Aibu for moving my son into a smaller bedroom

[Summerholsdoingmyheadin]

We have three children and four bedrooms. 3 bedrooms are decent sized doubles. Teenage son has the smallest double but he has an ensuite bathroom. Everyone happy with this. The youngest (one year old) is currently in with us.
Middle son has the biggest bedroom with floor to ceiling built in wardrobes and cupboards. This room is about 14ft by 13ft. He only has a single bed (11 year old). His room is constantly a tip. He takes his ironed clothes and just tosses them into a crumpled heap in the cupboard. He never hovers the room but doesn't want me to do it either. He constantly has reams of paper strewn over the floor and dozens of books, DVDs and food wrappers all over the place. Dirty clothes just pile up on the floor and his wet towels live on the carpet. He says it his impossible to keep the room in any state of tidiness. I have threatened to move him into the smallest room on many occasions so he has less space to keep tidy. I am at the end of my tether with his level of mess. Yes it is his room, but we have 2 asthma sufferers in the house and his dust levels are atrocious. The one year old has food allergies and we are sick of the food and wrappers that we find lying around middle sons bedroom as the baby could have an allergic reaction if he toddles in and picks things up.
I am now at the point of considering moving ds2 into the smallest room as I will clean and tidy it and it is a smaller space so will be easier for me to do.
Aibu to do this? Ds2 thinks this is unfair, mean and tantamount to child abuse

Yes they did consider AS and also PDA but said that he didn't really present enough of the traits they would expect to see. I wanted to push for an AS referral but they said the waiting list was at least two years to see the asd team and that a diagnosis wouldn't really change the difficulties that we are having. In any case they said as the waiting list is so long he would have to display more AS traits in order to get a referral.
I do wonder if he has AS but even if he does he can't go about making false accusations, being unkempt and creating health risks for other members of the family. It would perhaps help me to understand his difficulties more but it wouldn't fully excuse them.

If he has AS then it could change the way you see his behaviour and lead to different strategies.
Of my children one has a diagnosis, and another shows traits. In both cases sometimes offering them a face saving "way out" can help. Also not arguing but expecting things to happen help. They also both struggle with tidiness, but at times can get their stuff sorted.
I would try to read up on strategies for ASD children/young people; and see if you can find any that help.

QuestionableMouse and a few others have the best suggestions, imo.
I think it is a great idea to take photographs first.
Another good outcome of this will be that when the baby has his/her own room eventually, it will be the very big room, so there will be plenty of space for them to have all the plastic stuff etc that toddlers tend to need.
When my dd was about 9 she asked to move to a smaller bedroom, (9x9) as it was quieter; she had open shelving, and it worked quite well.

Blimey you need to toughen up. Black bags and Hoover at door. Crack on young man or you start putting stuff in bags.
My 8 year old knows he has to hoover room once a week. !!

I don't mean to upset you but he sounds depressed, to me, and no wonder if he's living in a huge mess and not looking after himself properly. Adults with depression often end up living in squalor and skipping personal hygiene. I presume CAMHS would have flagged it up, though.

He seems very bright and hard to cope with. Do you think you're giving him too much freedom to run his own life? Maybe he's finding that hard to manage. Could you try babying him a bit more? Insist he has a bath every day - even run it for him and lurk to make sure he's in it, as it's hard to avoid washing in a bath? And supervise his tooth brushing? Eleven is really quite young, still, even if he is in secondary school, and he seems to be struggling with being mature about a lot of things, including the allergies issue. Some children are really independent at eleven and others just aren't - and I know you have your hands full with the baby but your DS sounds as if he needs more attention, whether he thinks he does or not. Washing twice a week in the swimming pool sounds grim - I can't imagine letting my DS do that at any age, but certainly not eleven. I can tell from your posts that you're at the end of your tether but about the house/how he affects your other DCs/whether he might get you in trouble with the authorities (which, I mean, fair enough...). I think he sounds very unhappy and in need of a lot of looking after. Again, he might not agree with this, but he resents being told to do things he feels he can't manage - so if he sees you going out of your way to look after him and help him with those things, that might make a difference to his attitude.

I'm not judging you, btw. It all sounds like a huge challenge and you sound understandably overwhelmed.

Wow, I posted on this thread right at the beginning - I thought you just meant move messy DS2 so the baby could have more space for their stuff!

Having seen your updates, OP, I would definitely move him, and while he is away with your Mum would be a great time to do it. Just put the essentials in his new room, have other stuff boxed up and away (garage/attic etc) and he ca earn some at a time - or may realise he doesn't want a load of it, and you can bin it. If he is defiant this will be a wake up call, but if he is overwhelmed it may be a relief and a fresh start .

fluge we make him shower every morning but he dodges the water and doesn't shower properly. I can't exactly go I tot he bathroom and shower him as at the age of very nearly 12 that would be an invasion of his privacy. The swimming pool comment was tongue in cheek - trying to maintain my sense of humour at this time of difficulty.
If anything we haven't given him enough freedom / haven't given him enough responsibility. He expects us to do everything for him. He even thinks I should pour his cereal in the morning because apparently it is a reaaaally difficult task! We have tried relentlessly to get him to be a bit more independent but to no avail.
The GP originally referred him to camhs under the suspicion of depression after he threatened to harm himself but camhs said he isn't depressed and I honestly don't think he is.
He doesn't think the mess or hygiene is a problem and thinks we are just overworking him by expecting him to rectify it.

I tell my 2 ds's to tidy their rooms. They do. That's it. I think you need to be tougher.

