Advice on an 18 year old nightmare son

Someone doesn't magically transform into a full grown adult at 18, it's a gradual process, he isn't any different from a 17 year old, 18 is not a grown adult like 40 is, 18 is also still a teenager you know (eighTEEN) so NO it's not a grown man

Not offering this as a solution here - but reiterating that is a terrible situation that make people do extraordinary things to escape it .

My Aunt up sticks and moved abroad. Took the whole family out of the country and didn't tell him - left the house behind to be sold and just went. She was so DONE.

There was no help and the affect it was having on the family was awful. Over the years he had broken anything they cherished, assaulted them all regularly, damaged everything they owned and made the whole family miserable with his rages and tantrums.

The Police had been called, Mental health team, Social workers but he smart enough to say the right things at the right time so any help always unravelled.

She just saw a future where this would go on forever and it made her decide that she just couldn't live like that even if it made her a terrible person.

They live abroad to this day.

So what are his learning needs? He has an ehcp and is in a residential school butvthecschool haven't picked up on the fact that his coursework is of a completely different standard to his classwork???

In UK you are responsible fir children unde18
You can only trigger adult social care when they hit 18
Regardless of what happened before

America parents with disabled children 'give them up' just before adulthood so that the state has to help out. If the parents wait till their children are adults, the state doesn't have to help and they age out of the care system and the parents are left supporting their disabled child forever!

No
In UK
you as parents are responsible
You can ONLY hand over when tge chikd becomes an adult
As an adult
You can tell ss you ate no longer responsible

You have maDe Problems for yourself by doing his work, maybe speak to a solicitor as to whether this is against any law and if you risk being g charged and what penalty

Frankly if he cannot complete gcse he shoukd not get the job requiring that !

He emails me his course work and I take time off work to research and rewrite it. I email it back.

What?????
Whatever possessed you to do this?
You need to come clean
Just Stop doing this
Whoever advised you to do this was very out of order
He needs to fail
To get support

Let him fail
Talk to adult socialcare
Say you won't be caring for him or have him at home to protect the siblings
Investigate supported living or therapeutic living settings

Mayb e some kind of supported work facility fir oeiplexeitg asd and mh issues

Equity does not equal equality. You have, and still are expecting, DS to react and behave as an NT individual. 


If the residential college placement is in DS’s EHCP the LA are responsible for all costs. Why are you paying?

He emails me his course work and I take time off work to research and rewrite it. I email it back.

This is ridiculous, but surely the college, and school before, notice the difference between work completed in class and work that isn’t.

DS may legally be an adult but he is still in full time education, therefore unless you are over the income limits you are still receiving benefits for him.

When he is 18 you are no longer legally responsible for him
He will be
An adult
Hand him over to social services adult care

You will lose any benefits you receive for him

Nellynellie

I am so impressed. I am in the same situation with my son aged 23 but unable to step back. I will read what you say again and again - thank you

@nellynellie

It is so heartening to read of your commitment to your child and also your awareness of your own limitations and some of how you lived out both those things. As someone who doesn't know what the future will look like with my own children, I'm so thankful to you for sharing.

OP, I hope you get the support you and he need - I have found Contact a wonderful source of advice and support.

I’m shocked that you have been doing his school work for him, making him out to be more academically able than he is, this has not helped him at all and could make it impossible to get him further support for 18+. Why would you want to do that? Seems like you have just paid to keep him away from you rather than facing the challenges he has with his behaviour and his learning disabilities.

I do understand why you want to protect your other dc and I understand why you wouldn’t want a violent teen in the house but you have gone the wrong way about getting him the support he needs and are now facing the possibility of your ds having nowhere to go post 18. Of course you are well within your rights to refuse to have him back home but you have set him up to be homeless by not allowing him to fail academically by doing his school work for him, this could also effect him getting PIP or any support for a learning difficulty because on paper he’s probably presenting as not having a learning disability.

I am a mum of 2 teens with SEN’s, one is academic and does get PIP (it was turned down at first), the other will likely need support for the rest of her life due to wing severely autistic, she has a ehcp and will be in education until she’s 24/25. Life with her living at home is hard and I do hope one day she can access supported living or residential care.

I haven't had time to read the whole thread but if no one has suggested it look in the pegsupport website for child to parent abuse. There are free courses and support. lots of us have children with additional needs.

There are schemes all over the country for young people like your son, OP. The referral route can be via Adult Social Care, but going through the council's homelessness team is invariably quicker. I would get in touch with them and explain that he is leaving his residential placement but that you can't have him back at home because of his issues. May be best to approach both, especially if you live in a shire county area where social care and housing are dealt with by different councils (county and district/borough respectively). The co-ordination between services is invariably better in a London borough or metropolitan authority.

He is an adult, and he has health conditions/disabilities that make him vulnerable. Therefore, the council has a statutory duty to house him if he is homeless. They may also involve adult social care for assessment, so that the accommodation he is allocated is appropriate for his needs.

There are schemes for people like your son all over the country, OP. They provide varying degrees of support, from rooms in a group home that is staffed 24/7 to flats in general needs housing, but with extra support to help them manage independent living.

And definitely help him apply for PIP, ideally with help from a welfare rights/benefits adviser, or look into getting the guide from an organisation called Benefits and Work. The forms are quite technical and it's very different from DLA.

PIP is important, because without it, he will be restricted to the shared accommodation rate for help with housing costs and would be unlikely to be able to afford a place of his own. And his EHCP would be good supporting evidence.

I used to work in this area, so feel free to pm me if you want clarification of anything.

