AIBU to keep replying to my teenager’s late-night reassurance texts?

She will be so busy with life and little kids, or she might read and forget, I do it all the time, she will reply at 9 as it’s when she gets to sit down at the end of the day, life is busy, I don’t always reply to my mum straight away, I can be at work, gym or doing my thousands of other jobs!!!

I have a 15 year old daughter with autism currently presenting as significant anxiety, particularly at night time so I feel your pain. It is hard not to provide support but I am not lovely at 3am. We have gone with a 2 pronged attack:

1. I approached the GP and we are in the early stages of medicating her for her inability to sleep and her anxiety. I can't say if it is successful yet, we are only a couple of weeks in.
2. I sat her down and explained that I need my sleep and I can't function if she keeps waking me up. I have to go to work in the morning. I recommended some techniques for her to try (audiobook, get up and clean her teeth and go back to bed, craft quietly without waking me up). Mostly it works ok although some nights she will still wake me but I kindly remind her that I need to sleep, hug her and pop her back to bed.

Your son needs professional help if he cannot get through the night without you - you need to push the GP for support.

Take his phone off him for bedtime. Tuck him in, reassure in person. Job done.

Why has a 15-year-old even got a phone overnight?

I think you need to try therapy or something. The more we rely on these anxiety related behaviours the more we grow the anxiety. Trust me, I know what it's like, my daughter has been in therapy for emetophobia for months, and it's so tempting to just hide her triggers, or make allowances, but it does not good in the long run and actually just makes it worse.

This pattern will continue until something changes and it's not working for either of you. Ideally he needs more / more appropriate therapy but I'd also suggest melatonin. My dd struggled to get to sleep as a teen and has anxiety still but melatonin really helped. She now takes anti anxiety meds that make her sleepy anyway so no longer uses it.

Short term you could try getting him sleep in your room. Or investigate other sleep aids (I use paracetamol when I wake in the night and my mind is racing- it works 99% of the time). Or look at his night time routine and build in relaxing, non screen activities, as looking at the phone is helping to keep him awake. Maybe start by giving him a final time you will respond by and adjusting this backwards over time, if he can't accept not having the phone.

Hope you can sort something out x.

@TheOpalFox I don’t think having the phone in bed is helping. I would suggest removing it and going through a list of things he could do. If he can’t sleep after half an hour- do breathing exercises (I have ADHD and OCD and this helps me switch off). If he still can’t sleep after an hour - try reading for ten minutes. The phone is probably exacerbating the anxiety because they see all kinds of shit on there. My, now adult DD struggled and I found having to physically get up and come to our room was better than texting- then you could have a quick chat and or hug and try again.

Like some op I’m wondering if there is some OCD here. DS1 has it, and the more reassurance you give him the more he seeks - it’s to do with the reassurance actually validating the anxious thoughts and making them believe there’s actually something to be anxious about, rather than it being intrusive thoughts at play.
He leaves his phone downstairs at bedtime, and to stop the intrusive thoughts he does watch some very calming tv before bed (think Lego building on YouTube). I know all evidence supports no screens before bed, but this is the only way he relaxes and switches the brain off, and he’s always asleep within 20minutes now.

When any of us are anxious, it is understandable for us to seek reassurance. It might make us feel a little better temporarily. If nothing else changes, the effect tends to wear off and feeds back into more anxiety. A good analogy is pain killer addiction: when in pain, it is understandable to take a pain-killer, but if the pain doesn't reduce by itself in the time it takes for the pain-killer to wear off, we desire another one later. And another. And possibly keep upping the dose as we get acclimatised and find that a single painkiller no longer seems to help as much as it used to.

Every time you reply to your son, you feed into his existing perceptions that he is anxious for good reason and that he cannot cope without your support. You are also reinforcing his dependence on you because he is learning, over and over again, that your own needs (for sleep, for space) don't matter and that he can expect someone else to prioritise him at all times. That isn't a sustainable life lesson.

Of course you are doing a kind and lovely thing. Who wouldn't want to give reassurance to someone anxious who we loved? So no criticism at all of you for this situation developing. Also no criticism of him as it sounds like he has been through a lot.

Just as we wouldn't expect someone to just be able to handle their pain, you can't expect your son to go cold turkey on your support and expect him to be fine. He won't be. However, unlike with chronic physical pain, anxiety can reduce by itself in the right circumstances and is not necessarily a sign of something seriously wrong. He needs the chance to learn that.

I would recommend a combination of:

• being clear with him that the situation has to change: you love him and care about him but you need your sleep and your space, and want to give him the chance to learn to soothe himself and to learn that he can be safe by myself;
• to help him prepare for the change by exploring tools he could use to soothe himself (could he have a voice note from you that he could play when needed? A voice note from himself? An anxiety management / self-soothing toolkit?)
• perhaps setting a clear timetable for the change where you start by setting a certain boundary, eg no replies after midnight, and make further planner changes from there?

All of this would be easier if your son genuinely felt motivated to change too and was on board with the reasons for changing. Ideally he would have the support of a psychological therapist who would help him to build his toolkit and take ownership of the process. It might also be that he would benefit from therapy to address trauma he has been through. But if he isn't in a place to do that at the moment, or can't get that support, I think you have to take responsibility for leading the process and setting the boundaries. As an adult it is up to you to decide what you are prepared to tolerate and what you aren't.

