moan about my son and some perspective please...

rachbc

DS is 13 - we have some fairly simple 'rules' at home and outside of those he has quite a lot of freedom to see his friends, go scootering pretty much do what he wants.

Basic rules are be home when you are told (goes out after school, back by 6.30 for dinner, out again til 8.30 on school nights), do your homework and go to bed on time (9pm week nights). Basic chores he has to do are set and clear table for meals, keep his room tidy and bring his washing down (he is in attic room) Perhaps somewhat foolishly I expect him to do all these without nagging!

He's gone off to his dad this weekend so I popped up to his room to bring his bin down to empty - it was full to over flowing with sweet wrapper and his thrown away uneaten fruit from his packed lunch. I emptied his bin 2 weeks ago and there we nurmerous pop cans, big haribo bags, bags of eclairs, empty biscuit packet etc etc. I always find empty sweet wrapper in his trouser pockets when i wash them and he always says his mates buy them for him which I have foolishly believed. I rang him to ask what was going on and he again said his friends buy them for him but there are receipt for tens of pounds worth of crap. I'm so mad at him for lying and for wasting money on all the rubbish when he has free access to food at home - toast, yoghurts, fruit, homemade cakes etc.

In addition OH has just told me he that twice he has found him asleep in his clothes - I have to nag and nag him to have a shower (he gets very sweaty as he does loads of physical activity but won't shower unless I tell him too.

I am now suspecting he's not going to bed when he is supposed to but is probably up in his room (he has a laptop but interent turns off at 9). Since he moved in to the attic I have been less inclined to go up and make sure he's gone to bed - but also I don't feel I should have to - I have always just expected that he would as he's a 'good kid'.

How to I encourage him to look after himself - go to bed (not in his clothes), keep clean, eat well etc without nagging, or are my expectations of a 13 year old being able to manage this himself too much and should I be supervising this sort of stuff more??

FatVonD

I can't offer any advice as I too have a 13-year-old slob but I do know (from my step son) that once he's interested in girls you won't be able to keep him out of the shower!

iamana1ias

Surely he has more than 30 mins homework per night at 13???

Otherwise it sounds like you are far too lax with him. Where is he getting all this money from?

January20

My first piece of advice would be that when he is at his dad's you shouldn't ring him about things like this. This is time with his dad and you really need to respect that and tackle the problem face to face when he gets back home. He'll only resent you if you carry on.

You said he eats a lot of sweets, but also does a lot of sports, but does he also eat a balanced diet at home? Does he eat the food you give him at breakfast and tea time? It's all about balance and how he is in himself. You should try and talk to him about it. Not lecture him as he won't respond to that but tell him the facts ie what you have found in his room and then ask him why. It could be a rebellion because he can never have sweets at home. It could be peer pressure. The kids from the local middle school go to the corner shop every day after school to buy sweets around here.

The showering thing I think is just laziness and not uncommon with (male?) teenagers I am told - thankfully I had a daughter who never went through that stage! and I don't think there is anything you can do but nag him.

ETA: Teenagers lie. Fact. I was crushed when I realised "my perfect teenager" had lied to me. That was 5 years ago and I'm not sure I've recovered yet

gillypkk

i would stop giving him money. no money=no crap to eat.

i think you need to supervise him more and tell him once he starts being reliable in going to bed on time and making sure he looks after his hygiene properly you wont need to be going up at 9pm and taking the laptop away and he can start to earn pocket money again cash instead of into the bank account for him to buy something decent with.

January20

iamana1ias wrote: »

Surely he has more than 30 mins homework per night at 13???

Otherwise it sounds like you are far too lax with him. Where is he getting all this money from?

At that age, not necessarily. It may be they get homework for one subject a night. In some school there are also told to spend x amount of time on a piece of homework and no more.



no money = no crap in an ideal world but it could also mean no money = stealing from the shop/ being given sweets by other kids, etc.

fiscalfreckles

Are you giving him the money he is spending? If you're not happy about the way he spends it, cut it back. Its hard for him though, if his friends are spending like that. It does annoy me too that some people don't seem to feed their children & expect them to live on crisps & sweets.

