Phettonium, sounds to me like you need to dial it back a little my friend. Meaning, your kids sound pretty entitled. I'm not judging at all bc we have 4 ourselves, and like you, we have a nice home, arcade games, etc. But if my son had done what your 16 yr old did, I'd have to say something like "the guy paying for your phn said goodnight" or something to that effect.
My 16 yr old was getting like that, and has treated his stepmother with disrespect for YEARS. This year would have been year 3 for him for soccer, which he loved. Things kept getting worse through this summer, and when school started he was all excited for soccer. He started the season and was in for a week. My wife asked him to do something and since he didn't like it, he started an issue. She told him he needed to watch himself and upon returning to his room we heard him say "f off." He also goes to parochial school.. I said guess what you just lost soccer. He flipped, like I didn't have the power to do that. Guess what.
Even my father got mad that I cut him, but this is the crossroads for the rest of their lives. With your kid, you have to be his dad, not his pal. He needs a wake up call that phone, house, games, lake, are a PRIVILEGE THAT YOU PROVIDE. He could be in a modular eating fluffernutter all day. Wake him up and do it today, my friend. I promise you'll thank me.
Trust me, I know. We've tried everything with him. Threats, grounding, privilege removal, bribing, positive reinforcement, straight talk about respect, honor, and entitlement, stories about our grandparents or parents punishing us for various infractions, reminders of how easy he has it and what he's been given in life, etc., he just doesn't care. If I try to offer an invitation to go to the movies or out to eat or to an amusement park or to a car show or anything, the first words out of his mouth are usually 'nah I'm good' or 'why would I wanna do that?' I literally offer to take him, drive him, let him drive, bring a friend and I'll pay for him, etc. but he just doesn't care. I've never seen anyone like this. He does it to both myself and my wife. And you can tell we both try our best to be super positive and bubbly when we first see him and it quickly devolves into anger, frustration, sadness and arguing because he just responds to kindness with dickheadedness. It's almost like the nicer you are to him, the nastier and snarkier he tries to be. And if you get firm and authoritative, he just laughs it off and tunes out. If you say nothing, he'll pretty much ignore you as well. If you tell him he forgot to take out the garbage or he forgot to vacuum the living room or forgot to feed his dog, he responds with some sort of disrespectful comment and says he has a job now and shouldn't have to help around the house. And since his younger brother is such a great and responsible kid, most of the house chores fall on him when they're together without supervision. This kid reminds me a lot of my younger brother, just an entitled and remorseless asshole. Believe me man, I'd love to fix this and I'm trying, but I'm running out of time. I've just never seen a kid act this way to his elders. Zero conscience, zero fear, and zero respect.
And then all at once out of the blue he'll be a completely different kid. He'll help out around the house, be respectful, kind, thoughtful, etc. it doesn't last long, and while it's happening, I take full advantage of it. I'm really starting to wonder about CTE with him. He had three concussions in a 3 year span about 4-6 years ago and another one about a year ago. He's kind of a daredevil extreme sports guy, (cliff diving, extreme biking, skate parks, etc) but also kind of clueless about safety. My wife and I both feel that a lot of his recent shitty behavior has to do with some of his head trauma. We've also noticed a few signs of undiagnosed autism/ADD over the years since he was little. I know you'll say we should probably take him in and get him checked out, but I think my wife has always been scared to actually find out that we are right and feels that ignorance is bliss.
He used to be in football, basketball and golf. But by the time he was in eighth grade he quit all but golf. By 10th grade, he was done with that as well. He just started the 11th grade, so technically he has this year and next year to participate in sports, but wants nothing to do with any of it. I drove him around to travel basketball tournaments every weekend during the season for over five years in addition to attending many, many practices and weekly games when he started school ball, which usually overlapped with travel ball. The last travel tournament we did together was Nov 2022 in Fargo, North Dakota. We actually had a great time. We went to a steakhouse, then a giant pinball place and then spent the night in a hotel. We went to the tournament the next day and he got all of 10 minutes of playing time in three different games. Other team members were in for about 30-35 of 40 minutes every game, but he literally got to play a total of 10-12 minutes through all 3 games and I think he was just kind of done with it by that point. That was one of our last real bonding times. I keep trying to recapture the feelings we had that weekend, but he just won't allow it. I'll be the first to admit it really hurts. Who knew this little fella would end up being so disconnected from me and my hobby as he got older:
