So my 12 yo is a blackmailer...

[ThisOldSaddo]

We're having difficulties with our 12 year old.

He's insatiable for stuff - sweets, chocolate, pop, tech, gaming...he never listens and will always always always push boundaries. We call him Billy Wantsmore, because of this trait. He always takes it too far, esp when with his brother.

We are having him see an ADHD specialist in November, and that's the nearest private appointment we could get.

We have a friend visiting, he lost his job in lockdown and so we got him down to us as he's fragile, mentally, and was stoney broke!

Last night DH and I went to check out a local car for sale. Friend stayed home and kids were playing on their games upstairs.

Immediately we were out the door,
dS12 came down and said "I'm getting a Boost" from the treat drawer. DF said no, it's too late and it's the last one, your mum might want that. DS then said "if you don't let me have it, I'll tell mum you dented her can with the wheelbarrow" / this I had already figured out and it appears - oddly - DH and I were having a conversation about the new dent whilst this was happening at home - it's no big deal.

DF still said no, but DS took it anyway and went upstairs.

DF told us when we got home.

I am so ashamed of DS.

Nothing we do to discipline him works.

Please help me.

What do I do?

I sometimes wonder if I have been reading two different MN sites !

Not so long ago there was a very lengthy post where the OP was having the holiday from hell as a result of her friend 'gentle parenting'. The majority of posters on there supported OP and were scathing about the 'quietly having a word and no sanctions' style of the friend.

Here, the OP is going for a far stricter sanctions route and is being widely condemned and is being recommended those self same 'gentle' approaches.

For what it is worth OP - I also would be appalled and hugely embarrassed by the blackmail. That goes way beyond being naughty and it is a wake up call that something needs to be done before DS becomes a very unlikable teen who is set in s ways. I think that easy access to tech has a lot to answer for. It leaves kids sleep deprived and disconnected from face to face interactions. I would not be allowing more than time limited access for quite some time.

The food and pop thing I see with a lot of kids sadly. It is an addiction of a kind, and many kids have no off button. The treats have to go.

The name calling is wrong on every level. It is setting such a bad example. Your next issue to deal with may well be from other parents when your DS decides he is going to give funny, hurtful names to his classmates.

@ThisOldSaddo

Hi

It sounds a LOT like ADHD. Mine is 13 now. And firstly, tune out the responses from the people who haven't the first idea about an ADHD child. It's like no other parenting experience. They just don't get it. I also have two other children without any additional needs. Parenting them Vs parenting my ADHD child is about as similar as doing the laundry is to lion taming.

I frequently dislike DS. Because when he is "on form" he can be relentless. I love him, but boy, I dislike him at times. He's manipulative, lies continually. A kleptomaniac especially with food. And as a PP said, when we removed everything, we had exactly the same "I can do what I want now, got nothing left to take have you" with a big grin. We've removed access to all treats. His bedroom has almost nothing in it or he will use it some how in absent minded vandalism. Books? Chew the pages. Pens? Gouge little holes in a pattern all along the window sill. He unravelled the corner of his brand new carpet "because it looked cool."

It is a constant battle parenting him. And there is very little enjoyment from being around him at the moment. Yes there are positives, but they are always outweighed by the constant nannying I have to do, or the ten negatives that day. Being able to talk about this honestly, is what you will find in ADHD support groups and not on MN, unless you can gloss over the people who haven't got a clue and gasp at the "bad mummy" you are, talking about your own child like that

Medication was a big help for us. It was becoming unbearable, and the focus of the whole household. His meds definitely take the edge off.

Some of it he'll grow out of. Some he won't. But as his parent, congratulations, you get the worst of it, I'm bracing myself for the rest of the teen years. It's not all doom and gloom though. DH has ADHD, and I can't imagine being with anyone else. Equally, sometimes, I could bury him too

It's not an answer as such, but it helps me, when DS is acting really sneakily, or DH blurts out a thoughtless comment, that he doesn't think about it might be hurtful until after he's said it, I take a few moments, perhaps walk into a different room and repeat "it's the ADHD, it's the ADHD" then I find I can tackle the issue a lot more productively, with that in mind.

