15 yr DS with Girlfriend = Disaster

[TheLastResort1971]

Hi All,
Hopefully someone can guide me on our current situation.
We have DS 15 and DS 12, the 12 yr old is a dream the usual little ups and downs but nothing major. My 15 yr old has turned our life upside down and we are now at the point of involving social services to hopefully have him moved out of our home before my DH ends up going to prison as we are at the point of killing him.
8 mths ago he got a girlfriend which initially started off as a very light not intense relationship, we invited her to us for dinner on numerous occasions as well family gatherings, DS 15 has become infatuated with her to the point his school work has taken a huge nose dive going from a A/B predicted student to a C/D prediction and that's if he is lucky. When not at school he is constantly messaging the GF or FaceTime when questioned about his homework he says he has completed it at school which we believe but I'm guessing the bare minimum. He was booked to go to France and Germany next year with the school which I have cancelled as he has not earned it, was paying for private music tuition weekly also cancelled as no interest so why waste £100 per month. He has no respect for me or his Dad and we are at the end of our tether.
Has anyone had experience of similar and what is the process of trying to get social services involved as it is now affecting DS 12 which is not acceptable.
He is deceitful, devious and all that matters is this GF, the messages consist of swearing his undying love, never want to lose you, want to spend the rest of my life you, her response is just yes me to so it is mainly him being infatuated rather than the other way round.
We are at our wits end as to what to do next.
Any advice,suggestions would be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance

This thread disturbs me. I understand being concerned about the girlfriend affecting the son's school performance, but is that worth involving social services over? And do you not think that the more you try to come between them, the more forbidden and passionate they will feel it is?

And as for everything else - unfavourably comparing your son to his brother, complaining that he doesn't respect you (news flash - teenagers all hate their parents, it's not personal), complaining you're going to kill him etc...

You sound like how my father described me when I was 15. He would make out that I was the most horrendous, insolent, off the rails kid in the world instead of a virginal straight A hard worker who was actually just 15 and therefore had the odd mouthy teenage strop. Like you, he couldn't accept that teenage strops are not personal, that all teenagers hate their parents by default and as the adult, he really had to not rise to the damn thing.

Instead he took them as great personal affronts to his paternal authority, and would scream, swear, threaten to kill me, try to chuck me out of the house, and of course physically assault me (slaps, kicks, punches, thrown objects), all the while blaming me because I was, like your son, a nightmare, a disaster, and, worst of all, DISRESPECTFUL (what idiot expects respect from a teenager, seriously).

I'm really siding with your son on this one. I'm sure he's a royal pain in the arse, welcome to having a 15 year old. Do you remember being 15 and how shitty and confusing it was?

But you and your husband need to be the bloody grown ups and not escalate the situation by seeing it as a dreadful affront to you personally as opposed to just a teenager being a bloody teenager.

Don't know why "young" turned into YONG!

OP this does sound like a difficult relationship at the moment and it will be hard to bring it back to how it was before. What you really need to do is talk a lot more but especially to listen to him.

What you are trying to do is conrol him and that won't work so you have to let that go. You need to talk to him about consequences and let him make his own choices and face his own consequences.

Yes, he will fail. He has to, it's part of growing up and discovering for yourself how your decisions affect yourself and others.

Stop compaing him to his brother. Tell him all the things you love and admire about him. Show him respect, genuine respect - stop reading his private messages!

His brother may well behave the same way when he is that age so it's not as if you have one 'good' child and one 'bad' one. All of his behaviours are normal for his age.

I would focus firstly on ground rules. Do not be physical towards each other. Speak respectfully towards each other. This means that you and your dh should not try to physically remove an object from him (such as the remote), do not restrain him (walk away instead), do not shout at him or tell him what to do. If you do this you will hopefully start to see changes in him.

Say things like, I'm getting angry now so I'm going to walk away for a bit but I'd like to talk to you later. That sort of thing.

Once you build a better relationship with him he will be more willing to discuss things like his schoolwork and time management. But you have to take those first steps and show him that you love him unconditionally, not just when he does what you want.

Very good advice in a nutshell from NorthernLurker at 11.01 today. Think of it as just another phase.

Look into parenting classes.
You are babying your teenager.
At 16, he can tell you to fuck your rules and leave. Are you aware of this?
Carry on with the ridiculous control and you might loose him forever.
He is a teen. This is what they do. They get infatuated with people. They waste their cash on crap. They don't always maintain the same level of hygiene they did when they were younger. You cannot parent a 15 year old the same as a 12 year old. They are wildly different.

Stop telling him to brush his teeth. Have a shower of whatever. He will push against it.
Stop reading his messages. That's a huge breach of trust. Would you like it? Like fuck you would. Stop being so naive that he doesn't know. My carer didn't know that I knew she read my diary and boy did I write bollocks in there to piss off the nosy cow.
Stop demanding to know what he is spending his cash on.. Once it's his it is his to do as he wishes. He spends it on shit, it's not the end of the world. He will realise that it's not good when he wants to do something and he has no cash left.

Being a teen is about making mistakes and learning from them. And the whole time has support from the family. In the long term it's better he learns these mistakes now.

Who decided what GCSE pathway he took? Was he nagged into it by anyone at school or home?

Normal teen as all the above have said.
If you have spoken to him/asked him to do something is it normal in your house for you husband to step in and have another go?

I get parents should back each other up but he sounds like he's dealing with 2 very controlling parents and no one to talk to!

Our teens are a complete pain at times BUT they both know that they can speak to us and that if one has said something the other isn't going to charge into the bedroom and be in their faces.

Parenting classes and stop bloody comparing the lad to a) his younger sibling
b) all the other 'teens' in the neighbourhood c) stop blaming his GF.

