Aggressive,rude teen

[Shalex13]

Hi I was hoping for some advice on what to do with my ds!
Most of his recent worst behaviour started when he was caught stealing tobacco from my bedroom at 3.30am, this then led onto him stealing tobacco from 2 of my friends whilst being a guest in their houses. I was mortified and we took away his game console and called the police hoping this would give a short sharp shock which initially it did.
He then started to display very strong anger issues which resulted in him kicking in 5 doors in the house after an argument with his 17 year old brother, which I again called the police. After another telling off all seemed to calm down for a while until today, when I pulled him up for approaching the daughter of one of my friends he had stolen from and blamed her for the police being called. He denied doing,this but I see no reason for her to lie to her mum about this. ( I have yet to put them in the same room to confront this issue but intend to) anyway I said he wasn't going to his friends after school until I got to the bottom,of this and then all hell broke lose, throwing my younger children's stuff around the garden calling,me a slag, demanding I return the,games console I 'STOLE' from him kicking the shed and front doors. I called,my husband who came home from work and sent him to his room which he did no questions asked!. I am at my,wits end as I have 3 younger children who are seeing all of this and it's not healthy. Advice on where I go from here welcome

I'm no expert Shalex, (my DCs are 16 and 14) but my gut reaction to this is to think that your DS is feeling betrayed by you calling the police. I know it's stealing, but everybody makes mistakes - sometimes they're illegal sometimes they're not.

Is he very short of money? And desperate for a smoke?

Is he under 16? He probably feels that it's very unfair that you're allowed to smoke and he isn't.

A teenage friend of mine stole money from my mum when we were teenagers. I'd have been horrified if she'd called the police. He saw an envelope with cash in it and in a moment of weakness took it. Calling the police would not have done any good.

I don't know the background to this, and I'm not condoning your DS's behaviour, but he's a young lad who's being treated heavy-handedly by you. It's no wonder he's angry - he's been embarrassed, he's lost his hobby, he's desperate for a cigarette, he sees that other people can smoke as much as they like, he probably thinks you don't respect (or possibly even love) him... He probably feels he has nothing to lose now so he might as well behave badly.

Do you think he's on anything else?

When everyone's calm, tell him he can have his x-box back and just tell him matter-of-factly that it's unpleasant and upsetting for everyone when he's kicking down doors. Tell him you don't want to be always battling with him - you want to have a calm and happy home - and you're prepared to listen to him.

Are you going to call the police every time he does something wrong/has a tantrum?

I think you need to deal with this as his parents.

I speak as a parent who has had their house trashed/attempted burnt down and wouldn't dream of calling the police.

Sorry, pressed send too soon.

Just tell him quietly and calmly that you all deserve a home where everyone is treated with respect. I've found that if I can categorically say that I never do x/y/z or often do whatever, my DS does then see my point of view. For example, he was ranting on about how adults never apologise even when they're clearly wrong blah, blah, blah and I reminded him that I'm forever saying sorry. If you can remind your DS that you don't call him or anyone else horrible names and that nobody can be expected to have to put up with it, especially in their own home he will hopefully not speak to you like that again.

It's stressful, isn't it Shalex? :( And hard to find the 'right' way to handle things...
Can you answer a few questions for me please... I'll have some suggestions, but they depend on your answers to these...

• How old is he ?
• How long has he been smoking/how much?
• Are you aware of any other drug use?
• Is he just stealing tobacco, or other things too?
• When you say he "display(ed) very strong anger issues", do you mean kicking walls/doors, or is he being violent and aggressive in other ways too?

Hi flow
he is 15 next month and has probably been smoking for at least 2 years, I think he has smoked an odd joint before. I am not 100% but I think he may have stolen money before but not in big denominations.
He has kicked in 5 doors and broken them in one hissy fit and yes punched walls and thrown stuff around. He has told his younger siblings to piss off when they talk to him when he is angry and also pushed me and he is strong(shock)

I have tried to be calm and nice about it but he just takes advantage of my good nature, and yes I will phone the police as he was given 3 chances to change his behaviour before we phoned them the first time and then gives it the big one that he doesn't give a shit about what the police say. There is nourishment as far as he is concerned ( what can u do kill me?) are his words! And NO I will not be returning the playstation

*No punishment not nourishment

I think you may be getting into a very confrontational pattern here. Would it be possible to make a mental list of the kind of behaviours you absolutely can't accept, the kind that you might have to put up with for a bit though you are going to tackle them later, and the kind of thing you simply might have to let slide? Otherwise, you are going to end up spending all your time punishing him and you will get exhausted. You need to think about yourself too and how you can manage to carve out some kind of life for yourself in all this.

The difficulty with punishing for everything, and particularly with calling the police, is that he won't really get the sense that hitting somebody is an awful lot worse than helping himself to tobacco or telling someone to piss off. And he needs to develop that sense, for the sake of everybody's safety.

Punishments that happen very infrequently are more daunting to a child than punishments that happen ever day.

