Is there a Boy Scout troop near you?
Regarding the shoe-tying and other things I do for him: trust me, it’s not because I want to (even though I don’t mind having to do it), it’s because he has problems with small motor skills to do with his hands. He was born with a cerebellum defect called Chiari Malformation. Along with other things, this causes him to have these problems doing small things with his hands. He refuses to wear velcro shoes because he thinks it makes him look stupid or like a little kid. He wants to appear as normal as possible. Right now he’s at a family friend’s house until Monday, and Tuesday we have a meeting with his behavioral health counselor to discuss group homes.
Just to set the record straight, he’s not like this all the time. Much of the time, he is sweet and kind and charming. But then, boom, he’s not. The bad times are starting to outnumber the good, though. I have been wondering if he is bipolar, but he doesn’t seem to have manic episodes. He’s also not criminally-inclined, thank og, and has never been in trouble with the police until the other day regarding the threats.
He was just about to start with them until this all happened the other day.
I strongly believe in brushing my teeth twice a day but I still have to stand over my 11 year old to get her to do it. Plus your son isn’t listening to a word you say anyway.
That said, Alice … I really don’t think it’s the lack of a father that’s causing this. Lots of boys grow up without dads and don’t give their moms trouble. If he did have a dad in the picture, chances are he’d be telling him what a dick he is.
Damned if I know what the answer is but an institution may very well help. I hope everything works out for you. hugs
Alice is doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing. She’s being strong, steady, and supportive. She fought for his rights for months (years) in school. She’s his champion. She’s a great mom. Don’t put it on her because the kid is being a shithead. No matter what her son does, she’ll always love him and try to do the right thing.
Alice, I am sorry you are going through this. I hope for the best for you and your son.
Absolutely do not, for even a minute, entertain the idea that his “You fucked up my life by not having a father figure” bullshit is true. He is, for whatever reasons, trying to hit you with the lowest blow that he can, and he found a good one…smart kid. Most kids go for “You fucked me up by being a bad parent,” but that one loses its momentum when you know pretty factually that you haven’t actually been a horrible monster. This little gem has it all- it’s impossible to counter, it’s a deeply personal blow on what I imagine is a sensitive subject, it implies an irreversible personal failure on your part. He found a place to poke that is perfectly targeted to make you fall apart. You just have to tell yourself that that is what is happening, realize it’s just another symptom of whatever is going on, and carry on.
As you said, he has two strong male role models. It doesn’t somehow make them magically no good because you don’t happen to be having sex with them. He also has you, and despite having a vagina, you are still capable of modeling responsible behavior. In any case, plenty of difficult children come out of intact families, plenty of single parents raise perfectly well adjusted kids, and not every intact family is a healthy one anyway. Would he really feel better if you had married, say, an abusive prick with a drinking problem?
I have good friend who has three adopted sisters who were all raised in the same warm, loving, well-off and absolutely ideal home to the sweetest two people you’ll ever meet. My friend and two of his sisters have grown up to go on to successful careers and happy, loving relationships. The youngest, however, is an absolute wreck who at 14 started running away, using drugs, sleeping with men in an unhealthy manner, getting involved with the law, and purposefully sabotaging every advantage and second chance her parents gave her. It happens sometimes.
It seems like so many people attempt to solve problems like this by assigning blame. This is familiar to me, as the school where all the bullying took place attempted to blame him for being bullied, as well. But whether it’s brain chemistry or the fact that he doesn’t have a dad or that I could be a shitty mom, it doesn’t matter at this point. What I am looking for is not who to blame- I will even gracefully accept all the blame if it helps, but how to move forward from here and get him happy again.
Which is just dealing with the reality of what IS, which you are doing. Good luck and I’ll keep you in my thoughts, cause what you are going through has got to suck.
Sorry you having such a rough time…
here’s what caught my attention. He’s 13, has issues, and on top of that he requires your help for performing some minor life skills - ok.
But ntl, it sounds to me a little like you baby him too much, telling him what to do as if he is a toddler. That must be very frustrating for him. OK so he has small motor skills problems, maybe he is real slow at doing those things or does them poorly. But shouldnt he try to do them on his own, and have some responsibilties for himself? Give him some room to figure these things out. Counseling for you might help you get a better perspective on what he is feeling.
best of luck -
Yes, this is something that I’m grappling with. I hate to say it, but even though my son has an average IQ, he is someone who does poorly at almost anything he tries. It’s painful for him, and it’s painful for me to watch. I’m someone with a high IQ, who does well at anything I try, and I have maybe too much? empathy for him and I want to minimize his failures. I’m starting to think this might be the wrong thing for him and maybe I should let him try more things and face the music if he fails. But then I think, well maybe that would worsen his self-esteem and further his depression. I’m really trying hard to figure it all out.
Keep in mind also that taking longer to do something than someone without motor problems, but being able to do it by himself, is not a failure.
Whatever happens, I wish you both the best, Alice. I don’t know anybody who’s been in a group home, but several of the boarding students in my HS had been sent there by desperate parents and all of them turned out OK.
I’ve gotten a lot of PMs from people that have been in the same boat and they’ve all been positive and things have worked out well for them. I really appreciate those who’ve taken the time to PM me. I’ve cried so much the last couple of days and have not felt very optimistic. So it very much encourages me to see that it can work out and now I think it probably will.
