My 15 Year old brother does not listen to us - even from our parents.

[ashhh]

My brother does not listen to what we say even from our parents. He only does the things that he wants and never listens even if its for his own good.

He is in the right age to clearly understand what's the difference between right and wrong, however he only does as he wants. Whenever we try to calmly talk to him, he would cause a fuss, be agitated, and would glare at us. He wouldn't listen. Sometimes, he's threatening us that he will harm himself or us if we wouldn't stop talking about how he should act and discipline himself. 

The recurring issues are: 

• He does not want to hold anything especially if its from outside. 
• He would wash his hands for more than 5 minutes, yet it was not even a proper wash because he does not rinse it well. 
• He refuses to hold anything and just use his toes to open and lock doors - even our very own bathroom knob!
• He would be agitated whenever we call him out for his wrong doings. 
• Whenever he's from outside the house or just inside and he sees someone from outside, he would take a bath that is more than an hour and would consume a whole bath soap just for a single wash, he does not even uses pail and dipper to rinse himself properly. ( We live in the Philippines, we still use pail and dipper for taking a bath.)
• He does not want to talk about his friends in our neighborhood. 
• He refuses to be touched even by us her sisters and her parents.
• He would not study and instead play games. 
• He won't use a towel to dry himself up and would never wear anything clothes that was sun-dried outside. 
• He won't even brush his teeth even for days, and would just wash it if he's going to school. 
• He never listens to what our mother says and would cause a fuss instead so that we won't bother him.
• He has anger management issues. 

It has been a whole two years since he started these things and its just getting worse time after time. I don't know what to do with him anymore, even my mother doesn't. Please help us, he never listens to any advice and we can't even talk him out. He's just 15 years old, he still needs our guidance. Even if we let him be like that and slowly trying to correct him out, he would never listen. 

Any comments and suggestions or replies will be much appreciated. Thank you!

[Hannah_RO]

Hi @ashhh, welcome to the ReachOut forums, and thank you so much for sharing what is going on for your  family at the moment.

It sounds like your brother is going through a really tough time, dealing with a lot of worry around cleanliness. I can only imagine yours and your family’s concern for your brother when you see your brother go to such lengths to avoid situations of uncleanliness, it must be really difficult to understand why he is behaving this way. I can understand how this would be affecting you and your family, as all any of you want is to see your brother’s mental health improve. 

I am wondering if your brother has any support for his mental health? As we are based in Australia, we limited in our ability to recommend services that provide mental health support in the Philippines. However, I have found these two services that might be worth looking into, and would encourage you to look into any other mental health supports for your brother that may be available in your area

• National Centre for Mental Health
• Philippine Mental Health Association

You mentioned that you and your parents have been experiencing troubles with getting your brother to listen to your advice. I found this article on how to effectively communicate with teenagers here, I wonder if this could offer any helpful tips for talking with your brother?

I just wanted to thank you again for reaching out to the forums. It is clear how much you care for your brother, and he is incredibly lucky to have such a supportive family looking out for him during this difficult time.