Not sure if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but if I were you I would want to keep the police as a very strong threat that only happened for the worst possible behaviour (otherwise, what are you going to do if he does something far worse?). For me, that would probably be violence against the person.

I would also make sure he has it spelled out very clearly what counts as stealing in your house and what is ordinary helping yourself to common family goods.
(All his mates' families won't have the same take on this: for instance, in our family helping yourself to food or "borrowing" a family member's socks would be annoying but we wouldn't think of it as stealing because it's in the family).

But I'm sure flow will come across with much better advice shortly.

Hello again Shalex13.

Please don't take this the wrong way or feel that you're being judged, but you might benefit from reading some books about parenting teenagers. Or reading threads on here. Maryz has a very long one which might be useful to you.

At the moment it sounds as if you are parenting your DS in the same way that you did when he was younger - what I mean by that, is by doing 'punishments' when he behaves badly. Now that he's a bit older they're not working. I apologise if you're aware of this already. Like Cory and probably Flow4 I think things will improve by overlooking the smaller stuff as far as possible - easier said than done I know. Tell him it's upsetting for everybody when he's kicking the doors, giving out verbal abuse etc But also take every opportunity to compliment him/show appreciation for the good things he does. He probably won't show it, but he still wants your approval and your love. If he begins to see FOR HIMSELF the huge contrast between the times he's kicking off and the times he's calm and pleasant he'll hopefully start behaving better.

You can still influence his behaviour without doing punishments. Eg, if he's wanting a lift/a particular pair of shorts washed etc but he's been unpleasant just say to him briefly and matter of factly that you don't feel like doing anything extra/favours for him just now. He will hopefully begin to see that the consequence of his shouting/stamping around etc is that people don't then feel like doing stuff for him - and that's how it is with all other people too.

I don't know where the line is for deciding that someone has problems with controlling their anger to the extent that they need specific help to manage their anger. Perhaps your DS needs this - I don't know. And I know it's horrendous when they're kicking off like your DS. It's easy to advise other people to keep talking calmly to their teenagers, but it probably is the most effective thing to do. Coupled with letting him know he's valued whenever you can. This will only be achieved if you manage to get him to talk to you and you manage to really listen to him.

IME - 14 and 15 is the most nightmarish difficult age.

Ok, here goes, Shalex...

It's horrible if/when your child starts behaving like this. It's upsetting of course, but also rather frightening. You may be directly afraid for yourself, afraid for younger siblings, afraid of what the future will hold for your child if they can't control themselves, and afraid you are losing control. All of these fears are real, so they can throw you into a real panic.

We all of us know that we don't handle situations well when we're frightened, angry and panicked. That's one of the reasons you'll find experienced parents advising you to 'detach, detach, detach' from your teenager's bad behaviour. You have to learn not to take it personally... Despite how it feels, it isn't personal - it's biological - and if you realise this, it becomes less upsetting, and you'll be able to deal with it better.

A good tactic is to treat your DS like he is an 'annoying lodger'. This was Maryz's advice to me and others a couple of years ago; and though I often wasn't good at it, when I managed it, it worked.

By that 'rule of thumb', with hindsight, do you think you were right to call the police? It's impossible for any of the rest of us to tell, because we weren't there. :) I always tried to be clear in my head that I would only call them for 'criminal' behaviour - in circumstances where I would have called the police if it had been an 'annoying lodger' or stranger, not my own son. So, when I have been hurt, or afraid for my safety, or afraid my son was so out of control that he might not otherwise stop.

I would also strongly advise that you only call the police if you are actually prepared for them to arrest him. Because this will have to be the next step, won't it?

You need to think about stopping him stealing, too. My DS used to react like this, stealing when he was desperate for a smoke or scared because he owed someone money for drugs, then getting angry when challenged... You could prosecute your DS of course; but I did not want my son to get a criminal record for theft because of how it would affect his job prospects, so I felt very powerless at first - until I finally realised it was relatively easy to stop him, by fitting a lock on my bedroom door, always keeping things locked up, and therefore removing his opportunities.

There are lots more things I could say about why I think teens behave like this, and how you survive it. If you do a search for my name + 'police' and/or 'look after yourself', you will find previous posts, if you're interested. :)

Good luck.

Oops, crossed posts with cory and chocco, because I started mine before I went to work this morning but only finished it when I got back, without refreshing my screen! Good posts from both. :)

Thank you everyone for feedback. I have put a lock on my bedroom door but this didn't stop him coming in at 3.30am when I was asleep to steal from me! I was intending on prosecution at first but as u say I didn't want him to have a criminal record either for the same reasons u say, but I felt at the time I had no option as nothing I did made a difference and I wasn't going to be pushed around in my own home (in front of younger siblings too may I add) so I did feel physically threatened too. I have taken on board your advice and the annoying lodger theory is my next plan of attack!

Have you read this book Shalex? I recommend it a lot! :)

Thanks flow book ordered! :)