To make a long story longer, this dates back years. My parents got heavily involved with cocaine and drinking and i mean to the point they were gone almost every day for years. They worked and provided for us but only very minimally. I (21f) kind of took on the mom role, to an extent. i had work and other things i had to do but i would cook dinner and things like that. These kids (my younger siblings) had no sort of structure in the time they needed it the most. They weren’t made to go to school or do chores or anything of that sort. Just kind of allowed to do as they pleased.
Fast forward to today, my parents have toned back a little bit, they’re home a lot more and they wake up every morning to get the kids up. Waking them up is so hard as we are all very heavy sleepers. However, my little brother (11m) will pretend to still be asleep or just continue going back to sleep even if we sit him up out of his bed, have him stand up, put a wet cloth to his arm/face/wherever. By the time he actually does get up, he goes and takes a bath. One thing about the baths that bothers me is its his only form of showering. I dont think he knows how to wash and condition his hair or wash himself properly, ive tried teaching him but now i feel hes at an age where its weird for me to be in there telling him/showing him how to wash himself. He sits in this bath for HOURS and its led to him having very bad eczema on his whole body pretty much. Its rough, leathery, super dried out, makes his skin different colors of red and brown, etc. The way i think about it, hes practically rotting his skin off, but no one is making him SHOWER instead or ensuring hes applying the paste he was prescribed for said eczema. It burns for him to put it on due to lack of how regularly hes putting it on so i get why he doesn’t want to.
He locks himself in the bathroom either while hes bathing or after hes done and ready so he can just sit on his phone. My mom doesnt feel its appropriate unlock the door and barge into the bathroom and doesnt want to spank him or anything (understandably so) and so it just becomes repetitive yelling. She threatens the devices (VR, phone, ipad, computer, ps5, etc) and only sometimes follows through. Keeps them for about a day at most.
When we can finally get him to get out and go to school its usually about an hour or two after school has started. Theres been multiple times me or my siblings had to literally DRAG him to school as he resisted. (i dont drag him on the ground, i hold his hand and kind of just pull him along) Luckily we live across the street from the school so its not too much of a walk. He cries the whole process. From the time he wakes up, all the way to when he gets to school. I asked him while we were going why he doesnt like school and he said he doesnt like one of his teachers. i told him he may not like her but he needs to respect her unless she disrespects him (im very big on standing up for yourself and not taking undeserved disrespect) and also that hes just got a couple weeks and then he doesnt have to worry it about any of it and he gets to go to a new school next year. (hes going to middle school next year)
Ive also tried to explain to him that the school has been close to opening a dcfs case against us because of my siblings attendance. This has been an ongoing concern so i believe he thinks it’s just a tactic to get him to go, but this is genuinely terrifying for us. My siblings are my world and i dont know what id do without them if they got put into the system. Ive tried to explain “hey buddy i dont know if you dont believe us or if you think we’re lying but if you keep having this many absences they might want to take you guys away from mom and dad”.
I try to be the one that doesnt yell, they hear it enough between my parents, they dont need to hear it from me.
He does the same things with chores and eventually gets out of doing them or end up taking several days to get one task done (cleaning the kitchen or living room mostly). He’s very good at gaslighting and manipulating my mom into getting what he wants (usually robux or vbucks, things like that). Hes the youngest and we believe hes on the spectrum but very high functioning (he can cook, clean, dress himself, hes exceptionally smart, etc) so hes definitely babied quite a bit.
What do i do? How can we go about changing these behaviors. How do we make him excited for school again or have any sort of structure. I feel like its definitely how my parents handle it but my mom is at a loss, she has heart failure, is mostly bed ridden, has a husband whos not exactly a great person and his immediate response would be to whoop him (though the 2 youngest havent really ever been spanked due to my mom not really loving how overboard he goes with it). I can tell my mom is at breaking point. She brought this mess to herself, this i know but, i can see she wants change. Ive watched her cry and beg to have all of this stop, ive listened to her contemplate just leaving overall.
Any advice/criticism helps.