A Son’s Sabotage
“I beyond resent my son. He’s seven. He lies all the time, never listens and does harmful things to others. His father took off before he was born. The state says they can’t find him without a Supplemental Security Income or address for me to receive support. I’ve been living off the state for over six years. I work and go to University full time.
Every day is an argument and fight with this child. There are no fun times. There are no happy moments. He makes me miserable. All I want to do is graduate with my bachelor’s in engineering. Every morning he makes me late for class because he refuses to listen to a single word. I’ve tried all the ways of disciplining or rewarding to get him on track. He’s in special education for speech and math support. The doctor diagnosed him with ADHD last month. We are working on getting the right dose. But, for now- he made me miss my calculus class again because he refused to get out of bed this morning. I don’t think I love him anymore. I feel like he’s sabotaging my life and chances for getting out of the welfare system. I’m miserable with him in my life.”
Regret After Abandoning Baby
“I resent having my daughter because when I got pregnant I planned to give her up for adoption because I was only 19 at the time. I had a wonderful gay male couple in mind. Long story short I had the baby and her father and I were still together when she was born. Got postpartum depression/psychosis after I had her. Had to spend 2 weeks in the hospital and as soon as I got home, I had to take care of her all by myself. I lived with my baby father and his parents and took care of him and the baby all by myself for two years. All he did was sit and play video games…for twelve hours a day…and ignore me and her. He never fed her, changed her diaper, held her, or even watched. All the while he would lie to his parents and tell them he was helping me with her. I also worked a full-time overnight shift and took care of her when I got home, so he could go to school. He is also 5 years older than me, an army veteran, and went to school on the GI Bill. I tried to plan a wedding while working and taking care of a child and a grown man. After I couldn’t take it anymore I left him and the baby at his parents and trying to improve my life. I regret leaving her and now trying to get her back. My bipolar 2 is a huge block for me taking care of her and him.”
His Threats And Attempts
“I do not dislike, hate, or resent my child in any way…but he has wreaked havoc and has been a major handful. My oldest son has Autism and DMDD (Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder).
My wife and I got divorced when he was 12, which didn’t go well. When he got angry, he would lose all sense of judgment. When he got bigger, he started hitting us. I took away his iPod as a punishment two years ago and he smashed two of my car windows as I drove away. When I got back home he stabbed me with a knife (In the arm…on purpose…so it wouldn’t be lethal. He thought that would keep me from calling the police).
About a year ago, when he was 15, he stole my credit card, didn’t like his punishment, and biked to a nearby downtown area to ‘live the rest of his life free as a homeless man.’ The police helped us find him. We started looking for programs to help him, but we were too late. He had a bad day at school, got expelled, thought his life was over, recklessly ran away and was badly hurt.
That drive to the hospital was a scary drive to make as a dad, let me just say… He broke 8 bones, but after three months in the hospital, four surgeries, tons of physical therapy, and $1 million of insurance money…he was as good as new. He’s doing much better. We found a great inpatient behavioral program for him, and now he’s out of that and onto a CADI (Community Access for Disability Inclusion) waiver with the county (lives with roommates in a CADI house). He’s on the right meds, he does well in school (public school part time), and he went on a date this weekend. I drive up at least every other weekend to see him.”
She Drew The Line When Her Step-Son Blinded The Dog
“My husband has two children from a previous marriage, a boy and a girl. I REALLY tried to like them. We took them to the movies when they came to visit, always had home cooked meals, made their birthdays and holidays special even if we celebrated them late at our house. I have horses and they both got lessons when they came over as well (which they loved and would beg to do). They were in my life for three years (up until they were 14 and 12).
Throughout the time they still came over they would lie, constantly. None of them had been THAT bad, though- just stuff where kids try to start fights. They’d tell their mother we were talking s— about her (we NEVER did when the kids were over). One time his boy (the younger of the two) wrecked his dirt bike. He was totally fine. He went home and told his mom we didn’t have a helmet on him (he totally did) and that no one was watching and he couldn’t remember anything that happened. She accused us of child neglect and tried to send us the emergency room bill (of course there was nothing wrong with him- he was going 10mph and fell over WITH a helmet on… in a field).
Another time my husband’s daughter stole a bunch of blank checks from our checkbook.
