What do you when 14yo DSS refuses to come until...

[NoPhelange]

He gets a sincere apology off his Dad, because DSS had been disrespectful and rude and DP called him on it and told him to go upstairs away from him for a bit? Apologies if there are no paragraphs the app likes to ignore them once I post.

Collected on Friday, giving his usual "simmer down", "wind your neck in" jibes 'jokingly' to DP who was joking with him about having a roast dinner for tea because we know he doesn't like them. They have a lot of banter together initiated by DSS mostly, then all was well and we got on with the weekend. Few more instances of telling DP to simmer down etc. Saturday he got up, had breakfast, we postponed our plans so he could watch football with DP, then went out, DPs full attention on him the whole time, took them out for dinner, came home and then we started telling each other our corniest jokes taking turns. DP went to go and DSS spoke over him which he allowed and then resumed but stuttered which DSS took the piss out of him for, really obnoxiously. So DP asked him who he thought he was talking to and to get out of his face cue DSS storming upstairs stating he wasn't having this. Left him to calm down, shouted him down and DP asked if he talks to his mum that way... yeah, would you talk to your grandad that way... No he doesn't annoy me. Then he stormed back upstairs screaming at the top of his lungs and slamming doors. DP went up and told him to calm down and talk to him, was told to get out, then DSS squared up to DP aggressively and was told to stop acting a prat and calm himself down .. Well that was it, called his mum who came and collected him. Left the house without saying goodbye, DP went after him and spoke to his mum who said she will talk to him. Left all his uniform and chargers which I had to take home for him yesterday.


Then yesterday, he messaged DP basically telling him that "he handled the situation wrongly, he was out of line and DP cant handle being 'told off' ". Basically chastising DP as if he were his dad. Refusing to accept that he was out of line at all and DP had a go at him for nothing. Then told DP he shouldn't expect to see him until he apologises and means it.


So what the hell do we do here? DP is adamant he won't apologise for disciplining his son when he is out of line and is raging that his son is manipulating him and showing zero respect for him.


Do we leave him? Does DP try and speak to him again despite him refusing to accept any responsibility? We are due to go away for half term and now everything is up in the air. It was just so over the top for the crime you would honestly think DP had come down on him like a ton of bricks but he didn't. It's the same with school, every teacher is in the wrong when he gets sent out of class for throwing water at his mates for example.


Apologies for the length, full disclosure and all that 😁

[Quartz2208]

THe problem is OP that the teasing with roast dinner is like an older brother (and not that nice tbh) and then he tries to bring it in line by being the father

He needs to stop it all - and now become the adult and put boundaries in place. 14 is too young to stop the parent/child relationship

[supermamabear]

I think your OH needs to accept the fact that conflict isn’t about “winning” and act like an adult. I think either he should spend some time one on one with you DSD or you both should, and talk about the underlying feelings that are going on.

[Dollyparton3]

This is very similar to the power struggles we had with our DSD at 14, in our case there was no co parenting (not for want of trying) and it was DSD's way or the hard way.

This culminated in a 6 month sulk from her when DP tried to reign in her social media activity at 14 which was risqué to say the least. We didn't see her at all for 6 months and it hurt my DP but rightly he refused to give in to her.

We had to ride it out. And although we couldn't remove her smartphone, we worked it out in other ways with pocket money penalties for disobedience for further incidents once the big thaw happened.

It's a phase, and it's made even worse when parents can't get in a room to discuss the right tactic or parenting strategy. And teens are extremely manipulative at that age. But if I were in your shoes I'd offer the opportunity to talk (as your DP has) and then leave the ball in your SS's court.

He'll come round, he just needs to work it out himself

[Singlenotsingle]

If dp gets no reply or a rude reply, maybe he should just tell DSS that he wants an apology for this behaviour, and when he gets it then maybe they can work on their relationship. Otherwise, he is here waiting, and the ball's in dsd's court.

[NoPhelange]

He has messaged him, they have been read and has been ignored since Sundays telling off by him now. DP is so upset by it, feels so stuck in between a rock and a hard place. He doesn't believe giving in and apologising is an option, I said perhaps a way around it is to apologise only for allowing boundaries to be confused causing this situation but not for the actual telling off which is what DSS wants the apology for.

Reading the messages back that DSS sent just continues to shock me. 'Respect is earnt not given' was one gem that was hard to swallow. We have moulded our lives around him, spent thousands in mediation just to enable him to come here, and do everything ourselves to facilitate access, he is included in everything we do as a family ie going away even for a short break, give him everything he could possibly want and more. I know he is a kid and will say things he doesn't know have such impact but that bloody hurt and it'll be hard not to remember those words the next time I am scraping ice off my car at 6.30am just to get him to school 20 miles away even if they weren't aimed directly at me. Kids eh 😣