Long time lurker - really need some advice, sorry its quite a long post.
I'm having a tough time with my 14 (nearly 15) year old son. My easy going, friendly, happy son has had a personality change over the last few months, coincided with with the lock down situation and getting his first girlfriend (they were friends already from school who formed a bond talking and messaging whilst in lockdown). I have been increasingly worried about his mental health, it has been a difficult time for teenagers in lockdown (as for many of us). His behaviour and attitude has been deteriorating but last night went to new lows and was the final straw. I had suspicions that he may have snuck out a few nights ago but no proof and without proof I knew he would lie to me. I also saw a message on his ipad from his girlfriends mum, which stated that the daughter had snuck out to our home and been in the house with my son whilst me and my husband were asleep upstairs. So last night I set up a motion sensor camera on the back door to track what was going on. I caught him leaving the house in the middle of the night. I went out in the car looking for him and found him at the girlfriends house (she lives close by) the mum had let my son in at nearly midnight and believed he had permission from me to be there?!! I asked her what she was thinking and clearly as a responsible parent I would not have given him permission to come to their house at that time of night. (He had been there earlier in the evening for a BBQ with my permission and had returned home at the agreed curfew time) I was very cross but kept my composure, whilst making it very clear how unhappy I was with my son and the girlfriends mum, and got my son home.
He opened up to me when he was home that he had gone over as his girlfriend self harms by cutting herself and she had just cut herself again, I also confronted him about the message I saw that she had been to our home in the night a week or so ago, again he told me she had harmed herself that night and he was helping her with the wounds. He also told me that when he talks to her he is often able to help her not to harm herself. The mum doesn't know about the harming apparantly. I've explained to him that this is too big a burdon to carry by himself. I am livid that he's been sneaking out and incredibly sad that his first love (he's utterly besotted and obsessed) is with a girl that is clearly very troubled. I've always had a great relationship with him, but he hates me at the moment and its heartbreaking. I literally feel like my son has been replaced with someone with a different personality.
He's spending the day and night at his dads today as I'm working and the space between us is probably a good thing. However I'm so worried about how to handle things to get the best outcome, obviously he's grounded and lost privaledges, but I feel our relationship is on a knifes edge. The biggest issue is that he cannot be trusted and is clearly a liar. We are in the process of setting up counselling for him as I have been concerned about his mental health for the last few months as he's been clearly depressed and anxious. Ordinarily my gut would be to tell the girlfriends mum about the self harming, however firstly I don't want to enagage with her as clearly last night wasn't a very successful first meeting and I'm not entirely sure about her own mental health to be honest and secondly my son will be even more cross at me for breaking the confidence. His dad is going to talk to him today and try and persuade him to tell the mum and again emphasise that he can't deal with this alone, whilst also reinforcing to him how wrong his actions are. This problem just feels huge and I want the girlfriend to just disappear out of my sons life, however I realise that is not possible and the more I clamp down the more sneaking around they will do, I'm also concerned that the girlfriends home will become a safe haven for them both making me even more the bigger enemy.
My head is a big mess of emotions, I am so bloody angry but also incredibly sad.
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My nearly 15 year old snuck out last night
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123sunshine · 24/06/2020 13:21
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