DS almost 18 struggling to be an adult

[MairSss]

My son is almost 18 and I’m struggling with him. I suspect he has some sort of ASD but has always refused to attend any appointments or interventions.

When he was early teens he was horrendous to live with and regularly trashed his room if he couldn’t get his own way, was aggressive and violent and refused to attend school. Thankfully that’s in the past and we don’t see any of these behaviours anymore.

Here are the issues

He can’t organise himself at all. He can’t ever find anything and leaves everything to the last minute. This generally results in a huge tantrum and door slamming. I have helped him organise his bedroom and remind him where his work uniform is kept, shoes etc. He forgets to put things back and therefore can never find anything.

He happily agrees to help with chores such as emptying the dishwasher, put laundry away or take the dogs out, but rarely actually does these things as it’s always ‘I’ll do it later’ he doesn’t seem to have any sense of time or time management.

He has absolutely no sense with money despite us encouraging him to save his money. He spends his wages as soon as he gets paid then borrows money until he’s paid next, but he can’t possibly pay back what he’s borrowed because he doesn’t earn much. We have stopped lending him money but he just borrow off others - mainly his Gf.

He struggles with food preparation so I’ve helped him and encouraged him to make simple things like pasta or beans on toast. He just gets all stressed saying he can’t work out timings and therefore can’t do it.

He currently works part time at a fast food restaurant. He leaves it until 10 minutes before his shift to start looking for his work clothes despite me constantly prompting him to get ready. He’s always late despite me driving him to work, I’m surprised he still actually has a job.

He’s failed his theory test 3 times as he’s refused to study for it. I’ve told him I’m not paying for anymore until he can revise properly. He already has a car which we bought from his trust fund, he’s reasonably good at driving but can’t be bothered to take his test. I just don’t understand it as he would have so many opportunities (job wise) if he can drive. We have paid for loads of lessons but stopped a few months.

We’ve talked about his future and I suggested maybe he looks into a vocational college course. He expressed an interest. I’ve had to complete the registration form and book a slot for the open day. He said he couldn’t do that himself.

Despite my efforts and support, he doesn’t seem to be able to demonstrate any kind of responsibility or maturity.

I said you’re almost an adult you need to be able to have life skills, what will you be like when you have your own place? He looked crestfallen and said can’t I just stay here?

I’m torn between trying to support him and encourage independence and just thinking maybe he’s a bit lazy?

His dad and I are both hard workers and far from lazy so it’s not a learned behaviour.

Can anyone advise who has similar circumstances?

even if it's failure to launch (which is a condition) he will need help.

I second your son seems ADHD. Alarms, routines, and putting the tasks into smaller manageable tasks is how I do it with My teenager x

That’s hard.

I do think getting him assessed for ND is the way to go. I don’t know how you get him to do that.

Without wishing to break his confidence, his GF must be aware of some of his difficulties, does she know that there’s any possible ND? Maybe he would listen to her? If that’s not something she knows about, then I think you have to just keep bringing up the idea of assessments with him. He could get help and maybe some benefits, would that persuade him?

It may just be immaturity, that’s always a possibility. Either way, I think he needs support and reassurance. Suggestions of kicking him out really aren’t helpful.

This sounds exactly like me. My GP is almost impossible to get an appointment in so I won't be going for any diagnoses these days but I have learnt how to cope.

I actually have a career which I can't quite believe but I failed a few of my professional exams because I couldn't get my act together to study. I did get through them though but many all nighters last min revision were to be had! I still can't manage timings on cooking dinner and now I have dc I've proven this over and over I've burnt dinners, undercooked things. My dh does all the cooking now and I do the things I am good at.

