The suggested time to implement The Plan is shortly after the teen has gotten his/her learner's permit to drive, although that is only a suggestion.  If your teen is younger than that, can read English fairly well and doesn't have diagnosable psychological difficulties, you might find it useful to implement it earlier.

The first goal of The Plan is for the teen to understand the difference between his/her RIGHTS and his/her PRIVILEGES. RIGHTS are food, shelter, clothing and education ONLY, and are required by federal and state laws.  PRIVILEGES, on the other hand, are granted by the parent(s) and may be withdrawn at any time for any cause, reasonable or not.

Since this plan is only implemented with a spoiled teen, the first step is the threat of withdrawal of ALL privileges at a point in the future that is not so far away that it loses its intimidation value, nor so close that the teen has no chance to reduce it.  In The Damocles Plan, we use a 60-day withdrawal of privileges commencing eight weeks (actually 59 days) from the date you start the plan.  We refer to the eight weeks as "Probation."

You may also consider using a 30-day withdrawal of privileges and a four-week (actually 31 days) start date; it's the same plan, same documents (except it's a one-page scoresheet instead of two), but you simply compress the process.

Based on the teen's behavior in his or her "Probation," the term of punishment (which we call a "Sentence") may be reduced for "extra credit" behavior or increased for each instance of unacceptable behavior on a daily basis.  (Since the teen is probably quite expert at manipulation and avoiding personal responsibility, we've built in several safeguards to defuse that behavior, as well as other common reactive behaviors.)

Based on the plan's structure and human nature, we seriously doubt that ANY teen will be able to reduce the sentence to zero days.  But getting it down to around ten days is pretty good, in our estimation, and the teen should then be able to serve the sentence with a clear understanding of why it's being applied and should tolerate it quite well.  (Of course, the teen whose sentence is still in excess of 30 days or so will NOT tolerate it well, but we've built in some safeguards for that, as well.)

The Plan also has built-in safeguards for the expected backlash in the first week or so after you start The Plan.

But now let's look at the story of Damocles, so you'll know a bit more about the underlying motivational constructs of The Plan.