Which means you are a parent have to step up. And I don't mean do it for him. If it takes you standing there and watching him do it,

DH does that on a regular basis which is when we find the good and wrappers. It only takes 24 hours to become a complete tip again though (minus the hoovering and dusting obv). If he wants a pen he will empty all the stationery on the floor, find the pen and leave the stationery. If he can't find an item of clothing he pulls out all of the clothing into the floor, takes the one he wants and leaves the rest in a heap. It's never ending.

i would give one more warning, clean it and then every day if there is stuff on the floor, I would remove anything on the floor - clothes, toys etc and throw away. Eventually when he runs out of clothes to wear, school uniform etc I would make him face the consequences at school for no uniform and make him do his own washing when he has no more clothes at all. Same for toys, gadgets, books - just keep removing anything he hasn't tidied away on a daily basis until he has nothing and hold firm that he can get them back (only once everything is gone) if he washes his own clothes, irons, tidies etc etc

That's what I mean, summerhols - the showering thing isn't working and has turned into a confrontation where he's outwitting you. You're not winning and he's not clean - so I'd give up on it and take a different approach. It's just not acceptable for an almost-12-year-old to be dirty, I think, and unless you crack that now, he's going to get worse as puberty kicks in for real. I say this as someone who used to avoid washing my hair as a tween/teen because I hated doing it (no shower - had to hang over the side of the bath) and didn't have a hairdryer and was lazy and hated myself and lots of other reasons - but I don't understand why my DM let me behave that way when it was actually a sign of something much worse than laziness and it made me a target for bullies.

Sorry, maybe not 'throw away' but hide really well! Like the pp said, treat him like a toddler until he behaves better than a toddler.

Need a tougher approach.

Anything on the floor gets put in a bin liner and gets binned (hidden in the shed). Shower each gets rewarded or punished. No tech or wifi if he doesn't Hoover and polish once a week. He's playing you.

Been there and done it.

Summer, is your instinct that he might have a degree of AS? Did they ask you extensive questions and talk to you about the way he looks for things etc?

I agree, if he is a bit 'spectrummy' a diagnosis would help you seek and identify strategies that would enable you to understand and address his behaviour.

I would do some reading: the worst that can happen is that you have gained some knowledge!

You sound at the end of your tether, OP, so if I were you I'd take him to see a child psychologist privately if I were you, re possible ASD.

You keep being given the advice to toughen up, but it sounds like you and your DH are pretty consistent parents with boundaries for your children. But despite that you're now at stalemate with ds2 and if anything, the situation is only getting worse. Sometimes we can't try any harder, as parents, and we have to find a way to try smarter. For me with my kids at several points that has mean seeking professional support privately.

I don't think moving him to smaller room will
achieve anything, particularly. Nether do I think it would be harmful for him. So do whatever suits you best.

marsh I know a lot about asd already. I have worked in a field that comes across asd a lot but at the other end of the spectrum - children with the most severe accompanying sld.
Camhs did ask lots of asd related questions but it was after I had directly asked them if it was part of the problem. They concluded from their questioning that he didn't have enough traits to warrant a referral to the asd team. In all honesty I do think he has some features of AS but I think he also has a huge sense of entitlement and he thinks that his dad and I should be his servants.
He doesn't think it is his place to help around the house, he even thinks I should pour his cereal for him in the mornings because apparently as his mum that is my job .
Even with a diagnosis it wouldn't solve his sense of entitlement.

I have a thread somewhere from when dd was 11 along the same lines. Her room was awful (still is very messy) but yeah she stank. Greasy hair, I used to call her Sue Heck - the girl off The Middle - due to the stringy greasy hair and mismatched clothes
She is the epitome of perfection now in her hygiene, dress sense, make up
Sometimes it's just their age
Laziness, entitlement (dd still is so fucking entitled), the transition from being babies to being a teen. Plus baby bro taking attention

Kids aye

^Sometimes it's just their age
Laziness, entitlement (dd still is so fucking entitled), the transition from being babies to being a teen. Plus baby bro taking attention^

DH thinks this is the problem. He is adamant that ds2 will fully hit puberty, notice that girls exist and will suddenly want but be clean and want a decent room. DH does think the sense of entitlement is here to stay though. Ds2 even thinks using public transport is not for people like him .

I'd be furious!

Tell him you've allocated Tues/Wed next wk to moving rooms and that the majority of his stuff will be going out in bin bags.

He sounds like he has too much stuff and doesn't appreciate it or the value of it OR your wishes.

Dd1 has the smallest room as her two younger siblings share the bigger one. They all keep their rooms well at 8,10 & 13 because we're both working parents and they respect the fact it's a family effort in this house. I've done a massive clear whilst they've been away for a few days so when they come back it's all nice & neat. It won't last long BUT they know it's up to them to sort it when we ask them to.

Our house is far from show room standard but that would make my skin crawl.

The public transport thing - Does he think there are 'people like that' who deserve busses as apposed to taxis?

I'd just be fretful he'd grow up to be, well, a snob.

Goodness only knows special. Me and DH are happy to use public transport but we do have to use cars for work due to the nature of our jobs. When we are not working we happily jump on a train or bus, even on rare nights out we get the night bus home with all the drunken shenanigans Me and DH are about as far from being snobs as you could get. Ds2 though clearly thinks certain things are beneath him, not helped by the fact that most of his friends have never been on a public bus

Oh and none of us have been in a taxi for at least 5 years as I refuse to pay for taxis or ubers (don't even know how they work) when we have perfectly good buses which are much cheaper.

You sound so lovely Summer, I admire you so much for grinning and bearing this. Like I said, my DS1 has severe needs (not ASC) and due to the nature of his needs, respect/deference/tidiness are not his forte.

One time I watched him finish his banana, look me in the eye, and drop the skin. I could have cheerfully buried him under the patio.