Would you make anything of his birthday if he was your son?

[fedup4]

My son is nearly 15 and is absolutely horrible at the moment - we don't like him one little bit.

He has been truanting on and off for ages now, is hanging around with a bad crowd, is cheeky, rude and bone idle. He is constantly telling us to shut up when we ask him to do the simplest tasks. We have put all the consequences in place (like no phone, ipod, no money, no new clothes, no magazines etc etc). Usually it was for a week at a time but as the truanting lessons hasn't stopped we have now said it is for a month. All we get is do I care and am I bothered. I don't think it has been long enough yet for him to realise we mean it this time.

My husband was so fed up with everything he had done one day a couple of weeks ago that he said if you truant again I can promise you you won't get a thing for your birthday (this can add up to £350 worth of clothes, vouchers and money as his grandad is very generous and we have quite a big family). He said he understood this but still missed one lesson the next morning.

It was his dad's birthday 2 weeks ago - I went out and bought a present as we were short on time and I sent my son to buy a card and told him to write it out. It was still by the front door unopened and in its original packaging that evening and the next morning.

He couldn't even be bothered to write the card out. He didn't even mention his dad's birthday and certainly didn't wish him happy birthday.

I really think we shouldn't bother with his birthday at all this year - just get everyone to send him a card and he can get his presents when he gets his act sorted out.

I have phoned parentline so many times I am at my wits end. The advisor agreed with me and said if a teenager is being so horrible why should they get £350 worth of presents.

Keep up what you are doing. The less access he has to money the more he will see how he meeds to change his behaviour. But it will take time and you could still be grounding him in a years time.

If you feel he is talking to you nastily then say to him 'I won't talk to you if you can't be civil' and stick to it don't get dragged into a slanging match with him as then he has won.

WRT his birthday make it a treat for the family so his siblings get some enjoyment as well as him. You say you are on holiday so take the whole family on a planned actiity and have a nice meal with a cake and cards. OK he might not appreciate a family meal, he is only 15 but you are showing he is loved even tho his behaviour is so bad.
As for other family members I would tell them how bad he has been and stress you don't want him to be rewarded by gifts. It won't hurt him to miss out on some presents and money.

Hi Fedup

I read this thread yesterday and decided to sleep on it a bit (and a lumpy and uncomfortable bed it made!).

As you said, no one knows what it is like unless they have been there so I qualify any suggestions below as being based on limited experience (1 teen DC with 2 more to go).

First off, your son's behaviour is extreme but not irredeemable. I think that you have identified that he has got into a habit of bad behaviour. You need to help him break that habit. He possibly wants to break it himself butdoesnt know how to without seeming to have 'lost'. It takes roughly 3 weeks to make or break a habit so you do have time.

So here are 2 suggestions:

1. You mentioned that your husband runs his own business. Would it be possible for him to take your son on for the whole of the summer. This would get hime some work experience. I took my daughter to work a while back which was a real eye opener for her.

You could use this as a reason for taking your son out of school now. This way he gets 10 weeks away from bad influences which is plenty of time to break their grip.

Pay him the appropriate wage for the work he does so he doesnt see himself as being martyrd. Not cash, montly into a bank account.

He wants to be traeted like a grown up. This will show him what being a grown-up means. Pleasures are earned, actions have consequences (which you mentioned that you want him to realise).

1. I agree with other posters about marking his birthday in some way without the gifts. The idea of a charitable gift is a good one. How about letting your son choose? Or perhaps let his grandfather choose?

I guess you want your son to see his actions for what they are which is wilfull and unreasonable. Have you tried talking to him in third party terms - 'what would you do if someone behaved like that to you?'.

These are all just thoughts. You are going through a horrible situation and I hope that your son soon comes out of the other end of this and learns a bit. Whatever happens he wont ever admit that he was in the wrong though he might learn a few lessons for when he has children of his own.

Best wishes

The bottom line is if he sorts the truancy out there will be no problems as he won't get anything taken away from him, can have his phone, his ipod, and he can go out etc etc.

Everything else will fall into place when he gets these things back as he won't be angry with us about anything.

