Grandson living with me and I'm struggling

We did this.

Mine got qualifications but later.

ITA. Even our Adults SS admits unpaid carers are at higher risk of stroke (23% higher in spousal carers); and carer breakdown is the most likely reason for people going into residential care.

See:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/comm-carers/carer-facts/#:~:text=Unpaid%20carers%20who%20provide%20high,nearly%2011%20percent%20of%20the

The chronic ongoing stress causes poorer physical and mental health.

Sometimes you have to save yourself I'm afraid.

I have some experience of school safeguarding and I have seen tough, competent, kindly middle aged women absolutely destroyed by it.

Neither you nor I can conclude from what the OP has shared that this young man is "in terrible pain". He might be (no-one will ever know if he won't or can't talk to a counsellor). He might just feel that this is as good as it's going to get, and I wouldn't be entirely certain he's not drug dealing at the Tesco. He seems to have a lot of money for someone with no income.

Maybe the OP needs to think hard about whether there's anyone from his old life he might listen to. A teacher? A friend's parent?

It would be a very heartless thing to do. This child has nothing and mo one apart from op, he has already been traumatised, and your solution is for someone else to reject him or abandon him? I imagine he is surly and rude because he is in terrible pain, the kind that is unimaginable to you.

Hopefully it will make them realise how limited their options are and go back to education with different eyes. You don’t really need GCSEs to stand in a production line 12h/day.

Some people just take longer. I know a girl who dropped out in 8th grade (this is less than mandatory schooling in my country, I don’t even understand how it happened) and only now in our 30s has settled.

@SquishedMallow I don’t think it’s heartless to exercise boundaries and expectations. With his inconsistent set up, he needs it more than ever, even if he doesn’t see it.

I'm not sure it's heartless to advocate for the OP's needs (especially as she seems unable to advocate for them herself).

This is an older lady, who presumably wishes to retire one day, stuck with a late teen who accepts her hospitality but won't even acknowledge her on the stairs!

Yes, no doubt he's angry/traumatised/feels let down (and it's very unfortunate the dad lied to him about moving back down south) but in the meantime OP's stuck with this person who's not her child and doesn't seem to come with a single £ towards his support.

By whatever means, she needs to stop making this her problem and make it her son's problem.

Or.... He's a very hurt young man who's been passed from pillar to post by juvenile parents with their own issues. Hurt people do tend to lash out you know. Be the grown up
He's probably desperately crying out for love, stability and attention. His family set up sounds completely neglectful. Sounds like none of you want him and he'll feel that.

Some heartless people on this thread FFS

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5392719-to-struggle-with-radical-acceptance-while-parenting-an-asd-teen?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share&utm_source=copylink

We aren't alone.

The same. I'll be more than happy if they get their GCSEs and go onto sixth form college.
I am just desperate to have a plan B, plan C, plan D if the next four years to GCSE and six to A-level don't pan out. In other words, the OP's GC could be mine six years from now.
You hear of people - Alan Sugar barrel boy and even my mechanic - "left school at 14 no qualifications" - who make it but I am genuinely scared of what the future holds.
There will be many more autistic children holed up in their rooms without a future. I am aware how dramatic that sounds but have had a very rough year, sorry.
I know others who have ended up home educating, using Internet High etc and some managing to WFH but I wouldn't be able to afford either. Sorry for the hijack OP.

Yes, DC has GCSE's and will be starting A Levels in September.
What are your hopes for your DC?

How does he contribute as an adult/manage to get a job without even his core subjects at GCSE? Genuine question.
The job market atm is impossible for graduates, let alone for school-leavers at 17 with no exams under their belt.

Yes, but does your child have any qualifications?
Because all the gentle parenting in the world won't fix their future, or the OP's GC's, or my DC's, if they have opted out the systems successfully.
CAMHS and the government won't care and they'll become another statistic - part of the 70% without work or purpose - and worse, politicians that won't support them whilst offering no other pathways.

Your DS is an absolute dick. He uprooted his kid and moved him to the other side of the country, the abandoned him dumping him on you.

Realistically, this should have never have been shouldered by you. His father should have applied for social housing and then he’d eventually have a stable place to stay with no risk of eviction. What a massive missed opportunity.

