I’ve failed raising my ds

Nobody is going to be able to reparent him at this stage and social services probably won't have any kind of solution unless the young man is willing to engage with something.

I would get social services involved. Call family front door. They can also sign post you to charities that could help. It’s not too late. Don’t give up on him. Sending love.

There is more than one school or he could've been enrolled in home ed groups etc, not just pulled out and left to his own devices

Honestly social services are not going to be able to do a thing at this stage

Agreed. You need to help him by getting him to see someone at college. He needs to get some qualifications that will lead to a job and a life of his own. If he is not very academic he may be suited to a hands on course like motor vehicle/painting & decorating etc.

When I worked in education I remember a boy dropping out of school who achieved nothing at home. He eventually enrolled at college and became a successful mechanic. Please help your son otherwise he’s going to be trapped in the house with you forever. No wonder he is drinking and smoking, he is bored and has no friends, family apart from you and no life at all. Help him while he is still young enough to change his life. College usually provides a counsellor on campus, he should take advantage of that while he is there.

When is he 17?

At 16 he has a legal requirement to be in education (you do up to 18 but they aren’t as bothered).

It may be that you can get more help if you are really proactive, before he turns 17.

Is he year 11 or year 12?
How many GCSEs has he got/will he take?

He’s a young adult with no education worth speaking about if he has not been in school and homeschooling hasn’t worked. Can he read and write? Could he do lower level English and maths GCSE? Illiteracy alone hampers his chances in life and makes crime much more likely.

I would insist on getting him into a 6th form college to do basic GCSE maths and English, alongside something that interests him like music or a skill. Accessing the workforce is going to be tricky without basic education. From there he could live at a trade or get a job.

He can’t be happy like this. He needs a focus and structure.

Its very unfortunate that you deregistered him in Year 7 apparently without a plan in place to do anything. You have been through a huge amount and I understand you weren’t able to focus on this given the grief and trauma of losing a child. And so sorry for your loss.

But at some level the penny must have dropped that just taking him out of school and hoping for the best wasn’t enough and that it was likely to be damaging without an alternative? It terrifies me that parents now apparently think deregistering a child is an easy fix and have not the faintest idea that they still need to educate their children after they have left school. The home education community has its strengths but it also sells parents a lot of highly unrealistic nonsense about deregistering as a quick fix.

Anyway given where you are you do have options. As others have said there are institutions designed for children who don’t have GCSEs. The question is whether he will be in the right frame of mind to do them and with the right degree of self discipline.

Does he want to do GCSEs?

Exactly - his father was absent … so his mother needed to step up and she didn’t . She was also emotionally / psychologically absent .
She may have been present in physical terms but that is not enough .
Pointless saying the dad should’ve been there cuz the reality is he wasn’t - mum knew this and that’s why her input was even more crucial . Single parents have to do double fhe work - it’s not how it should be but that’s the reality . No point bleating on about ideals when you have to cope with reality .

What are you going to do, op? So far, you have got as far as the thing you won't do and the things he won't do. Which is pretty much how you arrived in this place to begin with, cutting out school for him and cutting out life for you and accepting what remains. His Dad gave up and you gave up and your son has inexpertly cobbled together a life that is filled with pain and, of course it looks like a disaster.

Are you actually looking for a plan to help him or are you waiting for some poster to come along and just absolve you from guilt and the trouble of trying?

he is 17 so social services are unlikely to get involved though they may signpost to services.
OP you have had a truly awful time yourself and would benefit from counselling to process the loss of your child and your other traumas. I cant imagine what you have been through!
At this point I think.working on getting stronger yourself is all you can do and may have a knockon effect with your son in the long term.
All you can do is try to help him find a way through this because he has endured so much trauma in his short life and he needs professional counselling too. look at it as a long term thing. It may be more of the same in the short term but hopefully with support and maturity things will turn around .

I'm so sorry about your daughter OP.. I can't imagine your pain. People are correct that the father carries a lot of the blame here BUT he is absent and not here and you need to step up for your son.
Forget people saying CAMHS their waiting list is huge and he will turn 18 before they see him and they won't deal with adults.
I'm not sure what a GP could do? Your son has minimal schooling and is watching porn, it's not a medical thing. He is bored by the sounds of things, no college, no job, no hobby. He will be well aware he has no qualifications, may only be reading at a primary school level and this comes out as aggressive behaviours to push people away.
So first things first, contact your local college and explain - see what they have available for people with no gcses. Try to get your son engaged. He may be very practical.
I'd ignore the messy bedroom for now. That can be fixed later.
Get limits on your Internet and all porn blocked. Do not replace broken phones. You may need help if he becomes violent about this so maybe have a chat first. I'm not sure where the money is coming from for drinking and smoking but this needs to stop too.
It won't improve overnight so hang in there x

It’s never too late. There’s always a way.

OP, you haven’t failed. You’ve done the best you could in the face of significant trauma, right from the start of his little life. I’m so sorry to hear how much trauma you and your DS have been through. The starting point for you both is to give yourselves grace and recognise that. The best place to start is therapy. Your DS may not want to go right now, but it’d really help you. Ask your GP.

Next, I’d say get yourself physically and mentally strong. You have to be as strong as possible to be an absolute rock for him. What teens who’ve had children trauma need is a strong, confident parent/guardian. They may push against boundaries but they want and need them. No boundaries makes them feel unsafe. I recommend regular swimming (if you can face going out) and strength training (at home if you can’t afford or face a gym). Walking every day would really help. You are his role model for standing firm, standing tall and never giving up.

