Hi Jean, Oh boy, where do I start. We have an 18 year old son (my step-son, my husband's son). He lives with us and has for about 14 months or so, as his mother moved about 75 minutes out of town with her boyfriend (who smokes pot and gives it to our son in front of mother and who is on "long term disability").   Anyway, my husband and his ex-wife separated 10 years ago or so. My husband and I connected about three years ago and just recently got married (btw: we are 40 and 52). We bought our house 2 years ago in order for the kids to live with us full-time since the mom was moving away. For the 10 years prior, the primary care giver was the mom as my husband did live a little bit out of town for work purposes, but made every attempt to be in their lives (had them on the weekends, and would see them a few times per week after school, etc.). So, now the son (18) and the daughter (20) live with us. The daughter is on her way, she is in school, has a part-time job, pays 1/3 of her school and her car insurance, is responsible, honest and lovely actually. The son is a liar, deceitful, disprespectful and manipulative.  He skips school and gets suspended for it; he is continuously late and gets suspended for it; he smokes pot and tells us proudly; he stays out till all hours of the night; when asked to clean his room, he completely ignores us, leaves his junk/dirty dishes, dirty clothes everywhere; he has taken money; he takes things; he's crashed my husband's car; he takes his sister's things (we had to put a lock on her bedroom door), and just recently we found out that he brought 25-30 kids to my husband's family cottage, broke in, trashed the place, used the toilets when the water wasn't turned on, and then lied to us about it to our faces.   My husband does very little by way of consequences --just keeps telling him that he is going to have to shape up or there will be consequences--but there never are. I'm sure you can imagine how frustrating this is for me. I (and my husband) am at our wits' end. I have had thoughts of moving out until this kid somehow leaves (me or him type of thing). I just can't do it anymore. And neither can my husband. I think he should be asked to find another place to live. However, we know if we do this, he will go to his mother's, and she will baby him, and protect him, and give him money, and he will not have learned anything. We will just look like the bad guys; we will be saner, but we will look like the bad buys ('cause this is what the Mom does, btw).    I guess if you can shed some light on what needs to happen here I would be eternally grateful. Can you just ask him to leave when he's never had to pay a consequence? Is it out of the blue? Should he have a warning of some kind? However, he has been warned for 14 months as far as I'm concerned. How do we do this so that he knows we love him, but due to his actions, he no longer is welcome in our home? What do we say? Thanks for any help you can lend. Jean responds: Hi, Well, I can certainly hear how this young man is driving everyone in the house nuts. However, he is a creature of the parents' making (as I'm sure you recognize). And even though it is late, his dad needs to act firmly and consistently towards him in order to effectively love him. Loving an adult child does not mean allowing him to ruin himself and you and all those around him. In fact, it means just the opposite. It means trying to get his attention to what he is doing and, if he cannot change it, letting him go. It sounds to me as if the two of you need to get very clear about why you are not giving this young man an ultimatum: you hint at a possible motivation when you write of your inevitably looking like the bad guys. Are you not doing what is in this boy's best interests mainly because you don't want to look bad to him and his mother? If so, you need to address this weakness in your own parenting. Clearly you are not doing this son any favors by tolerating his out-of-bounds behavior without doing what you can to help him face the real-world consequences of such behavior. He is not getting better; he's getting worse, from the sound of it. So you have to do something different. I do suggest that you speak to him, together, but with his dad taking the strong lead in the conversation (since your relationship with him as a stepparent is less secure than his as a biological parent). I would suggest that you (and I mean here, mainly his dad, with your backing) let him know that you love him and are terribly, terribly worried about him. Ask him what his plan is--what is his plan for his life? Whatever response he has, listen (if it is at all reasonable), then tell him he IS welcome in your home if he behaves within certain reasonable limits. This is how you avoid telling him he has to go 'out of the blue.' Then lay out the reasonable limits: Forget about the little stuff (cleaning his room when asked, leaving his stuff around)--focus on his either performing in school or leaving school and getting a fulltime job, if he thinks that's what he'd rather do. By performing in school, I mean that he goes--every day--and