I’ve failed raising my ds

You posted because you reached out for help. Unfortunately every suggestion that was made was shot down in flames by you. Social services are not there to judge you but for some reason you think it is worse to be judged than to fail your child.

Grow up, take responsibility, be more interested in doing what's right for your son than in looking good yourself. Nobody cares that you failed in the past, just make sure you don't fail catastrophically in the future by doing sweet FA.

They could house him if necessary. But you'll probably wait, until he's no longer a vulnerable young person and leave him high and dry. Stop letting him down. He needs intervention while the LA and SS have a duty of care towards him. Or wait until he's 19 and can go to prison, if he doesn't end up dead.

It took a lot of guts posting here, because it means acknowledging that you haven't been a great parent so far and that's often the hardest part.

I don't get why you are getting such a hard time here, I'm really sorry. Yes you messed up. You know it already, it's written on the title of the post!

It is NOT too late. What is too late is getting quick improvements. It is going a much harder battle to get him back on track but it is not too late. He is still very young, he still has a chance to make something of his life and have a stable happy future. You do need to seriously step in though.

As soon as someone struggles, the advice is always to find someone else to sort out the mess for you! You are right OP, it's not for others to do. It's no what your son needs or want. It needs to come up from you.

Sort out an action plan. One that you control and manage yourself. If you need encouragement when you feel it's going nowhere, get some counselling. Then pick yourself up and start again. It's your job to now be the parent he deserves. Good luck OP, don't give up before you start.

He will get UC at 18 but will have to engage with Job Centre. Youth employment is such that tney won't be sble to force him to work but he will have to demonstrate that he is looking.

And it’s not just that this has happened to a child but it’s yet another drain on society. Violent porn, aggressive behaviour, possibly drugs… just what we all need.

People recommending social services are not saying it to punish you - we can see that you need support and this should have been given years ago.

Their job is to support parents in this very situation.

You cannot do this alone because he is becoming a young man who is not going to listen to his mum.

I don’t want social services involved to tell me how much of a shit parent i am when they won’t help him anyway. He won’t engage in any help and he’d just be angry at me for having involved them

This is really frustrating OP.

Your son needs help and he’s only got a few more months as when he reaches 18 life is going to get incredibly more difficult for you both.

Imagine if you had fought for help when he was 11 and he was in college, driving, having a PT job, having friend and a positive outlook on life etc.

You can choose to have a few very difficult months where you’re going to feel judged and have him angry at you.

Or you can choose to live with this for years, whilst he gets more aggressive and less easy to control with absolutely zero support and then your only options will be to have him out in jail or live with it.

If you do nothing, what do you think is going to change for the better?

Gosh OP this is horrific. What kind of life is he going to have? I can't get over that he's totally missed secondary school and nobody intervened. He's not even looking after himself. This is just so sad. You've been through a lot, I'm not blaming you, but you absolutely must seek and accept help for him. This needs professional input. He needs a wakeup call to realise he needs to go to college so he can eventually find a job and create a life for himself. He's otherwise going to end up on benefits and likely prison.

Find the equivalent of this for your local authority and call them:
https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/schools-education-and-learning/post-16-choices/supporting-neet-young-people
Don't minimise anything or make excuses, tell them how bad things are and that you/he need all the help available. It's their statutory duty. Get him registered and back in the system asap. Whatever they do it will be more than he's had in years. If he gets angry, so be it. He is angry and that needs dealing with now, not later when he's a grown man and taking it out on the world at large.

Threads like these genuinely boil my blood (tempted to suggest OP is trolling us). Why even post asking for advice if every suggestion is going to be rejected outright?

OP, I'm so sorry you and your son fell through the cracks of the system.

AIBU is full of people who scream "Why didn't you..."

But right now the only way is forward. Could you look into something like https://journeymanuk.org/ and see if you can get your son involved with that, or a similar program?

You might need to soften him up a bit. See if you can get him out for lunch or a hot chocolate. Engage to see what games he is playing, what he's doing online. Save any judgement for another time. Ask him what he wants to do in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years. Where does he see himself later in life?

Can you suggest https://www.themix.org.uk/ to him too? He could maybe reach out on his own.

Was he affected by his sister's death OP?
Can you try Youth Services? Prevent? Anything that will provide an male adult role model/mentor.

You son is at risk of criminal exploitation, county lines and/or ending up in the CJS.

You're not a shit parent but you do need to try and address what's happening. You could say that he can no longer live with you and social services/council would have to be involved.
I agree with PP that watching violent porn, using raciat language etc does make him dangerous though he is possibly a scared child inside.

