Teenage boys. Stereotypically stinky, surly, and sure of themselves. Untidy, unkempt and uncouth. Assertively independent and sometimes aggressively insulting. Boy (no pun intended!) – they can be challenging.
As a parent, how much do you ignore all this and let it slide (after all, we were teenagers once – it’s a tough gig), and how much do you call them on their behaviour and their attitudes? Finally, add ASD into the equation and you’ve just exponentially increased the complexity of dealing with everyday situations.
Trying to work out who you are in a complex world with its onion layers of identity in different social media platforms, as well as in multiple “real world” environments both in and out of school is hard work. I think that it’s really important to recognise that the sheer mental and physical effort of negotiating and sustaining this takes a toll. And yes, that toll is often paid by the parents and carers at home, as we deal with the negative side of having a tired, frustrated, perplexed teen. Who refuses to clean their room or let you help them to do so. Normal, right?
A very wise lady (actually, my mum) once said to me that in a funny way, it’s good when children can let their guard drop at home. This means they feel safe, and know that they’ll still be loved and cared for, even when they are not behaving terribly lovingly. I hope she’s right. Her advice has certainly sustained me through some times that I prefer to forget!
Understandably, our teens want to be independent, usually on their terms. We want them to develop their independence, often on our terms. And there can be a mighty clash of the clans when these don’t match up. If your place is anything like the Dancing Wombat burrow, I’m guessing that these clashes most likely occur on the battlegrounds of “Is your homework done?” and “Tidy your room please”.
One of our Wombats seems to think he can dig his way through the world with minimal effort – there’s Google for everything else. And as for his room, well, sometimes it feels like we do have to burrow our way through the different layers on the floor to get from one side to the other.
I have lost count of the number of different incentive schemes we have developed over the years to help motivate him to just do the basics. They seem to succeed or fail depending on how he is in his own skin on any particular day (or any particular hour, even). I start off at the “grin and bear it” stage, to the “He can live in his own mess” stage, to “This is starting to impact on me” stage, to end up at “Cover me – I’m going in!”
Is it just extreme teen laziness, plus the “I’ll do it later” approach or is it teen perverseness? Anything my parents want me to do by definition I am not going to do? I suspect, like most things in life, the answer is complex, and probably involves a combination of the above, seasoned with a dollop of “overwhelming” which leads to an incapacity to deal with it when the mess gets too much. I certainly feel overwhelmed when looking at it.
Last Friday, the combination of mouldy vegetables, multiple items of crockery and cutlery with dried food on them and two broken glasses finally precipitated me into action. This was beyond regular teenage mess – his room was becoming unsafe. (And I haven’t even told you about the ants yet…)
To do this Wombat credit, he is always grateful when he has come home to a clean room, with the floor visible and clothes in the wardrobe. I feel conflicted because I am doing it for him, yet I know that he is visibly more relaxed and a nicer person when he is in a tidy environment. And of all rooms, a bedroom should be a place of rest. So what do you do?
I once asked a school psychologist how I should manage these sorts of situations. I want my Wombat to be independent – I don’t want to be cleaning up after him. In my uni days I met far too many incapable young men for my liking. Their incapacity seemed to stem from having doting mothers who either did everything for them, or who had a complete laissez-faire approach.
So that’s where the missing scissors were! In a rubbish bag – along with a bread knife,
a pair of pliers and a photo of his old basketball team. Naturally.
The psychologist told me that if an older child (for whatever reason) had trouble doing “the basics” and you know the child benefits from having “the basics” done, then it’s okay to do it for them. At the back of my mind, I can’t help wondering, if I keep doing it for him, will he ever learn? Yet the enormous quantity and diverse quality of the mess has, so far, not been sufficient to provoke action.
He claims either that it doesn’t bother him, or that he will clean it up – later! However, while waiting for “later” to arrive, the ants came marching – and let me tell you, they weren’t marching two by two! Then I discovered the broken glassware. Still waiting for “later” to pull into the station, while the station master‘s choice is to escape this reality into the soporific digital world.
I was really heartened by him spending all Saturday helping a close friend clean his room. That was a lovely, generous thing to do. But pleeeease – what about your room? Cajoling, pleading, asking nicely, offers of payment – none of them seem to work at the moment.
I’m not sure whether he genuinely doesn’t care, or whether admitting that the room is a pigsty and that he is happy to accept help with tidying is tantamount to admitting that he is failing at something and needs help. This then, is a blow to his self-esteem, so rather than risk that, it is easier to ignore it in the hope that it will go away.
And how will it go away, we ask ourselves? Well, by Mum going in and doing it for him, of course. But this entails risking his wrath as he says very clearly and succinctly in words of four letters that he doesn’t want us in his room and doesn’t want help to clear it up – because it’s okay! Yet when it becomes a health and safety issue, well, I think we just have to take a stand, much as I don’t want to spend my precious time cleaning and tidying up for him.
What do you do? What strategies do you use?
So that’s where the missing scissors were! In a rubbish bag – along with a bread knife, a pair of pliers and a photo of his old basketball team. Naturally.
