Discussion forum for parents in Australia
03-19-2018 12:00 AM
03-21-2018 11:47 AM
Hi @needadvice77 and welcome to the forum. Thank you so much for sharing with us - I can guarantee there will be many parents who relate to your situation, myself included!
My daughter will be 16 next month, and aside from her mental health issues, she's a very hard headed, strong personality who likes things to go her way. She tries to guilt me into not asking her to help out around the house, by blaming me and often being really rude and derogatory towards me.
It sounds like you're doing everything a great parent does, so you're bound to annoy your son! It's very reasonable and responsible of you to check he's doing homework, set a bedtime, and talking to the supervising parent at parties. You are so right that having screens right before bedtime does affect everyone's ability to get to sleep. It is exhausting though and you sound like you're feeling like you're getting nowhere so what's the point. Trying to parent when you're feeling like you're getting nowhere does bring you to the point of resignation, I can completely relate to where you're at.
It's so easy to say, but try to tune out your son's banter about blame because he's simply trying to get his own way. They figure out our buttons pretty quickly!
It's great that you are trying to compromise. As the parent, I think that's something you can come back on. Remind him that you were willing to compromise, but by his own choice he decided not to compromise, so gets the original set bedtime or whatever it may be. I always bring it back to choices with my daughter, as she does have responsibility ultimately for the choices she makes. When she throws threats out there as your son did about deleting all his social media, I would say to her that that would be up to her and a choice she would be making herself, as that was not what I had asked of her. Those are facts that can't be argued!
My daughter ran away from home because she got angry that I was telling her to wash up after she'd baked in the kitchen, and as she said later, she didn't want to wash up. She came home again. They give us a hard time, but they still love and need us - and what we offer haha (internet, power to charge devices, shelter, food etc!).
ReachOut offer parent coaching which I am going to see if I can do again, as I need help with similar issues at the moment. It's a free service that works with you to come up with practical solutions to your specific situation, and I highly recommend it. You can read more and find the link here. It's done over the phone and online and is very flexible.
Let me know what you think!
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