My BS is a bit slow on the uptake ... God Love the boy. He is nowhere near how I was as a preteen/teen. (I heard boys were late bloomers, but seriously?) He is clueless. Loving and having Dr. Suess moments. My child is a squirrel. No excuses. BS is a squirrel.

My SS9 is the same way. He talks in a baby voice, hates simple rules and having to do anything for himself, very selfish, it's all me, me, me, look at me, listen to me, this is what I want, this is what I need, he doesn't respect our home or the boundaries we put in place, he's extremely jealous of me and will do anything to cause friction. I disengaged and I had a talk with DH and told him he needed to step up and start parenting his child appropriately, he's not a toddler anymore. DH has been quite good but he forgets a lot of things and I have to seriously bite my tongue when SS is here. He's SO manipulative it's scary at times. I think SS is very slowly adjusting to his dads new way of parenting but you can tell he hates it and he resents me completely. He doesn't look at or speak to me when he's here, talk about tension..

My Skid had this issue. Even more frustrating than his chronic immaturity was his very high level of intellect and academic performance.

He was far more often than not 2-3 years advanced academically and 5+ years retarded from a maturity perspective. Nothing is more frustrating in my experience than a smart kid who acts years younger. :sick:

It became more and more noticeable as he got older. In 5th grade he was reading and doing math and sciences at the 8th grade level but was behaving at the Kindergarten to 1st grade level. It drove his teachers insane not to mention his mom and I.

Even now at 22 as a self supporting adult in the USAF for nearly 4 years he actually behaves about like a 15-17yo. The good news is that the consequences of that issue are entirely on him and other than concern for him there is no impact on his mom and I any longer. He does well at work and is recognized for it but he struggles with his friendships and SO relationships due to his immaturity. We guide him, advise, and make recommendations but beyond that ................. not our problem.

We went through a palate of methods of dealing with his immaturity and finally settled on a stance of zero tolerance. If he did not use his head and act his age he suffered abject misery for it. That made it easier on his mom and I. We did not tolerate it, we quit trying to figure out the why of it, and just disciplined for inappropriate behavior including behavior that may have been appropriate when he was 2 but not appropriate for a 7yo as an example. He even tried to pull the ranting baby shit with my parents once when he was visiting them without his mom and I when he was ~11-12ish. Nope, that shit does not fly in mom and pop Rags’ place. They let him bang his head on the tile floor and throw a tantrum when he did not get his way. They stepped over him and walked around him until my dad had reached the end of his rope with the immature tantrum bullshit. Then my dad yanked him off of the floor by the scruff of his neck, blistered his ass with a belt, and told him “If you are going to act like a baby I will treat you like a baby then shoved him in the corner with his nose firmly planted in contact with both of the adjoining walls.” That night the kid called us and cried about how my parents were mean and told us about what happened. We of course had already been updated by my mom and dad.

My bride told the kid very tenderly that it was too bad that he was upset and that he needed to watch how he behaved. The Skid was all sobby thinking mom had his back. Then my amazing bride told him that his behavior was embarrassing and since he had pulled that crap at my parent’s house he would get the same punishment when he got home. And she did it. She lit his ass up after a long lecture when we picked him up from mom and dad’s and then had him standing with his nose in the corner every time he walked in the door from summer day camp for several days in a row.

Consistent application of consequences did not resolve his personal issue with maturity but it did reduce and minimize the impact of that bullshit on the people around him. He knew when he pulled that shit that he was going to be one very unhappy young man.

Interestingly my parents are the Skid’s favorite grandparents and he visits them ~monthly on weekend leave. He has far less to do with my ILs and nearly nothing to do with the Sperm Clan.

I used to refuse to "hear" my SS if he used baby speak. At the time, I was not "permitted" to reprimand him, so ignoring was the only weapon I had. If he started I would say ONE TIME "I WILL NOT HEAR YOU unless you speak like a normal person" and then go on ignore mode. AT first he amped it up with more whining, screaming, fits on the floor, wailing.... and when he finally saw I meant business he asked in a completely normal voice "May I have XXX?"

As for the wrecking things and acting out- of your DH won't discipline him than you should. If your DH has an issue with you disciplining him, then you have a bigger issue.

SD8 does this and she didn't do it before. It has been going on for a year now. I make her repeat what she says if it is in baby talk. She is also starting puberty Soooo she's being extremely uh.. bitchy towards other people.

My skids SD9 and SD10 both still do baby talk with their daaddddyyyy. I called them out on it one night over dinner, I asked them to try asking him for something in a normal tone. They had to try three or four times before they could, because they are so stuck on switching to baby voice when they speak to him. It was funny in a very sad, disgusting, horrible way.

Parents who allow their kids to act like this bother me.

When my siblings and I were young, my parents wouldn't put up with this kind of thing. We were encouraged to be independent and they taught us to do things on our own from an early age. There were 4 of us, so my parents couldn't cater to every single one of us all the time. We only ever "accidentally" did something bad once, because my parents would see through it and there would be consequences. We're all very mature, successful adults now because of the way we were raised.

Too many parents nowadays make so many excuses for their kids behaviour. My husband is one of them. My SD6 "accidentally" wrecks things periodically and my husband makes excuse after excuse about how "she's only 6" and "she didn't know", even if we've told her repeatedly not to do something. I think 6 is old enough to be held accountable for blatantly ignoring instructions from your parents.

I completely understand your frustration with this, OP.

SS15 has always been extremely immature. At 14, he was running around the house in his damn underwear because he was pretending to be the Hulk. I went downstairs to the family room one day recently to do laundry and he was lying on the floor, playing with Matchbox cars, making "vroom vroom" noises. He hangs out with kids 3-4 years younger than him. This past Easter, he ate half the candy in his basket then jumped in circles around BS chanting, "SUGAR! Sugar? SUGAR! Sugar? SUGAR! Sugar?" He'd bounce around the house humming the SpongeBob theme song. This kid is ALMOST 16, for crying out loud. His brother, almost six years younger, acted more mature, no joke.

I can't work out if he does it because he thinks a) we'll think he's cute b) he's scared of growing up c) he just wants attention d)he's trying to annoy us on purpose.. or a combination of all those things. It feels most like he's trying to appeal to DH, if I act like a baby then dad will think I'm so cute and let me do what I want. He's very competitive when I'm around, always vying for DH's attention. I don't know why he drives himself crazy with all that competitive/jealous stuff, it's so pointless. Sometimes I think the problem with these young kids is they don't understand the difference between husband/wife dynamics and parent/child dynamics, they think it's all the same. They forget that we're grown-ups and they are children hence the lack of respect and odd behavior. Then you end up with mini-wives and mini-husbands...which isn't exactly a barrel of laughs.