Don’t know how to deal with this self sabotage from 12 year old

[Blueeyedstork]

My son is 12
in most ways he is a great son, doing well at school, lots of friends, good relationship with us, healthy, happy etc

and then comes the self sabotage, I don’t know what other way to describe it
ever since the age of about 7 he will be asked if he wants to do a certain thing like go to the park, go on a footy game. He will say yes and then just before we are about to get ready he says no.

He then waits for the last possible minute and suddenly says he wants to again. This end in tears and screaming that he always wanted to do it. We have always stood firm and said not it’s to late and managed the fall out and out consequences in place such as taking away screen time etc. anyway this seemed to stop about a year ago.

Before Christmas a change came up for some extra coaching in his sport that he does with a pro team. You go along to the session and if you think you are good enough you get picked to do a longer course. So we signed him up- all ok.

A Week ago he said he does not want to do it anymore, we try a bit to talk him round but he is adimate he does not want to go (we are not paying any money for this). Anyway yesterday he suddenly said he wanted to do it so we said ok as we really think it will do him good.

this morning DH goes into his room to get him up and DS says no he is too tired. 20 minutes later DH went in again and said last chance as we will need to set off in 10 minutes. This was 8.15 and the course started at 9am. DS again says he did not want to go.

anyway 45 minutes later DS comes running in the room dressed saying he is ready to go. I say it’s too late it will have already started. Cue total meltdown, screaming it’s our fault and we did not give him chance to get up- etc etc etc. shouting that he hates us and we have ruined his chance. No reasoning with him what so ever. He picked up a pile of clothes and threw them so the PlayStation has now gone for a week.

I just don’t know what to do, this is the only thing we have major issues with. I don’t know why he does it as he obviously wants to do the activity or outing. I have no idea what is going on in his head.

anyone else experienced this and any tips

Sounds like a difficulty with either anxiety or executive function.

I have a dd who struggles to get going - I don't allow a change of mind about going when I can see the issue is difficulty getting up. I offer something to get her dopamine going (snack, drink etc) and say she can only quit after an activity, not directly before going, because then I think it's more likely to be due to not enjoying it.

I think this isn't a behaviour to punish because a child can't help having this difficulty.

This.

I had to do similar with my DD and sport (although a bit younger - age 8 or 9). She loved it but was so nervous to make a mistake she panicked before the day of a game. We used to go along and sometimes she would be too frozen in anxiety to take part. But she insisted she wanted to and loves the sport.

I talked to her on a non game day, to make sure she really wanted to be in the team and she absolutely did.

She would often work up the courage to join in only a few minutes before the event finished and then would be devastated that she didn't join in at the start.

I had to just keep saying "ok we will get ready and go there, as you really want to go and then you can join in when you are ready". She eventually believed me and kind of sussed out herself, that if she joined in at the start, she could always stop if she was struggling. However, if she didn't she would always miss a lot of it.

She has been ok since then, thankfully and it has been great to see her confidence improving. She is also more aware of her own propensity to over-think things and will talk to us about it.

She does have a sibling with Autism and a parent with ADHD so there is a good chance that her head is buzzing with thoughts tbh, but she is managing ok at the moment. Hope your DS can work through it. :)

I don't really have advice but I was exactly the same. I would panic, refuse to go to places and then my mum still would make me which caused me to cry. I usually enjoyed it after but I am diagnosed with major depressive disorder & anxiety now. It sounds like anxiety to me.

The consequence is missing the activity, so you don’t need to double down by removing an arbitrary device.

@Jumimo

How he is being a spilt brat when it's he who wants to do somerhng then panics and can't.

@Hotdoughnut what sort of counselling ?

I meant CBT for anxiety

We have always stood firm and said no it’s too late

He's not doing it just to be difficult. There's something behind it that he's struggling with. I'd be inclined to try being flexible and just go with it rather than standing firm and punishing him. He might feel less anxious about doing things if he knows there's flexibility and he has some control over it. If he misses out on things there are natural consequences. You don't need to impose consequences.

It sounds like anxiety. Deep down he wants to do these activities but anxiety is causing him to act this way.

Don’t be ridiculous. Even adults get anxious about social events, doing new things and going new places.

Exactly. And as I said above, not all anxiety is ND.

No it’s not, but I was responding to the second part of your comment where you said he sounds like a brat.

I was exactly like this at his age. Would say I didn’t want to do something when really I did. I grew out of it, no ND.

Oooh I did this when I was young! I had emetophobia but I couldn't describe it. I bailed on everything at the last moment then got really upset when it happened without me.

Tell him a start time for every activity as 1 hour earlier.

He can then rush in and he’s still got time to get to wherever he needs to go and will be none the wiser that you’ve accommodated his ‘strange’ habits (which I’m guessing won’t last forever).

My daughter went through a stage of doing this, she was quite a confident child - but when she got to around 8 she would say she wanted to do something then when we got there she wouldn’t get out of the car , she once ran from the front door of her best friends house when going to her birthday party, and that’s when I realised it could be anxiety, so I became quite flexible if she changed her mind etc. She is a teen now and no longer has this issue.