ADHD isn't a get out of jail free card for any bad behaviour. But it's the catalyst for a good deal of it. Good luck with your diagnosis xx

@2catsandhappy

Sending you some virtual support op. At 12 my(undiagnosed at that time) dd ran rings around me. Super smart, convincing, one step ahead and completely unfazed by consequences.

If I might offer one piece of advice,when he has earned back games, only give back the games for his age group, and only one or two a week. Put the rest in the attic/car boot etc

Thanks so much, it gives me hope!

@PyjamaFan

I would start by removing all chocolate and sweets from the house and severely restricting or even completely stopping access to the internet.

Then sit down together for a serious talk about behaviour and expectations.

He will have to earn back any treats very slowly.

This. Just make life boring. My kids don't ask for "boosts from the drawer" because there are no bloody Boosts, and they know any behaviour of this calibre would mean no gaming.

Do most 7 year olds have a box of snacks?! What are the snacks?
Most 7yo probably don’t have a box of snacks, but then the majority of them don’t have autism and sensory issues. We give him crackers, rice cakes, fruit, we make flapjacks so he’ll get a bit of that sometimes, and yes he gets either a small bit of chocolate or a biscuit.

He is massively reward driven (like op DS punishments just don’t work), so we don’t use food as treats, but he’ll get to pick a film to watch, or choose another activity he loves as a reward which motivated him better than any threat of punishment.

My son doesnt have ADHD, but he does have ASD, I recognise many of the behaviours you’ve described.

I think its really important that you shift your mindset. I know you are waiting for an assessment, but assume he will get a diagnosis and start parenting him as a child with ADHD now.

You need to take the responisbility for his behaviour, because he can’t at the moment.
Stop thinking of him as being naughty and in terms of punishment. Think of it as he ‘can’t do’ not ‘won’t do’.

Thats not to say he can run riot around the house, but you need to give him the strategies and tools to behave more appropriately.

Having an accessible treat drawer for example is setting him up to fail. We had a huge issue with sweets and chocolate here. After he ate 12 kitkats in one go, in secret. I took the responsibility off him and removed the biscuit tin and hid the stuff in my bedroom and dished it out after dinner or lunch.
I would take the tech stuff out of all children’s rooms. I’m probably more generous with screen time than many parents, but it was always where I could see what was going on. He was never allowed his phone in his room until he was 15 and he had shown me he had learnt how to manage it reasonably responsibly. The PS4 is still in the living room.

Giving him a whole list of chores to do is probably overwhelming for him. Get him to do the chores but help him with it. My son is a scout, he’s been going to camp for 10 years, the kit list is the same, if left to his own devices he’d pack 10 pairs of socks and no underpants. He is 17 and at college, I still have to do a checklist with him to make sure he has what he needs for the day.
Taking everything away from him so he is bored doesnt achieve anything but a very frustrated child, at the moment he can’t see the connection.
Exercise can be really important, it helps my son to stay regulated.
Have a look at sensory processing disorders, they may be relevant.

Parenting a child with additional needs is tough, but thats how you need to see him. He has different needs to your other children and you will need to learn how to parent them differently.
With the right strategies and mindset, things can and will improve, but it might be a hard slog.

That’s the right thing to do. Clear boundaries and timeline so instead of saying forever you say for 2 days etc and absolutely stick to it no matter the crying and going on and everytime they bring it up remind them of why they have the ban and those their behaviour effected and this is the consequence of that.
I would even set a time like on Friday at 8am you will get all this back.
The might stroll in and act like they don’t care and even say haha I’ve got it back now but honestly asfter having this happen a few times the message does sink in.
I remember my 15/16 year old brother screaming and crying (yep you heard the age right!) because mum wouldn’t let him go to a party as a result of earlier behaviour he was awful for the whole day about it all till about 2hrs into the party time he walked into her room and was like “do you want a cup of tea mum?” Lol I guess he realised his tantrum got him nowhere and she had prewarned him that what he had some would have consequences he was still an arse through the teen years but I distinctly remember him being a saint in the week leading up to certain events he didn’t want to miss

If it's just fruit and rice cakes then why not just give them afer meals? I don't understand this idea you'd have a box of snacks for kids to fixate on.

