How can I motivate my 17 yr old son

[roband]

I guess I am looking for a pep talk 😊

My younger son has always been an original and I love him dearly. However he is a total enigma to me.

First of all social stuff - He never really goes out with people his own age. Just me and his gran! Occasionally his brother but they don’t get on that well. A couple of times he has been out and got horribly drunk to the point where he was brought home legless by other kids. But these are really rare occasions. Three times in as many years. Other than that is on his phone the whole time and I have no idea if he is online chatting or just doing stuff on his own. I don’t even know the names of people he hangs about with at school. Believe me I ask. But No matter how I try he won’t let me into any of his world and that does worry me a wee bit I guess

Secondly school. He is smart but he should
shows zero interest in anything really. He cannot organise himself and his persistent underachievement (as evidence by his frankly baffling higher results this week - A for two subjects and no awards for others!) ) don’t seem to bother him at all. He thinks he is going to uni cos the rest of the family all has. But he seems unable to make the connection between that ambition and needing to work for it. I have lost count of the meetings with teachers we have had all with little effect

He has had some eating problems in the past and his body image is poor. Whenever he is stressed he starts to say he is is fat. He is a stick of a boy in reality

I have always comforted myself that he is just slow to mature but I am now getting quite depressed that he is never going to develop and flourish as he deserves to. It is now his final year at school coming up and I can’t see a clear future for him as I can for my older son and other children - it is starting to make me very sad

Finally I don’t think he is on the ASD spectrum as he is pretty social and can chat away etc but it has been suggested in the past that we might get him tested. We deliberately chose not too as he is hyper sensitive about everything and I believe he would misinterpret a move to do this as some kind of insult or slur to him I know it is not but I am just saying that is how he would take it.

End of vent. Thanks in advance

I would try and get an assessment.
Plenty of children who are ASD are chatty and talkative, but often only on their terms or they are ‘masking’. Social to me is going out and having a social life or at least having defined school friends. This is different from being able to chat to family.
My teens have friends at school that they don’t see in the hols, I suppose they’re not close enough to them, but they do see friends in the hols, I know the names of their friends at least, etc.,
Can you frame an assessment in a positive way or see gp without him at first to get an expert opinion to see if it’s worth pursuing.

Agree with above poster. There are lots of red flags which suggest possible asd from what you have said.