Job/phone/and Out of Control

Hi. I’ve been implementing TSG in our family for over three years now. We’re a homeschooling family with seven children ages 15 to 2. It’s been a while since I’ve submitted a question regarding my oppositional youth who is now almost 16. He has always homeschooled and does very well with studies when he chooses. For long over a year he has had no interest in sports, hobbies, youth group, volunteering or any other idea I’ve come up with. Last August he got a job at the local Chic fil a. We encouraged him to get a job mostly because the out of control behavior was just so constant for so many, many months that we needed a way to have breaks in our home.  He does really well at work. He works about 9 to 12 hours a week, three hour shifts. The job required a phone for the apps that they use. So with the smart phone came parental controls that had the phone as active for work and also for audio books. This was working ok until he started removing parental controls from his phone. This child does struggle with a propensity toward screen addiction so we’ve tried to be mindful of this. Now that he removes parental controls and refuses to give up his phone I’m trying to figure out how to move forward. We initially said that the rule was without parental controls or willingness to give up the phone at the end of the work shift we would have the phone shut down. However, this might mean that he no longer has the job. What do we do with this? So far he does go to work even when out of instructional control, but he and I decided together that he would pay rent for those days as well as lose privileges for 24 hours.

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