Truancy is a difficult habit to break. If he has routinely missed lessons and associated homework then there will be catching up to do which possibly frightens him (which in a teenager means angers him). Does the school have a strategy for getting truants back into school? Is it possible for you to discuss this with the school to see if he is facing a mountain of undelivered homework and if that can be broken down to make it manageable.

I can remember from my youth that staying out became easier (and less confrontational with teachers) than going in.

Yes, it is very, very hard to see anything good when they are hellbent on self-destruction and on causing enormous emotional pain.

I actually told my nightmare DS I was writing a list of all the good things I could think about him and his reply 'I bet it won't be a very long list' made me try REALLY hard!! I do think they need to hear it. Almost in the same way you look at a 2 year old at the table and do an OTT 'Well you sitting up! And eating your peas! And chewing with your mouth shut!'

One of the things I told DS was that he made good cups of tea HINT HINT

The best advice I had when my son was starting being a pain last year (aged 15) was to talk to him.

I had to steel myself not to react to some of the crap he came out with. But I think talking helped him to consolidate some of his thoughts about what he wanted out of life, and how he was going to get it. And it gave me an opportunity to keep re-emphasising all the things he got out of keeping on our good sides - lifts, school trips paid for, help with Uni (in the future), pocket money, etc. And I told him, yes, he could do without of all of that if he wanted to. It was his decision. Luckily he decided he did want all those things, and the last 6 months have been OK (fingers Xed).

Oh and get the Grandfather on side re the money. There's no point you being strict if he can just bum £70 off him.

sympathies fedup4, sounds like a nightmare! if for nothing else than to save your sanity, do you think you could put the responsibility of going to school onto your DS?

you could explain to him (as I'm sure you already have) a) what happens if you go to school - money to afford treats (and plumbers!), and b) what happens if he doesn't go. And then tell him it's his choice and you are done trying to get him to go, and then be as nonchalant about the whole thing as you can possibly be, whatever he decides.

at the moment he's using the truancy as a point of manipulation and control - he knows how much you want him to go to school. if you can remove that (easier said than done I'm sure!), then the friction would be reduced and he may even start going again.

does he say why he truants? is it always the same subjects, or does he not want to get up in the mornings? is there anything that you think would make getting up easier for him (e.g. his favourite cereal)?

Yes, I can lay off on being bothered about it which I am doing. But he then can?t come home and switch the computer on, SKY TV etc etc. I will not change my stance on truancy. He is missing one/two lessons a day which amounts to him doing a 4 day week. He has NEVER missed a full day ? he wouldn?t be able to manage without any money, lunch etc.

He likes school (he has never told me he doesn?t) and at the moment is still saying he will get a minimum of 5 GCSEs next year. He doesn?t understand that he sounds so ridiculous to say he wants to go to college when he is missing a day at school each week. The boys he is doing it with are complete wasters who are heading nowhere and he doesn?t even look anything like them. I can?t imagine he has anything in common with them apart from missing lessons.

He knows all about the consequences if he continues ? it will have an impact on him and him alone. He is under no illusions about that but for whatever reasons (you are probably right with the manipulation and control) he still continues to do it and continues to get no extras/luxuries at home, which most things that teenagers like are (sky tv, computer, ipod, mobile phone, new clothes, trainers, magazines, money, concerts).

All this is there for the taking but he is choosing not to have it at the moment.

Maybe 6 weeks of having nothing in the school holidays will do the trick, we will have to wait and see.

You could also focus his mind by pointing out that he is only hurting himself and not you. You are where you want to be; what is he planning to do at 16, when he can't go to college because his reference isn't good enough, and he can't get a really good job with just 5 GCSEs, especially if they are all Ds?

Ask him if has looked into where he is going to live; how he will fund himself, because you won't be doing it post-16 if his finger is not pulled out.

This does work - have done it myself to my 14yo ds when work is not up to scratch, and also to year 10s and 11s in my tutor group.

Keep on with the no money etc, hold out, I'll bet you can be more stubborn than him.

What stikes me is that he never misses a full day of school. Does he miss the same subjects each day/regulary? As an earlier poster said, once you've missed alot, it's blimming hard to go back in. I'm sure you're in close contact with the school - have they come up with any ideas, rather than putting the onus on you to sort the truancy? Is there something worrying him about the subjects he misses?
Having said all this, he may just be being a painful 15 year old.

