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Teenagers

Need to talk it through - ds drugs, lying & general boundary crossing

5 replies

Goandplay · 14/04/2023 08:28

My DS (17) has always been about 2/3 years behind his peers mentally which has been lovely. He enjoyed a childhood much longer than other children but now he’s speeding into adulthood with the world view of a 15 year old and limited street knowledge if that makes sense.

Last summer he was happy playing football, having friends over for pizza and playing PlayStation. He has a couple of friends who were into parties and drinking which didn’t seem to be on his radar or interesting to him.

fastforward to now.

He’s not submitting a level coursework, not revising and generally bored of school. I keep saying this is the final push and it’s done forever.

He doesn’t want to work a part time job. Seems happy to get by on money we give him when his friends have money to do things.

When A levels finish how do I motivate him to want to work, get into an apprenticeship?

Left to his own devices he will stay up on PlayStation till early hours so we have to still give him a ‘bedtime’ or he would make himself ill and be dragging himself through the day.

Now we’ve had a situation where in one night he’s snuck out of the house, met girls, snuck them back to our house and let them stay the night whilst they’ve inhaled the gas canisters things and tried a pill of which I can’t be 100% sure if MDMA or something else. The only reason we realised was because they (2 boys / 2 girls) were all wide awake first thing in the morning and clearly looked like they had taken something.

We’ve had to back him into corners and catch him out to get the full story.

I’m at a loss as to what to do, how much control I should even have over his life at this age.

I can see a time when he’s finished college and he’s doing nothing with his life and missing out on opportunities.

obviously there is the possibility he’s done drugs plenty of times and this is the first time he was caught as his night seems to have escalated quickly for one night. Even so this would have all been fairly recent in the last couple of months.

what do I do? What are the natural consequences because so far having no money etc from not working doesn’t change his behaviour.

my gut feeling is I can’t let him drift, I don’t think he is a ‘it’s a phase’ type of person. I think he is a coaster/ drifter who likes the easiest route.

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Goandplay · 14/04/2023 08:30

Sorry if my post is a bit rambling.

He lies as well. All the way from generally telling small pointless lies all the way to lies to avoid situations.

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AuroraAlba · 14/04/2023 08:39

Sorry to hear you're going through this with him. Sounds like such a rapid deterioration in behaviour.

Honestly really clear and specific ground rules and consequences and try to keep communication directly, brief and positive and help him feel like he is part of the "agreement" and has a say. Use "I" statement to be less blaming.

Consequences could be confiscating playstation, less or no allowance, no lifts, not doing washing etc, but on the flip side introduce rewards for wanted behaviour and make this link and don't let the small positive efforts go unnoticed.

Look after yourself 💐

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AuroraAlba · 14/04/2023 08:41

In terms of the drugs I would give the school a heads up to keep an eye on him. If there are any local youth organisations that can do a bit of intervention work or have a one to one with him even better.

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Goandplay · 14/04/2023 08:44

Thank you so much.

I didn’t even think of speaking to school. I will do that Monday.

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Springtimeinthegarden · 24/05/2023 07:57

You could contact your local authority family outreach support services.

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