I can totally relate to your situation, but thank goodess we only have SS15 part-time. We got married when he was 6 and he was pretty cute, but like your SS, he got older but never grew up. He has more fun playing with my BS7 but has nothing in common with my BS14 (6 months younger, but my BS14 thinks of SS15 as a younger brother). I think he has the emotional/mental maturity of a 5 yr old. He will still stomp his feet and go to his room crying if I reprimand him, it’s pathetic. All the kids, even my SD12 just rolls her eyes at him when he behaves this way. And you talk about LAZY??? That is the thing that frustrates me most. Of course there’s also the constant sneezing he does, and I have to bug him to wash his hands for more than 10 seconds. I am mostly disengaged from him (a term I learnt o nthis site), but I still am completely irritated by him and dread him coming to the house.

Btw…I guess the only input I really have (except to share that you are not alone in feeling this way), is do NOT let him ignore you. If you allow it, it will only continue to get worse. When my SS arrives for the weekend, I have to sometimes tell my DH, “please have your son greet me when he enters my house”. It's pathetic.

Uggh uggh uggh. Been there, done that, still doing that...

At first, I made appeals to his dad, who made excuses for his son and NOTHING changed. Then I simply quit saying anything about the child's sorry behavior going on with abandon under my nose. That wound up making me physically ill. Finally I became defiant as it made no sense for me to let a whiny ignorant 12yo snot drain the life out of me. I was just as mad or madder at his father for facilitating it.

Now when Ss ignores me or doesn't respond to what I've said to him, I ask, "did you get that?" If he says "yes" then I ask him "to what?" For example, "Yes, I heard that you want/didn't want me to do blah." If I ask Ss to perform a specific task and he doesn't complete it properly, then he gets to keep going back and doing it again until he gets it right. When his father intervenes and completes the task for him, I make verbal note of this so that they both hear and it results in a loss of desired privilege or treat to Ss. Now BioDad no longer intervenes so reliably. He's stopped making excuses for his son because I refuse to hear or entertain them.

By now, we've gone from a 12yo boy with a 2-3yo level of emotional and mental maturity to a 13.5yo boy with an 8-10yo level of maturity. The war is far from won, but we're getting there a battle at a time. Ss was on a strong dose of Ritalin in the beginning for his supposed ADD. After a couple of years of constantly pointing out to Dad that son is most hyper and sleepless when on the medication, we're steadily moving towards weaning him completely off of it.

You're an experienced mom and you know what works and what doesn't. Don't let anyone take your voice from you. Trust yourself and listen to that wise Mommy voice within. Ignore the soft dads and meddling MILs from without. If they don't like what you think or how you play, they can take their toys and bratty whittle boy and go play elsewhere.