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Child mental health

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DS couldn’t give a s***

5 replies

scotchpotch · 26/08/2025 10:19

Hoping someone can shed some light on why! He’s 11 and about to go to secondary school. No history of MH issues and he’s neurotypical with a good friendship group. He’s reached a really irritating stage of disorganisation and I’m not sure how typical this is. He’s always been a bit chaotic and needs chivvying along on a morning especially but more recently, he’s started losing things because his bag/room is a shit tip and often his high value possessions end up getting broken (tablet screen cracked twice because he stood on it when it was under a pile of dirty washing, he’s lost Amazon gift cards, his glasses, contact lenses, broken his watch etc). If I remind him to do anything I get screamed at/attitude/door slammed. Consequences are given for the shouting/attitude (tech taken away etc), he apologises and we always talk things through afterwards but the pattern keeps on repeating itself. Is this standard normal pre-teen hormonal behaviour?? He does tidy his room occasionally but the next day it’s back to square one! He doesn’t seem to care if he’s broken things, it’s a shrug and an ‘oh well…’

OP posts:
YonderBoat · 26/08/2025 10:25

As hard as this is to deal with I think it’s fairly normal of a pre teen boy. My son is 12 and whilst he’s not like this, he also hasn’t hit puberty yet, so he may very well

Tillow4ever · 26/08/2025 10:29

Definitely normal, but I would review the consequences. Who paid for the screen to be repaired and how soon afterwards? Once, I would have forgiven but twice is unacceptable. If he’s not having to lose the tablet and pay for the repair, what incentive is there to look after it? My 3 teenage boys are messy, but we’ve never had things broken because of it….

Octavia64 · 26/08/2025 10:39

Yes.

Sorry

scotchpotch · 26/08/2025 10:53

Thank you all. He saved his pocket money up for 3 weeks to repair the screen the second time - the first time I paid for it to be repaired as I chalked it down to clumsiness. He just doesn’t seem to value his valuables, if that makes sense?

OP posts:
scotchpotch · 26/08/2025 10:54

YonderBoat · 26/08/2025 10:25

As hard as this is to deal with I think it’s fairly normal of a pre teen boy. My son is 12 and whilst he’s not like this, he also hasn’t hit puberty yet, so he may very well

DS is very tall and does seem to be developing on the early side. He’s 12 in less than a month. Argh!!

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