My son is scruffy and i don't care

[EwwwwwwDavid]

But my husband does.

My son (11) comes home from high school with muddy shoes, muddy trousers, and today came home with a cut in his jumper. He comes home each day having drawn over his hands and arms, which sometimes creates ink stains on his shirts.

I'm fed up of replacing shirts - they are clean, just stained.
He has cut a slit into his trousers out of boredom.
He cut his jumper intentionally, don't know why.

He isn't a bad kid at all, it's not naughtiness, it could be inattentive ADHD but if it is it's mild.

None of this really bothers me in the sense that he has clean clothes every day, goes to school relatively well-kept, and I believe it's all part of the high school transition.

But I don't want to clean his shoes for him.
I don't want to keep replacing clothes, especially logoed items.
I don't want to keep mending clothes he intentionally damages.
I'm happy to let him go in clean but scruffy - and ALL the lads he is friendly with come out of school an absolute mess.

My husband strongly disagrees and thinks I should do the above. He has said he will do the mending if I won't (he can't sew). He thinks the teachers will judge DS and people will "think we are poor" (like thats an insult 🙄).

But I've never cared much about appearance so maybe IABU.

Would appreciate thoughts.

He can have adhd and learn not to wreck his clothes.

if he i so keen on cutting holes in his clothes, teach him how to sew and darn.
or find a local repair shop and he pays for repairs to clothes from his pocket money.

It's been two cuts since Sept, it's not endemic

The ink and stains and scruffiness is

My youngest (13) is a scruff, always comes home from school like a scruff, needs new trainers every two months and his white shirts are awful, full of ink around the cuffs that no amount of washing gets out. I've learnt to live with it, he'll grow out of the drawing on his hands eventually 🙄 he's a bright kid but I do suspect adhd and suspect he gets bored in lessons. He's clean, showers every night and walks around in a cloud of Lynx just looks a scruff 🙄😂

Let your husband mend the clothes. It is important to him.

But you (both) need to tackle the deli erase (or mindless) destructiveness, the writing on his arms, etc.

What is going on inside your child's head?

Deli erase = deliberate.

Wtaf autocorrect.

I tend to think like your husband but I also tend to be someone who cares about appearances, for better or worse.

Well I would be telling him off for cutting his clothes and handing him the sewing box so ds can mend his own clothes. Then he will not grow up like your dh and expect woman to do it.
Id be pissed if dd cut up her uniform.

It might be adhd but he should still learn to sew...important life skill right there!

Your bar is literally so low for him. Yes he has to shower now, yes he also needs to do homework daily, yes he has to make his bed" like its already too much for him? He's 11 and in secondary school!

I'd be pissed off too and your DH is fully right IMO because taking care of yourself and your appearance is important in life, especially for places like school - which is a the closest thing to a formal situation for kids. Get him to clean his bloody shoes, I would 100% not be touching them. Tell him to stop drawing on his clothes and ripping them on purpose!? Because he's bored? Sorry, is he a puppy? Would he do that to his weekend clothes!?

My DS has been cleaning his shoes since year 3, because he would intentionally come running out of school and despite warnings, would run all over the mud pit bank with his mate. So the natural consequence is cleaning up after himself.

If your DS is 11 and he cant take a cloth and spray and give his shoes a once over, because he's already so overwhelmed by making his bed, showering and doing some homework then I really don't know...

Muddy shoes and clothes are not important - boys often get muddy. But he can clean his shoes himself.
Drawing on his hands and arms is very irritating and looks ridiculous. Tell him to doodle on scrap paper instead.
Deliberately cutting his clothes is totally out of the norm and completely unacceptable, ND / ADHD or not. If he needs counselling or help with MH, get it for him. If not, I'd tell him if he does it again I’ll use his pocket money, sell his possessions e.g. X-box, to buy new ones.

Try caring more.

I wouldn’t be happy with him purposely damaging clothes in year 7. I’d get him to clean his own shoes every night (stains are fine if they need to go through the wash on the weekend) but he needs to get the mud off. I would tell him once his clothes reach a certain point of scruffiness he has to replace them with his pocket money.

Ive given up on my reception aged child’s uniform as it keeps coming home covered in paint. It’s always cleaned but is stained. I would not expect this from a year 7 though.

