Making 16yo move out

[hungryhippos]

Has anyone gone this far? We have spent enough evenings in tears over behaviour, attitude and failure to adhere to house rules. Often sanctions are accepted with a mature attitude but there is no demonstration of an ongoing commitment to do as we ask. We could rent a room near the sixth form college and can afford to do this. Maybe we would all be happier then as DC can do as they wish and we won't be suffering from sleep deprivation, lack of food (feel too sick to eat due to emotional turmoil at times) and the dominance of this issue over every aspect of our lives.

cross-posted with MoreCrack.

What Cory said.

I have 3 teenage boys. They are all so different. Two of them are bedroom dwellers and the third is sociable, spends most evenings downstairs with me and DH, goes shopping with me, laughs and jokes with me etc. The sociable one would never talk to me about important stuff. One of the bedroom-dwellers talks to be about everything. I would never dream of insisting that the bedroom-dwellers spend more time downstairs.

I really don't get the OP's desire to force her ds into a box. Why worry about the insignificant stuff when there are real issues to worry about?

Omg I just read your ridiculous 'house rules'. No wonder he's kicking off! Why is not allowed on the internet? You're willing to let him move out but he can't choose when he goes on the internet? Do you see how little sense that makes? Petty things like forcing him to make his bed is just causing arguments for no reason. Is it worth a screaming match if he has a bath?
Your child is hormonal remember, kids act irrationally.
Sorry I have said he but you haven't said if child is boy or a girl.

Oh no I see you sent him to boarding school before that! That explains everything. How do you expect a child to respect the place you have made clear to him is not his home? As small child you excluded him and sent him away from his family. He's grown up in the care of strangers not his parents, no wonder he resents you. It's so sad. And now you want to push him away again... You clearly just can't be arsed to parent. Please get social services involved. They can help you learn how.

Thants, see the OP's 2nd post onwards. The DC is a boy.

I don't think the house rules are silly per se; just that you are probably not in a place where they are realistic.

I would concentrate on a very few essential rules: no violence, no name-calling, no damaging of property and be very strict with those.

I would be mildly strict (telling off but not necessarily punishing) of infringements which cause you some financial loss but are not against the person (forgetting to switch lights off, running the occasional bath).

I would let personal space go, so not check up on he keeps his room.

As for internet usage and going to sleep on time- well, it's a balance. I'd do gentle reminders at this age rather than full-on discipline. After all, we are talking somebody who though he is not yet grown up enough to look after himself only has a couple of years to learn to do so.

I would not regard socialising and telling you his worries a house rule, but treat it more as something you would be glad of. If he is depressed enough to be self harming he may not be able to fulfil these promises: try not to make him feel pushed.

Thants, I really don't see how your posts are going to help either the OP or her ds.

Do you know how easy your teen sounds? No drugs, no police, no pregnancy. Just love him and drop your standards is my advice.

Cory because if the op realises that she neglected her son and that is reason he is depressed she can work on building back up real relationship. Family counselling would be useful.

Oi Thants enough. Boarding school w

Having made extensive use of family therapy myself, I can't imagine how the approach ohmygawdyouhavesoneglectedyourchildbylettinghimgotoboardingschool could ever be useful in a situation like this.

Yes to counselling. No to "oh, this is so awful, you must be a dreadful parent".

And incidentally, we have no idea why the OP's ds went to boarding school in the first place. There may have been excellent reasons.

hungryhippos reading your posts it sounds as if something has pinged your own stress into permanent red alert. I am guessing that your DS’s self-harm especially (though maybe other things too) has made you very sensitive to anything about him being not quite as it should be, so that you react very emotionally to behaviour and attitudes that in other circumstances would be annoying or irritating but you would shrug them off.

Like your comment that whenever your DS does things for you he “omits something so nothing is ever quite as it should be”. Yes, stuff gets left out and we parents are supposed not to notice because it’s all in the learning. (The times when I’ve quietly redone the washing up!) You are reacting to the stuff that he’s left out more strongly than you are feeling good about the effort he’s made. You sound as if something (the self-harm?) has totally sensitised you to his failure and faults, as if every small flaw is a sign of something dreadful that you have to correct and defend against.

