Hello!
I joke that mornings in our house are like the movie Groundhog Day.
The typical events are:
1-Our 16-year-old son seems to have a distorted logic of how to wake up. He has argued that he does not need someone to wake him up, but Mom insists on going in and waking him up not letting him experience natural consequences to missing school or being extremely late. He has argued and he become very angry when we have put an alarm clock to go off in his room, saying the alarm clock does not wake him up properly. He used to argue that he would wake up on his own because he had an internal wake up mechanism (it became a joke of course because it never seems to work properly). He most recently argued that the only alarm clock that works for him is his iPads alarm (but he never sets it, or if it goes off he stays in bed and Mom continues to go into wake him up). He also recently argued that when he’s sleeping, he’s “incapacitated” and it’s unfair to expect him to be able to wake up.
2-He yells at mom every time she goes in to wake him up, and sometimes it becomes disrespectful with use of profanity as well. Mom is very patient (modern progressive/permissive), and she continues to very lovingly go in and try to wake him up. She sometimes tells him not to talk to her like that, and to stop screaming, but never corrects or uses consequences as she does not believe in Teaching Self Government.
I am calm, and I am governing myself throughout this process, and have accepted this reality that we are currently in, and accepted my wife and son for where they are at. it continues to be frustrating of course, to watch them go through this dysfunctional process every day, and I struggle with intervening when he disrespects her, because it has often caused conflict with her and I, and she has argued that I should let her parent her own way, and not intervene.
There is more to the Groundhog Day morning that we go through every day, with our son’s struggles to get up and struggles to accept instructions, give him self instructions, or accept a no answer and consequences. I do believe that it all starts with the main thing (his inability or unwillingness to simply get up in the mornings). It seems that it’s become THE HILL he is willing to die on, or maybe he sees it as the best way that he can get negative attention and I wonder if he feeds off of the power struggles.
Any additional feedback on how to handle this, or try something new would be great. Thank you!