seems to have worked.
I knock on wood that it will continue. But... he is 25 now and it is looking good so far.
Good luck.