Could your DF start teaching your DS to cook? Would that be something that they could do together? The structure around cooking and recipes might focus your DS's mind and at the end he would have accomplished something and it would be something good that you could affirm with positive comments???

Bryonyshcmyony he has those things accessible to him because mealtimes are difficult for him - his sensory issues mean he doesn’t recognise when he’s hungry until he’s full on hangry, and will only eat the bare minimum at mealtimes. He cannot be persuaded to sit and eat more, not even pudding if offered, and making mealtimes a battle is counterproductive. It isn’t a massive box of stuff, and as I mentioned before he doesn’t obsess about it like he used to when these things were freely available to all, because it’s his and nobody touches it but him (and me when I refill it). His dietary issues are under consultant review, and she’s more than happy with it, and as I’ve said, it’s helping him with self control. We’ve gone through a lot of trial and error to get to this point.

@NicLondon1

Taking a chocolate bar isn't that bad... don't kids do that kind of thing all the time?!! I know I used to! Really don't understand why this is a big deal. He's hardly "a blackmailer"! From the heading, I thought he'd been sending threatening letters to other kids or some such, something actually very dark.

Saying "if you won't let me take it I'll tell mum you dented her car with the wheelbarrow" to a grown adult is not a big deal? I completely disgaree, I think it's a huge deal. To treat our friend like that, someone DS loves too. It's so off, so so off. I was completely embarrassed.

There's more too - without wanting to drip feed/write War and Peace, he's stolen from a shop when his Go Henry was blocked (punishment) because he wanted it. He's been seen with energy drinks and denied it, plausibly, when asked. I know he had them, he loves that shit.

He takes and takes and takes and when we tidy, the evidence has been stuffed away in his bin/under the bed.

I'm a little at the end of my rope re punishment because nothing works with this fella, and so how do you parent that?

I have a list of things to read, review and practice and if you knew me, you know I'll be taking all of it on board.

It's hard parenting, and he's our first 12 yo, so we're learning too.

It's excellent that I've been pointed in the right direction for tools to arm myself with/educate myself with.

I just want a pleasant home life, which isn't dictated by a 12 yo's hormones/behaviour. That's all really.

@PyjamaFan @Rannva

this child may well have ADHD, making life as boring as possible really does not help

@LookItsMeAgain

Could your DF start teaching your DS to cook? Would that be something that they could do together? The structure around cooking and recipes might focus your DS's mind and at the end he would have accomplished something and it would be something good that you could affirm with positive comments???

Yes, certainly this is something he's shown an interest in (although often when I'm 99% done!). So something to plan for, thank you. great suggestion.

@LookItsMeAgain

Could your DF start teaching your DS to cook? Would that be something that they could do together? The structure around cooking and recipes might focus your DS's mind and at the end he would have accomplished something and it would be something good that you could affirm with positive comments???

Again, fab suggestion. I'll put that to them tonight.

@UnderTheMoonlightWeDanced

That’s the right thing to do. Clear boundaries and timeline so instead of saying forever you say for 2 days etc and absolutely stick to it no matter the crying and going on and everytime they bring it up remind them of why they have the ban and those their behaviour effected and this is the consequence of that. I would even set a time like on Friday at 8am you will get all this back. The might stroll in and act like they don’t care and even say haha I’ve got it back now but honestly asfter having this happen a few times the message does sink in. I remember my 15/16 year old brother screaming and crying (yep you heard the age right!) because mum wouldn’t let him go to a party as a result of earlier behaviour he was awful for the whole day about it all till about 2hrs into the party time he walked into her room and was like “do you want a cup of tea mum?” Lol I guess he realised his tantrum got him nowhere and she had prewarned him that what he had some would have consequences he was still an arse through the teen years but I distinctly remember him being a saint in the week leading up to certain events he didn’t want to miss

LOL! I'd love a week of angel behaviour from this chap!!

