Dear Annie: Our 24-year-old son, “Rod,” has been jobless for nearly a year and now lives at home. His mother and I have tried everything to get him off the couch and find a job, to no avail.

At a recent free depression screening (thanks for recommending it), Rod was diagnosed with “moderate depression,” although he generally seems to be fairly cheerful. He sleeps most of the day, and at night stays up playing computer games or goes out with friends.

Rod dropped out of college after his freshman year, saying he’d rather kill himself than go back to school. Later he took one computer-graphics course at a community college and survived. He doesn’t contribute to room and board, but will do odd jobs to help around the house when asked.

Rod has a counseling appointment next week, which is good, but when he’s gone for counseling in the past he never returned for a second session. As an adult, he can’t be forced to do anything against his will. And his will to do anything seems virtually nonexistent.

If I kick Rod out of the house, I fear he won’t be able to cope and will end up on the street. But I’m getting increasingly fed up with his do nothing approach to life. What can you suggest? BUMFUZLED IN NASHVILLE, TENN

Dear Nashville: The inability to “get off the couch” is often a sign of depression. It might help to tie in Rod’s room and board with counseling sessions. Let him know he can stay if he continues to see a counselor. Also, help him find some part time work, and insist he earn a few dollars and be productive. Sometimes motivation comes if it is proceeded by a swift kick. —Annie

Gabby's Reply

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Hi Nashville: There’s nothing wrong with Rod. It’s you. Rod has absolutely no choice but to mirror you and your leadership-communication model.  You alone have trained him. You might be tempted to want to split the responsibility with your wife, but I assure you Rod’s behavior has nothing to do with her. You’ve trained her as well.

It could be said that you are unconsciously intending him to behave this way so as to support you in completing your relationship with him. Specifically, there are thousands, yes thousands, of conversations you have yet to have with him in support of the both of you being whole and complete. You are stuck in the process of becoming a father. He's waiting for you to be one.*

Most readers are probably saying to themselves, “Whaaat? You should have the cleanest windows** in town.” They can’t imagine why you haven’t said to him, “You’re most welcome to stay here while you recover, however, if you want to crash here you need to put in eight hours a day, at the level of excellence.” Of course, you and I know that you are totally incapable of having your son work eight hours a day around the house. In this regard you have failed him. You simply could not bring yourself to supervise him in that way. In truth he is in charge of you. You have trained him to use you. He can not feel good about the way he is misusing you, so this compounds his negative karma. He knows he doesn't yet deserve the job or relationship he wants. You're setting it up for an employer, the military, or prison staff to train him to be responsible.

In your favor, you do get points for being nice and easy (euphemistally referred to as permissive), as opposed to being cruel and abusive. The problem is you think that what you call love is supportive.  The majority of us have poor penmanship because we had "nice" teachers.

My suggestion is: Intend that he stay home with you. Communicate to him that you'd like him to stay home with you for as long as he wishes.  Why? Because that's the one result you can be trusted to produce. He has had no choice but to resist you in having a life and career. In the meantime, get some leadership-communication skills coaching for yourself. Unless you do, you will keep using the same leadership-communication model that produces a lazy abusive son. Yes, his behavior is abusive. His behavior not only detracts from your aliveness and that of your wife’s; it invalidates you both as parents. He’s covertly communicating something; you just aren’t getting it. It has to do with disrespect and contempt. I suspect that you paid for his college. At some level he has disrespect towards you for throwing away your money and for buying into his con.

And yes, you must be willing to have him pull his trump card on you, your fear of knowing he's on the streets. If he does, you enroll in therapy so as to address your addiction to enabling.

You can’t begin to imagine what a shift it will be for you to issue the ultimatum to him to work a full eight hours around the house. In fact you'll have to undergo as much (yes, as much) of a shift as he will to become motivated. This is why you need to spend some time with a coach/counselor before you issue your ultimatum, else your son will know you don’t mean it—it's so not you. It takes an incredible amount of consciousness to supervise another in doing excellent work. What you're looking for is the childhood incident (a specific conversation, time, and place) in which you made the decision to not be like, or to be like, someone. Possibly a parent made you work hard and so you made the decision to not be like that with your son. That, or one parent was hard with the other and again you grew up not wanting to be like that. You may live by the decision that it's mean to be assertive. In any case, whatever the decision you live from, it's having a profound impact on your son.

Rod is mirroring you and your pattern of “trying.” For every 24 hours more you try to help him, it postpones his maturity.

* A quick fix is to take him on a 6-day camping-hiking trip. The bonding will be comparable to thousands spent in therapy.

** One of the most powerful lessons one can give a child (4th grader and up), or a new employee, is the job of cleaning a car windshield or a sliding glass door window. The task begins by telling them that all the supplies they need to do the job are in the kitchen (for a windshield you'll need to buy a bottle of automotive Glass Scrub (water spots remover) and a new kitchen "soft" scrub pad(white w/sponge on one side—use the scouring side for the glass). It's their job to discover what works—paper towels or newspaper, Windex (w/without ammonia), vinegar and water, etc.? "Let me know when you have cleaned the inside and outside of just that window before you do any others. By the way, 'clean' means no smears no streaks."

Tip: Begin by assigning him a window to clean. Not both parts of a whole sliding glass door, just both sides of the sliding part, or both sides of one small window, or a windshield. Tell him to come to you when he's completed it. When he comes to tell you it's clean he will be lying (if you observe his facial communications you'll see the lie). You'll see that the window has streaks and smudges. Simple say, "No pass." Then ask him if he can see the smears. Most likely he'll get upset. Listen to his upset but don't argue with it. Just say, "I got your upset and your considerations." Then, he'll probably try a quick fix (minus the intention to have it be clean) and he'll come and get you again. You'll find the streaks and smears and again say, "no pass." Ask him if he can see them. You might have to wait for morning or evening light for the smears to reveal themselves. If you give up and accept less-than-clean, you will have rewarded mediocrity.  Do not offer suggestions about how or what to use. It's called discovery learning. Clean has to do with intention. A blind person can be trained to clean a window. It has a specific feel when it's clean.

Notes:

#1 My 9 and 10-year old girls could be trusted to do complete work (weeding, floors, windows, dishes).

#2 Quite often, depending upon how much unresolved anger the person has, one's first window job can take 2 - 3 days, with lots of drama including pouting, upset, and anger—all the tricks they've used before to get someone off their back, to let them get by with a half-assed job. If the anger persists have them do The Clearing Process.

#3 A window when viewed during the day may appear to be clean but at night with different lighting one sees the smears. Eventually one discovers that the job is about intention not technique (ironically it's the same for communication). The parent must cause the child to re-create the parent's intention for the window to be clean.  Children can hear the lie when a parent doesn't mean what they say.

#4 Those who have problems doing the job correctly the first time have been trained to work at the level of mediocrity. What works is to sit the person down after several attempts and let them empty their mind.

#5 Newspaper smears ink.

#6 A parent who buys into the anger and lets the child quit without eventually cleaning the window before watching TV or going out to play, rewards temper-tantrums and paves the way for a life of mediocrity.

Thanks for the great letter, it will of value to many. —Gabby
 

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