13 year old DS breaks & loses everything

[Edenspirits]

I am at the end of my tether. My 13 year old DS loses or breaks everything we get for him- coats, trainers, a phone, wallet etc. He had a brand new £400 mountain bike for Xmas and has just smashed it up doing wheelies on the road. He uses the bike to cycle to school & we just had a service on it this morning. He’s now beside himself crying because he’s been massively told off.

Aibu to be so at the end of my tether. I don’t know what to do- we can’t afford to get it replaced and I am not sure if the house insurance will cover it.

Aaarrrgghh. He’s virtually hysterical.

Jesus Christ! People love to diagnose ADHD and ASD over the Internet on a tiny scrap of information dont they?!

Some people with ADHD are clumsy and forgetful, this person is clumsy and forgetful, well they obviously have ADHD!

Neurotypicals can be clumsy and forgetful too you know. Especially when they're 13 and don't buy their own things. Its just carelessness.

OP, if you're still around, natural consequences, telling off doesn't seem to work, he broke his bike so he has to walk, just like you would if you broke yours and didn't have the money to replace it. Unless he has money, then he can buy a replacement himself.

Jesus Christ! People love to diagnose ADHD and ASD over the Internet on a tiny scrap of information dont they?!

Sigh. No, we don't.

We are parents who have been in OPs shoes, who wished someone pointed things like this out to us earlier. This doesn't sound like a clumsy child. This is a boy who breaks and loses everything and gets really emotional about it. Please don't patronise us by thinking we don't know neurotypical children can be clumsy. As the mother of three children, only one having ADHD, I know the difference. As do the other parents commenting, regarding their experiences of both ADHD and dyspraxia.

It might not be the case OPs son at all. If I had twenty people, with direct experience of something, all telling me, "hey, what you're describing sounds like my experience of XYZ" then it might be an idea to look into that, even tentatively.

If I had twenty people, with direct experience of something, all telling me, "hey, what you're describing sounds like my experience of XYZ" then it might be an idea to look into that, even tentatively.

Yes, and I'd bet good money, most of them don't even know we've been talking about ADHD at length on the thread. They've just read the OP then commented without RTFT, as is the way on MN!

There are lots of comments precisely because it sounds very much like our own experiences of ADHD not because we're diagnosing.

NO ONE is saying "OP, your child definitely has ADHD".
We're saying "That sounds a lot like my child / myself with ADHD, perhaps something to think about".

The whole process of getting my son diagnosed with ASD - and later myself too - with ADHD was made much easier by the knowledgeable women on MN sharing their own experiences. And harder, in real life, by people who like to minimise other people's difficulties and are "anti-label" for no logical reason.

Sounds like my DS. We just stopped buying him anything expensive. I spent a fortune on school PE kits and pencil cases.
I buy him cheap stuff from Primark.

My DS has got a bit better now that he is older (16), but he is a daydreamer and I think he will always have this problem to a certain extent.

Oh, and my DS is on the autistic spectrum- important fact I forgot to mention!