As a substitute teacher, 80 percent of the boys are like this. We have a men problem. Don't be hard on yourself.

Op, I’m glad he apologized, it does sound like you can move forward from this.

I am curious why he only gets 3 hours of sleep but you claim it isn’t a phone issue—so what its going on between 11pm and 3am, or whatever this timing is? You said it’s complicated, but what is going on? This seems like something else entirely and likely the root of the problem. Energy drink addiction? Video gaming? Is he doing homework for 10 hours a day? Maybe he has ADHD?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ultimately he will probably not get in to a really high prestige school. Most likely his grades are inflated and he doesn’t sound like the kind of kid who is going to get glowing letters of recommendation or have lots of rich and deep activities embedded in his resume since he doesn’t seem to care about others. Lots of kids think cheating to an absurd GPA is the ticket but it’s the whole package and the schools he likely wants to get into will see that behind his grades there isn’t much positive.

Uh, again, it's like people responding don't have teenagers, and have never been teenagers themselves. The way this kid treats Mommy is not how he treats others in his life. I guarantee it.

Except I’m a high school teacher who wrote that and yeah he probably does. I don’t know how to tell you this but if your own mom gets on the internet to lament how unlikeable and nasty you are, the teachers see that too. And we’re the ones who have to write letters of recommendation and such. I’ve had a lot of kids over the years ask for me letters because they have “good grades” but I can’t find a positive thing to say about their character or
how they treat others or what they contribute to any kind of community. They’re just about themselves and their GPA.

Anonymous wrote:Ultimately he will probably not get in to a really high prestige school. Most likely his grades are inflated and he doesn’t sound like the kind of kid who is going to get glowing letters of recommendation or have lots of rich and deep activities embedded in his resume since he doesn’t seem to care about others. Lots of kids think cheating to an absurd GPA is the ticket but it’s the whole package and the schools he likely wants to get into will see that behind his grades there isn’t much positive.

Uh, again, it's like people responding don't have teenagers, and have never been teenagers themselves. The way this kid treats Mommy is not how he treats others in his life. I guarantee it.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Like, if this is who he is under stress (that I am not imposing) I am worried he is going to become a pretty awful person, tempermentally and ethically.

Take that phone away

Anonymous wrote:Plot twist: he sat down this morning and gave me a heartfelt apology and confessed his stress. THIS is what I was looking for. THIS is something I can work with, and he had to come to it on his own. Good luck to others (and probably me too).

I'm glad to hear that! I'm the PP whose post you responded to. I was about to ask why is he only sleeping 3 hours and what is he lying about? Sleeping only for 3 hours would be stressful for anyone, but for a junior with all that's going on it's lucky he hasn't gotten sick. He needs all the support he can get! Good job mom and you've got this!

My intense, difficult son did not treat me with love and affection when he was 16. He has grown up so much since then and our relationship is so much better now that he’s 19 and is a much nicer person. I’m really glad I never did anything too rash to rupture our relationship. I think raging hormones, stress, etc can be very hard for some teens.

Obviously you must continue to model and verbalize expectations, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. Also, I agree with some other posters that having outstanding male role models is really important at this age.

Op I could have written this about my senior and about my other dc when they were that age. It’s a hard time. They often show their worst selves to their family. Keep on correcting, model good behavior and intervene if something looks serious (your dc is cheating as ex) but if it’s just words and bad attitude, they will grow out of it. I ‘yellow rock’ mostly