OP I do understand why you’re feeling attacked and desperate. You must feel at the end of your tether.

What jumps out to me is the sense of desperation coming through in your posts. You and your son have both been failed horribly.

The thing is you are where you are now. Seeking comfort and validation is not going to help him now. What he needs is urgent action.

People are suggesting social services and I genuinely don’t know whether they would help but I think you need to do something to reestablish a sense of control over your son’s life. You both seem to be turning in the wind and passively accepting what has happened. Its not your fault and its very understandable that you feel demoralised but you really need to break out of this mindset.

Maybe calling social services isn’t right but its you taking control of the situation and jolting both of you into taking some sort of control. If social services can’t help they will at least know of other agencies and charities who can help.

Keep on trying, keep it moving. You need to show your son the sense of urgency and show him you are fighting on his behalf. At the moment he is apathetic because no one is showing him they have his back and are fighting for him.

You’ve been dealt a shit hand and its not your fault but you are the only person who can help him.

Why didn’t you seek help when he was 13? Why didn’t you send him to a different school? Social services help and a new school would’ve prevented him from being the way he is now.

It’s good you have posted OP. This will have given you some ideas hopefully.

Theres no point dwelling the past - it can’t be changed.

I think you need to sit him down or if that’s not a good medium then at another time ask him what he wants to do with his life.

Explain that as he’s 16 he is in a unique position to get help and support, that in another years time he won’t be. Does he want to do an apprenticeship?

Collect some bits; local apprenticeships, schemes for catch up, army, job at a ski centre? He could train to be a ski instructor and that’s a fantastic life.

There’s so many jobs and opportunities.

Chatgpt might be really helpful gathering together these options. Finding schemes and support.

You've let him lead on decisions he was way too young to make and you won't change because you're scared he'll be angry. So you're going to carry on making the same mistake until he's an adult and then really nobody will help. Imagine if he rapes someone or worse, when you could have done something now to set him on a better path. But you didn't because you didn't want anyone to tell you what a shit parent you've been and you still have this idea that no one will do anything, even though the one who's done nothing is you and actually the system can and does have to do things, even if it takes some effort and persistence. I don't know why you posted either if you're not going to do anything and just want to be left alone to carry on letting things getting worse.

When a 13 year old says that about schooling… you still school them whilst working through the underlying emotional issues. You don’t go “oh, that’s grand, let’s not bother then.”

And you’re still doing it. “Nothing will work, he won’t talk, no point, ah well.”

Your way doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked for a decade. It isn’t going to work now. Call for help, start doing something. Stop washing your hands of him. He has a very limited time to get things turned around before he is on his own.

Frightening to think about this violent porn watching completely uneducated 17 year old roaming the streets

Never mind the benefit fraud bs, this about your son. Him being 16 and not in education isn't a reason to not get child benefit as if that's a fait accompli - it's a reason for your local authority to step the hell up and make sure he gets the compulsory education or training that it's their duty to provide, then you get the child benefit for his care and your DS get some purpose and future.

I don't understand the passivity here - your choice to de-reg when he was 11 is not irreversible. You don't seem to realise he's still a child and that the system has a duty to intervene if you go back to them and don't let up until they sort it. Stop thinking of him as having aged out of getting any help and get the help that he's entitled too. No one wants more NEETS becoming violent sexist criminals. Now is the opportunity to really do something. You can't just shrug and give up.

OK understood. How did the school respond when you reported the bullying incidents?

Social services won’t help due to his age, they’re overstretched as it is and he’s 17 in a few months so they wouldn’t do anything and he wouldn’t engage.

So he's only 16. That's two more years he should be in school and could get help from social services.
If you want to help him you can't do it on your own. You have taken him out of school and done nothing to give him any education. Do something now while there is a chance.

Continue to ask to be absolved of the guilt of completely destroying any hope her son had of a normal life.

She can’t because he isn’t in education.
It was me that mentioned it OP, I’m glad because you don’t want that mess to deal with on top of everything else if you were receiving money for him.

You pulled him out of school and your reason for not moving to another school was because the “other schools weren’t the best.” Do you think you gave him the best then? Pulling him out and giving him zero education, that was the best? Better than any other school could have done?

You have failed him in almost every way. Your way of doing things doesn’t work. So do it differently - call social services, book counselling and drag him there, call colleges, call anyone providing apprenticeships. Start being proactive and try to get him some sort of life. He is going to pay for what you’ve done for the next 60 years.