And popping up to see if he's in bed & if he's still got his clothes on shouldn't be too much of a task for you, surely? You said you had a rule that he brings dirty laundry downstairs, maybe insist he does that in the evenings before he goes to bed (say you want to get a wash on first thing or something!) Of course he & his clothes are going to smell if he keeps on sleeping in them. You could try buying him Lynx shower gels or something to encourage him to wash more.
But I'm afraid teenage boys are fundamentally lazy & need nagging, sorry encouraging(!), to do stuff.
As others have said, he will hit a point where you will be moaning about him using all the hot water...

mountainofdebt

Wait until he discovers girls........mine was exactly like yours - had to cattle prod him into the shower - and then all of a sudden bathroom / bedroom smells of a tart's boudoir.

I've just had the house cleaned for me including the dog being washed and kitchen floor cleaned as apparently there's a girl coming around later on today.

Savvy_Sue

rachbc wrote: »

How to I encourage him to look after himself - go to bed (not in his clothes), keep clean, eat well etc without nagging,

when you find the answer, bottle it, sell it, and make a fortune! seriously, I don't think it can be done. I once asked DS3 how I was supposed to get him to do things without nagging, because if I asked him once he'd ignore me, and if I asked him twice I was nagging, and he said I couldn't.

rachbc wrote: »

or are my expectations of a 13 year old being able to manage this himself too much

Waaaay too much!

rachbc wrote: »

and should I be supervising this sort of stuff more??

OTOH, not necessarily.

You are walking a fine line here: teenagers are notoriously changeable. It's their hormones, some of the time they can't help themselves. So I would start by deciding what matters: what really REALLY matters, and what, frankly in the grand scheme of things DOESN'T matter.

One of mine went through a smelly stage. Despite me nagging him into the shower, he was still smelly. He's grown out of it now. All of mine went through a 'tidying up is only done when you can't find something vital' stage, which they're still in. In his bedroom, does that matter?

So, bed at 9: as long as you know what he's doing after 9, then it may not matter if he doesn't snuggle up like the sweet child you remember and fall asleep quickly, stirring gently when you pop in and kiss him goodnight. You say the internet goes off at 9 - sure he hasn't worked out how to get round that? Does he have TV / games?

Bedtime was one battle I stopped fighting, not when mine were 13, but certainly once they were in 6th form. It was never one I was going to win!

With all the sweets, where's he getting the money from? And is he 'buying' friendship? That may be hard to establish, but you need to gently probe.

Oh, and 'healthy' food just doesn't have the same attraction as junk food. Many adults, given the choice, would pick a sweet rather than a grape if both were offered, wouldn't they? Or they might have both. Plus there's a need for 'food on the go' ... which yoghourt doesn't really meet.

Alikay

He sounds perfectly normal for a 13 year old boy. I think the problem is that the attic room means you can't keep an eye on him so easily, and like most lads of his age he takes advantage of it. I'm guessing the bedroom move was due to space availability in the house, so if you can't move him somewhere more visible, you'll have to make more effort to check on him.

Its a big transition between childhood and being looked after with no responsibility, and the total autonomy of adulthood, and at 13 he'll only take ownership of the things he sees necessary. Which probably don't include showering, undressing at bedtime or mucking out his room!

chewynut

...sounds like a normal teenager to me.

The shower thing will resolve itself when his classmates or friends start commenting on him being whiffy. One of my friend's clothes always smelt of something horrible and it was really noticable sometimes. We got together and helped her with it before the stupid boys at our school could start bullying her for it. Nagging him into showering won't do anything but irritate him and that'll just lead to arguments. He'll change when he realises girls exist and gets self-conscious about the effects of not showering.

The sweets thing is perfectly normal. My brother lived on sweets when he was younger. These days it's been narrowed down to triffle and digestive biscuits but at one point he lived on sugary things. He was also really physical. Now he's an amateur bodybuilder and he's perfectly healthy (although he does have a fair few fillings )

His mates very well could be buying things and sharing them out. My friends used to do that a lot. One of them bought the sherbet, one bought the chocolate footballs. If it's his money then it's his money to spend on whatever he likes. I'm not surprised he lied about it when you're nagging him over what he's spending his own money on.

I didn't realise it was a naggable offence to fall asleep in your clothes. I still do that sometimes and I'm 21

From experience, the 9 o'clock bedtime will vanish soon because television doesn't get interesting until midnight. I stayed up to whatever time I liked as long as I didn't keep anyone else up and accepted that if I was tired the next day, it was my own damn fault for staying up late.

If he's a good kid then he'll crack onto everything you're nagging him about eventually, because most other people in the world do at some point. To me it just sounds like you're having a go at him for being a teenaged boy. Be grateful he's not out on the streets beating up old ladies and joyriding cars