Adhd means you have to be stricter on certain things not more lax! I guess it’s a matter of you picking your battles but I never let my asd/adhd son go around like that and when he’s lost his stuff (obviously used to happen a lot) I’d replace it from the school jumble sale. Or I’d make him buy a new one from his own money. He soon learnt.

Cutting your stuff cos you’re bored makes me chuckle because that’s exactly what my son was like too, but nonetheless it still got exchanged.

Kids get mucky, but clothing washes, there needs to be consequences for deliberately damaging his uniform. What else does he damage 'impulsively', he needs support to control these impulses. I work in criminal justice and over the years a kid if the offenders I worked with score highly in terms of impulsivity, he needs tools to manage himself, where is he getting that kind of support? Also why is he wearing fabric shoes to school? Leather or the vegan alternative is much easier to wipe clean. Something he can do when he gets in.

You don't think that ink stains and rips won't be judged by his peers and others? It won't be you the kids are judging ( altho other paren't may).
Mud and untidiness yes, esp at end of school day. Everything else, no.

Your teaching your son it’s ok to not take care of his property. It may take longer for him to understand the need to take care of things but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

he needs to start being supported to take responsibility.

you are letting him be disrespectful. Good money has been spent on things he is being allowed to ruin.

Can't see any reason why you wouldn't let DH try and repair the damaged clothes - so what it if looks worse (you don't care about appearances remember), it will last longer than it will with a small hole that catches or gets fiddled with until it is a big hole.

I'm actually with your husband up to a point. Unless someone comes up and feels a stain they can't tell if it is old but cleaned or fresh/unwashed. Children looking dirty and unkempt is a key sign of neglect. My DP gets so vexed when the kids come home with dirty clothes after one day at school because he does the laundry, and would prefer they use a jumper again even if it is a bit dirty - I won't have that as I won't have people thinking they're not cared for. And if something has a few ink spots, all well and good; but big obvious stains it's going in the fabric recycle bins, because again you can't tell without investigating closely if it's a clean stain or a dirty mark.

I don't much care about appearances as far as it goes with me; but how my kids turn out is indicative of my care for them. So they have to look like someone cares if they have holes in their clothes or are dirty.

Not least because neglected children are a magnet for abusers as they think no-one will notice or care.

My son kept coming home with permanent marker on his uniform, some accidental some intentional. I’ve explained to him why this is not okay and said I don’t want to see any more of it. The odd bit still appears but it has slowed down a lot.

He’s in reception! Parent your child!

At 11 he is old enough to clean his own shoes. I would just make sure he has alternating pairs, so one pair can dry while he makes the other pair dirty.

He is also old enough to start learning how to do laundry and how to sow. I think you son might learn to take more care of his clothes if he also has to put in the time to repair the damage, so to speak.

Yeah I wouldn't care about this.

In a couple of years he'll discover girls and move into I have shower every five minutes and have expensive perfume and clothes that nobody but me touches mode.

In the meantime I'd let your DH fix his clothes. It'll keep him happy.

He has cut a slit into his trousers out of boredom.
He cut his jumper intentionally, don't know why.

I'd go through him like a ton of bricks whether I was his mother or father. This is disgusting and disrespectful behaviour.

My son still comes covered in mud and he's 14! It washes out but I would be pretty annoyed if he was intentionally damaging his uniform with scissors. I would be getting him to replace the uniform with pocket money or removing a privilege as a punishment.
The odd accident fair enough but doing it on purpose isn't on. Does he do it to non uniform clothes?

I have a dyspraxic teenager, so neatness is not his forte, and I don't sweat the small stuff.
He wears short sleeves, partly he prefers them anyway, but also no wrist cuffs to go manky. His 11-12 shirts managed 2 years of use and are now being worn by his brother.

He went through a chewing through clothes phase when he was 6 (pre-diagnoses) and he was told off for that, because it was damaging items that cost money and resources to replace.

In an 11yo, I would be making him give up half an hour of his time to learn to sew and repair his clothes, especially for non-accidental damage.

Doodling on himself is his own issue. It's temporary and washes off.

If he's got a need to fidget (and poor impulse control) strong enough to damage his clothes, I'd be having conversations with the SENCO about next steps

So what's your able bodied 11 year old learning from anyone other than him repairing his clothes and cleaning his footwear? Why would anyone other than him be dealing with it?

Are you still doing his washing and tidying his room? Because if you are the window you have left to each him some life skills is diminishing rapidly. Don't bring him up to be a useless partner.