[mad121]

Hi All
Looking for a little guidance. My husband and I have custody of his children - 17, 15 and 13. We are having an issue with our 15 yr old son. He is a Sophmore in High School and over the past year has attended school on and off because we can not get him up in the morning.

My step son will tend to stay up all night on his computer or watch TV in this middle of the night because he can not sleep and when it comes to getting him up in the morning to go to school he is un able to get up and will sleep the entire day away. He tells us he sleeps the day away because he has missed school and nothing is going on and why bother. So he will sleep the day away until his friends come home from school and then he becomes alive and active. Once the friends leave - he will wander around the house telling us he is bored or he will pick a fight with his younger sister by hitting her or lashing out on her verbally. He tells us he wants to go to school but feels that its just hopeless because he cant get up on time. He will tell us that he is not good enough.

We have taken his computer away, disconnected the TV at night and have prevented his friends from coming to the house - we are not sure what more we can do to help him.

There is nothing wrong with him as far as his learning abilities - we had him tested and his IQ and all his test scores are well above average.

His father and I are at the end of our rope trying to figure out what is wrong with him. I feel like he is dealing w/Childhood depression -whereas my husband feels it is just him being lazy.

Can anyone help or provide guidance on what course of action we should be taking.
Im very concerned.
Thanks

Hiya,

In my completely unprofessional opinion (because I'm not a professional) I would say getting him on a better sleep schedule would be the place to start. I'm not sure if it's depression or not but if you're concerned about that you might want to take him to a psychiatrist. There are online tests you can take too that might help guide you in the direction of a diagnosis.

Hope you get this sorted out soon.

Love and hugs,
Tara

[LittleForgetMeNot]

I'm not sure, but as a 16 year old this sounded a lot like myself when I first started having depression around 12 or 13. I don't want to start a panic, but perhaps like the one above me has said try some online tests, research a little about teen depression: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/depression_teen.htm and see if you can set him up with a counselor to combat it.

[Confusedinomicon]

You can talk to a doctor about using melatonin as a sleep aide to help correct his sleep patterns. That's the holistic approach and you don't necessarily need to talk to a doctor since you can get it pretty much anywhere for four dollars or something close to that in the states.

Still, to be on the safe side I would talk to a doctor. Then you can make appropriate adjustments if getting his sleep cycle under control isn't working. He could have anything from a sleep disorder, to depression to something else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed...phase_syndrome

Uhhh. I'm not a pro either~~

[Emotionally Dead]

It seems like something is definitely going on. But if he enjoys hanging out with his friends and all of that then apparently there isn't anything social about it (such as social anxiety or phobia) which is a lot of times the cause.

It could be depression, but have you tried talking to him about it? That would be the best place to start. If he is depressed, try to find out WHY he is depressed.

The next thing to do if you find out something is bothering him is to try to get him to some sort of therapy. Normally the schools have trained counselors and their help is generally free so that is a good place to start.

Next, if you find out nothing is wrong and he just doesn't like getting up in the mornings, is to find a way to enforce him getting up in the mornings. Is there any way you can do that? Or do you and your husband both work during that time? If not, there does come a time when you have to enforce that he goes to school, because if he misses too much it will get YOU in trouble. Unless wherever you live students are allowed to drop out at 15 but here they are not.

After a few days of HAVING to wake up in the early hours, he will start to get used to it and believe me, he won't want to stay up late. You won't even have to give him a bed time. I would let him have the TV and Computer for a night without telling him that he is waking up in the morning no matter what. It may be tough love, but as a parent you have to make sure he goes to school while it's the law.

Last words, don't be too upset over it. This is normal behavior from many children. My younger brother was the same way, but once his parents started forcing him to wake up and go to school and they even took away his bed time he knew that he had to go to sleep early and he was too tired to stay up anyways. So, don't fret too much. It might not be that there is anything wrong with him at all, since it's normal, and perhaps he just needs someone to give him that push.

Hope I helped some.

[lxegirl]

talk to his doc, maybe have him evaluated. have a serious conversation with him about how he is feeling and such, and try and include him and his opinions on whatever you try to do. a bunch of mental illnesses cause low motivation levels, insomnia/sleeping disturbances, and irritability- it could be a number of things, or just a weird phase- talk to the doctor about it!!
good luck.