Throwaway for privacy reasons.I’m gonna spare the long sob story for everyone’s sake, but basically I’m 20 and I’m now responsible for my 4 younger siblings (ages 15, 12, 11, 8) after the death of my parents about a year ago. It’s been a big adjustment from being their older brother away at college to now the “parent.” Nobody’s handled it well but my younger brother (age 15) has handled it horribly. I know he’s resorted to doing drugs, alcohol. His performance in school last semester was awful, at least when he went (so add in some suspensions in here too). He’s been kicked off the teams he was on for not showing up. He’ll usually come home sometime between 2:00 am and the next afternoon, rarely calling. And so on. I can’t really discipline him effectively because I’m his older brother, the one who used to just let him get away with stuff. He also knows I experimented with marijuana and alcohol in high school and I managed “fine” (good grades, college etc.) so he doesn’t take me seriously at all on this. I try to explain I was different since I just experimented at parties occasionally and didn’t let it dominate my life (plus he’s doing drugs much worse than pot), but that obviously isn’t effective (btw not justifying my high school behavior, just remarking). I think he’s just angry so he’s finding an outlet. Part of the problem is, I think, I’m really busy. I work a lot to financially support them and I transferred to a local university and take classes part time, so I don’t really have time to emotionally support him and I’m away a lot so that gives him plenty of time to sneak out. My younger sister texts me when he leaves but I can’t just leave work every time that happens. Our elderly neighbor watches the youngest while I go to my second job in the evening, and she’s tried to stop him from leaving but he’ll get violent with her if she tries to restrain him too much so I’ve just told her to let him go. He’s actually a really great kid, but he was really close to my mother (he was the obvious favorite), and he just can’t emotionally handle it. I just don’t want him to throw his entire life away or worse die. I also don’t want my even younger brother (11) to get any ideas that this behavior is OK. I’ve tried talking to him about what happened; I’ve tried explaining what the consequence for himself and his future will be; I’ve tried screaming and yelling; I’ve tried guilting him; I’ve tried punishing him (though, again, he just runs out anyway). Not really sure what to do.Perhaps nobody here can give useful advice since a big problem is he doesn’t listen to me at all, but I thought maybe some parents could help. I don’t really have anyone to ask this to since my friends are all under 25 and I don’t know really any adults. I’ve tried asking some of my parents old friends, but they seem uninterested. I tried talking to his school counselor but I got no help there. So I decided to turn to the parents of Reddit.If more information would be helpful let me know and I can try to oblige. Thanks in advance. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/297Tx47
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