And there’s the fact that you’re not eating or sleeping properly through worry. You can deal with your own worry as a problem in itself, even without solving any of your DS’s problems. Whether he makes a huge fuss all evening or stays up all night or not, you should still eat and sleep yourself. Put a high priority on exercise and relaxation, meditation, seeing friends, or even a personal therapist, whatever helps you decompress. Even a two-hour family talk session is very emotionally intense and draining, so don’t do that too often. And don’t feel selfish if you distance yourself a bit from your DS andif you ignore his sleeping and internet or how well he does his chores and prioritise your own needs instead, because if you do take care of yourself, that will help your DS in the long run.

Berating the OP on her choice of education is hardly helpful.
'sent away as a small child'?
Big assumption. Huge. The OP has given no detail regarding this so we don't know the circumstances.
The ds may only have been at BS for a short time, they may be a Military family, stage school etc..a whole host of different reasons why he is away at school.

There are more issues between the OP and her DS. He is self harming and has other MH issues.
If tge OP dare return after her mauling she could give more detail and get better support and suggestions.

C'mon people!

it would have helped if the OP had answered whether the ds left boarding school because he wanted to or it was a parental decision that he'd come home and do a levels at the local college.

in itself i'd imagine boarding school to local college is a big change with different people, expectations, culture etc.

Very wise post there from Kleinzeit.

I also wondered if it is perhaps the stress brought on from the self harm that has made you see everything in the light of parenting failure.

I know that when dd got effective treatment for her severe anxiety I was able to be more relaxed about her school refusal because suddenly I had more confidence in the future; suddenly it didn't all depend on me getting things right.

I don't know whether this little anecdote is helpful or not, but when my MIL returned home as a teenager after evacuation with her school during the war she really struggled to fit into her family.

She had been living in a very different environment and was struggling to suddenly fit herself into expectations she didn't understand. They had lived with a little girl and didn't feel they really knew this young woman who had suddenly materialised in their midst and didn't seem to understand them and their way of life. It was hard for everybody. But hardly anybody's fault.

OP your first post says ' We have spent enough evenings in tears over behaviour, attitude and failure to adhere to house rules.' Your 2nd post says 'How many evenings do we spend in tears before enough is enough?' So I think I was fair to ask my Q.

He sounds a troubled child who doesn't want to discuss with you what is wrong. You are possibly expecting too much from him, at the least expecting him to tell you his worries when he can't or won't voice them.
My DD is the same and we know that she will bottle things up and act as if nothing is wrong then just explode when it gets too much. Now it would be soo much better if she kept us up to date with what is wrong and she let me into the minute details of her life so I could be prepared but she isn't wired like that. Life for her should be all great and full of adventure and opportunities but atm she feels crap, useless and rejected (thanks to college for messing up her Uni application) She is up and down and we did feel if we could get through this year she would be at Uni and peace would resume in the house.
We are coming to understand that no she won't be at Uni until she can get the help to sort her head out and understand her own anxieties and how to deal with them.
Teenagers struggle so much it is not the time to get rid of them for a peaceful life. Them moving out when they are self harmers, depressed could lead to further mental health problems that they can't come back from

I just want to raise something else that I don't think anyone has mentioned. OP mentions 'renting a room' near the sixth form college. I rent rooms out in my house, hosting everyone from language students to mature adults (one at a time - not altogether!) Has OP considered the impact on the household she'd be sending her son to? Landlords renting out rooms aren't acting in loco parentis and it would be most unfair to rent a room for DS without letting the landlord know the circumstances. It is not a live-in landlord's job to deal with someone else's troubled teen (if that's what he is) unless they're made aware of what they're getting into. Some of us are dealing with our own teenager's traumas without taking on other people's. If OP does go down the 'renting a room' route, she must be absolutely honest about her son's sef-harming. If OP is considering a room in a place without a live-in landlord, the potential for him coming to grief is even more difficult to contemplate.