Don’t.
My son’s kindergarten teacher told us that a neighbor (unidentified, but I had a damn good guess) had warned her that my son was a holy terror and she should watch out for him. The teacher told us that she kept her own counsel and that our son was a delight to have in class (a sentiment echoed by all his subsequent teachers) but I never forgave the suspected neighbor for getting involved.
It would be different if you suspected abuse. But even then I would be careful not to overreact.
Can you invite him over for homework? “I’m doing homework at Cheeseboy’s place” is a pretty standard behavior, and by simply keeping the door open for him you’re providing a safe environment, a study spot that’s quiet(er than his home) and some decent role models.
Over zealously narcing out parents for abuse can ruin lives too so one had better be darned careful where they stick their noses.
if you are financially independent … you might set aside a couple hundred dollars a month … placed into an education-fund. when the kid graduates from high-school … that fund could help him choose career path that a local college would assist him in knowledge and resources. of course … time is never static … the world changes and always will. and, that relationship with the kid may, indeed, dissolve. however, you, as the principle of the fund, always has the choice in withdrawing the money. in this context … you may wish to keep the fund secret.
Yes, interfere! Or rather, keep doing what you’re doing. Which abusers* and their enablers will call interfering, but is actually protecting the kid.
Continue to provide a safe space for the kid, and feed him, and let your kid tutor him. (That’s good for him, and for your kid, too – both in doing a good thing, and because tutoring helps your kid to learn the material better.)
Rather than speaking to the school (they usually won’t speak to you about another kid, and won’t listen or respond; and if they do respond, it’s often in the wrong way). Instead speak to his bio-dad. Let him speak to the school – they have to respond to him. He should be doing more for his kid – that’s his responsibility (and he seems to be doing a pretty poor job of it). Maybe he’s just unaware of the situation with his kid, so inform him.
Don’t fret about the mother finding out. That’s probably inevitable. If nothing else, the dad will likely confront her about her actions (or inaction) for his son (as he should). She doesn’t sound like she’s enough together to do much against you anyway. So just keep on doing what you can for this kid.
*And running a house full of chaos and letting a teen child do whatever she wants is abuse.
The issue is children, even abused ones, are very protective of their parents.
What’s likely to happen is you will intervene, even in a subtle way and it will get back the parents, and they will blame you and their child will back their own parents and at best you’ll look like a schmoe and worst, you’ll be in the middle of something dangerous.
Call the state child protective agency and file an anonomous report. If the parents are clean, they can prove it.
I deal in social work and with very few exceptions these situations rarely end well for the child nor those seeking to intervene.
The issue is the only way to really help is to physically remove the child and reeducate the parents and the child. In today’s world, this is never going to happen. Courts are loathe to remove children, because of political climates and the fact, the foster home are all too often no better than the home the child is in.
There’s a whole lot of middle ground between putting a bug in a teacher’s ear that a kid is “a holy terror” and the type of benign involvement that some are suggesting.
Luckily, the OP has said that he ** doesn’t ** suspect abuse and, as such, would be doing no such thing.
I don’t think that’s true everywhere.
There are so many resources that can be implemented while keeping the family intact—tutoring programs, after school clubs, Big Brother/Big Sister programs, recreation and sports activities…the parents may not have the time or money or awareness to seek out and enroll in such programs, and the school may not have the kid on their radar. (I found out in June when my younger son was in his final weeks of middle school that the Assistant Principal spent almost every single working hour involved in disciplinary actions with kids and families and sometimes CPS or the Juvenile Justice program. A kid whose problems are less severe or urgent or who is not at immediate risk can easily slip through the cracks. My son did, and I’d like to think that I’m not a “hot mess.”)
**Cheesesteak **, you mentioned that the boy’s sister has significant mental health issues. I reckon that the kids’ parents are so accustomed to dealing with her crises that the boy, being in less * immediate * need doesn’t get much in the way of attention or guidance.
I personally applaud your willingness to be a part of this boy’s support network.
So in your mind, step 1 is always rip the kid out of his/her home then ask questions later?
This happens. What also happens is a kid can appear to be uncared for, when the reality is he would be much worse if he were not getting the adequate and appropriate care you just don’t get to see.
Yanking is the wrong word. An investigation usually does not mean yanking the child from the home unless the situation is urgent, as in a child who’s suffered significant injury or is in mortal danger–in which case rescued is much more accurate.
Even when an investigation shows evidence of abuse or neglect, a child may not be put in foster care. The primary focus is on keeping the family together, usually with interventions and monitoring.
yes, no disagreement, but the part of Carryon’s comment I was referring to was this:
Which to me seems borderline jackbooted. “Oh, your family is having problems right now? Well, we’re gonna take your kids away from you until you get your shit together.”
Not me. I spent a lot of time protecting my mother’s schemes because I didn’t know I was doing so (attempts at understanding why my family was so different from others met with the Grown-Up Wall of Silence), but when someone said “your mother is not thinking well, she needs hospitalization” I had no problem accepting it and neither did the Bros. Hell, if she’d gotten decent psychiatric treatment before age 70, my life and those of my brothers would have been a lot easier.
ETA: I realized it sounded like Mom got hospitalized for psychiatric reasons age 70. Two separate incidents: hospitalized for scrip addiction age 40s, and then finally got treatment for anxiety after a hospital stay for a different reason age 70. The anxiety treatment has made her much less likely to say and do stupid things or fly off the handle; it also cured her hyperglucemia as she’s stopped eating sweets all day long.