My 17yo son doesn’t tell me ANYTHING.

[Mumofpedwar]

My son is very private, well, maybe more secretive. He has told me that what he does is ‘none of my concern’ and that I should assume he is fine unless he tells me otherwise. I am not over the moon with this. He is quite young minded for his age but is convinced he knows everything that he needs to know. I know this is likely to be common teenage problem but I didn’t experience this with my two older children, both girls, and not sure how to deal with it now. I am also worried that his secretive behaviour is rubbing off on my younger 16yo. Hopefully someone out there will understand - I am tearing my hair out with him!!!

My parents has this issue with my brother, he was (and still is) very self reliant and often struggles to open up. The issue was that our parents, but especially our mum used to try to interrogate him, which made him close himself off even more. Different children communicate different amounts and in different ways but pushing him to communicate how you want will likely only push him away.

My advice would be to let him communicate on his terms because it will change as he matures, interrogating him will only likely delay that process.