If your grandson doesn’t want to pursue an education then present him with the alternative: become an adult and contribute.
Being there for him it’s important of course, so is showing love - but getting him to respect you and the house he lives in is also important. He needs to learn no matter how tense or huffing and puffing he gets.

I feel for him. A lot of recent attitudes remind me of earlier struggles I had with DD. You need to be firm. Like a PP, I’ve also found CAMHS to be pretty much pointless (DD says the same). But feeling for him and understanding why he’s reacting the way he is doesn’t mean he gets a pass.

I completely understand the dopamine seeking and the time blindness too.
Children with ADHD commonly have 2 sets of time. Now and not now.
They seek immediate reward and make impulsive decisions. I find the medication helps a little but much of the lessons are learnt through trial and error, and a large dose of compromising. I cannot recall my child ever learning from my warnings.
They find it very difficult, almost impossible to see into the future. All of the future is not now. I call this one of the curses of ADHD. I cannot fix all of their mistakes, nor can I prevent them making the mistakes, but once made, getting annoyed doesn't fix them. However, it does prevent my child seeking my help, when they think I'm going to berate them.
They would cover stuff up to avoid my frustration and anger.

I am here to help and now that I have put the responsibility on them to make their own choices, they feel that and are making better choices and learning prevention from their own mistakes.
It is hard as a parent. It requires a lot of biting my tongue and deep breathing but the results are that my child turns towards me when they need help rather than turning away from me and towards other people who don't have their best interests at heart, and who in some cases may do them harm.
Do I believe they bring lots of problems onto themselves? Absolutely!
Do I believe many of those problems can be prevented? Definitely!
However, me telling them doesn't sink in. They seem to learn more effectively by falling and experiencing that rather than by me preventing them from falling in the first place.
I have always worked on the basis of prevention is better than cure, but for my child, they learn to make better choices after making the mistakes themselves.

Yes, it was to you. Thank you for replying.
So they are 16. Are they about to start year 11 or have they just finished? Mainstream or special?
Did they get GCSEs?

Is this to me?
My DC is still in education and is doing much better. They have gone from showering once a month to showering twice a week, which is a vast improvement.
My DC is ASD with a PDA profile & ADHD, as am I, so I can relate to how they feel and that's helpful for us.
I wonder if OP's GS is in fact ADHD since it's quite common for ADHD to go hand in hand with ASD, and at least there are some treatment options for ADHD, though much of that has been trial and error to find the most suitable medication.
DC finds weed helps their ADHD symptoms a lot and this is another reason I wonder if OP's GS has ADHD.
DC also finds energy drinks calm them down which is common amongst people with ADHD.
I don't like DC drinking energy drinks or smoking weed, but I needed to choose between the ever present battle of forcing what I thought was right for DC and having any kind of relationship with them.
If I have a relationship with them, they let me in. If I sacrifice my relationship with them by controlling them in whatever way works, they shut down and don't let me in at all. This leads to me ruminating, over thinking, focusing on finding out what I can, and losing further trust in them, because I always wound up suspecting the worst!
The erosion of trust is incredibly damaging to the relationship between us.
When the trust erodes, that is when they turn to other people online, people who appear to see the best in them at a time when they feel all the people IRL do not, and i have discovered that there are many people online who will encourage poor choices. I don't encourage poor choices, but I no longer berate for them either. I simply try to trust that DC will learn by their own mistakes, mistakes I had been trying to prevent them making at all, but I am available and on hand if DC needs me, with no berating.
They are walking their own path, it is not my path to walk. But I am metaphorically holding their hand and many of the people they found online to connect with were not interested in their safety, however those people only got through to my child because they accepted my child without rebuke.
I spent 16 years desperate to get my child to see sense, see my point of view, to no avail. In the last 5 years, my child rarely said anything pleasant to me.
Now, they regularly tell me they love me, and they actually thank me. I ask them 'for what?' They always reply 'You get me! You've got me! You understand me!'

This is what my child needed, to be heard, understood and trusted. It changed everything. It was my perception of what they should be doing, focused on, working towards that I needed to accept was my problem.
This works for us.

