I’ve just turned off the router and gone back to bed.

[Shuffleuplove]

3 tween boys, idle but cute. Single mum. Their attitude towards me is increasingly disrespectful and rude. I’m sick of constant bargaining and shouting from them, and my picking up after them. I normally am on the permissive end of authoritative but I’ve had enough of talking and reasoning.

Hand hold?

Good luck!
I'm reminded of that fridge magnet meme: "I don't scare easily. I'm a mum."
Go you!

I dont blame younfor switching it off. Kids are trying at the best of times. Tell them they've to earn the wifi priveledge back and give them a list of jobs and the behaviour you expect from them and let them get on with it.

Are they even up yet?

'On ya.

Absolutely the right course of action in the face of rampant disrespect. Well done OP. I’ve done similar in the past.

Nothing wrong with putting your foot down and setting some hard boundaries. I am presuming they don't have a ton of data on their phones and good 4G?

Thankyou! I’m ground down with it. The middle one is particularly difficult.

Yes they’re up. Because it’s the weekend. In the week they’d sleep till noon if I let them.

Middle one just burst in to tell me “I’ll put my bike away but that’s bloody well it.” Little shite, he’s 11

I’ve told him it’s up to him how he behaves.

Only one has 4g on his phone. The battery is dead and I have his charger.

OP hang tough. I always tell mine that I am not going to negotiate with theM. I will set the rules and they either comply or they don't (and suffer the WiFi consequences....)

My virgin app lets me disconnect individual devices! It’s very useful and nobody else knows about it. Sorry darling now tv is not working let me see if I can fix it so you can watch MORE sport. Nope dunno what’s up?

There are certain situations where I think it's OK to say, "It's not up for debate."
This is one of them.

With that attitude maybe he should lose bike privileges for a few days too 🤬

Well done, this approach will work if you stand firm!

Single mum to one DS here, now 20. As a young teen he was mostly lovely, but prone to laziness. I could completely understand hormonal moods, but there was a firm and consistent line that could not be crossed.

If it ever was, I'd change the router password and under no circumstances revert to the password he knew until he'd earned it back.

It must have been quite an effective tactic. My DS said recently that 'if routers are still a thing' by the time he has a child of his own, he's going to do exactly the same thing!

Don't cave in. This time will pass and decent humans will appear from the other side

here to hold your hand

we turn off the wifi when we want them to come downstairs for dinner🤣

Say strong. My two tweens are getting a bit like that. Also a SP so it's relentless. It's not like you're asking anything unreasonably hard or onerous presumably, just a bit of consideration and thoughtfulness. I'm reliably informed they do get better. One thing I've done is drawn up a rota of certain minor chores for set days so there's no arguing about turns or who did it last. I'm on the rota too so they can see it's fair. You have to sort of give them no leg to stand on.

Good luck

Someone I work with brought the router to work with her as she wasn't convinced that her teen was actually too ill to attend school

Constant negotiations are wearing. Mine want to know why why why so that they can counter argue.

I used to put the router in my handbag too
Stand firm, don't blink!

Thankyou for your encouragement. They gang up on me!

There’s lots of door slamming and “this is all your fault”.

@Shuffleuplove

Only one has 4g on his phone. The battery is dead and I have his charger.

you star

Do they have particular things to do to get it back? Or are you wanting them to find non-internet activities for the day?
Good luck either way!

Now you've taken a stand, you need to follow through. Just make sure the terms you've given them are reasonable - is there a clear set of behaviours they need to demonstrate to 'earn' the router back?

...and then be prepared to hold firm to that boundary in future. It will be worth it :)

"There’s lots of door slamming and “this is all your fault”."

Develop a thick skin and a shrug. Run a silent sweep-stake in your head, eg. how many "It's not fay-ers" and so on they will yell. Get wine and chocolate in for this evening. Phone/text a supportive friend.
Oh, and vent on here.

Yep. It's not fair, I hate you and I wish you weren't my mum... All met with complete indifference, OK then, yes fine, and so on. Hang in there.