At a loss

[tljarvis]

my 16 yr old son has become more and more distant. his dads been giving him loads of grief (lives away with his new partner and my sons half brother 3) his dads always done the weekend good stuff! and apparently our sons behavior, slacking at school etc........is all my failings as a mother! i cant get through to my son that am getting stick from his dad, from school. hes been coming back later and later and the night he didn't return at all i involved the police. this has not helped as they have informed him "hes an adult, he can do what he likes and i over reacted" my son hasn't slept at home since and i feel helpless. how does it work if the law says that but school are still demanding why the late mark, why the day off? rock and a hard place!

[smileyforest]

Such an awkward age! My son is 17 and giving me grief....they are not 'quite' adults! DS has ran off to his Dads as well and I'm the bad Mother too-yet my ex does not know half of what I have had to put up with....! My DS told me tonight that 'I'm too old to be his Mum' that i do not understand that age group...my eldest is 30-youngest is 15 and I'm 53y and work full time and certainly I'm well up with 'the change of society' and youth today.....can be s hurtful....he will come back and no the Police are not interested!

[tljarvis]

Its nice to know am not alone with such problems. I work P/T as a cook(day time) and also had a P/T chef job which was evening work, i've had to give that up as i was afraid i've have the house trashed! again as a single parent you damned if you do damned if you don't, the police aren't interested but they're quick to point blame when things go wrong "where were the parents?"

[MrsBright]

I think Dad need a swift b*llocking here.

I dont care if he 'feels to old to be his Mum' - he is his PARENT and he cant just opt out because its all too difficult. Because he's being so inept, he's handing your son ammunition on a plate - 'Dad doesnt care about me so I'll hit out at Mum'. No wonder your son feels lost.

I appreciate that seperated parents have a problem with all their own past emotional baggage etc - but his father really has got to step up to the plate.

[flow4]

Yup, I have been there too. :(

MrsB, if their dads had been able or willing to 'step up', many of us would not be single parents in the first place. With my DS1, his father's total crapness certainly contributed to his anger and bad behaviour, and although I agree his father should have 'stepped up', I had to get on and deal with everything knowing that he never would. In 18 years indeed, he never helped, and his very occasional appearances always made things (at least temporarily) worse.

I found 15-16 the most difficult age for staying out/not coming home, for exactly the reasons you give tlj. I did not ever solve the problem, but I managed my stress by doing the following:

• I asked him to always let me know where he was, and explained I needed to know in case of emergencies. I promised I would never contact him except in an emergency, but also said that if I didn't know where he was, I would phone all his mates - everyone I could think of - to try to find out. I did it a few times, and it embarrassed him enough that he then usually left me an address - though with hindsight I realise he may not always have been where he said.

• Later, I stumbled on a better tactic: I told him how much I worried, and agreed it wasn't rational, but "just a mum thing". He did/does (underneath all the nonsense) care about me, so this worked better, and he usually gave me an address...

• He didn't (as far as I remember) stay out on school nights, but he did truant. My tactic was to keep the school informed - they were good at understanding I couldn't make him go to school. When I got a computer-generated letter threatening fines, I also phoned the school attendance office at the council, who reassured me that they'd never take a parent to court if they knew that parent was doing what they could to get their child to school.

• I did some nice things for myself, to help with my stress.

It is a really hard stage, but it will pass. You have to work out how you can 'hang on in there' without getting ill, meantime.