There is a way to do this compassionately where you don't do the equivalent of snatching the pain meds away without warning. I also think you would need to be compassionate to yourself, as I think it's very likely that your son would be upset or distressed by any process of change, so you will naturally want to drop everything and just go back to giving him whatever he feels he needs. You too might need some tools for tolerating your own painful emotions.

The rationale would have to be clear to you and ideally to him too: that you are doing this because you love him and know it would be better for him in the long-term, as well as good for you too. You both matter. Love isn't always giving someone exactly what they feel they need every time they have those feelings.

Really hard, and YANBU to struggle to do it.

I’m really glad someone else thinks this. Some of the replies here are so lacking in empathy.

My 13yo has severe OCD. You can’t treat a child with an anxiety disorder the same way as you would treat other teens. I dread to think what others would say about my parenting. There are a few good replies here and at least some of the rest have suggested therapy I suppose.

Could you make recordings of you reading aloud some favourite books? Even reading magazine articles and recipes from cookery books? Then he could have them on repeat play like a personalised audiobook to listen to as he falls to sleep to the sound of your voice. That might be a distraction/substitute for needing to text at 2am.

I expect a part of it is that he wants to know you are safe and well too. Bless him.

I hope there are better times ahead for you. x

He definitely needs more counselling.

Its fine to text him back but you need to be tough and tell him that he can’t keep you up all night.

This is not being mean, it’s helping him to help himself regulate his emotions.

Tell him that you won’t reply after 11pm but he can still text you and you’ll read it in the morning (often it’s just getting it out that is helping him and the act of just writing it down can be enough).
He can then write it on his notes on his phone and get it out that way.

This is such a heartbreaking read.

Not hard to find in many European pharmacies. Maybe if you know someone who is going away for Easter holidays you could ask them to go to the pharmacy for you? About €10 for a little spray bottle that lasts for a good couple of months.

He can go into his mum’s room if he’s scared in the night. He shouldn’t be dictating whether or not OP keeps her bedroom door open. Instead of texting he can go to her room. He needs to learn about boundaries. Phones on do not disturb.

I read something the other day by a child psychologist that was saying when we feel guilty, and try to “support” an emotional child, we’re actually prone to over-react. Her advice was along the lines of, just be matter of fact and acknowledge the feelings without being overly indulgent of them. So instead of “Oh, I know how important it is to you to feel safe and connected because of our history of trauma and I’m so sorry I did this to you by staying with the abusive man”, you respond more along the lines of “Still got some big feelings to work through, I know” and move on and just give it much less attention.

In a way, by indulging this, you’re agreeing with him that he needs to do this. If you both want to genuinely heal and move on then that means acknowledging that one day (maybe not yet, but you want to be moving towards it) you’re both going to be independent and strong enough to be alone and feel safe apart as well as together. So one day, he won’t need to do this and you won’t need it either. If you can take the power out of your responses maybe you can diffuse his feelings of need?

I agree with the camp bed thing. I would just have a bed there and tell your son that he can use it if he needs it and that texts after midnight won't get a reply because it's not helping him or you to sleep. I think that reassurance that he has options will help him relax. He might not need it at all because it's available.

Also to add to what I said up thread my son has ASD and ADHD so is a terrible sleeper and has OCD intrusive thoughts. So getting a good team of mental health professionals on board with medication and psychology has also helped.

If by privately you mean AS, I did and the OP said both boys were 15 which is why I checked whether they were the same boy.

If they were, then it would be totally relevant to his stress and anxiety.

As it turns out they're not the same son. No big deal 🤷‍♂️

Why does he need a reply, what does it do for him? Does he just need to know you are there, or are you actively in conversation over text?

I would consider removing phone and tell him if he wants to know you are there to stick his head in your room and look without waking you. If you hear him coming to check pretend to be asleep. Explain to him the phone at night is not helping him - it is keeping him awake and feeding into his anxiety, much better to read a book if he cannot sleep until he settles.

Honestly abuse aside I’d be removing his phone from his room at night, he’s only 15, he should not be going to bed that late and the phone is likely contributing to his poor sleep health. Removing a phone from a teenager at night is a basic safeguarding measure,
you dont know what he could be doomscrolling.

It won’t be forever. Could you reach a middle ground. Sounds like he needs this just now and text is safer.

Not cool to raise this on an unrelated thread. Could have checked privately first.

Share a room with the brother who’s had allegations of abuse made against him?

I second this. It is tricky buying it over the counter online (from US) now, but you could see if he could get a referral via gp?

Not very well. 😂

I have just cut back my work hours for a 9 day fortnight so I can fit in a day's rest.

I also try to reassure him before I go to bed and tell him he can wake me if something is urgent or distressing but that I need my sleep too. I also try to schedule in some reassurance time during the day such as a walk just the two of us or making sure we spend some time together watching his favourite show etc. We have a cat so sometimes he will seek reassurance from her.

It does go in cycles so some periods are more intense than others. I also try to be empathetic as I have had some difficult times in my life and my parents weren't very supportive so I try to see it through that lens that I'm building his confidence in himself for the future as a long term project.

I don't let him have his phone in his room overnight as I think that adds to his anxiety as he gets over tired and spirals more. However if your son is comforted by his phone it makes it more challenging.