Over the years I've had to adapt, I have a 'patch' in our bedroom I'm allowed to dump stuff else the whole house becomes a mess very quickly. My dh helps remind me to only use my patch though. I also had a lot of trouble at work and eventually someone lost it with me and said you need to put reminders on your phone and they were so angry I did it straight away. And it worked, hours later I did the task and didn't have to remember it because my phone did that for me. Since then I put everything in my phone. People have laughed at what I put in, it can be very very simple tasks that most people can remember but I can't.
In my case it's not strategic incompetence anyway, I genuinely still can't do most of the things your ds can't. I didn't smash things up etc but I was a very angry teenager. It's hard because you feel so so stupid. I'm not stupid I struggle with some basic tasks and it's taken most of my adult life working on how to cope.

The suggestion of TikTok videos above is great I'm off to see these too. For me the number one thing that helps me is putting reminders in my phone immediately for whenever o need to remember anything but it's taken ten years of practice to get that almost perfect for me!

Another thing that helps is I buy microwave meals with clear instructions, no stir at half way times labels etc just the ones that say 3 mins then take out the microwave

And oven pizza is a god send. Very easy. I can't see how anyone would get confused on oven pizza as it's an in for 10 min job as well. And set oven alarm to ensure it's actually taken out.

This sounds like my son - we are currently awaiting an adhd assessment.

Another one thinking this sounds like ADHD. Executive function skills are delayed in ADHD which will cause problems with organisation etc as if your son does have it, his executive function skills are that of a 14-15 year old currently. Those with ADHD also often have no idea of time - it's either now or not now. If he does have ADHD he cannot help his behaviour. His brain is wired differently.

A couple of ways to support
Timers / alarms for everything e.g. one 30 mins before he needs to leave, 1 10 mins, 1 5 mins and 1 at leaving time.
Keep to do lists for each day and tick off
Places where items live as this stops them getting lost e.g. keys only go here or here and nowhere else

Routines to reduce mental load

A couple of useful websites

ADHD Wise UK- has ADHD herself and provides coaching, training etc https://www.adhdwise.uk/

How to ADHD on YouTube.
https://youtube.com/@HowtoADHD

Good luck to you both.

It sounds very likely that your son is neurodivergent and has ADHD. The key message is that, without support, he CAN’T be the tidy, organised, sensible person that you’d like him to be. Can’t, not won’t. He needs support, offered positively. Have a look at the app Brain in Hand, which can be used to set reminders and other strategies to help him. Sit with him and chat about the difficulties he’s having and ask him for ideas about ways of making his life more organised. He needs kindness and support.

All this✔️

How is that going to work? How will he pay rent?

You do realise that the OP will have to be his guarantor, and will end up paying his rent because he won't.

He may have ADHD or not, he could just be still a teenager who finds focus on organising himself boring, ie immature. There were plenty of men at uni who only ever ate beans on toast as I remember.

He needs to feel consequences to start to make changes. You're right not not to pay for the theory test again - three times is fine and he also working.

Let him be late to work, lose a job if needs be while he's still living at home and has that security.

How old are your other DC? Can you go away for a holiday without him for 14 days so he really does have to step up for a bit?

@LovingKent yes to the times alarms for when to leave. I have one on everyday for when I have to leave plus another ten mins of me saying right I have to leave now as in NOW! I have to pack everything I need the night before, lay out school uniforms night before.

So as a teenager I suppose that means putting clothes out, getting keys/wallet/work passes out night before. I also have a bowl in the hallway I've had to 'train' myself to use every day so I put my keys and money in there everyday else I lose them.

Tbh without my dh I'd be a mess though. I hope you can support your ds OP. And I hope you get support too.

@3luckystars or anyone else with knowledge of this:
How does medication help?
Thank you in advance.

I’m not an expert in medication but my understanding is that ADHD medication turns off the ‘noise’ and allows people to focus. Which must be an amazing gift if you have spent your whole life beating yourself up and feeling stupid or ‘less’ than everyone else, when your brain just works differently all along and it isn’t your fault.

bring him for an assessment, be kind to the both of you and give the assessment a chance. It could transform both of your lives.
All the best.