Do you have any support from family or good friends? GPs, aunties and uncles etc. If so, reach out and ask them to be as involved as possible. It takes a village to raise a child. And support a young man.

What’s he most interested in? He really needs to be doing something productive, with people to mentor him. An apprenticeship, FE college, a PT at the gym, local boxing gym (I hate boxing but the discipline and camaraderie could really give him focus and help him feel safe, especially after having been beaten up previously).

FE college could really help. It’s not like school. Best to make appointments and go to speak to them, discreetly tell them what he’s been through and try to encourage him to go to the one that offers most support. Same with local firms for apprenticeships. There may be an employer willing to take him under their wing. The pride and routine he could get from a trainee job could be transformational.

Then try to build a positive relationship via little routines. Simple things, like certain meals on certain evenings that you cook together. Movie night on a Thursday. First Sunday of the month, a favourite walk and a pub lunch, maybe with friends. Tickets to a gig or comedy show once or twice a year. Stick to these shared routines, so they become familiar and comforting. A safe space for you both.

And try to have a laugh as much as possible. Laughter really is the best medicine. For teens, it’s like a pressure release valve. Life can be absolutely shit but there’s a power to laughing at what it throws up. Music, likewise, always helps with getting you through.

Good luck 💐

If it's pointless bleating on about father not being there is it not pointless bleating on about mothers past errors?
Both need to be addressed with the child so he can move forward. If you'd took the time to read and process my post instead of just looking for a way to defend your point you may have picked up on that.
Why are you so keen to absolve the father of any blame? Are you a man? A single mother who doesn't think your child needs a father?

And that's easy to say when you haven't had to deal with multiple traumas including the loss of a child.
Goodness can people not make a point with a basic level of compassion instead of delighting in kicking peole when they are down?

@Lastradaleia has he expressed any interest in any kind of job or career? What is he interested in? Do you have any sense of what he’s good at doing?

I know that you're not keen to contact Social Services, but if someone had made a referral years ago, you might not be in this position now. I don't know what youth services are still bring funded in your area, but I would try visiting your local civic centre, youth info centre or main library to get information. The local authority should be able to provide some support and signposting to services that can help you both, and your DS in particular.

Access to education is a human right. It's not too late to try to make a difference and change his prospects. You need to overcome the feeling you have that social services and local authority help is a bad thing.

The father is definitely more to blame than the mother.

Without OP he wouldn’t have a roof over his head or any sort of upbringing unless he went into care.

The father is 50% to blame.

However, that doesn’t exonerate OP on her part because she has obviously made mistakes which alongside the father not being involved, has had massive impacts on her child.

The main mistake is not forcing him to go to another school at an age where he was easier to manage.
I’m not really sure what she thought was going to happen by letting him stay home but I’m guessing she had so much going on that she was just surviving the days, rather than looking ahead to the future.

OP you’re going to get some hard to hear responses but please keep posting as you obviously want to help your son and literally every day counts as the older he gets, the harder things are going to be.

As a PP said, has he ever expressed any interest in a career?

Does he have any friends?
How often does he go out?
Does he have any form of social anxiety etc?

He needs a goal, something to focus on for his future, if he hasn’t had any education then he probably feels like he is stupid and behind.
Ask him what he wants to do with his life, You need to get him to engage here.

It is terrible that he has had no education from 11. I appreciate it was a difficult time in your life but it is the law and I can only assume you lied to the local authority when they made enquiries about the home education you were neglecting to provide. There is a lot of support and guidance in the home ed community and if this had been sought at 11/12 or if you had tried another school and pushed through his protests then you likely wouldn’t have these problems now. It does make me so angry when people neglect their education and call it home ed, call it what it is which is educational neglect.

I think at this stage you need to lean into what you know he is interested in. Find out what he likes doing (ie music/gaming/sports). It will be hard, given the gaps in his education, to get onto a course teaching these subjects (he would almost certainly need some GCSEs. But if he has something to aspire to it could galvanise him into realising he needs to get his act together. So its self driven. Rather than you chivvying him to do something he doesn’t want to do.

He must now realise his lack of education is a problem and he must feel quite insecure about it. If you can find an approach that plays to what he’s interested in you are likely to have more success than telling him he has to go to college.

It'd be surprising if he did have career ideas given that he's had no education 11-17 and it doesn't seem like the adults around him have worked. It's hard to think what he can have been doing all day for all those years and no surprise he's the way he is. He could be worse, and might get there yet.

I wouldn't dismiss social services - you've dismissed a lot over the years and that's all got you to this point which may be the last point where you can have any impact before he's too old and getting into god knows what trouble.

There are charities for youth who need good male role models - Man and Boy is one, Lads need Dads is another though I think your DS has outgrown that one. Have a proper look for what's around you and any other schemes for young men who've been out of education. They do exist. He needs a lot of work to get him anywhere near ready to embrace playing a part in society, but you need to do something to make up for doing so little. Sure his dad did nothing, but that's no help to your DS or to any kids he might go on to have. Get help and don't give up. It's easier to say you've failed than to keep on trying even harder.

It sounds harsh but yes. She has no ability to teach him. At least a school has some resources. And how has yanking him away from school helped him? It hasn’t. It has actively harmed him. He has no education, no discipline, no hope in life.

This is a thread that perfectly illustrates why home education with an unqualified parent should be banned.