The consequences of his actions are not brutal enough. Mother can take his telephone away from him for a week and tell him that the time will be doubled for each further offence. Better he lose his telephone than you permanently lose the TV.

If she won't then you put your stuff in a closet and lock it up. Google: how make safe room.

Or of course tell Mommy if she can't control the kid you're leaving until the kid leaves after graduating from high school.

I would be planning my EXIT strategy at this point. It's obvious mommykins (or by the sound of it daddykins) has ZERO parenting going on (wow that sounds FAMILIAR!)

I would be making plans to RUN!! It's SOOOOO not worth it!!

Here would be a good one (though your wife will probably throw a fit). Next time your SS is out of the house, go into his room and take a bunch of his stuff...any DVDs and electronics he may have, etc. When he comes home and finds the stuff missing, act like you don't know. Let it go on for a little bit, and then tell him something like, "You know you feel right now? How do you think I would feel if I came home and found my stuff gone because you left the front door unlocked, and someone robbed us? Worse yet, how would you feel if you walked in and found your mom hurt or dead on the floor because she walked in on someone robbing us because you left the front door unlocked?" He may still not get the message, but it would be a good lesson!

I don't know what to tell you about how to handle this. DH and I had a big row about this when SD was about 15 and I came home several times to find not only was the front door not locked, it was wide open! :jawdrop: Luckily we didn't lose anything, but I was PISSED. DH does the same thing, gives SD a little talking to, nothing changes. Later on I find out that because SD is not responsible enough to keep track of her damn key, she was leaving the front door unlocked on purpose! And DH knew about it! Gack, the things I went through before SD got the h*(l out of our house!

If it was me, kid would not have the privilege of entering or leaving the house. He could sit on the porch until someone came home to let him in. He would learn then, I think.

I did explain to my SD that since she was the first one home she was the one who would discover the burglar and he might decide rape was a good idea. Of course girls at that age are generally more responsible than boys are and he's not likely to get raped.

But MOM could be before she's killed. Show him a few newspaper articles from your town printed off the Internet. And yes - steal some of his stuff explaining that its a mystery but probably one of his buddies who coming to visit and finding the front door unlocked knew exactly what to look for.