I am not blaming you. I am simply agreeing with your son on this point. That lack of a loving but strong father figure in my life while growing up had a negative affect on me, too.
Is there no one available to offer a strong positive male influence? According to my brother, from 0-5 boys look to their mother, then until puberty they look to their father, but after that they try to find someone else.
Does he get much exercise? A free-flowing game like rugby might be just the ticket. Not American Football because that’s not continuous action, and not soccer because that requires finer dexterity.
Alice, I know I’m not your favorite person, and while I’m not experienced with this kind of thing, I just wanted to say good luck to you and your son, and that I hope everything works out.
You are not Alice’s son, and he is not you. You will certainly disagree with me, but all you are doing in this thread is projecting your own personal issues onto her.
Alice, I don’t really have advice but I am glad other people have been helpful, and I just want to reiterate that you’re being a good parent here. (In my experience, bad parents spend little to no time worrying about whether they are bad parents, whereas good parents do it all the damn time.) I hope things improve for you guys soon, one way or another.
See post #9
Good luck, Alice. I hope you get some good information from whatever sources you can find and I hope you are able to continue to focus on what to do instead of whose fault this all is. Rest assured it’s NOT your fault. I do think though that you might be on the right track in trying to stop sheltering him from “failure” or “consequences” whichever the case may be. Sometimes that sort of sheltering can make one feel even more of a failure: I’m so hopeless I can’t even finish and fail, someone else has to finish for me, etc. (if that makes any sense.) I also think given all your strengths that this is bound to work out ok eventually. Hang in there.
Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. And Guin, I’m completely cool with you now- you no longer annoy me and I even enjoy reading your posts. Those were the old days and let’s put that behind us.
FWIW, my sister was a troubled kid and my (happily married, intelligent, gainfully employed, non-abusive, loving, etc. – basically great) parents did everything they could think of in her teens, including getting her into a group home briefly, a foster home briefly, and one of those boot-campy survival things for a few weeks. That last is the only one they regret, as it was not run well and much harsher than they were led to expect.
My sister and I were both adopted as infants; we’re not blood related. I was a happy healthy baby. She was not. She spent the first three months or so of her life in and out of hospitals and half a dozen foster homes, and probably has that attachment disorder thing. What it meant was that she was ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY nearly all the time from the very start. When she was a teen, it manifested in HATING my parents and blaming them for everything. What did they do that she blamed them for? Totally normal restrictions like “if you sneak out your bedroom window at midnight to go drink at a party, you’ll get grounded” and “you must sit at the dinner table with your family every night, eat food like a civilized person, and be polite, for at least fifteen minutes.” But of course she phrased her anger and blame in the ugliest ways she could think of, and eventually she hit on “YOU’RE DOING THIS TO ME BECAUSE YOU DON’T REALLY LOVE ME BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT MY REAL PARENTS!!!” – often while kicking things, such as the drywall or doors – we had a lot of damage to the doors in the house.
The group home, foster home, wilderness encounter thing, etc. did not help. Nor did her getting arrested for shoplifting and narrowly escaping juvvie. Nor did pretty much anything else… until she grew up a lot more. When she was in college – and she’d managed decent, not great grades, in high school and college – she started to change how she felt about them, and over the next several years came to realize that in fact they did love her, they were her real parents, and all that anger was coming from other places. But none of the rest of us were the least bit optimistic about her ever having a revelation like that, or living long enough to have it if it were possible.
All of which is to say that I lived up close and personal with someone not unlike your son in many ways. It was 100% not my parents fault or even the result of any well-meant but misguided parenting they did, i am convinced, and so now is my sister.
In my totally nonprofessional opinion, troubled kids with at least one “good” parent are actually pretty lucky if they decide to blame their troubles on that good parent, because that’s the safest place in their world to direct their anger. It is pure hell for the good parent (and hellish for any other family members who have to live with it).
My sister now channels her anger, when the economy allows it, into social work, advocating for battered women in the legal system and the shelter/social services wildness. All that fang-toothed snarling fierceness is crucial for her doing her job well and making the world a better place. She lives about an hour’s drive from our folks and sees them more than I do, a few times a month or so. She tells them often that she knows they love her, that she loves them, and that they are fantastic parents and always have been.
So to you, Alice TG, I’d say – I don’t know. A group home might be good for him, or it might suck. But his anger at you and his lack of a dad are cruel to you, while maybe also not permanently bad for him.
I wish both of you luck, which you both deserve, in buckets.
My mom was lucky enough to get three kids that gave her plenty of trouble as teenagers. She put me in the nuthouse for a couple months, sent my middle sister to juvie for almost a year (my sister wouldn’t have had to go if she consented to live with my mom and go to school but she kept running away from home, which was illegal in their state), and my youngest sister to boarding school for two years.
None were great experiences for us but it all worked out okay and we’re all three doing better than we were as teens (although the bar is low for my middle sister who was a heroin addict at 16…). And maybe my mom wouldn’t have been able to cope with life if she hadn’t sent us away. Water under the bridge now.
It seems like you’re trying really hard to do right by your son, Alice. Take care of yourself too.