Sorry a bit long....
After some advice/reassurance from those who have or are going through this. My eldest DS1 was a lovely amicable child he had his moments but basically a good kid. He'll be going into yr 9 in sep, and the last 6 months have been a little rough.
I've kept thinking chose my battles etc, try not to nag, give him his privacy, but at the end of the day he's still part of our family and is it so wrong to want an occasional conversation without him grunting, sighing or raising his eyebrows.....
He leaves a trail of destruction wherever he goes, towels, clothes, hair products the list is endless.
We had a family meeting the other day, where we all spoke rationally (ish!) about what we thought was reasonable and what wasn't. The end result was that I nag too much (I know I piss myself off sometimes I go on so much) and that if I ask him to do something I should ask him once and then he'll do it within a reasonable time frame...DH backed him up on this as apparantly I nag him too...I agree, but is a habit I'm trying to kick!
The thing is, now I ask DS to do something, half hour later nothing, I ask again and he tells me that I'm nagging and that I oly have to tell him once...yeh but he hasn't bloody done it AAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!
We have a younger DS who has always been a bit shall we say challanging, DS1 used to cope/manage him well up untill recently but now all hell breaks loose in the house if they are within a few feet of each other. DS1 winds DS2 up (who's 10) snide comments, tripping him up, DS2 then explodes in a rage, this afternoon a subtle shove from DS1 culminated in DS2 falling down the stairs (think there was a small amount of dramatics involved) never the less, I know there are many years of this to come and I want to know how the hell we're going to get through it.
Help!!