On 25th October, this was the state of DS2's room. He absolutely refuses to tidy it and hey who am I to argue with a Arnold Schwarzenegger wanna be? So the only time it can be tackled, as indeed it must on occasion for health and safety reasons is when the stars align...i.e. when he is out and I feel the strength to go in there! Now whether this is JUST because he is a gross teenage boy, or whether it also has to do with him having Autism Spectrum Disorder I don't know. I do know one thing, don't believe that they like things neat and orderly....so many other parents with children on the spectrum have similar issues...although whether they are quite this bad I don't know.
Anyway after I told him I needed all the plates etc...out and washing in the basket for me to wash, it still looked like a health hazard.
Yes, they are empty sweetcorn cans, empty bottles etc...
A view under the bed...I am surprised there wasn't anything either alive or dead under there!
More rubbish, oh and some 'school work.
Um...I thought I asked for all the washing?
I attacked the room and the result was...
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Three plastic bags full of recyclable plastics and tins.
One huge black sack full of rubbish.
One huge black sack full of clothes - they look pretty dirty to me!
One large plastic bag of loose CDs and DVDs. I reclaimed all ours and put them back in the right cases - although some are still missing, goodness knows where they are.
There were 8 spoons and 2 plastic spoons,
4 forks,
1 glass,
2 plates (he had already brought out FOUR earlier.
Oh and this.... pretty gross don't you think? He isn't studying science for sixth form either!
A closer look at the grossness!
Oh and one of the spoons was completely encased in a harden mummified melon skin!
Oh and his Sixth Form AS Level work for the first half term...
Apparently this is it...I picked it all up from off the floor.
Brand new folder bought at the beginning of the term...I don't think he has used it to file his orderly notes in somehow.
Combine this with his complete and utter rudeness to me, whenever I ask him (nicely I might add) to do something, I really don't know how much more I can take/tolerate.
Never mind all the towels, food, supplies etc...that just disappear on a daily basis as well!
I can never go into a well stocked cupboard to make something, or get a dry towel, as he uses all his we supply him with - this was in a bid to try and least have a towel each ourselves to use as required. It is so frustrating.
Oh and he nicked his bigger brothers large tin of coins (out of a locked room, so he must have found/taken the keys to unlock it)
Yes I know other teenagers are very similar....I have already had one, but this is on another level altogether and you really have to live with it to understand it and I don't want to have to put up with it any longer.
Oh and the other side effect of having to deal with all this is the resulting pain that I am left with!
Next post will be more pleasant!
Euw! I do remember my son - who had no excuse - being like this when he was between 10 an 15. Progressive girlfriends have gradually straightened him out but, on his 11th birthday I told him childhood was over and I wasn't doing it any more, so if social services didn't like the way he lived, he was free to go off with them. It didn't work fully, but it was funny seeing him tidy his toys into a four foot by 2 foot six inch cuboid and then lying his rug, three feet off the floor, on top of the pile! He also began stripping his bed and putting on clean bedding - apparently this was necessary to get rid of the Lego bricks that stuck o his feet as he crossed the room to get into bed....Now he is Mr Tidy and puts me to shame instead.
ReplyDeleteHe is 17 now and if anything is worse. I don't do his washing unless it is put in a basket as there is no way I am rummaging around on his floor to try and find it. I do put it away though - but that is for self preservation - it would only end up on the floor and back in the washing basket again - been there done that! As for his sheets, heavens knows when he last changed those as I can't remember washing any of his sheets for months and months! He knows he has to strip the bed himself. I have offered to help make it if he needs help - he has chosen not to. Yes his room does smell!
DeleteMy older son who was messy as a teenager is now tidy, so I think most come round, but I doubt the younger one will change, if he is even capable of it. Still he wants to join the army/navy - I am so hoping they accept him - if anyone can whip him into shape, maybe they can! ;-)
I can sympathise with the teenage boy bedroom!! My eldest wasn't as bad as my youngest and his flat leaves alot to be desired, like I do not use the loo when I am there!! As for my youngest one, he dose his own washing, and I just close his door so I cannot see the mess. The rudeness would be harder to deal with than the mess because that is personal. Girlfriends tend to make them start to take a bit of pride in themselves and their rooms.
ReplyDeleteYes the rudeness is something else again...
DeleteMy Dad once came back from our family farm carrying a pitch fork on the bus with him. He entered my brother's pig-sty of a bedroom in the middle of the night, towing a huge cardboard box behind him and started with the bed - James lying in it. He tossed all the bedding into the box, used the stick end to prod J out of bed, and took the sheets and towels that had got in there with him. Then came the rugs by the bed over cold lino, followed by all the clothing spread across the room - even the dry clean only suit and his choir-boy cassock (J was a chorister at York Minster).
ReplyDeleteDad prodded James out of bed with the stick end, down the stairs to the bathroom, where the tub was full of soapy water. The whole lot was tipped in and James was so sleepy that the command 'Wash it!' worked, he was on autopilot and set to as Dad stood over him. Things were ruined, and Dad had to pay for a new cassock, but with the threat of, clean up or go into the army next year, because you aren't living here like that anymore, he got a little better. He was so tired that he barely remembered he event, but he stopped working the 'I'm religious so don't do cleaning' line on Mum and Grandma when he had to go and explain why his suit and cassock were rumpled into unusability and when he had to get out of bed onto a cold floor for the rest of the winter. It would be considered child abuse now as James was 13 then, but we hadn't hit the days of protracted childhood that has now become parent abuse. Really, I do think that society inventing that the idea of being a teenager means young people can behave as they wish, expecting adult rights but taking on no responsibilities, puts parents in a dreadful position. Poor you, it is so hard to deal with.
Ha ha ha ha! I love it! Shame that everything has changed so much nowadays - they seem to be taught in school these days 'their rights' and as you say makes their parents lives hell. I can just imagine my Dad having done something similar if me or my sister had been like this. I often think it would have been good to have lived near them as the boys were growing up as my Dad doesn't put up with any Cr@p and would soon have sorted DS2 out - even if only while he was round there!
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