12 y.o. Going into teenage years

My oldest will be 13 in February. Wow, time sure does fly! Well, I am making a post because I am finding that my oldest is very disobedient towards me and not his father. He spends a lot more time with me even though we all live together. It’s like when his father tells him to do something, he does it with no push back. When I tell him, it’s why this? Why that? Last night I asked him to sleep in the room with me and the two littles. We have a enormous bed, you could roll over four times and there would still be more bed. So there was plenty of “space”. He aggressively asked me why? He doesn’t want to because of the fact he has his own room and he didn’t want to sleep next to his brother. I was offended because I don’t ask much of him and I didn’t like how he talked about his brother like he was some Joe Schmoe off the streets. So I pressed forward and told him he doesn’t have a choice. He angrily stumped around the house and then aggressively turned off the light because he was just so upset at the fact I asked him to sleep in the same room with us. Well instead of doing what I asked, because I am his mother, when he was done with it he got up and went in his room and closed the door. It made me extremely upset because of his poor behavior in how he handled the situation and his thought process. How would you other mommas handle this?

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He’s entitled to want and have his own personal space. Especially for sleeping, it doesn’t make sense to me why you would try and make a 12 year old share a bed with you and 2 small children? It’s not comfortable so I understand his reaction. My 12 year old is the same with his dad and myself, kids will play up with whoever they’re most comfortable around and usually that’s the mother. Dads tend to be more stricter so they will listen. That paired with hormones and puberty, it’s a tough time all round unfortunately!

I agree with the above comments. He has his own room so why would a teenage boy want to share a bed?

Pay attention to how his father speaks to him and pay attention to how you do it. If you think you’d need to adjust how you speak to him, do it. My nephew only listens to his mother instead his father because his mom says it sweetly like, “honey, can you please go take the garbage out?” Vs his dad yelling, “Hey! Take the garbage out!” He won’t listen to his dad. But with your son, it could just be that your son’s dad has more authority in his voice. Also, you SHOULD give explanation to why you need something done like hey, “I need you to sleep in the bed because xyz”. I don’t understand why you wanted him to do that though, as a teen, I’d ask why also. Teens value their own space a lot so I get his frustration was made worse when you didn’t want to answer his question. You should just have told him why instead of seeing the question as a threat to you because he’s “questioning your authority”.

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