I’ve been on strike for a week and nothing is changing!

[UnluckyStrike]

Just me and 15yo DS at home.

He is a very lazy teen at home. I believe he struggles with time organisation and prioritising etc. Doesn’t do jobs as they arise, instead let’s them mount up and then he’s overwhelmed by it.

However, he is a very hard worker at his shop job and school. So he CAN put effort in when he needs to.

Since he was about twelve, he has been responsible for his own laundry, ironing shirts for school etc and keeping his room tidy (changing bed sheets, hoovering and polishing it once a week). This was the deal for him to receive £5 per week pocket money. On weeks where he didn’t do it, he didn’t get the pocket money. I thought this would ensure he’d grow up understanding responsibility - how wrong was I?!

Since he’s got his own job and earning more money, he isn’t doing anything around the house now.

I am sickened by how messy he is. Dishes in his rooms for weeks resulting in fruit flies, laundry not been done for 4 weeks since the start of the summer holidays except work uniform (he actually went and bought a packet of pants from Tesco the other day rather than wash his current ones!), bed sheets not been washed since the start of the summer. His room is a midden and he doesn’t seem to care. I can smell it - mouldy food etc - as I walk by it.

I have absolutely broken down in the past few weeks. I’ve told him how it’s affecting my mental health as i like to keep a tidy house and i feel as though my house is now infested with bugs etc and smells horrid. I’m too embarrassed to have friends round for dinner. He is very dismissive and just says it’s his room and he’ll get to it at some point.

Things have now escalated as he’s started leaving dishes in the kitchen sink (we don’t have a dishwasher) for me to wash, crumbs in the floor and counter etc. And he goes through soooo many glasses a day. i’ve told him no chance. he either washes it immediately after use or takes it to his room.

I’ve now run out of cutlery and glasses so have told him he needs to wash them today or he’s banned from using any crockery or cutlery etc and will need to use paper items. he said no problem and is planning to go buy disposable plates and cutlery for himself today.

I am actually losing the plot. I don’t know what to do. I feel like every second i’m on edge thinking i can see flies or the smell is seeping into my curtains etc.

Today i have told him he’s banned from loitering in any other room of the house until his bedroom is sorted. I’ve not made him any meals or been shopping in over a week either. He doesn’t know how to cook (he’s never taken me up on the offer to learn) so is now getting annoyed as there are no more tins left or bread etc as he’s been living off beans and soup and toast for the past week as well as brining food home from the cafe he works at. I’ve told him i’d be more than happy to cook a proper meal as soon as his room is tidy.

My strike action isn’t working. I need to go do a big shop and i do need to make some proper dinners but he’s just going to help himself to this and add to the crap already in his room. What can i do???

Today i threatened to take a photo and video of his room and put it on facebook. he said i wouldn’t dare and to be honest i don’t think i do have the guts as it’s so embarrassing.

How can i get him to tidy his room when i’ve already stopped doing everything for him with no effect?

He isn’t at all bothered by it. I can’t cut off anything else for him. His grandparents pay his unlimited phone data, turning of wi-fi won’t work. We have no nearby family to talk to him other than his gran who is a total sexist and softie and will tell me off for not helping him tidy his room.

I DID help him tidy his room a few months ago the last time it go this bad - this consisted of him lying on his bed playing games while dictating to me where things go! Never again! I think he is so stubborn that he’s be willing to hold out until i get that desperate again and just do it for him. Absolutely NOT.

Your attitude is very un-family.

It isn't his laundry and your laundry, there is family laundry.

You need to work together.

You're his family member, not his flat mate. He's 15, not 18.

Good lord - you expected so much from a 12 year old - I can not believe what I am reading from so many people on here.

I mean fair enough to expect him to bring his laundry etc down but he is presumably in gcse year and has a job and you want him to do a lot more than any teens I know

I suspect he is very resentful of you as what you have expected him to do for the last three years is not at all normal and I have 3 dc's all of whom are older than yours but still teens.

And I did laundry for my dc who have gone very easily onto university - I taught them to do household tasks but didn't expect them to do everything at home whilst studying.

This is such an odd thread.

"I believe he struggles with time organisation and prioritising etc. Doesn’t do jobs as they arise, instead let’s them mount up and then he’s overwhelmed by it." @UnluckyStrike

So he struggles with this and you've now got into what seems a very negative spiral and a stalemate. Has he always struggled with this - have teachers ever flagged it with you?

Have you heard of executive functioning?

I suspect that if he has already matured enough to be able to hold down a job and still isn't interested, the only thing that is actually going to motivate him at this point will be if he wants to bring a girlfriend round. :-/

This is why chores at home and money should not be linked. If kids live in the house, they need to take some responsibility for keeping it clean. It is not HIS room - it is YOUR house. He gets to have a room because you give him one. I would give him a deadline. If it is not clear, you will go in, bag up everything not put away and throw it away. Phone is taken away, dumb phone only. No wifi. No cooking for him.

I’m glad someone else thinks this and some of the replies are just downright spiteful. My son is messy, I do tell him but if it gets a bit much I just go in and remove any dishes and take his laundry bag downstairs. He’s a good lad, isn’t a yob, a lovely son, we enjoy each other’s company. He’s a messy teen just like lots of messy teens. No big drama or battles. He’s off to Uni this year, I’ll miss him terribly, I’ll miss the plates and glasses on his bedside table and I’ll miss his pile of washing. It’s just been him and me for the last three years while his brother was at Uni (his brother is super tidy). I’ll miss his mess 😞

I really like this approach. Talk to him as a peer, an (almost) adult who you share the house with. Sit down and agree now that you earn xyz you need to contribute abc (a token amount). These are all of the chores that need to be done to keep this house ticking over, let's split them between us.

Until he owns his own house, he'll be living under someone else's roof and needs to learn to respect the space.

Some of the responses on this thread are awful, he's OPs son, not the enemy! Following some of the 'advice' here would mean pushing him away forever I feel. He sounds like a good kid, works well at school and has a job etc. Yes he should keep his room tidier but helping him out is not going to turn him into a slob in the future. I was pretty untidy and had the classic floordrobe as a teenager and I'm certainly not like that now. As for not doing his washing from age 12 and still refusing so he has to go and buy more from the shop is actually pretty sad.

OP, I'd suggest you both sort his room out together, help him with his laundry and reset everything. Do some fun things together and enjoy him being at home, it won't be long until he's not there. They are kids for such a short time.

Jolly him along, cheerful repeated requests. I’d probably regularly need my plates back at 6am and bounce in to get them then with a cheerful good morning sweetheart after giving him 24 hrs to do it himself first. Anything which smells is do this for from crockery to sheets, dirty clothes, food wrappings. But generally let him have a messy room otherwise. And if the sink was full of his dishes which you’d asked him to clean up, again I’d cheerfully tell him I needed the sink now at whatever hour you need it. Like PollyAnna on a stuck record.