DS ruins every weekend. At wit‘s end

[Bergins]

Another weekend, another drama. If we stay in, everyone starts arguing and DH gets depressed. So we‘ve started making plans for the weekend, so the kids know what to expect. Nothing full on, but getting out of the house.

But DS (9) refuses to go out. It’s not optional, so he does end up coming with. But this is after an hour of him screaming and being extremely rude. Calling us stupid etc. Then everyone is in a bad mood anyway. As a consequence he has no screen time for the weekend, but he doesn’t care.

He has down time every weekend. We‘re not in the UK and he has Weds and Fri afternoon off school to stay home and play, or have a friend over.

I can’t take it anymore. I lost my rag this morning. DH has taken them out, after an hour of being screamed at. I know DS will be nice as pie when he comes home. It’s like he has two personalities.

So it’s either stay in at the weekend and be screamed at, or go out and be screamed at.

What's typical of autism from the OP is the difficulty with transitions and the desire to spend lots of time in his safe space (home) engaging with his special interests (lego).

Many autistic people do enjoy outings though, it just depends - we're all different and have different struggles.

I'm surprised by all the posters staying he sounds ND. To me he sounds like every little boy I know. My boys loved nothing more than staying home playing Lego,. watching TV and just chilling out at the weekend. Me & DH would take in turns to take out the ones that wanted to go and then other would stay home.

It's not the fact that he wants to stay home that makes him sound ND, it's the entire picture.

A child with special interests (lego), who struggles with transitions (screaming and crying at age 9 because you've been asked if you want to go sledding or to the funfair is very much not "typical), and who relishes in routine is what makes him sound ND.

Is he getting enough sleep? Sounds like the moods could be due to tiredness. If he’s up playing Lego by 7, what time does he go to sleep?
Can he not do a club at the weekend like football or swimming?

ND is always rolled out … 🙄🙄🙄

Well, I am ND and am "rolling it out" in this particular scenario because OP's son sounds exactly like I was at that age. I thrived on routine and absolutely hated being told "we're going to x!" at the last minute, even if X was something I would love, or that I really wanted to do.

The fact that he is working himself into such a state that he screams and cries over a trip to the funfair tells me there's something else going on here.

Is he neurodiverse? It sounds very much like he could have Pathological Demand Avoidance. My daughter (diagnosed ASD/ADHD) was just the same, she was diagnosed with PDA at 9 years old and after some research her behaviour made sense.

Sounds exactly like my DS2 at this age. Same interests lego, minecraft etc and same sorts of confusions and hatred of transitions. Was exhausted by school and just wanted the weekend to decompress, although if we managed to get him out he usually enjoyed being out with us and his older brother.
We also had a fair few screaming matched and meltdowns though, especially if we hadn't given him enough notice.

Although school said all was 'fine' he was later diagnosed with dyslexia and also identified with some ASD traits.

As others have said, a few isolated facts (lego, minecraft etc) don't mean anything, but the overall picture is one of a neurodiverse child exhibiting overload and trying to regain control...

No it isn’t. It is only rolled out when the behaviours match specific patterns that are ND traits.

Less problematic is the reluctance to go out on weekends. It’s the fierce opposition to it that’s so exhausting for you OP. Honestly, in the short term, I’d cater to his homebody needs by having one parent chill at home with him while the other parent goes out with the other kids. We’d all love whole family excursions but you’ve got to work with what you’ve got and do your best to keep things peaceful (for your own sanity). Roll with the punches and accept.

In the meantime, I’d be looking into meeting with a child psychologist to help you understand your DS’s opposition to change. Whether he’s neurodivergent or not, you need help understanding his responses and he needs help managing how he responds to change. Get that support. I have one DS who really dislikes going out. Yes, he is ASD but he still gets out. And he wasn’t always this way. What kickstarted his reluctance was a dog attack when he was 8. He escaped and recovered, but the world outside became a stressful and hostile place. He’s 11 now and beginning to go out without resistance. Time, therapy, and patience has helped him better approach transitions and going out. It’s really hard but my own acceptance and the support I’ve gotten in helping him has made it easier. Change may always be harder for your DS, and that’s ok. But if he can learn to fear change a bit less and cope a bit better with our loud and busy world surrounding us, this will help him. Maturity will help too.

Could you let him choose an activity one weekend, give him a list to choose from otherwise lord knows what he'd go for.
Does he have this behaviour at any other times or is it just this situation?

I find my teenager enjoys going out with us much more if he can choose the restaurant (within budgetary constraints of course!) We always like what he chooses.

Would your son enjoy that?

