What to do with teen ds

[JackiesBeaver]

Ds13 has previous for not listening and just doing what he wants even when dangerous meaning we worry when he goes out.

He doesn't tend to make good decisions and its very hard to trust him as it doesn't matter what the rules or risks are whether at school or home he will just do whatever he can to twist the rule to fit what he wants.

We've ended up in a and e on more than one occasion where he's decided to jump off the top of the basket ball hoops, I've caught him dancing in the middle of the road on the busy school run, climbing onto the roof at school to retrieve balls etc and the list goes on and on.

It means we worry a lot but we try and give him the space to learn his lessons as we know there's a chicken and egg situation here where if we don't let him he will never learn to be street wise and make safer decisions etc so we've always tried to let him go as long as we think it's safe and ask him to call us to ask if he wants to do something else.

all we want is to know where he is and agree with him where those places are and what time he will be back.

Today he went to park with his mates, he wanted to get lunch from the chippy so all was agreed before he went that he could go to the park, shop and chippy. He also asked if he could hang around on the village green and we said yes.

We picked dd12 up from park and DS is nowhere to be seen and dd hasn't seen him for an hour. Turns out he's walked to another shop (not the one agreed) about 20 minutes away from the park in the opposite direction of where we said he could be. He's also visited a mates house in this time. We're just at a loss really now about what to do because his excuse as always is 'I thought it would be ok'

And here lies the issue... unless we say don't visit this particular shop in Timbuktu, or that exact Macdonalds in Miami or the tip of Mount Everest he will assume, and use as his excuse, that it would be fine by us. Even though we said shop, chippy, green and park... they're all relatively close and we would know where he was and find him if we need to

We've tried consequences, positive praise, taking away privileges, chores and stopping him going out, talking, explaining etc but this never gets better

Please help and advise what we can do. We don't even feel like there's a point issuing any consequences anymore... it just feels pointless but we're obviously worrying about him and with two other kids in tow we obviously want to know where everyone is so we can't just give up.

Does it matter if you don't know where he is for an hour or if he walks to a different shop? He's 13 not 6. At that age I would have been out who knows where, in the woods somewhere within 5 miles or so of home. If I didn't return for dinner my mother would have started worrying but otherwise not so much. I would have agreed/let her know before travelling to a different town but otherwise I would just be 'out'.

I might be making false assumptions but what I read between the lines of your post is that you sound a bit suffocating and rather than pick an argument with you he just says what you want to hear and ignores you. If he hears a constant background noise of you checking up on him and telling him what to do when it doesn't matter he will just filter you out entirely and miss the moments when it actually matters. I would favor an approach with much greater freedom but also clearly defined boundaries with meaningful and unavoidable consequences.

Also climbing on roofs and ending up in A&E occasionally is normal, just a part of growing up.