moan about my son and some perspective please...

tiff

I have a 13 year old son, so glad to read this and know that he is normal too lol. I can relate to the lack of showering, messy room, eating rubbish etc and he also sleeps in his socks (Tracey2609)!!. He is no angel, but I know that he hates disappointing us and learned long ago to own up to something sooner rather than lie and be found out later. When they're interested in girls, that will bring a whole new set of problems so I hope thats a while off yet!

pigpen

I turn the power off to the boys room at 9.. not just the internet.. !!

he sounds perfectly normal.. my youngest boy is 12 and we are just starting it with him..

Shower of your own accord or I WILL wash you!
Put your clothes in the wash basket or I WILL strip you naked and take the clothes off your back...

They are given binbags every so often to fill and a couple of times a year I invade their room and gut it.. and they screech and squawk for a few days.. and are told.. if you did it yoursef I woudn't have to so you have noone to blame but yourselves..

Horrid mum that I am!

DS1 is nearly 20 and clean, uses deodourant and even strings whole sentences together that don't all begin with 'I'

Lunar_Eclipse

rachbc wrote: »

OH and I are deciding between bringing him back to the first floor (small box room) or stopping the pocket money.

He's been an absolutle breeze til now and is doing great at school so I know i shouldn't sweat the small stuff but I guess partly I'm feeling guilty for not being a little more on top of things!

If you are considering doing either of those things that tells me that you either want him to eat less sweets (ie have no money available to buy them) and/or want him to go to sleep at 9pm but don't want to go to the attic to monitor this. Not sure I understand the logic. The consensus is he is an easy kid, doing well and acting very normally, but you would like to be more in control of him. Be careful that he doesn't rebel.

Spendless

Looking for the positives at least the sweet wrappers were in the bin not all over the floor!

You could make him do a laundry load if he sleeps in his clothes. I did this recently with my 8yo daughter. I told her to change her top because I just knew she would get her tea down the white t-shirt she had on, she ignored me and I spotted it too late. I then said now she had created me washing I shouldn't have had if she'd done as she was told, she could do a laundry load, so she had to take the wet washing out (to touch wet washing is apparantly gross), move it into the tumble dryer (more gross) and put a dirty washing load in (even worse). She was pleading with me to either ground her or send her to bed early instead. :rotfl::rotfl:

busiscoming2

Agree with all that has been said about teenage boys so far. I'd like to add that my DS2 is at the end of Y9, is doing well at school and never seems to do much homework, having said that I think the vast majority of it gets done at half six in the morning!!! Don't worry it will all work out in the end!

gregg1

Gillyx wrote: »

I think boys are just stinky creatures. My OH thinks nothing of leaving his snotty hankies on the bedside cabinet, and I then have to pick them up in the morning. I asked him the other night to consider putting them in the bin in the morning, his solution? Bring in an empty Sainsburys carrier and put them in that. I despair at times.

Take it from me - it's girls as well (unfortunately !)

anguk

If I'm honest I think you're over-reacting a bit. Okay so you don't like him to buy rubbish with his money but to be fair it's his money to spend and at least he's not using it to buy cigarettes, cheap vodka or drugs!

I would be annoyed if my son was lying to me but I'd also ask myself why he felt he needed to lie? He obviously knows you wouldn't be happy about him buying sweets therefore he's lying about it but is it really such a big deal? If that's all he was eating then fair enough but it appears that he's got a good diet and does lots of sports so it's not really a big deal. All his friends will be buying sweets too and he would feel like a right ninny if he had so say "I'm not allowed to" at his age.

As others have mentioned the showering will resolve itself, once he becomes interested in girls you'll be complaining because he's used all the hot water and the house stinks of cheap body-spray.

Bedtime is a tricky one, personally I think 9pm might be a little early for a 13yr old at senior school. Maybe in bed for 9pm but lights out at 10?

I also agree that you shouldn't ring him to have a go when he's at his Dad's, if you've got a problem wait until he's home.

