How to Motivate a Lazy Sibling?

**Saralaise** · 06-23-2010 12:23 AM

My sister is 19, and just finished her first year at college. She has moved home for the summer, and is currently doing nothing. I don't live with her so I don't know what she spends her days doing, but she doesn't have a job. She has no drive to get up and find a job, and make her own money.

If you read my previous post, you know that my mother is an alcoholic. My mother also pays for my sister's car/gas money, and her cell phone. When my mother gets drunk, she holds these things over my sister's head.

I, along with a few other family members, have tried to talk my sister into looking for a job. She gets very angry and defensive, and usually storms out/hangs up/stops texting back when the topic comes up. I don't know what to say to her to make her understand that she is an adult and that everything is not going to be handed to her anymore. She doesn't seem to make the connection that if she makes her own money and pays for the things she wants, she is taking away something my mother can hold over her head.

I know there is a lot my sister wants to do but she relies on people giving her the money/paying her way. I recently applied for a student loan, in order to pay for my last year of school. My sister also wants to do this so that she will have money for school, but I don't think she fully understands that this money has to be paid back once you finish school. She sees that I'm being given $11,000 and she only sees the money; not the debt.

What can I do to talk to my sister and make her understand that she needs to get a job?

**auds80** · 06-23-2010 04:36 AM

i understand that you just want to help your sister
but she is an adult now and no amount of telling her the right thing to do is going to make her do it!
your just going to have to let her make her own mistakes thats the only way she is going to learn
i know its very hard to sit back and say nothing,but i think thats what your going to have to do
you obviously love your sister very much,and it shoulds like the family have pulled her out of a lot of tight spots in the past and that it seems is where the problem is...dont worry she'll soon realise that bills must be payed and loans must definitely be payed back,she'll either learn it the easy way or the hard way!!

**KMonte85** · 06-23-2010 06:38 AM

Your sister is 19, and althought it may seem like she's clueless about what she needs to do to get her life in motion, I'm sure she isn't. Why else would she get so defensive when the family brings it up? Because she knows, she just doesn't want to make the effort yet.

Unfortunately, all you can do is be a spectator to her life choices. She is an adult, she will do as she pleases, and you can't do anything to lead her in the right direction. The only thing you can do is try to be a good example, and be supportive whenever she does take some initiative to better her life.

I too have family much like her, very great potential, and very little motivation. It is unbelievably frustrating to watch them throw their lives away, sitting on the couch all day, sleeping in late, partying pretty much every night... Support her decision to go to school, but reiterate that all the money she borrows will need to be paid back with interest, and the loan officers will go so far as to garnish her wages or take her to court if she doesn't pay, and then just let her do her own thing... like auds said, she will either learn it the easy way or the hard way...

**Saralaise** · 06-23-2010 06:45 PM

Yeah, here's an update;

she said she went into this employment office today to have them help her find a job. Unfortunately this office really only works with large factories and such, and my sister is annoyed that she may have to work in a "dirty dank factory". Without trying to be like "well why didn't you look for a regular job back at the end of April when school ended" etc. I said "You couldn't find anything else?" "No, and since it's basically the beginning of July I didn't want to hand out resumes and sit around and wait." .... as opposed to what? What the has she been doing for the last two and a half months beside "sitting around and waiting"? Plus, now she's sitting around and waiting for a factory position to open up anyways. She did take some initiative, but it was basically a step to nowhere.

We do come from a small farming town, and jobs for students can be difficult. However, there are 2 towns and a city all within 40 minutes of ours that offer more in terms of student jobs. There are 2 malls that would offer lots of options, as well as food chains like Tim Hortons, Subway, etc. She says "I don't want to work in food." I feel like screaming TOUGH! I didn't want to work in food either, but when I worked at Subway, that brought in almost $400 pay cheques.

I'm just so frustrated, I do not understand how someone can be like this. I want to scream at her sometimes but I know that will not get any message across.

**Beautiful Disaster** · 06-25-2010 08:43 AM

Ahhh......the plight of the responsible sibling. I'm in your shoes...cept my brother is 29, recovering alcoholic, still living with mom, doesn't hold down a job though has recently starting picking up odd jobs to make some cash. She enables him, she knows it. I have spent the past 10 years watching him do nothing with his life, watching him depend on her like she owes it to him, it's her job to cook, to clean, to pay the bills. She's 61. Talk about frustrating.

Leave her alone. That's my best advice. Simple as that... leave her alone. It will make YOUR life much easier, much less stressful. Remove yourself from it, go on with your life, and hope that she eventually does something with herself. If she doesn't, its your mom and her who has to deal with that.

Do NOT give her money. She has a sense of entitlement as many people now days seem to have. You being born of the same parents does not make you her keeper. If your mother chooses to take care of her, that's on her....not you.

Do not give her advice unless she specifically asks for your advice. Otherwise, she will make excuses as to why she cannot take your advice. She's suffering a case of the "Poor me"'s. So let her. And when she decides that her self defeating, the world owes me attitude is going to get her nowhere, she'll either change her tune or carry down a long hard path of working jobs she hates and have nothing for herself.

You will not change her. Your frustration and hurt over the situation hurts only one person...YOU. So learn to remove yourself from the situation...sister or not. Your happiness and sanity depend on it. Trust me.

**Librian** · 06-26-2010 06:54 PM

Its the generation of too many choices and no consequences. If she chooses not to get a job theres no consequences to that - she has a place to sleep, gas in the car, food to eat and noone expects anything in return... why would she then choose to be responsible for paying for her own way in the world.

My son was pretty much the same when he lived with his father for a year - it was a year wasted, he slept late, didn't work, had no money of his own, but Dad paid for everything gas, food and clothes. Now he's been living with me for 6 months, within 2 months he was working full time, he recently bought a car in cash with his own money, buys his own clothes and is now starting to date a really nice girl. His life has completely change - through what - a little thing called expectation.... if now I could get him to pay some board!

**Jayla2251** · 07-06-2010 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Beautiful Disaster

Leave her alone. That's my best advice. Simple as that... leave her alone. It will make YOUR life much easier, much less stressful. Remove yourself from it, go on with your life, and hope that she eventually does something with herself. If she doesn't, its your mom and her who has to deal with that.

x2

Ive been through it too. It made me go crazy! I gave advice to my mother and left it at that. I didnt help her out anymore. Didnt really talk to her much. In the end, my sister got her act together. And now we're all happy. But seriously when it was going on, I would get soooo stressed about it. Eventually I had to step back and realize this is not my problem and I need to stop making it my problem. She's an adult, and someday she will realize what she's done. And she did. Hope everything goes good though, for you and your family!

**spearsgirl** · 07-15-2010 07:36 PM

My heart aches with so much pain for my sister. I see her living in squaller while I have a good life. I feel guilty and I want to cry as I type this. I am 54 and my sister is 58. It is so easy to say leave her alone. It is as if I am stabbing myself in the heart to do so. The world has given up on her and I have also at times. I am about to give my energy again to help her...not financially but by helping her set up a business. I am NOT going to give her money as that has never really helped. She seems so helpless unable to focus on her own survival. I know it is easy to read this and think "she is playing you" but I don't believe she is. Something is missing with her and that is the hard part to understand. I know helping someone sometimes is only to make yourself feel better and I guess that is ultimately what I am trying to do. Why can't these people see they are in a dead end street?

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