That is helpful to me (I am not the OP but have similar issues).
However, having relinquished control over the Summer to my two with minimal demands/intervention/control; to allow them both to reset/regulate/depressurise...all I ended up with was two nocturnal, apathetic, bedrotting gamers :-(
I have forced them both to swim and we are going on holiday-by-mistake in the last week but left to their own devices, that's all they'd ever do - devices.
What did yours end up doing job-wise, work-wise? Or are they still in school? How is their hygiene?
I do think "minimum demand" works for ASC especially with a refusal profile but ultimately, if they take all the control, what are you left with when it comes to the non-negotiables? (attendance/teethbrushing/getting up and out once a day). Life skills/adulting.
Was yours ND?

Edit: and that's neither a criticism of your advice nor a criticism of your parenting, I promise.
But I am painfully aware that if I do not force one of mine into school then it is a slippery slope and they'll see it as optional not mandatory.
I let them take one day with autistic burnout and it made things harder the next time not easier. They could not care less if I was fined, ended up in court or lost my job...because in the moment they are only concerned with their immediate need being met at that time.
Sometimes this is due to exhaustion, sometimes it is a genuine trigger and there is a cause of anxiety but sometimes this is wilful/chosen/self sabotage in poor choices they made.
This is not tenable in the long term if they cannot be trusted to make the right choices as they are so young, therefore susceptible to dopamine rushes/validation online/doom scrolling/addictive behaviours.

Also, my child was self harming regularly, and it was accompanied by deep feelings of shame.
I also wondered if it was a manipulation technique. It frightened me that they may do lasting damage to themselves. They also didn't want me to talk about it at all or point out that I had noticed.
I shared my fears with them for a long time and it didn't stop them.

Unfortunately, before I decided to change my words and behaviour towards my child, when i was still deep in the mode of trying to help, advising and guiding them, trying to talk to them, get them to open up to me, putting my foot down with them, attempting to control their choices, which they saw as me not understanding or accepting them, they made a serious attempt to end their life. They were blue lighted to A&E and fortunately, they recovered after spending many days in hospital. I tried even harder to make them see sense after this, because i was so frightened. We saw CAMHS but they were not very helpful imo.
However, when I decided to start listening to my child, no matter how much or little sense I felt they were making and took my foot off the gas, respecting their right to make their own decisions and choices, the self harming decreased enormously.

I learned that they saw rejection in every face they looked at, in every voice that spoke to them and when I look back now, I can see that I was so confused as to how to handle it, but my primary goal wasn't understanding and accepting them and their choices, it was for them to see my point of view.

Why don’t you get in touch with stepping stone?

https://www.stepping-stone.org.uk

They can sign post supported hostel type accommodation for young people at risk of homelessness.

It sounds as if the current arrangement is not working.

You could be describing my child just a short while ago, including the nocturnal behaviour, weed smoking, virtually non existent education, no friends, aggressive behaviour, self harming, cooking and eating at night, apparently incapable of applying themselves to anything, just wanted to spend their every waking moment doing what they wanted to do and took no responsibility for anything.
In my case, my child felt like I was always getting on their case so they shut down and I was worried sick about their future.

It made for a tense relationship.

Ultimately, they felt I was not on their side, and I suppose I wasn't, because I felt I knew what was good for them. I still believe that, however, this is what I have learnt and I hope some of it will be helpful for you OP.

I decided that for a space of 3 months, I was going to treat DC like they knew what was best for them, even if that meant in my mind I didn't agree. I put my trust back into them to make the right choices for themselves, whatever they may be.
I also decided that I would focus on what was best for me during that time.

