My son with sz lives with me. He sits on the couch all day and won’t do much of anything. His job is to keep the house clean and cut the grass. Usually he does well but at times he won’t do anything. This is unacceptable for me especially when he doesn’t do anything all day. I dont want to aggravate him but i don’t want to allow him to not help out.
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Good idea.
Withhold things he likes until he does his chores.
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My son doesn’t smoke cigarettes. He smokes marijuana that he buys with his own money. I think the marijuana is part of the problem. Sometimes I find myself excusing behaviors because he has this dz.
It’s amazing what the threat of no smokes can do - that works here too, although I only use that for extreme circumstances.
Hi Believing, My son sounds a lot like yours, he lives with me also and I do the majority of our housework. My son smokes cigarettes and marijauna. He does a few chores like unloads the dishwasher, take garbage out and takes dog out. He rarely will change his sheets unless I wash them. He is not particularly messy but I definitely have to clean some mess from him everyday. He has been in many classes for trying to get off marjjauna but haven t worked yet. In fact he is going to one class a week now for smoking cessation and they discuss his marijauna use. He always is medicine compliant though. I had given up for now on trying to get him to do more housework and stopping marijuana. lately he has been going to grocery store with me and helping carry everything in. I would love for him to give up marijauna, but am tired of fighting that battle for now, I have done it for so long. I don t think it helps his sz and makes him less motivated, but just glad he takes his meds and has good insight into his disease. He is 22 by the way and has been on meds for 2 years.
Marijuana tends to make people mellow and unmotivated when there is no mental illness, so I guess that could be a bigger part of the problem then the sz. My son doesn’t smoke either tobacco or marijuana. However he does binge drink and when he does absolutely nothing gets done. So we separated the two issues and deal with them differently. I think he is catching on we are much more understanding of sz and make our displeasure with substance abuse known. Not sure if that is what you are considering, but it worked (for now).
@ Irene our sons do sound alot alike. My son is 23. Marijuana definitely stills their motivation but it is a constant battle between us. If I had more control over his finances that would help. He gets SSI. Since he is competent I’m not his payee. Sometimes I feel I should be his payee just in case he has some weird delusion or something. He pays me $300 a month but I’m thinking about increasing it. After he pays me $300/mo he still has $450 left. I feel guilty about asking for more but I pay for everything else including toiletries. He has all this money left to play with. Should I feel guilty about asking for more money?
No you should not feel guilty. My son is 25 and sounds just like yours. I spoke to Social Security about becoming his payee and the representative said No because he is competent although he is very wasteful. If I do not go to the bank with him on the first day of the month, it is a done deal. He is broke in days. He is obsessed with clothes and his music career but before it was marijuana every day. Today he asked for some money and when I said, “No.” His reply, “Why are you always broke.” lol but not funny. I nicely remained him that he spent his money so as long as he has food and shelter, I am not concerned about the rest of his wants. With regards to chores, I have to constantly remind him to take out the garbage, clean his room, and load and unload the dishwasher but I have gotten used to reminding him so it no longer frustrates me. The money thing works my nerves.
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