He definitely sounds neurodiverse. I have one DS who has ADHD and one who potentially has Autism. Transitions and expectations are a massive thing for them, so our lives are bound by routines.
Things that help us:

• morning routine chart for them to follow, also after school routine and bedtime routine charts so they know what is expected and what comes next
• Pre-warning for transitions, i.e. 5 more minutes of x before y is happening
• visual timers so they can see how long left, they know when timer goes off that we’re doing something else
• a big thing for our possibly autistic child is expectations. For example he’ll have a vision in his head of what’s for dinner or which soft play we’re going to, and if the reality is different it’s a huge issue! So we also have a visual meal chart for weekly dinners and he gets to move the tick along which shows what day we’re on. He can also occasionally select a meal for the tub of pictures
• we also have a folder of “Days out” with a page for each place with pictures. It includes play parks, country parks, soft play etc. They don’t get to look through and choose, but we will take out the page of where we’re going and show them, so they can visualise it and be excited about it. It varies on how far in advance we will tell them about this, but usually the night before during dinner

I have no idea if your son could be ND or not OP, but this scenario is incredibly familiar to me as I also have a 9 yo who often refuses to leave the house. He happens to have a ASD diagnosis.

Things which sometimes help us:

• Letting him pick the activity
• Meeting a friend of his at the park or other place familiar to him
• Giving him time countdowns before we leave
• Only doing fairly short trips, half a day maximum
• If he really is getting upset, crying and screaming, I no longer push it and stay at home instead. For a start I can no longer physically carry him when he is tantruming. This is hardest on his younger sister who does usually want to go out.

My eldest always hates it when I spring a plan on him, when younger he would have a visual time table and I would tell him the plans and timings ahead of time, like others have said these and timers will probably help massively.

I don't think it's healthy to leave a child alone playing lego or anything else for hours on his own. That is only going to make him more rigid in his behaviours.

I think this generation is being negatively impacted by smart devices and too much screen-time and too much time spent on their own as both parents work and are exhausted at the end of a long day.

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2025/06/screen-time-problems-children

Excessive screen time is strongly associated with an increased risk and severity of ADHD symptoms in children and we are seeing this daily in schools.
Minecraft and other games are designed to be addictive.

Addiction is built into many products, alcohol, cigarettes, coca cola (used to contain cocaine), sugar is highly addictive so is present in most processed foods including savoury foods, social media, etc.

Honestly some of the replies are crazy.

Implying OP or her husband are unreasonable because they don’t want to be held hostage to her sons tantrums and just stay in every weekend or split up to just let him stay home and play Lego.

It doesn’t sound like his responses are normal so I would question if something else is going on but surely the answer is not to just give in to his tantrums and let him isolate himself playing Lego and Minecraft for the next 10 years,

Lego is probably pretty addictive and habit-forming tbf.

Some of this is familiar. Ds (autistic with a streak of pda) really struggled with transitions at that age. Dh needed lots of excitement and likes to be going places and doing things. I used to feel pulled between them.

It took me a while to pull myself out of that headspace and recognise that dh had needs, but he was an adult and needed to step up more. Tbf he was a bit horrified to realise I was experiencing his moods as another set of needs to be managed.

DS on the other hand was genuinely struggling - not being a bad kid, but a kid having a hard time. I learned how to help him navigate transitions, without his nervous system activating a fight/flight response. And we taught him how to regulate his emotions. But we had to start from where he was at and set aside our expectations - it’s fine to know where you want him to end up but there’s nothing to be gained by battling because he’s not there already.

You have my sympathy, I found Mumsnet 20 years ago while looking for help with then 8 year old DS1s behaviour at weekends.
he’s still not good at going along with other people’s plans or leaving the house in a calm fashion.
no magic cure was found but official ADHD and unofficial ASD diagnosis helped with understanding and some strategies that helped.

Forgot to add, in my experience reward charts and punishment like removal of fun things do not help with this type of child.

That’s insane to me?!? Why wouldn’t a 9 year old child want to spend time with his family…. 19 yes 100% but 9?!?!?

I don’t know if he is ND or not obviously and that should be factored in first and foremost
Assuming NT though….The one thing I honed in on is your consequences for bad behaviour are not something he seems to want to do in the first place and therefore will be ineffective. I’d sit him down today ( it needs to be when he’s calm not already having a meltdown) and explain that if there is any further behaviour such as this morning, then the punishment will be no LEGO for the rest of the day seeing as that’s important to him

With respect your son sounds like a carbon copy of mine who has adhd .I second other posters give warning of outings., visual timetables are great and you need less choices .ie we are going here the choice alone could be enough to cause conflict.
I would have him assessed as his reaction seem exgream and may not be his fault.
All the best.

I'd limit the amount of time he is allowed spend playing lego on his own for his own development. He needs to spend more time playing with other children or he will end up a loner.