When DC went to buy weed, I saved the lecture and told them that was fine so long as they didn't stink the house out with it.
When DC chose not to engage with education, I chose to trust that they knew what was best for them, mainly because I knew that no matter what I said, they weren't going to pay attention anyway.
I still suggested opportunities, but if they refused, I respected their choice without showing I was frustrated with them, easier said than done.
Within days, DC was opening up to me in conversation and I may not have agreed with much of what they liked/wanted/did/thought but I accepted that they were entitled to their own choices and just as they weren't trying to persuade me to like/want/do/think the same, I gave them the same grace. I made it clear that they were in charge of their own choices and so long as their choices didn't affect me, that was their right. I knew I could not make DC see what I considered sense, and tbf they weren't asking for my advice, so I drastically reduced the guidance and advice, trusting that this is their path in life.
Yes, it was beyond frustrating that they appeared to me to be making poor choices, but that was their choices to make!
I discovered that DC saw it as I was perpetually disappointed in them, that nothing they ever did was good enough for me and that I simply wanted to 'control' them, whereas I felt I was just doing what was best for them.
DC didn't look any further than the end of the week, whereas I was looking much further into the future and their choices in the present had me extremely worried about their future.
I gave them control over their own life and choices without any pressure.
I found a council run youth club and offered to take DC there and they agreed.
They made some friends and that was the start of them finding something outside of the house that they found enjoyable.
Within those 3 months, when I refrained from sharing my worries for their future and endlessly trying to make them see sense, and simply accepted their choices, they began talking to me, telling me of their decisions. They began showering regularly, wanted to spend more time in my company, talking to me more, and through this, I was able to reflect their decisions back to them by asking them what they would like to do instead.
At first, they said they wanted to sleep all day, and when they received no pressure from me, just an acceptance, they felt accepted and slowly, within a couple of weeks began to realise they wanted more out of life.
I realised it had to come from them. They had to believe I accepted them for who they were and that included what they wanted to spend their time doing.
My only stipulation was that it didn't affect me or my home.
My concerns were well founded at the time, but they were my concerns. DC didn't share my concerns so I trusted them to do what they felt was best for them.
After a couple of weeks, DC began confiding in me and I realised that 99% of their issues came from feeling they weren't accepted, that they weren't trusted to make good choices for themselves and that they were only loved conditionally, so long as they did what I wanted, they would be loved, so they rejected my concerns, feeling I was just trying to control them, that I was angry with them a lot of the time.
Yes, I was frustrated, but that was MY frustration and I tried hard not to put that on DC.
They didn't make choices I agreed with but they didn't affect me so I stood back and gave them that right, to make choices for themselves.
Once I adopted these ways of dealing with DC, they began to feel that I understood them more, and they realised they weren't happy the way their life was.
I realised DC had been incredibly unhappy and their behaviour was their way of expressing their deep sadness.
Once they felt accepted, they got happier and more relaxed and then they began making better choices, because they felt they were worth better.
I tried guiding DC for years and years and all it did was destroyed their trust in me.
When I chose to trust them, even when it didn't make sense to me, it paid dividends.
DC is now much happier, making better choices, and has better self esteem now, because they know that no matter what they choose to do, I love them and accept them exactly as they are right now.
Who knows what the future holds?
What I do know is that all of the should have/would have/could have talks never helped one bit.
I spent years and years hoping they would listen and take my advice, and it never worked. What it did achieve was to make sure that DC turned to people who did accept them, they would spend many hours seeking to find people to talk to online who didn't try to guide them. By doing this, I gave any influence I may have had over to complete strangers who were now influencing them and their choices over the internet.
Now I trust them to know what's right for them and they are making progress, they spend less time online, more time in the real world and they talk to ME about their life, not strangers on the Internet.
Ultimately, if my DC messes their life up, it is their life.
I have made mistakes in my life and when I have, if anyone had come down on me hard, telling me what I needed to do, or saying something like 'Well what did you expect? You need to do XYZ and sort it out.' I would automatically feel pissed off and distance myself from that person, despite their best intentions for me. My child is the same.
So I approach it from the angle I'd like to receive it from.
Hope some of this is helpful.

No they are unlikely to take him into care. They are also unlikely to help in any way, as you are safeguarding the child. And if gs won’t engage with health or education experts, why do you think he would engage with social services?

you say you are not a kinship carer but it is exactly what you are. Most kinship carers take responsibility for a family child without a court order or financial recompense.

but you will be unable to register him with GP, education etc without having pr.

i can only suggest, again, contact kinship carers. They can and will help, they can give advice, get you in touch with others. Guide you through possible options etc. they used to be called grandparents plus for a reason as many kinship carers are grandparents. You are not alone in this.