My ds started at secondary in September. He is an august birthday, so young in the year. We are having a number of issues at the moment, a lot is related to homework but also taking any responsibility for himself and his things.
Firstly he gets a lot of homework. At first we tried to support him through it but we have tried to back off so he takes some responsibility himself. It hasn't worked. He literally won't do it and if he does, it is of a really poor quality. He puts no effort into it at all. So far he has done okay because we have helped guide him I.e told him to reread his English and correct (the very basic) grammar and punctuation errors I.e. no capital letters, full stops or paragraphs. He is more than capable but doesn't seem to care. I read back his homework to him last week and it literally made no sense at all, yet if I prompt him he knows exactly where the errors are and how to write it properly. I had a look at his maths yesterday and every question was wrong. He hadn't written any working out down. I went through it with him and he knows what to do but because he hadn't bothered writing anything down it got muddled and he got the end answers wrong. He knows to write down his workings he just can't be bothered. He is like this with everything.
He complains about the amount of homework but actually because he doesn't do it, it builds up to what then appears to be an unmanageable amount. Yesterday I sat down with him and went through it all, we made a list of priorities and when he should do it. He was fine with that but when it came to it he just disregarded it and hasn't really made a dent. He spends more time moaning and protesting than actually doing anything productive. It is emotionally draining. We were positive to start with but the lack of any reciprocation means we are finding it hard now. We have decided that this week we will help if asked but we are not going to intervene otherwise.
This attitude extends to everything. He leaves old food in his room, his clothes on the floor. He can't work at his desk because it is such a tip. I have stopped doing all this for him and just piling it up on his bed because he won't even do the basic tasks that I ask of him, like making his bed or hanging his blazer up.
I have resorted to sending him to school with a carrier bag for his lunch because I can't be sure whether he will bring his lunch box home. He has lost his -£70- PE kit already. He doesn't take responsibility for himself or anything.
Ultimately I know he is a child but I don't know how to help him as he seems so unwilling to help himself.
We have 3 younger DC and he seems to make it his mission to torment them. He delights in winding them up.
He is actually a lovely boy but at the moment he is acting like a spoilt, entitled brat. I know that because of my frustration over his behaviour that I am short and snappy with him and this then becomes a vicious circle.
I am sorry this is so long. I just really don't know what to do. Please help!
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Struggling with my 11 yr old ds
beardedladydragon · 21/11/2016 11:17
Hi there, OP. I feel your pain. My DS is also an August born and is 12 so Y8. We are having very similar problems. Might your DS have dyspraxia? Just a thought. We assumed our DS was just idle and useless, but when we got an ed psych test it turns out he did have really slow processing skills which makes any sort of organisation a real challenge. Separate from that, I agree it is really frustrating when they don't take any care over homework and have to be forced to review it/prompted about basic grammatical stuff. As you can see, I am not exactly 'on top of the situation', but just wanted to say that I understand how hard it is. My sense is that they need our help/support spoon-feeding for longer than we'd thought. FWIW I try to keep my tone as light-hearted as possible and sometimes say things like 'no supper until you've tidied up the tip that is the bathroom!' or similar. Sorry I can't offer more help 
. Will be watching this thread with interest!
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