Whether you get a diagnosis or not just to let you know I know tons of people who only really learned to adult as adults, half the people I lived with in college (and myself!) could not fry an egg, and lived on beans and toast and toasted sandwiches. Only learned to clean as we realised we had to!! Your son is still a teen and hopefully some of the tips above will help but I’d just say do make sure to reassure him that you’re not dumping him out the door but he will/may want to be independent and in his own place soon/one day. As a scatty person I absolutely empathise with him, it’s hard!! Best of luck to you all

Thanks everyone some great advice here!

he does use alarms but he simply switches them off as they annoy him 😂

His gf (18) lives with us and has done for a year (big problems at home). She is amazing with him she’s sensible and understanding but also doesn’t put up with any silly nonsense and tells him straight- he’ll have a sulk for a bit then apologise to her.

The noise thing is interesting. If his gf eats crisps he will sit on the other side of the room as can’t listen to the crunching noise, yet he’ll happily slap his chops when eating certain foods!

I’ve put their own laundry basket in their room but clothes are still strewn on the floor - maybe this is a teenage thing!

With food he’s rarely around at meal times (either in work or out) so I cover his meal and put a post it note to microwave for 4 minutes and this works really well. The other day was apple crumble and custard for dessert which he loves but the custard had a stir half way through instruction. He didn’t have the custard as the ‘stir half way through’ was off putting for him.

He’s also very sensitive to any kind of food mess on himself. Eg if he spills something on him he almost has a panic and runs around shouting for me to help as he has some ketchup on his arm- obviously he can wash his own arm but it’s the alarm he feels before he can work out all he needs to do is wash his arm and change his top. He does laugh when we point out it’s not a catastrophe!

yesterday I made bacon and egg sandwiches, as he took a bite some of the yolk dripped onto his hand, he slammed the sandwich back onto the plate and shouted ‘I can’t eat that now!’ Then realised he was actually hungry and ate it. His gf was laughing her head off (thank goodness she has a sense of humour) then he laughed too.

Also sometimes he’ll come home and I’ll say are you hungry? He’ll say no, then literally 5 minutes later he’ll say what’s to eat I’m starving!

I’ve suggested to gf to stop lending him money and she agrees.

Yes I now have a specific part of the wardrobe for work clothes and a pot for keys & wallet. He doesn’t remember to put things back and gets cross when I keep reminding him. So if I see his wallet and key lying around I put it in his pot.

Another vote for ADHD.
neurodiverse brains are generally 4 years behind in development until around 24 yrs of age. So your son has the brain of a 14 year old neurotypical boy! Does that change how you think or help him?

even if he wont acknowledge the situation himself you can still read and research and put lots of things in place to help him with daily life. Show him the neurodiverse way of doing things.
Dont listen to the pp who say stuff like tell him to grow up, he can’t.
Be kind, adhders struggle as it is with self loathing.

Yes I agree. Luckily both his dad and I are pretty laid back and know not to put unrealistic expectations on him.

We are supporting him the best we can, although we know he doesn’t respond well to a ‘hard’ approach. Eg In the past I’ve refused to tidy his room. After several weeks you couldn’t even see the floor, he obviously couldn’t find anything but rather than tidying it he just had a huge meltdown and stormed out for a few hours. I realised at this point he maybe couldn’t do it rather than wouldn’t.

he’s really good at bringing down dirty dishes to the kitchen but anything else is just a big no no!

I thought ADHD too. The examples you give all fit in with the questions I was asked about my DC's assessment.

DD solves a lot of problems by using multiple alarms (get up, leave for bus etc). I've also found that rather than "tidy your room" specific tasks work better like "take the recycling down" or "clothes off floor"

DS has the avoidant bit whereby he will pretty much refuse to do most of what you ask him to on principle. I never found the perfect solution to that!

Yes this makes a lot of sense. He does act like a 13/14 year old.

Interesting about the self loathing. He comes across as all macho but deep down he’s deeply insecure and although he’ll never admit to this I think he actually hates himself for not being able to do things.

