How do get someone to be self supportive/ grow up, if it seems that they don’t want to?

Question

They aren’t motivated enough to get a degree/ go to school.
They sleep on the couches at friends’ homes until they are no longer friends anymore, he wears out the welcome in other words.
He only calls home for money.
He has no job hence no way to pay their bills. He lost his car to repossession.
He doesn’t look for a job but spends the day surfing the internet or playing Xbox.
He thinks working at McDonald’s is below him.
At the homes he stays at, he doesn’t help with chores.
He doesn’t cook but complains when there is nothing to eat.
He expects others to buy his cigarettes.
He got kicked out of the military.
He will spend weeks wearing the same clothes.


yes this person really exists

Answer 1

The road to independence is NOT an automatic process. It has to be demonstrated and coached. Preferably by parents by not exclusively so—but there has to be some accountability with a consistent system of rewards and punishments along the way—and I don’t mean emotional or physical abuse either—more along the lines of curtailing and granting of privileges in progressive stages.

Problem today is that many parents quite often don’t have the intellectual and physical resources to be mentors to their own children.

I don’t buy the absent father equals delinquency bit either. Many fine independent people were raised in less than ideal conditions yet still managed to emulate someone they saw as a role model to what they deem success.

Dependent parents cannot teach independency just like an untrained person cannot do a successful operation that requires skill.

In fact, the average dependent person’s idea of success is to be dependent so in their own view they believe they are successes—and they are—according to their value system.

If you inject a lazy person with truth serum and ask them to give their definition of success they will probably answer “to do the least that I can get away with” and in that sense, hey they’re quite successful.

The stages towards dependency can be painful for some, an intellectual realization that leads to opportunities for others, but never an “easy road” and that is where the problem lies a lot of times;

Children have been spoiled to the point where they remain as dependent at age 20 as they were when they were 6.

A dependent kid of 20 yrs of age will need to go through the whole painful course in less time unless he or she can continually be supported indefinitely.

Say the little bird was allowed to stay in the mothers nest until it grew so big and heavy that learning to fly would be practically impossible—same analogy with grown “children.”

Answer 2

I know how you feel - believe me. I'm 20 and I was picked on for 12 long years sometimes even now. I had to learn how to put on make-up as well but though magazines. My little sister is such a little meanie when I don't wear things that she likes because our tastes are super different and seriously I hate preps with a passion. However I learned how to get over it but it took a while. Look the the mirror. Find 10 things you like about yourself. Leave what people said negitively in the back of your mind because they don't matter in this excersise. After finding the 10 things, give yourself a big smile. Put on your favorite outfit and pose to yourself and laugh if you want. What that teaches you is that YOU think that YOU are beautiful and who gives a f u c k about what everyone else says.

Answer 3

Wow, you just described my 24 year old cousin. Seriously, he is the exact same (right down to the part where working McDonalds is below him. He worked at a Wendy's for two shifts and quit because he said he was better than that and then couch surfed for a few months).

There is not much you can do, it all depends on the person. They have to want to change. Just keep loving him and pushing him. He'll come around eventually.

Answer 4

Now comes the time for 'tough love.' If "everyone" can get together and tell this person "NO." It will be hard. But, don't help. Don't enable. This person needs to take charge of his life and not rely on the generosity of family and friends. If it's cold outside, too bad. Maybe a night or two in a homeless shelter will shake him up. McDonald's will pay the bills and this means by working he will have to be responsible.

Good luck. I have someone in my family just like this. We are instituting tough love. Stay tuned.

Answer 5

i beleive it! and as sad and as much as you want him to change he won't

HE has to Want to change!
some ways to help
don't cook for him
kick him out touf love is required here!
sell his stuff sell the xbox or break it! and unplug the pc
let him complain

sorry but it seems like his parents gave him everything and he never had to work for something or own up to his action!
that's not bad parenting just sometimes being a good parent means touch love! something i never got!
i got away with everything and now at almost 30 i'm re learning how to live my life! because i was guilty of most of the above! he has no goals in life and he needs some!
ask him daily what his goals are!
that's one way you can help and when /if he gets mad don't let ut get to you just hound him harder and harder!

sooner or later he will run out of options and have to grow up!
there is no easy way!
if he stays with you kick him out if he don't help out around the house! treat him like the little boy he acts like! get a calendar and some stickon stars and say if you miss one time then your out!

Answer 6

I have a twenty four year old that has some of these problems, the tough love is getting ready to start. He's not near as bad as the person you mentioned. Don't know how, but to just let them fall.

Answer 7

the people around him need to stop enabling his behaviour and he probably needs to see someone. If he wont go theres not much else anyone can do but distance themselves - harsh but absolutely necessary. With no one around to bail him out he will have to stand on his own two feet. Hopefully! What a headache!

Answer 8

Wow are you my mom? cause I swear you just described my brother! Unless you can convince all his friends to wash theri hands of him- he'll continue the path he has chosen. There aint no help for someone who doesn't want it.

Answer 9

it sounds like he needs professional help, perhaps he's clincally depressed, and has other issues... the only way he'll stop that behavior, is if no one enables him.

Answer 10

Whose computer is he surfing on? Yours? Who is he freeloading off of when his friends get tired of him? Who buys his cigarettes? Kick him the hell out.