DS 14 struggling, advice needed

[Rebaxis]

I don't know which section to post in, sorry if it shouldn't be here.
I am really, really struggling to parent my DS and I don't know what to do.
He is 14, no diagnosis of anything.

• He struggles with time management.
• He cannot get out of the house on time, no matter how far in advance I tell him what time we need to leave and what time he needs to be ready by, he simply can't do it. I've actually got really, badly cross with him on several occasions when he has made us super late for important events that started at a set time, either social things like theatre performances or medical appointments, where it took me an hour of non stop directly telling him to hurry up and get ready to go, gave him clear instructions of what time we needed to leave, and had been telling him for days what time we would need to leave so as to prepare him. Reminders before bed. Reminders in the morning. Yet still when it comes to it, he just cannot get himself ready and out of the house at the time I've told him we have to leave by. He's 5ft9 and taller than me, so I can't get him ready in the way I used to when he was little. Sometimes I'm going out of my mind when it is time to leave to go somewhere that I've clearly told him for hours beforehand what time we need to leave by. It is causing so many problems and I'm afraid to say I do get really cross with him when it's gone past the time we should have left by and he's still nowhere near ready to leave.
• School mornings are a nightmare. He knows full well he has to leave the house at 8:15. He's still wandering around the house with bare feet and no tie or blazer on at 8:20. Constant prompting from me all morning achieves nothing. When he was around 12 I used to write a clear bullet point list on a whiteboard for him of what he needed to do to get ready for school, but that never helped, he said he got overwhelmed by the list.
• Showers. This is a weird thing to cite. But when he goes for his daily shower, we say just have a quick 10 minute shower because the rest of us need the bathroom too to get ready for school/work, or because we're going out soon. He agrees to be quick, but then he disappears into the shower for an entire hour! An hour of the shower running! When we are saying take a 10 min shower! I think what's happening is he goes in the bathroom and loses all sense of time.
• He is taking everything anyone says the wrong way. Face expressions, comments, tone of voice. But always taking it the wrong way in a negative way.
• He isn't doing well in class subjects at all. Just been moved to bottom set of maths. Other subjects aren't streamed but he just isn't doing well in them. This is at odds with how bright he is, as he is genuinely very intelligent, but this isn't translating into academic achievement.
• He did a maths test last term and got 8 out of 80. He was mortified by this. He brought the test paper home and when I looked through it he had only answered the first 3 pages out of 10 pages. The next 7 pages were blank. He said he ran out of time. Yet everyone else managed to complete the whole 10 pages in the same time.
• He says he struggles to maintain focus in lessons. He will often get detentions for staring out the window or staring at the floor or fidgeting. He says to me he does these things because his brain is feeling overloaded and he needs to switch off for a few minutes before tuning back in again. But during these few minutes of tuning out, teachers are noticing and issuing detentions for disengaging.
• He is saying he can't cope with school after lunchtime. He says by lunch his brain is overloaded and he needs to come home. He really struggles in lessons after lunch.
• He comes home from school drained and irritable. This lasts all evening.
• He is having very low moods. These moods are intense to be around. They only happen after school. Over the weekends and over the Christmas holidays his mood was fine, no problems. His after school low moods are really hard to deal with. There's no bullying issues. He has friends. I think it's because he's drained from school. But his mood gets crushingly low, he sits almost catatonic after school every day. This isn't ok.
• Last night he told me he is putting on an act at school, trying to project a happy sociable persona to peers/friends whilst feeling mentally overloaded and overwhelmed by the school day, and he said this is making him feel mentally exhausted and drained by the time he gets home.

