What do you do with a DS who is too lazy to fix himself some lunch?!

[Horsemad]

Typical 15yr old, obsessed with computer games. Gets up and immediately goes on pc (during weekends and holidays - has tried this on school mornings and had short shrift).

When I'm working I leave before he's up, it's obvious to me that he's not had breakfast or lunch when I get home. He says he's not hungry, but I suspect he eats his selection box chocolate whilst at the pc.

I don't mind him being on the pc, he's out of trouble and I know where he is etc, but I'm getting fed up with him not eating!

Were it so simple!

(they don't want to live with her anymore)

Meals should never "just happen!"

so why do they? at 15 and 17 they are old enough to decide if they want to live with their father and superstepmother

Children do not decide where they live.

Oh really seeker? How exactly does all your family participate in all the catering at every single meal in your home, pray tell?

at 15 and 17 they can decide.

my children participate in about 60% of the meals that are made when they are at home. they are 3 and 7. 7 year old can make quite a few simple meals without any help apart from reminders to check the oven. 3 year old, as i said, can make sandwiches and use the toaster.

They certainly cannot - they are legally in zero position to do so and it would require lawyers/judges here in France.

so? if they want to live with you get a lawyer, see a judge and get it sorted.

Why on earth are you telling us what to do? Mind your own business!

it's just, you are always harping on about how great you are at parenting your step sons and how useless their own mother is. if the dcs want to live with you i wonder why you haven't made it happen.

FFS it really is no business of yours.

this is the internet. you know that is public right?

It doesn't give you a right to be gratuitously rude.

nor you

ds is like this, he makes sandwiches and takes them to school and comes home saying "what can I eat?" then discovers his sandwiches in his bag.

Yes. Unless you have teenaged boys in your life it can be difficult to realise how unbelievably incompetent they can be.

Hmm. You can always tell when someone posts on teenagers and their DC are very young.

To be honest I rather suspect that when mine were 5 and 7 for example I would have been smug and judgy about many of the issues raised on the teenage board.. (If MN had existed then of course).

The hormones make their brains go funny, it will pass. eventually.

I am more worried about dd (10) will be like when puberty hits her. [afraid]

Yes, we've watched Inside the Human Body all together...

i'm not being smug and judgy. i'm saying what my dcs can do and saying that there is no reason teenagers cant make themselves simple snacks or meals. there is no need to be babying teenagers. it wont help them learn to feed themselves will it?

and i've also been a teenager, i was still capable of beans on toast. hormones or not, the fridge was in the same place it had always been.

Teenagers are different, though. Their brains are wired differently.

DD (8) is wildly more competent than the DSSs, who are like overgrown toddlers ie they have little self-control and need someone with high standards and who they are a bit afraid in the background in order to behave themselves...

I remember when my dc used to love to help me hoover, wash up and bake

Sadly the journey to adulthood from childhood is not a simple linear progression.