I’ve failed raising my ds

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A safeguarding referral for a nearly 17 year old of school leaving age because he didn't get education when he was supposed to? What do you think that referral would be for??

OP, your notion that social work won’t be able to help because of his age is not accurate. I’m a teacher in a pastoral role and work with social work regularly for our school leavers. In Scotland, young people can leave education at age 16 but most, in my experience, stay longer, so are often 17/18 when they leave secondary school. Many of these young people are working with social work and have support from them long after school age. At 17, they will want to help your son avoid being NEET long term. You should absolutely reconsider your stance on this if you really want to improve the prospects for your son’s future.

Nothing changes if nothing changes, so you do need to take action!

I'm not sure what you mean by 'duty of care'. Is this young person at risk of homelessness? It doesn't sound like it. Is he at risk of harm in the home? Not now - the harm has already happened. Is he at risk of harm outside the home? No evidence of it as per OP's posts. So what duty do you think they have? They may offer OP an assessment if she asks, early help could definitely offer some guidance around parenting but if the boy won't talk to a professional there is nothing they can do for him. OP is right about that.

Social work services are not there to prevent NEET. That's not their remit.

Social services class a child as under 18. So he’s got a year of support still if you act fast.

Sorry @Lastradaleia but this lad has had a terrible life, his dad was accused of a terrible crime which then saw him bullied and isolated, dad was found innocent but was he innocent or was there just lack of evidence? Your poor son has to live with the possibility that his dad is a ‘whatever’ he was accused of.
Your poor son then moved and he was bullied again. When school didn’t act, did you call the police? When you deregistered him did you get him tutors or enroll for online lessons or get him into out of school activities like scouts/ cubs. Local football or sports team? He needed something to socialise.
From what you’ve said about him watching violent porn and being racist I’d be VERY concerned he’s been groomed on line and is involved in something dark…. Kids like him are VERY vulnerable and want to ‘fit’ in somewhere…. Criminal gangs or even terrorists prey on lads like your son! His extreme racism and misogamy suggests he could be a victim of this and could have been radicalised.
ive just done training on exactly this with my local council who support vulnerable children who are involved with social services.
social services work really hard to support families like yours and please believe me when I say that they will work hard to keep you together and support you both!…
if you don’t reach out now and ask for professional support with your son you will regret it later!
I am terrified for your son and worried we will all see him on the news at some point in the not so distant future when he’s committed either an act of terrorism or raped and murdered some poor innocent girl/woman. And you will be vilified by the public and media because you saw this coming and didn’t seek proper help but instead just asked on mumsnet!

PLEASE seek help! He’s under 18 so start with child social services and tell them EVERYTHING.. He will thank you later on for potentially saving his life.

I’ve not read the full thread yet OP, and apologies if this organisation has already been mentioned, but I heard about it on the radio recently.
The mentors sounded brilliant and many had troubled pasts themselves.

https://abandofbrothers.org.uk/

He needs positive strong male role models.
Someone to model the kind of man he could grow into.
Would he consider Army Cadets at all? Or even fire and rescue cadets.

Apologies, I’ve worded that wrongly. I meant to say OP should want to ensure he’s not NEET long term. Too many distractions around me when I was typing! 🤦🏽‍♀️

You’ve definitely had a tough time of it, but I’m sorry to say that right now you are failing your ds by refusing to engage in any suggestions of seeking the support of external agencies.