• He does have friends but he seems to struggle with dynamics involved in friendships. He seems to not understand social dynamics very well, and he doesn't handle things well at all when difficulties arise in friendship dynamics. He has lost 2 previously good friends because of this.
• He is impulsive
• He cannot listen to "stop" or "no don't do that". He carries on doing what he's being told to stop doing and then looks startled when it results in him being told off for not listening to being told to stop, then feels upset afterwards that he was told off.
• Fights, fights, and fights some more over bedtimes on school nights. He pushes and pushes himself to stay up later when he looks physically shattered with saucer eyes and pale face, yawning every 2 minutes, looks completely zoned out, sprawled across sofa or bed physically exhausted and not moving, yet will not get in to bed.
• Needs to talk at length regularly about how he is feeling, what he is struggling with, how hurt he was by something someone said, or something someone didn't say when he felt they should have. He is talking so much to me it is stopping me from being able to get on with domestic tasks after school/work, like cooking dinner etc. He is over thinking to extreme levels. Yesterday he was in a crushingly low mood after school because when he approached his mates at break, nobody said "Hello" to him, and they all carried on their conversation talking about Minecraft worlds they'd built, but DS doesn't play Minecraft so couldn't join in with the conversation. This led to him instantly feeling very low in mood, which stayed with him for the rest of the day. Despite the fact that those same mates walked home with him after school yesterday and happily chatted to him and had a laugh with him and they all mucked about together with DS fully included all the way home. Still, he had to talk to me for over an hour about the sadness and rejection he felt when they didn't say hello to him when he walked over to their conversation at break time. There's lots and lots of examples of this happening all the time. DS getting heavy hearted and extremely down in mood every time a peer or friend isn't demonstrably enthusiastic towards him. He says he instantly thinks they don't like him anymore. Then when they text him a friendly message that evening, or chat to him nicely later in the day, he gets all confused because in his head he'd decided they didn't like him and didn't want to be his friend anymore all because they didn't greet him in the morning or didn't smile at him at lunch or didn't include him in conversation that was already going on before he joined. No amount of me saying "maybe they didn't smile at you because they were thinking about something, maybe they didn't greet you this morning because they see you every day or maybe their social manners aren't the best at the moment..." helps. He gets convinced that every little nuance means someone doesn't like him anymore, this drains his emotions, and then he appears over the moon when they engage positively with him later on in the day.
• He comes to me talking for hours, asks me for advice, and then when I start talking to give him advice, he switches off, stops listening, gets irritable, and basically cannot cope with me talking for any longer than 2 minutes. He tells me he needs succinct, bite sized bits of easy to process advice. Any actual talking at length (by at length, I mean talking for 10 minutes) or explaining anything to him in any level of depth, results in him completely switching off. When I'm talking to him about this advice he constantly asks me for, I feel like I have to set a timer to stop talking at 5 minutes maximum because anything beyond that he can't sustain listening to. So it's very difficult to listen to him talking to me for over an hour at a time, be directly asked for advice, and then get 5 minutes maximum to address the problems and difficulties he's talked about.
• general non stop forgetfulness.

"Can you hang your coat up?" "Ok". Doesn't do it.
"Can you pick the towel and your clothes up off the bathroom floor?" "OK" Doesn't do it.
"Could you do me a favour and take X Y Z upstairs with you?" "Sure, yeah" Doesn't do it.
"Can you run upstairs to grab the clothes that you wantto be washed? I'm about to put a wash on" "Yes, I'll do it now" runs upstairs. Never reappears.
This happens all day every day.
I'm exhausted by it all.
There's more to say but it's too long.
But I am really struggling to parent all this. I keep telling DH how much im struggling with DS but he just looks at me blankly. He works 7am - 9pm so he isn't at home dealing with it all.
Sorry. I didn't mean to type such a long post. Once I started I couldn't stop. It's been quite cathartic. Apologies though.

Based on what you have said I would strongly suggest having a doctor test for ADHD. It might not be that, and it might be a healthy dose of teenage angst/awkwardness/stubborness etc. Possibly a combination of the two and/or something else.

I'm not one to try and diagnose over the internet, but it does sound like you should get him assessed for ADHD.

• Last night he told me he is putting on an act at school, trying to project a happy sociable persona to peers/friends whilst feeling mentally overloaded and overwhelmed by the school day, and he said this is making him feel mentally exhausted and drained by the time he gets home.

He needs to be supported more and you need to go to the GP urgently for ND assessment.

Read up on how to parent someone who is ND and use the techniques now.

Talk to school urgently.

He’s neurodiverse and burnt out. So tough!

Oh and anxiety.
I just tried to edit my post to add this but couldn't.
Regular, frequent attacks of anxiety, ranging from mild that passes after a short time to more severe, long lasting and debiliitating. But DS not knowing why he is feeling anxious.

I assume you’ve spoken to the school / GP about ADHD? Seems pretty clear cut from what you’ve wrote.

I’d do a few things to make mornings easier. Shower in evening. Bag packed by 9pm the night before. Take his phone off him early if he’s not going to sleep early enough.

My friend’s son has suspected ADHD and it’s been quite obvious for 5yrs plus but she’s not had him tested and now he’s getting older it’s starting to really impact everything.

