crazymama4
New Member
I have a 13 yo son who is driving me crazy....no learning disabilities, ADD, ODD, etc, at least none that I am aware of. He just constantly pushes the envelope and everything becomes a battle. Life with him is exhausting! I think he has a pretty good life, privelidges, etc., but he always wants more. Totally disregards our limits on cell phone and ipod use, video games, food choices at school, etc. Everything needs to be policed to the point of going online and setting limits on everything so that the computer shuts down, the phone cannot be used during the night, etc. But how can I expect him to learn to control himself and make good decisions, when right now we are making all of the decisions for him...like turning his cell phone off automatically because he can't regulate his own use of it? We try reasoning with him, but he still does the same things. And he is disrespectful. Whatever consequence we come up with, he seeks to circumnavigate it. For example, once when his ipod was taken away, I found him, in the middle of the night, searching my drawers for it. He is unable to accept limits and consequences. All we require is that he does his chores (walking our dogs is his chore at the moment), keeping his room reasonably clean, not sleeping in his clothes, not wearing the same clothes day after day, do his homework on time and not put off big projects until the night before they are due, and limit his use of video games, cell phone and ipod (this was a problem because he was up all night texting, playing games, etc, and was garbage the next day)...If we take these things away, rather than accepting our consequence and acknowledging he has broken a rule, he will search around the house while we are sleeping and take them back. Therefore, we initiated the blocks that we now have on them. Our latest problem has been his lunch account at school, buying 10 packages of candy instead of lunch, so we have to monitor and block those type of purchases. First we talked to him about it, but he did the same thing again, thinking we wouldnt have the time to check up on him. Homework is always late, and he gets 5 points off each day it is late. The trouble is, he's very smart, so even with 15 points taken off, he still gets an 85, a B, so he thinks its fine. The teachers keep him after school when work is not done, but he continues to do the same thing, there, too. Sorry for the long post. Need to vent and I am hoping with all this info, someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong, or could be doing differently.