gets passing grades so that he can graduate. If he doesn't want to do that, fine; he can quit, get a job, and work towards a GED if he even values a high school diploma. But he can't stay with you AND neither work nor go to school reliably. And if he does go to work, then he pays you room and board and all expenses of a car, if you provide one. And he's still out of the house by age 21 at the latest. Another condition you might well want to impose is that he work with a counselor on his compulsion to steal things. (Call it stealing and don't pay attention to anything he says to the contrary. Don't argue what you call it; just call it like it is and go on.) You can add that he doesn't have to 'like' anyone in the house but must be civil--as in respecting other people's property (not taking things that aren't his) and privacy (not invading his sister's room, for instance). Don't address the lying--just the behaviors he's lying about. I'd tell him that he doesn't have to keep sane hours but cannot drink or use drugs in the house (unless you don't mind if he does these things; if you use drugs in the house, it might be hard to limit him effectively). If keeping crazy hours ends in his not being able to perform at school or on a job, that's his problem--but if he doesn't perform responsibly in one of these, he's out of the house. I'd tell him he does not have use of the family cottage any more until he proves himself responsible in these other ways, i.e., shows he can behave like a young adult. He cannot have friends over at any time when you are not home, unless and until you say he can (after you see his behavior has become more responsible). Then you draw up a timeline indicating the dates by which he has to make these changes--with specific target behaviors. For instance, he gets two weeks to straighten out his performance at school, i.e., to convince teachers and administrators he's making a turnaround. That would mark beginning of effort in one area. An alternative to that marker is that he finds a fulltime job within four weeks and quits school and begins work. If he should be able to do that, you draw up a schedule of what he'll pay you to live there. I'd give him a month, overall, to show you he wants to live with you by making these changes. You can supply him with the name of a family counseling or teen counseling center near you (ask the school for a referral) and tell him the marker for progress in this area is making a first appointment with a counselor. Tell him you'll pay for the counseling. The taking things and invading others' privacy stops at once. Then tell him that if he cannot show you within the next month that he can live with you in a way that earns him your respect (in these specific ways)--and demonstrates respect for himself (in these same specific ways)--that he has to leave and you will not be involved in supporting him financially in any way (except continuing to pay for his counseling, if he did get engaged in that, at least). IF you are really just trying to get rid of him and are not genuinely concerned about what's best for him, he will feel that, and it will undermine everything. Taking this route means you are HOPING and willing to support his success in turning himself around--not that you are secretly hoping he will fail. Don't respond to threats that he'll go back to his mother and her boyfriend if he is forced to leave your home. Probably he will. If he says that's what he will do, tell him you don't think that would be good for him, but if that's his choice, you can't stop him. Tell him again that you love him and that you see that your parenting (include yourself in this--be generous) has not been the best, but that you are now trying with everything in you to reach out to him as a responsible parent at last, to see if he can turn himself around. Offer, by the way, to see a family counselor with all of you together, as part of this process, if he thinks that would be preferable to seeing an individual counselor. But don't let seeing a family counselor count as a way out of ANY of the other provisions. I very much doubt, from the sound of it, that this young man will be able to respond to the opportunities for changing his life that you are presenting him here, and there is no guarantee that he will survive--either with or without you. The only thing this program has going for it is that it's different from what you're doing now, which is demonstrably failing. One caveat: If you have reason to think he's suffering from severe depression, is developmentally disabled, or has a severe drug habit, then make those problems the focus of your discussion. In that case, the condition for living with you is his getting intensive help with these core problems, with your support, and working with the counselor to improve his behavior. Good luck! It's tough enough to be a parent and even harder to be a good stepparent! Jean. Disclaimer: Ms. Walbridge's response to your question is intended to be educational and informative. It is not a substitute for face to face consultation or psychotherapy with a mental health professional.