@Ted27

My son doesnt have ADHD, but he does have ASD, I recognise many of the behaviours you’ve described.

I think its really important that you shift your mindset. I know you are waiting for an assessment, but assume he will get a diagnosis and start parenting him as a child with ADHD now.

You need to take the responisbility for his behaviour, because he can’t at the moment.
Stop thinking of him as being naughty and in terms of punishment. Think of it as he ‘can’t do’ not ‘won’t do’.

Thats not to say he can run riot around the house, but you need to give him the strategies and tools to behave more appropriately.

Having an accessible treat drawer for example is setting him up to fail. We had a huge issue with sweets and chocolate here. After he ate 12 kitkats in one go, in secret. I took the responsibility off him and removed the biscuit tin and hid the stuff in my bedroom and dished it out after dinner or lunch.
I would take the tech stuff out of all children’s rooms. I’m probably more generous with screen time than many parents, but it was always where I could see what was going on. He was never allowed his phone in his room until he was 15 and he had shown me he had learnt how to manage it reasonably responsibly. The PS4 is still in the living room.

Giving him a whole list of chores to do is probably overwhelming for him. Get him to do the chores but help him with it. My son is a scout, he’s been going to camp for 10 years, the kit list is the same, if left to his own devices he’d pack 10 pairs of socks and no underpants. He is 17 and at college, I still have to do a checklist with him to make sure he has what he needs for the day.
Taking everything away from him so he is bored doesnt achieve anything but a very frustrated child, at the moment he can’t see the connection.
Exercise can be really important, it helps my son to stay regulated.
Have a look at sensory processing disorders, they may be relevant.

Parenting a child with additional needs is tough, but thats how you need to see him. He has different needs to your other children and you will need to learn how to parent them differently.
With the right strategies and mindset, things can and will improve, but it might be a hard slog.

Thank you - good advice on the shift of mindset there, I'll do that.

[quote TwinsandTrifle]@ThisOldSaddo

Hi

It sounds a LOT like ADHD. Mine is 13 now. And firstly, tune out the responses from the people who haven't the first idea about an ADHD child. It's like no other parenting experience. They just don't get it. I also have two other children without any additional needs. Parenting them Vs parenting my ADHD child is about as similar as doing the laundry is to lion taming.

I frequently dislike DS. Because when he is "on form" he can be relentless. I love him, but boy, I dislike him at times. He's manipulative, lies continually. A kleptomaniac especially with food. And as a PP said, when we removed everything, we had exactly the same "I can do what I want now, got nothing left to take have you" with a big grin. We've removed access to all treats. His bedroom has almost nothing in it or he will use it some how in absent minded vandalism. Books? Chew the pages. Pens? Gouge little holes in a pattern all along the window sill. He unravelled the corner of his brand new carpet "because it looked cool."

It is a constant battle parenting him. And there is very little enjoyment from being around him at the moment. Yes there are positives, but they are always outweighed by the constant nannying I have to do, or the ten negatives that day. Being able to talk about this honestly, is what you will find in ADHD support groups and not on MN, unless you can gloss over the people who haven't got a clue and gasp at the "bad mummy" you are, talking about your own child like that

Medication was a big help for us. It was becoming unbearable, and the focus of the whole household. His meds definitely take the edge off.