He sounds a lot like my dyslexic DD. She struggles with time, instructions (especially two or three part), organisation and maths!
There is definitely something else going on with him.
She is 22 now and a lot better but at the weekend she was late to meet friends because she misread a message. She got the time of the meeting wrong and the place. She often arrives places over an hour before she needs to.
With the right help at school she got AAB in her ALevels.
Get him to look at what it feels like to be dyslexic videos on TikTok or to have ADHD. See if any of them resonate with him. There are some very eloquent creators around.

As others have said, very much sounds like ADHD. My DS coped at primary very well because of all the structure and support. Started falling apart at high school in most of the ways you have described. His ADHD report suggested an ASD assessment, at first I was like no, he isn’t ASD as well but once we looked at it further we agreed to the assessment, then he started ADHD meds which massively reduced those symptoms, suddenly all the ASD traits showed up a lot more strongly.

oh OP this sounds so tough for you both.
he may or more not be ND but the other thing to look into how you can supper him with is anxiety.
a lot of his behaviours can be the result of
anxiety and overwhelm.
is there any access to therapy via the doctor or school? X

Adhd.

time blindness
rejection sensitivity
zoning out

He is 14, I assume he was similar since primary school? Did his teachers ever mention anything to you?

Worth going to Dr. I have no sense of time and need prompts/alarms/lists. It’s part of a condition in my case, although not the commonest symptom. I manage ok and hold down a good job etc but found it hard at school, particularly around structuring (and in one case turning up) for exams!

Sounds like textbook ADHD to me. It's possible it hasn't been picked up on because he's exhibiting signs of the inattentive subtype and the hyperactive subtype is more common in boys, but these are all absolutely classic ADHD behaviours.

I would have typed exactly this.

I have a similar child who was assessed at 7. She's 13 and we manage ok at secondary thanks to 6 years of various therapies and an EHCP.

There are some similarities with my ds. We saw a psychologist for him due to his biggest issue which was Arfid (avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder) and it was suggested to us that he may have inattentive adhd due to some similar behaviours to your ds. I then read a book called, ‘How not to murder your ADHD child’, and it was a revelation to me. Inattentive adhd often goes under the radar until secondary school age. It’s a good book worth a read as a starting point.

He sounds typically ADHD - particularly the time slippage. Can you have all his clothes/uniform for the day laid out the night before so he just gets into it right away - before breakfast, before getting his phone or whatever? It is really important for ADHD people to build some inflexible routines into their life - they really do make life easier.

He sounds very similar to my DS2 who is 15 and has inattentive ADHD. Medication has made an enormous difference - we still struggle in the morning because the meds haven’t kicked in and it’s always a bit of a panic getting him onto the bus. Speak to school, you can get adjustments in place without a diagnosis but I would be urgently pushing for assessment either privately or NHS right to choose. We went private in Y9 which I don’t regret because he was really struggling but we are now locked into paying for private appointments until he is 18 because GP won’t prescribe for children - he is under shared care so meds on NHS but only on private paediatrician’s instructions. My DS has a SEN plan at school which includes seated a front of class, work broken into small tasks, frequent reminders to stay on task, extra time in exams. It’s also get teachers off his back a bit and reduced the constant negative marks for being disorganised. He’s gone from 4th set to 2nd set in maths and now on track to get decent GCSEs and stay on to study Alevels.

This.

Read up on it, don't wait for diagnosis. There is a load of stuff out there from legit resources. Read some of it with him. Watch stuff on YT - Alex Partridge stuff can be quite good.

Be kind to him and understand why it is happening.

Things like alarms and tasks/calendars on phone widgets can help. If he can manage a smart watch, it can help with morning routine, though many adhders will dismiss the alarm and not do the thing, so it will be whatever works for him.

A shower clock with a timer sounds like a plan. Also, it's unlikely he needs a daily shower unless doing a lot of sport, fewer per week may make it easier. Look up about the two states: in the shower and not in the shower. The transition between the two is the hardest. Think about ways to make that easier. E.g. if door is not locked, someone going in and brushing teeth can break the 'in the shower' state and enable the transition.

If he can have headphones on in school (without anything playing - those Loop things that seem to be advertised everywhere may be good?) that can help with the distraction and overwhelm of trying to concentrate in class. If not allowed in class, can maybe be allowed in break times to filter out extra stuff he doesn't need. Some schools have a 'quiet room' he might be able to access. This is just a space for kids who need to not mix with the general school in break and lunchtimes. Can be cos of bullying, or physical injury, but also for those NDs who just need a break from people and noise in order to function for the rest of the day.

Also, good luck! Extra parenting for you to do. It sucks, but, it is what it is... (also, if you don't recognise these things in yourself, then you might in his father, usually it comes from one of you)

He needs to go to the GP.