Have you read the book 'Get Out Of My Life - But First Take Me and Alex Into Town?' It really helped me put things into perspective.

It's so bloody hard isn't it? You actually can't make them do anything at this age - they have to have a willingness to do it that comes from them. And how do you foster that?

Back to his birthday - yes, celebrate it, but fewer presents. Give him lots of hugs if he will let you, tell him you love him, and make him feel special for that day.

I'd say you still need to celebrate his birthday but no extra special treats.

I'd celebrate in that I'd give him a card and a small gift, but that would be it. I'd negotiate with relatives in advance, put the money they were going to give him into a bank account and tell him that it was there for him once he'd got his act together and demonstrated that he was worthy of that amount of cash.

If it's any consolation, I skivved a lot in fifth year. I'd done very well in my O grades, then decided that my Highers were too boring to contemplate so bunked off classes on a regular basis. My parents had no idea this was going on until my results came in, and if they had they would have been down on me hard. I got the shock of my life, had to go back and repeat all but one of them in sixth year and then went onto university.

My only experience of teenagers is having taught them, but for what its worth this is what occured to me pondering it all through bathtime-

I think there might be some mileage in the suggestions that you look at which lessons he's missing. Is it ones with the 'bad crowd' in? Are they ones with a particular teacher- possibly one that makes a point of highlighting the fact he has turned up rather than letting him slink in? If there is a pattern there might be somewhere you could go with the school - sometimes there is some flexibility about groups he's in and he has a chance for a fresh start then with Year 11. If it's random then that wont help of course.

The suggestion that he could be worried about a pile of homework and coursework landing on him also sounds sensible. Does he have a tutor? If so, would they be able to channel it for him so he was only dealing with one person and not getting it in the neck from lots of people?

Any chance of someone nearer his age to talk to him- a friend or family member who is in college and could have a chat about getting his act together? Or someone who cocked up and had to resit?

Could you go and visit a college and get him interested in specific A levels so he has something tangible to aim for- if possible have an adult there talk to him about what they look for when considering applications etc. Being able to say 'I am applying for X at college so I know its a ball ache but I have to do Y at school' would give him an out with the bad crowd friends possibly?

He seems to have backed himself into a corner and at the moment may not be seeing any way out that doesnt involve losing face. His general rudeness must be unbelieably difficult to deal with, as some one else has said, I am sure he will eventually grow up and be lovely. SOme of it may be hormones and immaturity but some of it may be panic- he knows he's cocked up, he knows he's being a pain but be isnt grown up enough to sort it out on his own. I think you really need a turn around in these holidays because Year 11 is short and if he starts badly he will simply run out of time.

Hope things get better for you all

Have skimmed most of this thread rather than read every word, just in case I am repeating something that has already been said.

This may seem like a small thing but is very important IMHO. You say "we don't like him one little bit" and "he has (at times) turned into a vile horrible young man" If you can separate the behaviour from the person I think it may be helpful. Say you dislike his behaviour but not that you dislike him.

The love between a parent and child is unconditional and I'm sure it won't do any harm and may even help the situation if he knows he is loved, and always will be loved by you. Teenage years are hard and confusing and everything seems so much bigger than it often is, knowing that you are always there for him will give him the security all teenagers need.

Good luck with it all

Do you think the love between a parent and child is unconditional regardless of what the child does?

No, I'm afraid I disagree. If my child were to commit an atrocious crime my love would not be unconditional. I know this is far in extreme of what the OP is experiencing though.

I agree that a parents love for a child should be unconditional whatever the child does. Yes you may not like what the child is doing or for that matter like the child very much. But you should still love them.

You'd still love your child if he was Ian Brady?

You are still their mother no matter what and giving love is what mothers should do.

There is absolutely no way I could love my child if he did something abhorrent. I would love him for what he was, and would mourn that, but would not love him for what he had become.

I guess I believe in forgiveness...

how are things?

How could you 'forgive' someone who rapes/murders/tortures children?

Sorry OP - I'm going off at a tangent, and being very rude . I do apologise.

I hope things are going better for you.