Friend’s feral teenage son

[Vanishedwillow]

This, basically. My friend’s teenage son (15) is awful to her. He hits her, calls her every swear word you can imagine, says she should have been drowned at birth and worse. He comes from a loving, two parent family home and is just as bad to his dad. He has chased her around the house with a knife and I’m worried she’ll end up dead. The problem is, she’s never given him boundaries and even now, today, after being kicked out of school for bad behaviour, she’s giving him a lift! I keep saying he needs consequences but she just says there’s no point, it never makes any difference. I’m so frustrated with her!

This isn’t normal
brhaviour for a teenage boy.

It sounds like ASD or ADHD.

Sounds like she needs help. I would be meeting with the school and asking for referrals to outside agencies.

However if she doesn't see a problem then there's not a lot that can be done... it could be a head in sand/my child is perfect response or a scared response of how he may retaliate when he finds out she is sharing and seeking support.

But mum and dad can't do this alone.

Why are you mad at her i don't think this level of behaviour has anything to do with parenting, something else is going on she needs to go to her GP and they will be able to help them both

You can lead a horse to water, OP.

Until she stands up and acts like a parent (which will probably involve calling the police on her delinquent), she’ll go through this. You’re right, he might kill one day. Who knows.

As usual it’s being assumed it’s because of autism or ADHD. I do wonder if these instant assumptions on MN offend people with those conditions who aren’t violent, nasty bastards.

Does it?!

Awaiting a “his frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until he’s 25” post. It will be here shortly.

Yeh not every kid who is badly behaved is SEND. Sometime it can be parents who don't teach accountability, responsibility, boundaries, natural consequences, etc. Despite being in a two parent home it doesn't mean these things don't exist either...

Why is ND the default reason?

It sounds like a young man who’s not been parented effectively or given appropriate boundaries.

Nothing will change if they don’t seek help, but it could be too late by now unfortunately

Or he's just a nasty little shit who was raised by weak, useless parents who never said no.
Do you always excuse male violence with a diagnosis?

My ex boyfriend’s 2 brothers were like this. They were un medicated diagnosed ADHD. I lived in the house for 2 years and their mother thought the light shined out of their arse but they were awful boys. Aside from the adhd they was insufferable and rude. One tried to kill his dad once with a knife and slit his arm open where he tried to protect himself, one had his (ex) gf up against a wall by the throat once and when I ran to get him off he grabbed me and locked me outside. He stole my (ex) boyfriends car in the middle of the night and took it on a joy ride.. their mother looks 20 years older than she is because of the stress and she has a daughter who’s now 18 who’s the same. She doesn’t want to medicate them. Not sure what they’re up to now as been split up for 3 years altho I see one of the brothers working with his dad (building business) which is nice!

I have a sister with adhd and autism (medicated) so I know what’s it’s like but this behaviour is completely unacceptable

It definitely isn't normal behaviour, but it also definitely doesn't sound like ADHD or ASD in any way. If you really want to give it a label from OP's very brief snapshot, it sounds far more like sociopathy or perhaps extreme ODD.

I wish people would stop doing this!!

What a stupid and actually disgusting thing to say.

My ASD son went a bit feral at that age - but nothing like this!!

ND might sometimes be an explanation for behaviour that differs from the expected, but it's not an excuse for behaviour that is blatantly inappropriate and dangerous to others. The mum needs to be calling the police the next time he does anything threatening.

Sounds exactly like it could be ADHD to me - this sort of impulsive, reckless, dangerous behaviour is why 1 in 4 men in prison are thought to have ADHD in comparison to 2.5% of the general population.

I have one with ASD and nothing here suggests ASD - but this is the tiniest of snapshots that we've got here. The mum says they've tried boundaries and they don't work, school will have had boundaries and they obviously haven't worked there either - in a loving family where the parents are around and care about the kid the kids don't tend to grow up to be like this IME. The might get up to some silly things but unless there are drugs involved or something else awful going on, I would say this goes way beyond normal teenage behaviour caused by not enough consequences/punishments when they were young.

I don’t understand why people get upset with the ND suggestion.
that’s all it is, a suggestion, and perfectly plausible here given the fact the op has detailed that he doesn’t respond to consequences. children with either ODD or PDA (highly linked to ND) don’t.
another, entirely plausible suggestion is that the lack of parenting has resulted in this.
it’s one or the other, but I really don’t understand why no one is allowed to suggest ND.
i will qualify this by saying I have one NT child who is so so easy to parent, I ask her to do something, she does it, I give her consequences she doesn’t do it again. And I have one ND child who is not easy, if I asked her to do something she wouldn’t do it, and if I gave her consequences, she couldn’t care less. There would be no value in my doing either of those things.

I agree with the first sentence. Is isn’t normal.
However, it isn’t ASD or ADHD either!

Gah - stop with the leap to ND.

There isn't really any point at this stage.

Sorry, violent behaviour = ADHD?! For fucks sake. I think the problem with automatically trying to stick an acronym on everything is that A. Noone here can actually diagnose him, and B. Boones actually offering any help, just useless labels?

How does your friend feel? Is she actively frightened of him? I don't know how much you can help unless she's willing, but keep reinforcing to her that if he is violent she is entitled to call the police. Has she made any steps towards CAHMS referrals or the community mental health team?

Well it's true, isn't it? The issue here is that the Son sounds totally out of control. The Police should have been called when he ran around the house, after his Mother with a knife!

You can make a referral to adult social services on her behalf. Say you are worried about a vulnerable adult who is being regularly assaulted in her home. It can trigger some early help intervention for the family.

Encourage her to report the behaviour to the police. His possible arrest could trigger compulsory counselling for him. Tell her that families often have to reach crisis point before over-stretched support services are able to help.

I have a friend and a relative who both have similar presenting boys. Both eventually called the police in the end and were well supported. The younger boy (KS3) was read the absolute riot act in an interview room with two police officers and a social worker. Police made it explicitly clear that further behaviour of this sort will lead to charges. The other (6th form) got the counselling as part of his bail conditions.

And yet society lets people younger get married, vote, have sex, drink alcohol. The age 25 thing has been rubbished many times.

Yep - she needs to call them every time, get him arrested every time. Let the little shit see how brave he is when he’s in a cell all by himself.

Sorry.but your friend didn't want to parent her child, never said no, never stopped anything from the sounds of it...what does she expect a saint?

Kids need structure and boundaries. Our evolution and survival depended on firm teaching, repetitive and copying behaviour of elders. Removing These cannot be good

Your friend is unlikely to do anything to make things any worse, she is being abused. This is domestic violence. In your place I would call adult social services for advice and the police. You can be anonymous. I couldn’t leave anyone in such danger.