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!

I’m sorry you had to go through that 😞
The dad in this case is not abusive, I know him well and he’s every bit as passive as her, if not worse.

Their is no medication for autism

She has told him over and over again how much she loves him and cares about him. She does literally everything for him. If consequences (like not giving lifts and money every time he asks) don’t work for kids like this, what the hell does she do?

So how do you suggest she parents him? I’m just suggesting she stops the lifts and money and bending over backwards for him if he can’t show her the tiniest bit of respect. Surely even a ND child would understand that?

My brother was like this and he is AuDHD

Given your updates, OP, this sounds like a mixture of passive, weak parenting where he has called the shots his entire life while your friend lives her life to serve him, and him just being a bad arsehole who’s severely lacking in any decency. Put those two together, and you get him.

Has he always been like this, even as a young boy?

First post?

ADHD. Must be. Only explanation.

Not bad parenting, oh no.

Not always the parents. My sister had a friend, her brother was bad news. Parents were lovely. Sister’s friend was so nice. But he made their lives hell. He’s still the same now…

I’m not saying he definitely is Nd, just that this sort of behaviour is very much a marker for it. Autism can’t be an excuse, I spent years enforcing that he couldn’t just impact and damage other people because DS felt the need to express himself through violence. It is bloody hard work, but for us it worked, and my son was very extreme. It may well be that your friends son is consciously deciding to be a terrible human being, you know better than us the bigger picture. I suppose I was never passive, i did everything I could to change things. However it is very soul destroying

Since when chasing somebody with a knife constitutes autism or ADHD?! What is the matter with you?

It doesn't at all. 2 of our DC are autistic, one is gentle and quiet, the other has extreme meltdowns when overwhelmed or when there is a change of routine.

This worsened entering teen years. He's not a violent nasty person, he's very loving and feels awful after, but it's not uncommon for children and teens who are autistic to struggle regulating themselves and to go into fight or flight mode.

It's also not common for a child without any additional needs and from a loving family to have extreme outbursts at that age. Questioning whether ND is the cause can allow people to narrow down the triggers and find better coping mechanisms for keeping in control of themselves.

Someone else replied to my query saying it did offend them that these diagnoses were suggested. Each to their own I guess.

My child has a diagnosis of both. You're so bloody wrong.

How do you know she’s never parented him? When kids get to teenage years all bets are off and literally’ you can’t make me’ means that. I remember on mn someone saying they had a depressed school avoider for nearly a year and on mn someone said it was disgraceful they didn’t step up and make him go in. I said ‘five year old you can march in, 16yo he says no then that’s it’. She could be exhausted from him, not great but I had a few months of nothing going right with a teenager and I’ll tell you boundaries, threats, discussions, cajoling - blank wall.

I know lots of children with ADHD and ASD, including my own son, and none of them behave like this.

This sounds like a lethal combination of a child with MH issues and an indulgent weak parent. It's more likely any type of parent would have struggled with this kid but she has let him down by not setting boundaries when he was young and now neither of them can cope. He needs urgent help. I hope they both get it.

My son couldn’t fit in to the expectations of school, he now has a first class degree and starts his masters in September

he used to threaten to put pencils in the eyes of children who looked at him, he now manages a bar in Liverpool and has to perform in front of so many people
he channels aggression in to MMA training and matches
he used to hide under his bed/ desk/ refuse to take his hood off at school, he now sings and plays guitar in an indie band, he is exceptionally talented

he doesn’t naturally have social skills. He’s learnt how to do what is expected, shake hands, look people in the eye. He actively avoids situations that trigger him

hard hard work, but im so glad i fought, your friend needs to at least try

What is it with people rushing to make excuses? Oh he must be ND… What utter bollocks! It’s far more likely to be shit parenting, lack of boundaries or just the fact that he’s an entitled little shit! I knew someone with a son just like this, she made every excuse under the sun for his behaviour! I read recently that he’s in prison for absolutely awful crimes! People don’t just become evil bastards the minute they hit 18! There are usually signs well before.
For those saying it must be ADHD, are you seriously suggesting that makes it excusable to chase your mother around the house with a fucking knife??

How do you know. This thread is wild
us parents of ND children have lived this. We know what the reality is, and for me extreme acts of violence were common. I’m not suggesting this boy is ND, but you are very wrong saying this isn’t autistic behaviour, it is

Sociopathy and psychopathy can present like this, he urgently needs an assessment.

I have an autistic daughter and I don’t think you can say from a few examples that the boy is or isn’t autistic. What if he is a sociopath instead or has borderline personality disorder or is bipolar? Insane to be diagnosing someone like this.

The child can’t be officially diagnosed until the age of eighteen, but he can certainly assess mental health services in the meantime.

im not diagnosing and i am not using autism as an excuse to not parent
but people judging and saying autistic children never behave like this and its just bad parenting are very wrong

Lots of autistic people don’t behave like this, and some NT people do behave like this. The point being it’s impossible to say whether his behaviour is down to autism/ADHD.