I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO(LONG)

[Guest]

Hmmm….. I have one of those kids. Don’t think I can offer answers as I

don’t have them all yet….

Our son (now 14) would get in fights at school constantly – get suspended,

etc. He gets called names – they pick on him – this was all the story he

brought home. He came home with a fat lip and we called the school ready to

go to bat for him, as he said he was beaten and he didn’t do anything.

Turns out he took a basketball away from some kids and refused to give it

back. Another time he got beaten up in the locker room – oh – how unfair he

tells us. Turns out he was calling this group of kids “niggers.” Trouble

for him is now he has a stepbrother in his same grade who can come home and

tell the truth about what is going on. (We have other independent sources

as well, so it is clear that he starts a lot of this.)

He is adhd, but that is no excuse to go through life in trouble. his social

skills are low. he gets into people’s personal space, pops off with

absolutely off the wall questions and can generally drive you nuts.

therefore, the other kids are not exactly wanting to hang out with him. you

can tell him the problems he is causing till you are blue in the face and he

does not change. we are at wits’ end as well.

he is 14 and bigger than everyone except dad. He goes to counseling and we

have tried ADHD meds – they all made him worse.

He ended up threatening me, throwing rocks at his grandma (lives with us and

is 72), threatening his siblings over various things – the girls are afraid

of him and I are afraid of him. He took a pocketknife to school and got

suspended. We ended up placing him with a grandparent who can spend

full-time just keeping up with him for the time being. I wish I had

answers. Of course, if we were allowed free rein of parenting, things would

probably be easier, but his bio mother keeps over-ruling our parenting

decisions.

He failed seventh grade because he refused to do his work. He is very

capable and bright but he absolutely refused to do homework or turn anything

in. We said “That’s ok – what happens when you don’t do your work is you

repeat the grade or you pay for summer school.” that was working until his

bio mom interfered and talked the principal into passing him. in eighth

grade, he did the same thing. i ended up saying “you are more than welcome

to come to the family dinner table and have dinner….. after the homework

is all done neatly and shown to us.” this worked for awhile – he had dinner

kinda late a couple nights but he always ate and actually did his work for a

bit, until his bio mom complained that “we were so mean and abusive.”

he stole all of the family’s snacks (separate from the incident above), so i

told him that his school lunch money was now going to replace the snacks for

the rest of the kids and he could either work in the school cafeteria to

earn his lunch (after i checked with the lunchroom lady), pack a lunch, or

miss lunch. i was very calm with “i have to feed all of you. it is very

hard to miss lunch. it is very hard for your siblings to miss after school

snack too. i just have to balance it all out. i’m sure you will make up

the money very quickly.” he did make up most of it, and then his siblings

forgave him the rest of it – which was something i was trying to teach them

too.

when he would run away in the store, i would simply announce that i (and the

car) was leaving in 15 minutes. He had two choices, be in the car or not.

When he was not at the car, he found that I had left. (He was old enough to

walk home, so I didn’t worry too terribly). That was the last time he did

not cooperate in the store. He would get into fights with his sister in the

car and drive us nuts. So, I pulled over and said that they were probably

fighting because there was not enough fresh air in the car which was surely

a problem. I told them that they could solve this by walking home and made

them get out. I drove off (but came around and stayed just where I could

see them from the car, but they couldn’t see me) and they walked home (about

1/2 mile), heads down and quiet the whole way. None of the kids have fought

in the car since. It only takes once of “Hey – mom means it.”

I guess my basic philosophy is that I let natural consequences teach the

kids. When they are upset because of being treated badly, I empathize

completely and tell them “That is so sad. I heard that you might have

called xxx kid a looser. I can see why they would call you names because of

that. But you are smart, so I bet you can think up a way to make it

better.” Put the problem back on their plate and walk away. If he wants to

come home from shopping with you, he needs to be with you at the car when

you leave. If he is not, you leave and the problem of getting home is

suddenly back on his plate. (Did this with the daughter who refused to be

on time for her ride after school – the first day she “missed the bus and

wouldn’t I come pick her up.” I came, handed her a map of how to get home,

told the school office she had permission to walk home in the future and

took her home. The next morning she dawdled and “missed the bus” to

school. I smiled, said “ok – sure good thing you have that map.” she said

“i threw it away.” i said “gosh – it sure is going to be harder to get to

school then isn’t it? i hope you make it in time to order lunch” – directed

her to the front door and walked away. i checked in with her teacher so he

would tell me when she got there so i could stop worrying and told him that

this was an unexcused tardy, so if he gave detention that was ok. i was

told she arrived at school a very subdued young lady and she has never

missed the bus since – she even drags her little sister out the door on

time.

correction is kept to a minimum. the ownership of the problem remains with

the child. you are there to support him through the troubles that he incurs

when he treats people badly, when his misses his ride home, when he makes

poor decisions. empathize and let him know that you make mistakes too and

he is smart enough to fix his problems. this way, you don’t send negative

messages about the child’s worth, you build his self-esteem.

with my son above, some of that worked. but whenever we were over-ridden

and could not stick to our guns, it didn’t work. and i think the biggest

lesson he is learning now is that if you are violent to people, whomever

they are, then you don’t get to be with those people anymore. we still love

him and tell him this. he tried to pull the “i want to come home and i’m

really sorry about all this stuff i did.” and dad said “thank you for

apologizing. that helps us to feel better. i hope you enjoy your summer at

xxxx.” and the conversation ended there.

on wed, jul 9, 2008 at 12:22 PM, maria <secretwindow-jd1@sbcglobal.net>

wrote:

> lately,I have been writting about how my 10 year old is being bullied

> and looking for advice and help in this area for him. But today I

> have gotten a diffrent view on this.

[Author]

Posts