Some of it he'll grow out of. Some he won't. But as his parent, congratulations, you get the worst of it, I'm bracing myself for the rest of the teen years. It's not all doom and gloom though. DH has ADHD, and I can't imagine being with anyone else. Equally, sometimes, I could bury him too

It's not an answer as such, but it helps me, when DS is acting really sneakily, or DH blurts out a thoughtless comment, that he doesn't think about it might be hurtful until after he's said it, I take a few moments, perhaps walk into a different room and repeat "it's the ADHD, it's the ADHD" then I find I can tackle the issue a lot more productively, with that in mind.

ADHD isn't a get out of jail free card for any bad behaviour. But it's the catalyst for a good deal of it. Good luck with your diagnosis xx[/quote]
Thanks so much - misery does love company! I see you're in the thick of it, more power to you, sister xx

*There's more too - without wanting to drip feed/write War and Peace, he's stolen from a shop when his Go Henry was blocked (punishment) because he wanted it. He's been seen with energy drinks and denied it, plausibly, when asked. I know he had them, he loves that shit.

He takes and takes and takes and when we tidy, the evidence has been stuffed away in his bin/under the bed.

I'm a little at the end of my rope re punishment because nothing works with this fella, and so how do you parent that?*

Identical to DS. And I mean identical.

You can't parent it. And what I mean by that is there's nothing you can do to get rid of it. You just have to learn how best to cope and manage it.

DS is under an ADHD specialist, who told me something that has always stuck. Imagine DS had a bright green tuft of hair growing from the middle of his forehead. You can't ever get rid of it, it's part of him. So you learn to keep on top of shaving it. Waxing it. Lots of hats.

It's about finding the best way to live with it. The first step is accepting you can't really do anything about it, and once you have that acceptance about what you can't change, it's somehow a relief and becomes easier.

If your DS has ADHD normal parenting measures will have limited effect, this will be more difficult for you with siblings to consider. Dealing with teens with ADHD is like dealing with wild fires you extinguish one outbreak and another one pops up in its place. I would stay off chat if I were you and find other sources of help from parents who have lived through similar we are through the other side and despite a diagnosis, medication, specialist parenting classes and school support it was a very tough few years. You can definitely love your child but not love their behaviour especially if things escalate as they did with us. Totally agree they can be very smart and you need all of your wits about you, we were lucky in a way that we had no other children living at home but at times it took every bit of strength that my DH and I had. We now have an amazing relationship with our son.

@ipswichwitch

Bryonyshcmyony he has those things accessible to him because mealtimes are difficult for him - his sensory issues mean he doesn’t recognise when he’s hungry until he’s full on hangry, and will only eat the bare minimum at mealtimes. He cannot be persuaded to sit and eat more, not even pudding if offered, and making mealtimes a battle is counterproductive. It isn’t a massive box of stuff, and as I mentioned before he doesn’t obsess about it like he used to when these things were freely available to all, because it’s his and nobody touches it but him (and me when I refill it). His dietary issues are under consultant review, and she’s more than happy with it, and as I’ve said, it’s helping him with self control. We’ve gone through a lot of trial and error to get to this point.

OK then that's quite a specialist sitatution. Most kids demanding chocolate don't have these issues, they just want the nice sweet stuff.

@ThisOldSaddo

Oh I missed the bit about me not liking him. I was actually going to start the countdown in my post, but forgot.

I do not like him speaking to a grown up visitor, who is nothing but good to him, like this. Making him feel small about a mistake, using power over him.

I don't like him nicking food/crap to eat in his room.

I don't like him bouncing his elbow off the 8 year old's face, or lying on him so he can't breathe, whilst laughing...

As I said above, he's got a good heart, so I know he's going to be absolutely fine in this world. But I don't want his teenage angsty years to dictate the tone of our home.

What I want really is some thoughts on how you would punish this.

We're certainly going to have The Chat, but it was late last night and this morning work called, so it will have to be this evening. I'll take him out and so he'll have to talk to me/not storm off.

I don't pit him against the other two - ever. My mother did that with my rogue sister and I and we talk about how it felt to this day. The other two are, honestly, good as gold, but we have never used that as a weapon towards the eldest.

