To just stop doing it?

[Bbq1]

I have a 19 year old son. He's a great young man with many great qualities and has never caused us a jot of trouble - except when it comes to getting up/timekeeping. Since he turned 12/13 he has been horrendous at getting up and not leaving until the last available minute. He allows no contingency time for travel. For the last 2 years college was a train ride away and he mostly got their a couple of minutes late. Secondary school is less than a 10 min walk away and again, she always got their by the skin of his teeth. He's started a job this week after months of job hunting and is a hard worker. Where we live, it's a 30 minute bus journey with 2 buses an hour. If he misses it, it's it full or turns up late he will be late for work as he gets the latest bus he can. The job will supplement his passion which he hopes to make a career of.
Sorry i have rambled. Writing it out, it all sounds okay and no problem but the issue is me. I get up, an hour before he's due to leave and cajole and encourage him to get up, which he will eventually do, without fail but but with minutes to spare. He needs an hour to come around and won't put the light on for ages so his bedroom is pitch black atm. I draw his curtains and bring him a cuppa to try to rouse him. If left, his alarm either fails to go off or keeps going off repeatedly, waking us while he sleeps through it and i have to go tell him to switch it off. I'm up and downstairs, going into him, texting him etc saying please get up.
Dh has shared the struggle over the years but rightly so, when ds turned 18 said he would call ds once if necessary but getting up was on him now. I agree. Ds tells me go back to bed, not to worry about it he's fine etc. He tells me i don't have to get up that he's an adult and can manage. Conversely, his s attendance and commitment is fantastic. At Secondary he was off 2 days in 5 years and in the last 2 years at college he didn't miss a day.
Anyway the issue is mine but I feel almost institutionalised after going this getting up scenario for years and can't stop.it. It's really getting me down having to drag myself up to get him up and then spend an hour stressing about it. Dh, my mum and even my son himself tell me to stop, they say i don't need to do it but I can't stop. I have never let my son sleep in/be late and I fear if I left him to entirely get up without my input he would be late. Today it's really got me down, i can't continue it. Do other parents do this? I don't think so. How can I stop?. Sorry for the wall of writing.
Thanks if you've read this far.
Aibu for traffic.

You just need to be firm with yourself. Nothing else to it. Warn him that you're not going to do it anymore, and then don't.

Let him make his own mistakes. He may surprise you and not make any. Even if he does, being late once or twice before he learns won't ruin his life. It'll be okay.

You need to rephrase it in your mind.

You aren’t helping him, you’re stunting him. It is highly likely that he will be late, he may even lose a job because of it. These are natural consequences that he needs to experience and feel so that he can alter his own behaviour. He will never grow or learn if you keep stepping in and coddling him.

I have to do this with my DD15 but she has ADHD so no sense of time at all. It's draining.

Yes make sure you have warned him that you are really going to try not to cajole him from now on.

Can you go out for an hour's walk or something during that horrible period? Then you can hopefully get into a new rythymn and relax in time.

Also, I am that sure that if your son is ever late, the embarrassment at work may encourage him to start getting the earlier bus. And if not, then it's on him. It's not for you to fix anymore.

Well, you just...stop. You wake up and you stay in bed and don't leave the room. You sit in your room being very very uncomfortable. Then you will learn that the world doesn't end and the next day it will be easier to do the same.

You aren't helping him.

Potentially look into alarm clocks with a vibration mat if he sleeps through the noise but that's it.

He needs to learn about consequences, if he misses his bus or is late for another reason he loses his job and has no money. In that scenario you only give him money related to finding another job - travelling to interviews etc.

Or, he finds a job without a set start time. They exist I work fully Flexi and can start work anytime as long as I fit work meetings in and do my hours at some point between 7am and 7pm. I'm someone who is always late for everything, it's not on purpose but I find mornings really difficult and much more of a night owl. This works way better for me.

I can almost guarantee you've learnt some of your best life lessons by messing up from time to time. You feel like you're helping, but actually you are taking his opportunities to learn.

Would it help if you were out of the house for a few days to see him rely on himself? Go stay with a friend, go on a romantic mini break, just do some thing to break the cycle.

I agree with all of the above.

I would add that I personally find getting up and to a place absolutely tortuous in the morning, and I have somehow managed to structure my life so that I don't have to do this very often (despite having a well-paid and responsible job). Your son will have to make some mistakes and sort out for himself what he can manage and how he wants to live.

So if you drop down dead tomorrow, your son will never get to work on time?
He is old enough to hold down a job, a job he wants and sees as a progression to what he wants to achieve for himself.
You are making this problem, you are the problem!
Are you as controlling in other aspects of his life?
Good idea has already been suggested.. wake up, go for a walk, leave the poor guy alone... if he sleeps in, misses the bus, is late for work ... that is all on him.
Show him some respect... he is an adult now.

