Parent of teen advice
My husband and I have 3 children (all under 5 years old) and one on the way. We recently took in my 16 year old brother who didn’t want to be home with my mom after she split from his father. He doesn’t want anything to do with both parents. When he decided to live with us, he was told there were gonna be rules and he agreed to them.
Now with school starting and his job, he’s always grumpy (he lowkey always pretty depressed looking but lately it’s been worse). It’s gotten to the point where my husband and him have bumped heads a couple times and now my husband just doesn’t say anything to him when my brother looks extra grumpy. I don’t want him to continue to “be careful” around my brother.
We try to engage in conversation with my brother and he just doesn’t respond, responds quietly that we can’t hear him, or he said “ok” or “I don’t know”. So, parents of teenagers, what should we do? How do we handle talking to him about this attitude he always has? I don’t want to be rude to him but he has to understand he can’t just get an attitude and that’s it.