So far:

all treats removed
lock for door sorted (we have to have snacks for all three lunches, there's no getting around that)
he misses out today
loses tech and phone
stays in all day today with book
has chores (his usual chores, by the way, that he never does).

I wonder how long to remove his tech for, and whether we should ditch Fortnite in full (he plays with his cousins and buddies from school, as well as with his bro).

I like the child. I do NOT like this behaviour - I would have thought that was obvious, since I'm here, asking for help, as opposed to ignoring it or giving him a smack (which I guess is what people who really don't like their kids do?).

But thank you for that predictable input - I win the bingo game only I was playing!!

@ThisOldSaddo your op states that nothing you have done to discipline your DS works … but you are still following the same old script, imagining that somehow if you find the right punishment, your DS will magically start to behave. It’s time to find a new parenting approach, not a novel punishment.

Your child stole a chocolate bar and was rude to a trusted adult. Both of those are age appropriate behaviours. They are also neurotypical behaviours - no need to pathologise it. He’s not a blackmailer. He’s a child, pushing boundaries, seeing how you react. That’s normal.

You sound ashamed of your DS and this is highlighted by your focus on needing to punish him. I think you have already gone overboard with the punishments. Waaaaay overboard. And yet none of them feel like natural consequences.

You are looking for advice. Here’s mine.You need a re-set. Punishments do not work, natural consequences do. So, for example, removing access to treats because he can’t be trusted is appropriate. But I can’t see the connection between tech access, Fortnite, chores and what your DS did - I bet he can’t either. You will need to be creative. It’s not easy to deliver a natural consequence of rudeness to a trusted adult, I admit. Possibly by showing him how you cannot trust him to be left alone with said adult so he has to come out with you to do boring chores (eg test drive) rather than being left at home to play games.

Natural consequences will help your DS learn to self-regulate his behaviours, whether he has ADHD or not.

Oh and people who don’t like their kids don’t just smack them. Emotional abuse includes name calling, blaming, shaming, criticising, rejection. I am not saying you are doing this. But please be aware that excessive punishments can edge into this territory.

you mentioned hormones, which may well be relevant.

He is after all 12, any parent of a teenager will tell you that puberty turns them into Kevins. I don’t know about ADHD, but I was advised that puberty exacerbates ASD. There may be a link there.

To give you hope, my son is 17. He really is doing well, he is on the whole a very pleasant and charming young man. He is popular and has lots of friends. He is at college and has a Saturday job. He is learning to live in a world that really isnt set up for him. He is getting there, its just takes him longer than other young people.
You can get there too. But it will be a bumpy road

It is very heartening to hear that people have been through the mire and come out the other side. I don't want to lose him - he's everything to me. I adore being with him, esp one on one. We go out together and have the nicest time - I said to him the other say when we were walking along a lovely path "I love being with you, I'm so lucky to have you" and he said "I'm so lucky to have the perfect mum" and I about DIED of heart-burst. Every time I pass the spot where he said it, I remember and it makes my heart jump.

So he is honestly just gorgeous - but from A ---> B there are some fun (not) times ahead. I see this.

I am gathering together my tools and strategies to help!

I also am on the ADHD warriors page on Facebook, even though we haven't had our DX as yet. I should have done this there, but don't feel like I can just yet (perhaps) and also FB is only on my phone, not computer, so typing would be a pain in the dick.

@CherryHug

So why did your husband not simply follow him upstairs and remove it from him?

Grow a spine and parent him properly. Additional needs are no excuse for bad behaviour.

Read the post! It was not her husband but a friend. If friend has physically removed the bar from ds we would have a stream of posters saying how dare the friend physically intervene!!

I've not read all of the messages by everyone so apologies if this has already been said. It sounds like he is 'Craving' sugar. Have you taken him to the Gp to get bloods done etc? I'd also be wondering if he has threadworm. It is very common in young children and makes them crave sugary things!