He’s not sleeping properly and waking up exhausted. Sometimes this can be down to stress, sometimes inflammation. See what you can do to improve their sleep quality

Thank you for all the great, totally sensible advice. It's like a compulsion after doing it for 7 years. Ds goes off to work and it's all forgotten until the next time. It's like another poster said, i know the world won't end if he's late but I've never allowed it to happen. Pathetically, it's a scary thought
@Catza that's exactly how it would feel - very, very uncomfortable. It's at the point now where i set my alarm to wake myself to wake ds. Going out is a suggestion i have considered but i don't really want to be walking the streets on a dark, winter morning and it sort of defeats the object. We went away a few weeks ago and he had a seasonal job at the time and i was still doing one phone call per morning. He told me not to. He was invariably up or getting up and managed to get himself to work on time then.
I'm going to address seriously it with him after work. I sound mad to myself.

Unless he's otherwise incompetent, he's unlikely to get sacked if he's late for work once or twice so just leave him to it. Let him learn how to get out of bed on time by himself. He's not planning to stay at home forever so his mum can get him up on time is he?

If he does go into work late, his boss is likely to have a word and then he might realise he needs to make the effort and get up and out on time. Or he could show himself up as being immature and 'not ready for the workplace' if he tries to excuse his lateness because 'mum didn't get me up'.

I have had similar with my 17yo DS. It is so hard for me to let him fail, but I know it is the only way he will learn. As it is, after I told him I would no longer be waking him, he just got on with it and was fine. I think he just always knew I would do it, so didn't bother to organise himself to wake.

I'm going to address seriously it with him after work.

I don't see what it is you need to address with him, OP. He is doing fine. He was getting up for work when you were not there. There is nothing to address with him, seriously or otherwise. You need to address it with yourself. If you really think you cannot cope with the distress of not doing it, then it is almost an OCD territory and you might need to have a word with your GP or even to look up some distress tolerance techniques online. Your son can't do anything to help you. Only you can.

OP, do you work? If so, are you able to change your hours so that you have to start earlier and therefore can’t be around to wake your DS?

If not, can you find a gym / exercise class you could do at that time of the morning so that you’re out of the house and too busy to phone him. Or go and do your weekly shop during that time.

You really do need to let him make mistakes and learn from them. As it stands you haven’t really given him any opportunity to show you that he can actually get himself ready in time.

@Bjorkdidit You're right. That's the thing though, he's very competent and mature otherwise. He's taking an unofficial gap year to see if his passion project takes off and I often think if he was at Uni, i wouldn't actually know any different. As @Catza says, it's actually a me issue. I see that with the advice on here more than ever now. I seriously need to stop it. Dh is worse than me for being punctual, he absolutely hates being late and will go extra early to avoid that but he has made the conscious decision to switch off from worrying about ds and his timekeeping for his own sanity. I need to do the same. Ds isn't going to change his getting up habits due to me nagging him so it's pointless. Oh, for the days when he would come into our room at 5 or 6am , ready to start the day!

I used to be in a similar situation with anxiety around my daughter getting ready for school. In the end, I had to completely remove myself from the situation and leave the house to avoid it. I started going to work early.

Leave him to it. Let him know that as from Monday, you will bring him a cup of tea and that will be it. That way you won't feel that you have entirely abandoned him.

Then go and do something yourself - walk the dog, take the car to fill up with fuel, go to work early, do the supermarket shop, whatever.

One of my DC was like this, and so was a friend's kid. Both have them have now moved out and are holding down jobs. He'll get there. I'd say don't stress, but I know from my own experience of biting back 'you're going to miss your bloody bus!' that it's impossible not to.

I think I'd probably say 'from next week I won't be walking you/pressuring you etc on a morning so please be sure you have alarms set and get yourself to work on time'

Then do it! Sometimes people have to fail and work it out themselves before they do anything about it!

Thanks so much for for all the good advice. Mn at it's best! I am going to try really, really hard to take it all on board.

He is an adult, albeit a young one and he should be left to face the natural consequences of not doing the things he should be doing ie not getting himself up for work on time. For most of us, as adults, frequently being late would result in disciplinary action and/or the loss of our job.

If he wants to keep the job, then he should make the effort to ensure he gets up in time. That is not your responsibility and I'd leave him to it. He may well learn a harsh lesson but it's one he needs to learn.

Go and stay with someone else for a week?

an hour before he's due to leave and cajole and encourage him to get up, which he will eventually do, without fail but but with minutes to spare

Just drop the rope.

Why are you putting yourself through this. Whatever the reason, you are not making the difference you think you are making and you may be keeping your child dependent on you beyond the age when this is inevitable, even reasonable.

Drop the rope and don't fix any consequences.

Yes stop! I had this issue with both my boys. I decided to stop calling my eldest when he was about 16 and I think he was late once, they learn quickly when they need to! My youngest is 13 and sometimes I call him once and that's it, he may get out the door with seconds to spare but if he's late it's on him. It really is the only way they learn.

Why are you doing this?

That is not a rhetorical question. You are getting some 'payback' from your behaviour, or you wouldn't be doing it. There is a deep reason why you feel a compulsion to keep doing this.
You need to uncover the reason.

Is it because having to get him up keeps you in the role of 'Mum', so keeps him your little boy? And you don't want him to be an adult?

Is it because you will feel judged when he fails, feel inadequate as a mother, so you never let that happen so you can be a 'good' mum?

Is it because you have adopted DH terror of being late, and you are extending this to DS? So these feelings start in your relationship with DH?

Whatever the reason, it will be very, very hard to "just stop" unless you understand your own motivations.