Young Adult reluctant (HAH!) to work. What tactic would you use to motivate?

18-yr-old. Just imagine your own scenarios. What would you do to motivate this child to WORK!?

I wanted money to buy stuff. Clothes, records, gas for the car, save up for college. :shrug:

And if not that, certainly stop paying for ANYTHING. Deoderant, toilet paper, drinks, food, snacks.

it was hard to motivate him to do anything let alone get a job. Privileges were taken away ie: no use of the family car. Chores HAD to be done but when they weren't we didn't really have any recourse. Short of telling them to leave the home there isn't a whole lot that can be done. Mine grew out of his laziness once he had no money for life's little luxuries.

:hug:

aA

Is this work as in schoolwork? Work for financial means? Living with you? Living with 'rents? What's your relationship? what motivates the kid? Need more info!

household in abject financial chaos

some emo problems, but child must suck it up

:(

show him how much she has for resources and where it goes, and then tell him that it's not optional --she needs his help financial, even if it's just $25 or $50 bucks per week (amount depends on her financial state and the amount of pay he should expect at minimum wage working at least 20 hours a week)

The Bank of Mom is closing.

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Working is rewarding (money, etc) Looking for work can be the most discouraging, depressing self-esteem ruining experience a young person (or any age!) can go through.

to his household, he will have his own money. He wants a Mac Book (? apple laptop) etc.

I do know, and we have told him, that looking for a job is one of the worst experiences on the face of the earth, but that once you jump in, it gets easier.

Sigh.

Can someone walk him through a process of setting some easy short term goals? Like Day one, make a list of potential places to go apply. Day two, tackle the first application. Then some sort of reasonable daily goal (three, four apps?) until something opens up.

Then most important, some talk/work on budget, contribution to household etc, strategies for dealing with discouragement (if it is a horrible menial minimum wage situation) and especially some kind of mental/financial/material reward for getting thought the day, week, month etc.

I have a similar problem, fortunately husband is able to give him some hard labor type of work at the moment :evilgrin: (talking ditch-digging hard), always with the hope that it will motivate further education or at least steady employment in "easier" work.

in theory people make economic decisions based to maximize their personal gain, and to work to pay rent on a household where he can live for free if he DOESN'T work, well, it's a no brainer

if he works for what 18 yr olds are paid, by the time he's chipped in rent, it would take forever to save up for the laptop anyway, so he probably figures it wouldn't be worth giving up the extra study time to work under those circumstances

i don't know what to suggest, it sounds like you have competing aims -- you need more money brought in to the household and you think he should do so, he sees clearly he lives in the same house whether he works or not so it would be kinda stupid to work at this point

editing this -- since the kid is only a GED grad, i don't suppose he is using his free time to study for college, he may just figure why do anything at all if he isn't going to come out much ahead for it, he could be depressed, he could always just be useless, i dunno, i say tell him he's evicted if he don't start either work or school by a certain date?

Help looking for work might be a good place to start.

was to begin charging rent to live at home. If you quit a job without having a new one, rent went up.

He'll get tired of being broke eventually.

That's a hard one....I always worked as a teen. Now if someone could just motivate me to clean the house today.

And hey, just try and ignore those bad-tempered posters always looking to insult.:hi:

...I mean like depression, substances, etc. Are there these kinds of issues to deal with? Or, perhaps, is the kid playing playstation games or computer games addictively? Lots of young men lose themselves in those activities. Does he get any physical activity? Or just lounge around.

Maybe he just doesn't know what to do. Maybe there is a male role model who could counsel him or mentor him?

Is he rude and disrespectful?

Those are the only three options.

effective January 1, 2007 he or she will be responsible for $xx.xx rent to be paid no later than January 5, 2007. Additionally, said young adult will be responsible for $xx.xx per month, payable no later than the 10th of that month for their board and keep.

Then hand the young adult the Christmas season want-ads, possibly with some tasty items circled and put locks on the fridge and the cupboards.

Yes, I'm mean. But then, I have enough self-respect not to suck my parents bank account dry.