When he leaves education he can claim universal credit. If you help him get a private rental property he can claim housing costs which will pay some or all of the rent (depends on costs and area ) . UC is separate to pip

I've always done the same as @teenylittlefella as well. My older ones have always known that expectations were different for the two with autism because they were based on what they can manage.
Your funding the residency makes things not as straightforward as the EHCP doesn't support the need for him to be accommodated elsewhere if the LA isn't funding it. Can I assume it's not a SEN college either?
You really do need to get advice from IPSEA or SOSSEN and quickly to get an EHCP that reflects his full needs and identify the sort of provision to meet his needs. I suspect though that your cheating for him will most likely rule out the sort of placement he'd benefit from as he will be seen as too academically able for the co-hort already there.

OP, you should not live in a situation in which you are physically attacked, where property is broken, where siblings (and parents) are emotionally terrorised. What is more, you have a duty to keep your other children safe.

Living with someone who no matter what disability or illness they have, engages in frequent and serious behaviour that challenges, is living in an abusive situation (even if the abuse is not deliberate).

Some posters, with the best intentions, seem to be adding to the 'guilt' you must feel, OP. You are not 'guilty' of anything. We sometimes ,make mistakes, but when there is so little guidance on how to behave when our children are our assailants, or when education seems to be failing them, we may take unorthodox measures.

I felt a failure when my son went into residential care. Even more so, because he chose to go into residential care (he has enjoyed the friendships and safety he experienced in hospital). I also felt inadequate because friends with children with ASD/MH difficulties, seemed to manage so well. Yet each situation is different.

As other posters have advised, please contact adult social care and the college and get the move to a suitable and therapeutic next step in place. Your son has said he likes residential living. That is really important when it comes to considering his needs and preferences.

Oh OP.

You’re clearly doing your best and are taking your responsibilities as far as you can. I suspect that you have issues of your own, and frankly you’ve been a terrible advocate for your child. Really awful. That’s probably not your fault but it really is time to hand this over to those who know what they’re doing.

You need someone else to advocate for your son and what YOU need to do is find that service/person and let them get on with it. I’d recommend getting hold of someone at SOS SEN by email and showing them what you’ve written here and asking for help to unpick this holy mess.

Your son is disabled. In exactly the same way as if he had a physical issue. You need to view everything you do from that point of view.

In all my years of SEN advocacy this thread has shocked me the most.

I have a 20 year old with autism and he is my eldest. He lives with us and I pay his phone contract.

We have a pretty harmonious time in part because we have different expectations for him than for our other children. They don't complain as it's been explained that different people have different needs and they are lucky enough not to have his challenges. They will go to uni, live independently etc and he will not, at least not yet.

I am really horrified to read about you cheating through his qualifications. This is a huge disservice to him and sets him up for failure as he does not have the skills he has qualifications for. My ds took his English GCSE 5 times and eventually passed functional skills level 2. It never crossed my mind to cheat. Apart from anything it gives him a huge message that you have no faith in his competence or ability. You can't remove his responsibility completely in one area of life and then be surprised that he doesn't take responsibility in other areas of his life.

Good luck. I admire your honesty on this thread but it's all a big mess isn't it?

Sorry, the last two paragraphs referred to OP's son, not mine.

OP, when my eldest son was 18, he moved from children's social care to adult social care. With the help of a really good adult social worker, he found a small residential home for people with ling term mental illness. He has mental health difficulties, but he also has ASD.

Finding suitable residential accommodation was very difficult. ASD specific accommodation was very scarce, accommodation for people with learning disabilities was also not suitable, and several places would not take my son, due to a risk assessment which detailed his behaviour (he had been arrested and sectioned when he was 17).

My son is now 22 and living in supported accommodation. He is much calmer and more settled. He had 1:1 support in his residential placement, and he now has daily visits from his support team. We see him very frequently, although I still supervise when he is with his younger brother (who also has behavioural problems due to MH and other issues).

He should have a review of his EHCP, if necessary an emergency review. There should also be a team focused on his transition to adult services (we had to fight for this). Make it clear that your son cannot come home on a permanent basis.

He needs a team around him, and he needs support into adulthood. I am really surprised that the college are not being more proactive.

Hi sorry I haven't read the thread or replies. I work in adult social care. Ring them and say exactly what you said in the op. They wont care about the PIP. You are in the midst of carer breakdown. You need to be open and honest, don't panic about them "taking him away" or anything, that won't happen. Also the police can be pretty good in these situations. They have mh units now that they can refer to (and will come out within hours) in cases like these.

Ring up and tell them, there are lots of supported loving options from quite high intervention to quite low. Trust me ASC would rather deal with this while he is living with a supportive family then of he ends up in temporary accommodation.

Sounds to me like your DS would benefit from being away from you permanently. You clearly aren’t able to understand or accept his neurodiversity. I hope he can find the understanding and support he needs elsewhere. I say this as the mother of an autistic PDA child.

Pip are rarely interviewing face to face at the moment due to covid.
You can talk to them- dangle the carrot so to speak with the cash. It's a gate keeper benefit and opens lots of doors.
Two of my DS' have top rate pip and full ehcp's. Ds1 had severe mental health problems (I had a long running thread on here with a different name) and was sectioned in a high security hospital for two years. He was diagnosed under 16 with schizophrenia. He now lives independently and has just gained a degree.
Ds3 is last year of sixth form. I spoke to pip assessor.
There is a bit of a knack to the forms. Some advice wouldn't hurt you.
And tbh I second, third and multiple agree that saying ' we can't' is the best thing. For all your sake. They will lean on you but you have to be strong.
Message me if I can help.