He has told gf how he wished he’d gone to school and was able to do well and I believe the tantrums are a result of the frustration he feels from within himself on a day to day basis (tantrums are infrequent now but he often gets angry when trying to do something he goes from 0-10 in about 2 seconds). We do calmly try and help by making suggestions to do things but he often doesn’t like this as I think he feels incompetent and possibly embarrassed.

I imagine that part of his resistance is a big ball of shame that's built up, from finding this "easy" stuff really hard. Trying and failing again and again and not understanding why. Even if you have never criticised him, he will have heard it from others. Getting past that and getting him engaged in finding solutions sounds really hard. Maybe the first step is to try to normalise this struggle, and then only later will he be ready to change. Do you know anyone who's neurodiverse (might just seem "scatty" who could commiserate with him about how hard this all is)?

I'm no expert but some of your later post do sound like ASD. I know some people with both who say it can be a nightmare - ADHD means you struggle to create routine and then asd leads to meltdowns when things go wrong. E.g. the bedroom tidying example - he can't fix it, but is overwhelmingly upset by it being wrong.

Yes specifics are good. ‘Bring your plates down’ and ‘put laundry in the basket’ are certainly more effective than tidy your room. My son is definitely avoidant. If I say do this or do that he’ll say no.
if I say ‘could you please do this as it’ll help me thanks very much’ he’ll generally do it

I relate to your son a lot on this one. I've got poor executive function, particularly if I am stressed or sleep deprived. "Tidy the room" to me sounds nearly as vague as "build a space rocket". Where would you start? I panic and freeze because I don't know how to do the whole thing. But if, as an adult, you ask "how?" people laugh at you.

I had to learn, and now have to remind myself, to break it into steps. The exact system doesn't matter, but all of them give you a place to start. So a step might be "look for things that are rubbish and put them in the bin". "Look for things that are dirty laundry and put them in the basket". And the room needs to be set up to enable that, if there's no bin in the room then that extra step of going out the room makes it even harder. And then, there are items where I cant work out where they should go. I can kind of get "stuck" because I can't decide what to do. It's upsetting and mentally exhausting, so I might go to make a cup of tea instead to cheer myself up, and then get distracted by some other activity or job and think "I'll tidy later", by which point I've forgotten or run out of time.

And then because I find it hard, and have experienced failing at it so many times, I'm more avoidant of these kind of tasks, which obviously makes the mess build up worse and worse.

It's weird because it's not correlated to "intelligence" in the traditional sense - I have a good degree and professional job - which makes it feel very shameful because it "ought to be easy". And there are many many people who are all to happy to shame this behaviour as slobbish, lazy, etc. But I don't think it is laziness, because I can be hardworking at other tasks people consider unpleasant, as long as they don't require executive function.

Yes! DS can be really helpful when it's phrased as him doing me a favour rather than him doing a chore.

He's just moved out after being home from Uni for a year and he has improved with his independence although forgetting stuff is still an issue. There is hope.

Oh dear just had our first incident of the day. He had a work shift at 12. I woke him at 11:30 to get ready. He didn’t know he had a shift as his work app is down. We only knew as happened to check our email (it’s our details as we applied for the job for him). His work uniform from yesterday is in the washing machine and he couldn’t find any work trousers (they weren’t in the usual place). I found him a top but he’s had to put black joggers on as we can’t find trousers. Cue massive over reaction- door slammed in my face, shouting at me as I didn’t tell him he had work today.

I calmly asked him in the car how we can avoid this. He didn’t know. I’ve gently said it’s his responsibility to know when he has work but has just shouted about the app not working. I’ve suggested he asks his manager to help him re-download the app on his phone. He’s told me he’s told off every day in work as he is not following instructions and is just waiting to be fired as then he’ll have a weeks wages.

I’ve strongly suggested he tries not to get fired as then he will have no money but he’s just shrugged and said he hates it and it’s a shit job.

I obviously don’t want to point out that maybe if he went to school and tried he wouldn’t be in this position now but that of course is unhelpful and will make him feel worse.

this is so hard!