To expect ds aged 14 to put his dirty clothes in the washing basket

[ReallyTired]

Clothes thrown on the floor or behind the bed don't get washed. Last week ds ran out of shirts as he had failed to put his clothes in the washing basket. I expect him to get his school bag ready the night before and lay out the clothes he plans to wear the following day. Ds head of year thinks I should do all this for him. I don't expect him to wash his clothes, but I do expect him to check he has everything he needs the night before.

Ds is constantly late because he is resistant to going to school. Even when he is ready he refuses to get out the door and walk 1 mile to school. He has been late every day this week as I am refusing to give him a lift. I have a younger child who needs to get to school.

ds(12) is ok at putting his laundry in his laundry basket but its not to make things easier for me, its because he has boy and girl friends in his room regularly and doesn't like them seeing his dirty clothes lying about.

When he was younger and had friends in they were not allowed in his room until it was tidy, so he had to go up and tidy while I embarrassed him by chatting to his friends , seems to have worked.

Also he needs to bring his laundry basket/bedding and anything else he wants washed to me when I'm planning to wash or it wont get washed. I usually do washing over the weekend so ask him to bring his washing down/strip his bed and bring downstairs so anything missing from the laundry basket he would chuck in at that time.

Also, school shirts are so cheap I always buy at enough to last a week and another couple so there are always some clean.

I would make the laundry thing as much of a non issue as possible, the reluctance to go to school is a much bigger problem to focus on.

I am dreading the teenage years.

"but to think that just because your child is a cherub now, they will always be is frankly deluded."

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Little do those mums with angelic primary school kids know!

My sweet little boy is going through an Incredible Hulk stage. He is growing massively, his voice is deepening, he has acne and massive mood swings. He now towers above me and his dad.

Google Kevin the Teenager 13th birthday or look on YouTube.

I'm failing to be eloquent here, sorry! I guess what I'm trying to say is whilst they are still school age, I think getting your kids to school clean, dressed, on time, with their stuff is ultimately your responsibility as parents. That doesn't mean you have to do everything for them at all!! But you may have to pick their school shirts out of the pile on the floor and get strict about leaving the house on time. Does that make sense?

YANBU to expect him to put his clothes in the laundry basket and get his bag ready etc. for the next day.

There might be some element in the laundry thing being a delaying tactic to try and get out of going to school. And the not getting the bag/clothes ready the night before - it's the sort of thing I would have done as a young teen, not got my bag ready the night before because I just couldn't face the thought of going to school the next day, I hated it so much. My thought process was "everything is shit at school, and if I have to think about school when I'm at home, everything will be shit at home too."

Is the reluctance to go to school something that is being solved? The laundry disorganisation improves a bit when whatever it is that's making him resistant to school is sorted.

chickduck do you have teenagers? I feel teens need to be prepared for the adult world. An employer is not going to be impressed if someone is late because they hadn't washed their shirt. The laundry fairy does not visit my house and my son needs to learn that.

In the past teens took on far more responsiblity than putting clothes in the laundry basket. Do we do our children any favours in not expecting them to take some responsiblity?

At 14 if I hadn't washed and ironed my own school uniform I'd have none to wear.

No, I don't have teenagers, but it's not a hugely long time since I was one myself, and even more recently that I saw my own mum dealing with my younger brother who is a good few years younger than me. 14 year olds are still kids. I agree they need to be prepared for the adult world, but that preparation doesn't suddenly happen overnight, it's a continuum. You go from doing everything for them to eventually doing nothing. However, it 14 the responsibility for them ultimately stops at you. They are growing up but they are not adukts yet. If it takes nagging every day at this point to get his school clothes in the wash, that's what has to happen. Then soon it might only be every other day, once a week, then never... That's how he will learn.

Not having clean clothes to go to school in is one of the many signs of neglect teachers look out for. I am 100% absolutely not suggesting that OP is neglecting her kids, but that will be why the HOY raised the issue.

It is often very difficult to get all the adults involved singing from the same hymn sheet.

I remember when my dd was reluctant to dress for school reading posts on here where it was recommended that the parent should let the child go to school in her pyjamas to suffer the ensuing fall-out. The problem with this was that I knew dd's school well enough to know that any fall-out (and would there have been a fall-out!!! would there just!!!) would have been aimed straight at my head and never touched dd at all. It was no doubt an excellent method but it could only work if all the adults were on board and that was never going to happen.

In the present case there might be two possibilities:

either have a word with the HoY to say "this is what I am trying to achieve, would the school be prepared to support me in this by punishing ds directly for any uniform failures" (this would depend on whether the HoY trusts the OP or not)

or apply other sanctions at home

The problem is that the OP's strongest interest (quite rightly) is preparing her ds for the adult world. The school otoh needs to prioritise the daily routine, with its rule-keeping, ticking over smoothly so as to have as much time as possible over to support pupils with more serious problems. Time when a teacher has to discuss ds' uniform is time which cannot be spent sorting out why the girl in the front row is looking so upset or why the boy second from the left hasn't even started his maths work.

If you do want to go down the route of asking the school to give him detentions/put him on report, OP, I think you need to come at it from the pov of recognising the above, and asking gently.