Nurturing Gratitude in a Teenage Son

Get him a job. Boys need work. Boys need to be put in difficult situations. Boys need to be given serious responsibilities. Entitling your son and then giving him lessons about gratitude is not going to work.

As young as six or seven years old, children should be helping out around the house with the parents. As they get older, they should be the right hand of the father in household responsibilities, and then even getting an early job. This idea that you complete your education and only then you start work is a modern concept — and in many ways it stunts the maturity and growth of young men. It keeps them boys even when they are in their late twenties.

He is not a boy anymore, he is a man. Give him responsibilities like a man, and he will man up, insha'Allah.