At some point it stops being stubborn ...

.. and just gets dumb.

I swear, Michael is going to drive me crazy yet. He won't be graduating with the rest of his class, because of refusing to participate in high school the first full school year he was with us. Which means he still has a full year of high school to complete. I think that's what my parents called, "cutting off your nose to spite your face." (Drove me crazy when they used to say that, but now I see! And I agree!)

Has Michael learned anything from this? Evidently not. He may just be the first kid in the history of the United States to flunk Driver's Ed because he didn't like his teacher and so he refused to participate.

How do you reason with somebody who thinks that way?

He will be turning 18 within the next year. He is going to have to decide whether to continue high school or not. (The odds are highly in favor of dropping out soon after he hits his birthday.) If he doesn't, he's going to have to decide what he's going to do - work, GED, or some other route to a diploma. At least, those are the options that we will be presenting to him. His father and I agree that he cannot be allowed to just veg out and play video games all day.

I don't think Michael intends to do nothing, actually, but I do think there's a distinct possibility that he's going to go out in the adult world and get his nose bloodied. At which point he will probably try the same technique he's been using for the last four years. "I don't wanna, and you can't make me." And we all know how employers react to that kind of attitude, don't we? Especially employers who hire kids that don't have a high school diploma.

Michael is going to hate getting fired.

The husband agrees with the importance of having Michael get a job, but he's shying away from any discussion of what we should do if Michael tries to do nothing. I think we need to have a plan in place. I also think that the husband is secretly hoping I will take care of any problems.

I am so concerned about this next year. Michael needs to get launched into adult life, but I can't do that without his parents' support, and things aren't looking good on that frontier.