I don't condone violence at all but you seem to have no respect for him, his space or allowing him to find himself.

OP, you have been given some very solid advice. It might be a good idea to step away from this thread for the rest of the day to mull over what other posters have posted.

maybe teenage son feels hes being ganged on... have you brushed your teeth... hes 15 not 5 so maybe thats why he got a bit stroppy. he then brushed his teeth went to his room. for a bit of space i would have thought then. husband/dad comes and has a pop at him demanding he turns of the tv. so then theres a row.

as others have said ss wont be intrested. hes just being a teenager.

i think its way our of order that your reading his messages. there is no way i would ever do that to my kids.

all the time you/HO are nagging and going on at him the more distant he will become. maybe be more positive towards him. maybe he could earn his school/france holiday back. if he knuckles down with his school work maybe let him know how proud you are of him. give him something to aim for be more positive towards him. treat him like hes 15

You want social services to take him into care for being rude, lazy and being obsessed with his girlfriend? Are you for fucking real?
1- social services don't have the resources to house children like your DS. There is nothing to suggest that he or your other DS are at risk of significant harm.
2- kicking a child out is extremely damaging and will probably harm your relationship with him for a long time, if not forever. He's your son, it's your job to correct his behaviour and raise him to adulthood.

Sounds like you need parenting classes to be honest.

Thanks All, we hear what your saying will take a look at us as parents and what we can do to resolve/retrieve the situation. My posts may have come over not at their best but trying to give am example by a forum I guess is tricky. We do love him dearly but appreciate these a teenage years and have to step back

What a sad situation. For your DS I mean.

I think you should reinstate the music if you can. Closing down options will lead him further from his former interests and abilities by the time this phase is over. He's being a teenager and will probably snap out of it eventually - give him breathing space. I understand it's very frustrating.

Good luck. Remember that it's a storm of hormones and storms pass

I do think you should follow the advice re. parenting strategies though as he sounds like 'a good kid' and on the scale of teenager behaviour, really not a problem at all.

I've worked with social services in the past with helping other familys and some times with safe guarding issues over a child.

What you've described(I've only got to page 2)is normal I'm afraid OP.

Family's where I know a child has been removed because of the what the child was doing,not what an adult had done to them are usually very rare to be honest.

In those cases it was a 100 times worse than what you've talked about so far.

A few examples of where SS may remove a child to protect the rest of the family.

A child sexually harming another sibling.
A child physically assaulting another member of the family and that person needing hospital treatment and the involvement of the Police being needed.
A child trying and succeding in burning part of the home down.
A child that has been served many ASBO's and is risking the likely hood of the rest of the family being allowed to stay in they're home,even then it's usually far more likely if there are other children within the home that are under 16,or there are serious health issues or disability within the family.

Another reason they'll remove a child is if the fear of the child being seriously harmed or abused because of that child's behavior is very high.

Have you any idea how busy SS are????
I think you need to access some support with your parenting.
This all sounds very normal to me.

Has he been worse, angrier, since you cancelled his trips??

You could use this as a new starting point. Tell him that you realise that your relationship with him could be better so you've had a think and would like to apologise for your part in escalating situations.

Ask him what he would like to happen, ideally. Would he like the chance to earn back his school trip by focussing a bit more on his studies? Would he like help with his studies, is there anything he is really struggling with or is it just that his head is all over the place at the moment.

Ask him. See what he says. Tell him that everything is up for negotiation but you have to work together. Nothing has to be decided right now, keep talking, keep trying and see what works for both of you.

For instance, tell him it's ok for him to be angry but it's not ok to physically attack someone. Ask him what he would rather do, would he like to leave the house for twenty minutes or so to go for a stomp around the block.

Tell him that you trust him to keep his side of any agreement that you reach as long as he continues to show that he is trustworthy and that, hopefully, you will be able to build on that trust which is probably more important than anything else.

It's a shock isn't it op when they don't quite do it how you want?

If only they would forgo the opposite sex until important GCSEs are over. And then it's a levels. And then a degree.

But they are people. With their own likes and dislikes. And wants and needs. They may not coincide with yours.

I remember the first time my DD didn't want to go out on a day out with us. It felt strange. This will feel strange until you get used to the new order of things.

I do feel for you OP, but I feel you are being unnecessarily strict on him - reading messages, tv off, cancelling trips. He's just being a teenager. If he finds out you have been reading his messages he's going to be furious, he isn't 12!

I'm surprised that you have called SS over something like this. I don't think it's going to help your relationship nor should SS be involved.

I hope you get things sorted soon.

Hi OP. I think there's been some really good advice posted on this thread, but I also think that you have been treated a bit harshly at times. I remember many, many similar situations with DD1 during her teenage years and at times feeling completely out of my depth. I think, if I'm honest, after years of making she was safe and happy and devoting most of my waking hours to these endeavours, it was really hard to step back and watch her make mistakes - but this is what I had to do.
She is now 21, very happy, succeeding in her chosen career path and a generally lovely person I certainly wouldn't have seen that coming 6 years ago! Take a deep breath, step back and have faith that all of the good stuff you've taught him over the years will be rattling around in his brain somewhere

This book is often recommended on MN, perhaps it would be helpful?

Get Out of my Life... but first take me and Alex into town

I was a horrid teen. Messy, disrespectful, and very hard to live with. My Mum threw me out at 18, and I've never lived with them since.
She talks a lot about how horrendous I was!
Then my delightful DD started behaving in the same way, being rude and petulant. My DM thought this was hilarious and started to tell me again how horrible I was. I replied that she was growing up, she will get it wrong, but I will always love her and forgive her because I know she is a good kid, with a good moral basis of right and wrong who will be a lovely adult in a few years time.
My DM conceded that I was a better parent than she had been. This was a big moment for me!