Don't move him out of his room, he was given it as an acknowledgement that he's older and no longer a small child like his sister, to take that away just because he's buying sweets, not going to sleep at 9pm and not showering seems quite harsh.

Teenagers need rules and boundaries but you also have to give them space and allow them to grow up. Give him the allowance on the understanding that he keeps his room tidy and empties the bin but don't nag because he's bought sweets. If he doesn't keep his room tidy then dock his allowance.

It sounds like you've got a good lad there, he doesn't cause any real problems, does well at school etc, and maybe you do expect a bit much. He sounds just like a normal teenage lad, I had one too and he's now in his twenties, independent, hard-working and a fine young man.

mazinmouse

Gillyx wrote: »

I think boys are just stinky creatures. My OH thinks nothing of leaving his snotty hankies on the bedside cabinet, and I then have to pick them up in the morning. I asked him the other night to consider putting them in the bin in the morning, his solution? Bring in an empty Sainsburys carrier and put them in that. I despair at times.

" Bring in an empty Sainsburys carrier and put them in that." That sounds like an eminently sensible alternative to using the floor and the bedside cabinet - I'd be grateful that they were 'contained'!

I also run through a check list of stuff with my OH when he goes out for the day (I can't see that me asking him if he has a packet of tissues on him is worse than him having a dewdrop all day long...)

Mupette

I have a stinky 16 year old son.

Sweet wrappers, coke bottles, when he got money for school dinners, he would get the cheapest thing and the rest on sweets...

teeth brushing was something he had heard of but wasn't a master of it himself, until the braces went on last year and a major lecture from a dentist who threatened to remove the braces if he didnt clean his teeth... so he brushed several times a day, probably twice a day now.. but his teeth are white again.

As for the shower, well that was like showing the devil holy water, but at least twice a week now he will shower without me telling him he stinks, he's an air cadet and there are girls there...


Hoping this weekend of being in hospital having his appendix removed and being told he needs to keep his key hole wounds clean may prompt him to stay a bit more hygienic... not sure tho..

changed his bedding ready for when he came home, think the last time it got changed was at Christmas when his grandparents were here, it is his job to change his bedding.. no excuse of where the bedding is, it's all in the drawer in his bed.


I tell you i was almost gagging Thursday morning when he was crying in bed with pain, the nhs direct nurse told me to give him 2 paracetamol, and i had to try and get him in a sitting position to take them.. he was hot and clammy, wouldn't/couldn't move himself and i struggled to move him.. oh he stank.


I can't wait for the girl interest thing to start if it means a more cleaner child, but i think i might have scared him off that, with the lectures of when it happens condoms talk.


OP sorry to say your son is normal..

rachbc

well I thought the original issue had been sorted - we had a good chat (no shouting) about why he wanted to buy so many sweets, why I didn't like him to. He loves cooking so we agreed that he could choose a recipe and cook it each week to keep the treats tin stocked up and have a couple of small bags of sweets. Had a talk about how he needed to prove he could be responsibly/ trustworthy and he would get his pocket money back next month. Next day I asked him t pick up some stuff 3 times, went up to check he was doing it - lying on his bed on his laptop oblvious - took his laptop off him and told him to pick up his !!!!!! - he gpt ars - laptop removed for rest of week. Fri Oh realises his mouse is on wrong side (he is left handed) so checked history - ds has been using his computer all week. Remind DS of previous convo about trust/ responsibilty - told us he had used it once to do homework - point out history and ask how he feels he is doing to build trust - he cries and says how sorry he is!!

As he is going off to his dads for a few days I ask him to strip bed and bring down laundry as we are going on hol day afer he gets back - remind him 3 times - he leaves without doing it. Reluctantly I go up to get it to find his desk, shelf unit, carpet and TV covered in black oil paint from a canvas he was doing on fri after noon (I knew he was doing this and was pleased he was using the no laptop time creatively).

I hit roof - lucky for him he's not here. Plug cut of telly, essential clothes and bedding moved to spare box room!!