My ds is 11 and in yr7. He seems to have no awareness that his behaviour is the influencing factor and that this has consequences. For example;
He has recently had exams. Any attempts to help him/get him to revise were met with reticence. We didn't push it much as we felt he needed to learn. Consequently he didn't do particularly well. He was VERY upset about this. We talked about how he was only in YR7 and this was a good opportunity to learn from the experience and that it didn't matter right now etc etc.
He seemed to take it on board but actually his behaviours haven't changed in the slightest. He is chaotic, doesn't do his homework until the last possible minute, gets distracted very easily. If we try and challenge this we are met with full on toddler tantrums.
EVERYTHING is like this. He frequently has emotional meltdowns because he hasn't done as well as he would like, his teacher doesn't like him, his friends don't like him etc... But he does nothing at all to make anything different despite us trying to support him and guide him.
I am emotionally drained by him right now. He is very high maintenance emotionally and in some ways very insecure but I don't know how to help because he won't help himself at all.
Has anyone been through anything similar? How do we deal with this?
AIBU?
To ask how we teach our tweenager that consequences are a direct result og his behaviour
thedcbrokemybank · 21/06/2017 10:14
For homework bribery may be your friend. Bribery done tiny step by step. Sometimes people try to bribe the wrong thing - they only bribe good marks or completed work or long periods of study. That's fine after the basics are in place but your DS is still getting the basics in place so start by bribing the basics. For example, you could bribe him each day just to go through his jotter and tell you if he has homework or not. Then you can bribe him if he gets his books out and sits down. Bribe him if he sits with his books for 10 minutes. You don't have to bribe everything at once, instead you can bribe the first step and leave it to chance if he continues and does the next step. when he is regularly doing the first step move on and bribe the second step instead. The bribes can be really tiny to match the tiny steps (like a sweet or a cup of tea!) Few people respond well to being "challenged" the difference with bribery is that you are rewarding him for doing the right thing, and you are not reacting when he does the wrong thing, and you are not nagging when he doesn't do the right thing - you are just offering him the bribe. Oh, and the bribe is only ever given after he's done the tiny step. The child-raising-book experts call this "concrete rewards" but I prefer to think of it as "getting bribery right" 
. People worry that if something is done with a bribe then it wont be done if the bribe is taken away but I wouldn't worry about that because right now he's not doing it anyway, and bribes can be good habit formers, and later on you can replace the bribe with praise and with a similar bribe for doing the next step so he's still getting the same bribe but doing more to earn it.
As for the social stuff, basically pick up on every tiny thing he does right. Notice, comment, praise and reward. No undermining with "why can't you do that every day" though you can give positive instructions like "you could do the same when you meet auntie Flo, I bet she'd really like it". You might also find some hints in <a class="break-all" href="//www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FOR2DL8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">The Unwritten Rules of Friendship Try chapters on "The pessimistic child" and "the sensitive soul" and if he tends to annoy people maybe "the different drummer".
My DS (who is not NT though not dyslexic) and I still tidy his room together. We agree a time and we don't do it often. I try not to view this as "standing over" him I view it as "tidying together". I encourage, cheerlead, keep him on task, supply dusters, and tell him where to put things (and then relieve my feelings by whining about it on Facebook afterwards). Yes it's a pain in the bum but it's less of a pain than a two hour screaming session. I have been less successful in getting DS to tidy than I have with homework. He's OK now with things that have an obvious place to be but he still falls apart when there is a decision to be made. If your DS is similar then one thing that may help is to organise his room so that everything has a clear place. And don't get fussed if things are shoved in drawers so long as it's the right drawer. DS got better at putting clothes away after I invested in a set of drawer dividers - socks here, pants there. I'm going to pick him up from university for the first time at the weekend and help him pack his stuff. I shudder to think what I will find but hey ho.
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