Help ! 17yr old son going off the rails !

dawyldthing

svain wrote: »

He is 17 nearly 18 not 5 years old!! .... You cant just turn off the electrics or confiscate his stuff ... He is of age to decide what time he goes to bed/sleep and what he does in his own bedroom ...... If his behaviour is unnacceptable then a conversation about how he behaves or acts around the home needs to be had and a clear consequence if he doesnt change (ie move him out etc)

Oh yes you can. Each room has a switch on the circuit board. Just switch it off at the mains each night. Thing is while your under your parents house you follow their rules. The other thing is it’s ok saying he knows what time to sleep but if you’ve got into a game you’ll probably keep playing all night with no boundaries. That is no good to anyone

JIL

Just a bit of reassurance from me, it sounds a lot like my middle child, ten years ago. He was doing A levels, but he wasn't really stretching himself, yes he went to sixth form, but he was late and sometimes he didn't go in. We knew from past experience the more we moaned at him the worse he dug his heels in. He would go to bed when he wanted. He would make himself things to eat in the early hours. He was up until all hours on his PlayStation.
We were always laid back as parents, I think the most we asked him to do was tidy up after himself. We didn't nag him it just didn't work, he talked of going to university but decided he would have a gap year. We went to a few open days, that was all it took. He suddenly decided he was going to university and no gap year. He scraped through his exams, went to uni, and never came home. He met someone in his final year, and they bought a house together. He's very happy and a lovely caring young man.
I'm glad that the last year he spent with us wasn't full of strife and arguments, which had we chose to have the battles then it could have been a different story.

Talk to your son, but not in a telling off way, he will respond better if he isn't feeling cornered.
Wish you all the best, teenagers are not easy.

charlotte1994

SuperPikachu wrote: »

Has he suffered some sort of social/intimate rejection or gone into depression?

You might want to get him down the doctors and tell him you will support him instead of taking all of his escapes off of him and expecting him to just snap back into some sort of normality.

Without knowing much much more details it is hard to say really but it does seem sad how negative your wording of the situation is.

"bone idle, very unpleasant, lying"

What positive /constructive steps have you taken so far with this?

I was thinking this. Taking the things that give him that release and that escapism will just make the whole situation worse!

peachyprice

dawyldthing wrote: »

Oh yes you can. Each room has a switch on the circuit board. Just switch it off at the mains each night.

Oh yes, every house in the UK is wired exactly the same as your.

MEM62

We are having similar issues with my OH's son - compounded by the fact that he has high functioning autism.

Easily an A-grade student if he wanted to be and particularly talented in science. A really good academic year all round last year. However, this year his attitude to school is appalling, based mainly on a character clash with one of his teachers. His behaviour at home is difficult added to which he lies, steals and has even committed credit card fraud. The problem for him is, although he is clever in some ways he is not clever enough in his criminal activities not to get caught.

We have tried persuasion, coercion, incentivisation, pleading and punishment not in any particular order. He will not wake up and smell the coffee.

I have resigned myself to the fact that he is 16 and will not accept any help or advice from either his mother or I. Therefore, I cannot help him. He will make the choices that he makes and he will have to live with the consequences. However, as he insistent on following that path I have made two things clear to him. Firstly, that he keeps whatever trouble he gets into away from home and secondly, when he is up to his neck in it he has to dig himself out of whatever pile mire he has dropped himself into. There will be no assistance from me.

dirtycredit

I nearly went mad with teenage insomnia when I was studying for my A-Levels. I just could not sleep. If my mum had taken my TV away and made me suffer in the dark for the 8 hours of torture every night i think would've lost the plot completely.

pinkshoes

I remember my parents being at their wits end with my brother.

As a last resort they took him away for a weekend hill walking/rock climbing/canoeing and stayed in a youth hostel so no tv and no chance to stay in bed all day.

It was enough to get him talking about why he was being such an !!!!, and things did improve after that.

He's nice and normal (ish!) now!!

System

I think my parents may struggle with my brother, hes 22 and graduated uni and never had a job. He was lucky he had saving to live off but i think they will be running low by this point

I was a nightmare in my teens, i used to bunk off 6th form and go the pub every wednesday, getting up was horrible and i had insomnia so was always knackered. I did have aprt time job but i worked 5-10 so it didnt involve mornings. I was withdrawn, didnt really have any friends, did;t have any hobbies. Only went to uni as i felt it was my only chance to leave home etc. Turns out i have bipolar, which wasnt known or treated in my teens.
Not saying he does have depression but a lot of what you said is similar to what i experienced during depressive episodes.

He might just be feeling a bit lost? I had no clue of what i wanted to do after school, maybe he doesn't either? It might take a sit down with him, and to go over what does he want to do? If there is something what steps does he need to take to get there? Sometimes having a plan, having a goal can be motivating. He might just need some direction at this point. Make it clear as his parents you will support him as best you can, but you need to know what his plans are going forward

FBaby

.he doesn't seem motivated to do anything

There lies the problem. There are a number of reasons kids get to that stage of complete lack of motivation. They could have been overcprotected to the point they never really had to do things for themselves so are lacking the ability to plan their life for themselves, hence having no interest or energy to do so.

Or they could have lacked emotional attention so that they've been left to fend for themselves and have never learned the skills to self motivate themselves.

Or thry could feel under huge pressure, pressure that they put themselves under most of the time so we parents struggle to appreciate it.

This is the case for my DS. He is naturally very introverted but also very anxious by nature. Yet he is quite ambitious in wanting to excel and please others. This means that he will feel under huge pressure when teachers tell him that he is capable of achieving mountains when he himself feels he can hardly go up the first hill.

My son turned into the boy you describe at the start of the year and it turned out that it was mainly caused by him feeling under huge pressure to excel at his GCSEs when he felt he was nowhere near capable of meeting their expectations. He left lost as to to revise, felt lost in some lessons but was to introverted and self conscious to tell his teachers or me. It took a first parent evening and me witnessing his teachers Pilling on the pressure on him saying he should achieve all 8 and 9s and me responding that I couldn't care less if he got a 7 or even 6 rather than 8 and 9 as long as he worked as hard as he could for him to suddenly turn around. I reminded him that he was working for himself, not his teachers who hell never see again, and that in the scale of his future, getting a 7 rather than an 8 in Maths won't stop him getting the job of his dreams.

He's been a changed boy since, worked hard for his first mock test without needing any prompting, and did well enough that all his teachers have encouraging and mentioned how pleased they were to see him really engaged again. It is so reassuring to see him happy again.

I would really consider that your son is acting this way because the pressure of A levels has got to him. Some kids do well under pressure, it gives them that kick to want to prove to themselves and the world what they can do, but for others it has the exact opposite effect. Myself, my OH and eldest are motivated by challenge, so it was hard to understand that DS is motivated by encouragements, believing in himself and patience even when he is seeming to show no willingness to make any efforts.