So exasperated by my ds (14). Just accept it or try and change it?

[Hoolajerry]

Ds is 14. He is a great in many, many ways but I feel at the moment that I'm really hard on him and I'm going to push him away if I'm not careful.
Basically he's a lazy bugger. If it's not on his agenda, he won't do it or it takes a lot of pushing for him to do a half assed job. His room is a tip. I can take mess but not old rubbish on the floor. He puts in the minimum effort for homework, never revises for tests etc or goes out of his way to make something good. He gets distracted very quickly. He is basically a narcissistic teenager but he gets very upset when I get cross with him so then I feel guilty for always being so down on him.

How do you deal with this phase of parenting?

Phones? X boxes?

Does he do sport out of school?

He has a phone and is easily distracted by it. We took it off him for a few weeks and it did make a difference but I feel that is our major leverage and if we take it full-time then he'll switch off completely from us.
He does lots of sport outside of school but again it's on his terms ie. he loves the training sessions and matches but he's been set extra training to do by himself (to help him improve) but he can't be arsed to do that. He's so inefficient with his time. He doesn't seem to realise that if he just spent an hour a night doing the things he needs to do then he could have the rest of time doing what he wants but instead he procrastinates and we're still nagging him by 9pm by which time we're all tired and grumpy and he's achieved nothing.

My DH’s mum was always nagging him and being hard on him. I’m sure she would have said all the things you say about your DS. For the first ten years after leaving home he had little of no contact with her now in his 50’s he sees her 3-4 time a year she’s sers her grandchildren 2-3 times a year (if that now). When my DM died I was devastated he said he could ever imagine feeling like this about his DM.

In contrast my DS1 could be described as similar to your DS and my DH at that age my DH has tried to be everything his DM wasn’t he’s now in 23 hrs he did reasonably well at school and went to uni he's had a few ups and downs which we supported him through by just being there and he’s found his niche in life and has turned into a very hard working and conscientious employee (hid bedroom is still a tip but we don’t live in it so it’s no my problem).

I think 'pick your battles' is my best advice. For example, leave the messy room to itself, forget the extra practice, just make sure he does school work - or any combination of those. I would also tell him this, in the spirit of being upfront, but do it with no anger or nagging, just spell out what you want. We had a similar time with our ds, and you can't tackle everything.

Have you tried leaving it and letting the consequences happen. If he doesn't do the outside trading, he doesn't get picked for matches, doesn't do homework, gets detention? I would have a no food/drink other than water in room rule as a consequence of the bedroom not being decent.

My dd is a procrastinator too. I am too so i sympathise! Dd is a really nice, laid back kid. She's got no mean/bitchy side so there's no dramas with her friends. So i keep that at the forefront of my mind.
Dd doesn't want to turn up at school and get a detention for no homework, so she will do it but leaves it late to start. I encourage her to start early but don't stress over it too much. I let the threat of detention stress her into doing it.
With revision for exams, i try and support her as much as possible as revision can be daunting. I was the same. I offer to help her with it and do insist she starts on time as she's in year 11, so I'm not going to sit back and let her fail. But because I'm more hands off with homework, it's not constant nagging.