Are my expectations of ds completely unrealistic?

[Findthewhitehorse]

Ds is 10. I have some basic things that I expect of him but that never happen. These are.

Bring his dirty cup down in the morning from his bedtime drink.

Take his breakfast bowl into the kitchen and wipe up his spilt milk.

Hang his school uniform up after school or at least lay it out (not throw it on the floor all around the house).

Put his shoes away instead of leaving them in the middle of the hallway.

Hang his coat up.

Put his lunchbox in the kitchen not left in the car or dumped on the floor.

Put his dirty socks and boxers in the wash basket not chucked on MY bedroom floor.

Hang his wet towel on the towel radiator, not throw it in the corner of MY bedroom then keep getting a fresh one out every time he showers (twice a day).

Not get changed 3 times in an evening getting each set of clothes covered in mud or food.

Not shove all his dirty clothes back in the drawers when I sent him to pick up, and put clean ones in the wash basket.

Is this all normal or is my ds particularly inconsiderate?

Yanbu

At that age I was doing housework!

He sounds like a fairly typical 10 year old but YANBU to keep persisting with expecting better! It will filter through eventually with persistence on your part!

My dd is 10 and exactly like this. We’ve been told she has asd. We have 4 other children who are nothing like this so I had spoken to my gp because her behaviour was so ‘off’.

I think your expectations are normal, but so is his ten year old behaviour. It's just a bit of a battle of wills. Stick with it and make sure there are direct consequences for bit doing these things. Eg he can't play a game/watch TV until he has tidied up all the stuff/clothing/towels he's left all over the house again.

Yanbu at all.

however, dss who is 13 has the same expected of him and it never happens.

he maybe manages half of it on a good day!

he just doesn't give a shit,

I think quite a few dc and adults sling stuff on the floor, doesn't mean it's right. So of course YANBU.

However I'm questioning his excessive clothes changing and need to shower twice daily. What is that all about, any idea?

It depends. Why did he not do these things? Defiance or because he hadn't been told it's expected?

Yes, why on earth does he shower twice a day and change his clothes so often? Yanbu though. All of that would drive me insane.

It sounds like you just described my husband to be honest

But no, not unreasonable to expect

My 6yo is expected to do all of those things (the 4yo is a work in progress!), and he knows that if he doesn’t he gets no screen time until it’s done (or whatever it is he’s wanting to do that day). I’ve drummed it into them that these are what I expect of everyone in our house, we all chip in and do our part otherwise they don’t get to do the nice stuff. I’ve made it easier by having wash baskets in both bathrooms so there’s no excuse for leaving clothes on the floor. Shoe and coat storage is next to the front door so they don’t go anywhere until they’re out away.

I may seem harsh to some (MIL in particular!) but I won’t always be around to pick up after them, and frankly why should I? They’re more than capable of doing these tasks and should be looking after their stuff.

Your expectations are normal but so is his behaviour: he’s 10.

If I were you I’d focus really hard on the ones that are/can be part of a routine (cup, bowl, coat, shoes, lunchbox) and just keep nagging reminding him about the rest.

I keep on and on but I am sick of the sound of my own voice telling him. I tell him before we get in after school that I want him to do certain things before he can play outside in the garden but somehow he seems to slip out the minute my back is turned. Or he tells me he will do it after he's had something to eat because he starving. Then he doesn't do it or spends an hour eating an apple.

I don't think there's anything particularly going on regarding the showering, he just likes showers.

My kids are 4 and 5 and do pretty much everything on this list daily, and have been expected to do so since they were 3, so YADNBU.

I don't actually know why he keeps changing his clothes, sometimes it goes unnoticed because I'm busy cooking dinner then I realise when I see it all over the floor.

I never get any answers out of him he just says I don't know. He plays football outside and keeps putting on different football tips and tracksuits so I can only think he's playing.

If he slips out into the garden bring him back in. If he refuses to come in there needs to be a consequence for that.

If he says he’s hungry tell him he can eat after the chores - he won’t starve and it will only take a minute or two, the quicker he does it the sooner he can eat.

You need to pick a few battles and follow through with them to the bitter end.

If he can't bring his dirty cup down from his bedtime drink, then maybe he doesn't need a bedtime drink.

If he can't bring his lunchbox in and put it away, then maybe he should be getting school lunches if that's possible. Disclaimer - my daughter loves to pack, so having to eat the school lunch will be seen as an incentive to put her lunchbox away.

Does he ever do as you ask? If so then you know he's capable of doing it, and he's just being inconsiderate. If not, maybe something else is going on.

My middle one is 10 and I could, with small variations, have written this about him. He gets told EVERY TIME I discover something he should have done/cleared away and hasn't, and is dragged away from whatever activity he is doing to sort it. It's extremely tedious, but I will keep plugging away at it until it's more tedious for him than for me and/or it becomes automatic. I guess I'm in for a long haul.

Your expectations are not unreasonable - goodness me no! - but it's also very normal for him not to meet them.

My ds2 does the clothes-changing thing too, and will also do really annoying things like loving an item for weeks or months and then suddenly declaring he hates it. Sensory stuff, I think, in his case.

If he doesn't bring his lunchbox in, give him the next day's lunch in the most embarrassing container possible - ideally something like a Peppa Pig box, otherwise a scruffy carrier bag.

No you are not unrealistic, like pp I too was doing housework by that age to earn my pocket money. If I had behaved like your DS my mother would have went through me!

Not unrealistic at all. My 4 year old will do all of the above, although it's much easier to get littlies to do stuff like this I think. Every action (or inaction)has a consequence,if he won't unpack his lunch box then you can't refill it in the morning- he'll have to do it. Make him use the wet towel once or twice, it won't kill him!

Both your expectations and his inability to remember to meet them are completely normal :)

On behalf of the future women who will date your DS when he is very much older, please sort this out now. There's nothing worse than a grown manchild who requires his partner to fulfil a role that should have been performed by his mother years before. And I hope the time is coming where women simply won't put up with such behaviour in future.

Take something meaningful away from him when these things aren't done - wifi, computer games, football, whatever he lives for.

I second the need for specific consequences, like no cup, no bedtime drink. No lunchbox unpacked, he has to do it in the morning before you'll make a new one.

With the lunchbox, I've sent him in with a carrier bag, he doesn't care! He then just leaves the carrier bag at school

He's currently banned from the tv and Xbox for stroppy behaviour getting aggressive and throwing stuff on the floor when he's asked not to do something. I've told him he can earn it back by following these simple instructions. But all I get is sulking and him declaring he's a 'bad child'.