His son also SHOT MY DOG in the eye with a pellet weapon on purpose. My dog was laying in his crate and he put it up to his face and shot him. They saved his eye but he can’t see out of it anymore… and his son lied… said he didn’t do it (when him and the dog came sprinting out of the room together)… and then proceeded to cry because I was ‘mean’ when I freaked out that he shot my dog (before rushing the dog out of the house to the vet). He was gone when I came back- he’d called his mom to pick him up and told her I was being mean to him.
There are many other instances here and there… but the last one we had a large family gathering (husbands side). The kids hadn’t been coming around to much. Their mother got re-married to a guy who had A LOT of money. He bought them toys we couldn’t afford (new dirt bikes, 4 wheelers, etc) and they preferred to stay over there. At this point, they had been telling my husband (their dad) for around a year that they didn’t love him and didn’t want to see him. The kids had told him to his face multiple times they wanted their step-dad to be their real dad and asked about adoption. My husband always said no.
He got them for the family get together and everyone was playing cornhole. My step-son lost the game to his dad 21 to 0. He began crying in front of everyone and when my husband walked over to comfort him, his son started punching him and screaming that he hated him and wanted to go home. He refused to talk to anyone and my husband took him to his mother a few hours later when his son called his mom and she said she was coming to get him. Nothing else happened. We all just left the kid alone to sulk.
After he left we got a call from his mother accusing my husband of abusing their child and that she was getting a lawyer. His son had told her my husband had hit him and verbally abused him. His son later admitted to lying (and there were around 20 people who saw it all go down and stood up for my husband).
The kids have refused to come over since and neither of us pushes the issue. He still refuses to do the adoption (and I’ve told him it’s his choice…but I don’t think he should…they may come around as they get older). But as of right now…those kids have accused us of abuse TWICE which caused lawyers to get involved. They have stolen checks and money, and caused my dog to go blind in one eye (and the dog is now terrified of children).”
A Life Based On Lies
“I recently gave up all parental rights to my only child, a son, after 13 years of dealing with his mother’s lies, accusations, criminal and family lawsuits based on lies. I truly loved my son. I was an excellent father who did everything possible to teach him the value of truth, kindness, and honesty in life.
I have been accused of starving him, beating him, doing hard substances (none of which I do). I have had to invest thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend against false claims.
My son has picked up her lying manipulative ways, as well as her desperate need for all attention to focus on her. He has become a liar just like his mother, who supports her falsehoods with his own voice. He has threatened to shoot me, and himself with my business protection weapon.
For the safety of myself, and the safety of my wife, I have severed all ties, and allowed him to be adopted by his stepfather…who is an evil and manipulative man just as his mother is… He is on his own, in a world I know little about. I fought hard for him, but he continued to lie, not only supporting her outrageous claims but also coming up with some of his own, for added flair.
There is, in this world, a growing disregard for what is right and moral. This woman and those she surrounds herself with are part of that toxic society. It goes far beyond simple family discord. This child has already made a LETHAL threat of grave bodily injury to himself, and me. This is not to be taken lightly in our current times. I believe that this general loss of respect for others is exemplified in this woman and the way she has chosen to approach our former parent/co-parent/child relationship. This toxic child-rearing has destroyed his chance at a normal perspective on life.
After 12 years of crushing heartbreak, I gave up… Life has been so much less stressful and crushing since. I do this knowing that I gave 150% of myself to parenting so my burden of guilt is minimal.”
The Only Stable Adult In A Needy Child’s Life
“I have had my oldest niece (4 almost 5 yrs old) basically 24/7, barring the few times every month or so that her mom will take her home for a 12 hour period since she was a year and a half old. At this point, I am the only stable parental figure she has ever really known.
I do not hate or dislike her, per-say, but I do resent her. I resent all the attention she requires. She wants eyes focused on her all the time, and when she feels like she’s not getting enough attention, she becomes a holy terror. I know part of her attention seeking is because of her parents, who live right next door, pay little to none to her.
She’s very, very loud, and likes to make nonsense animal noises all the time. She loves pretending to be a dinosaur. She loves singing. She loves running and playing – just like any other four years old – but she does not get the concept of quiet time or indoor voices. I suffer from migraines, and I have explained to her every time I have one that I need her to play quietly until my emergency medication starts working, so I tell her to sit quietly and watch a movie or draw for an hour or so, and as soon as I lay down, she’s in my face almost yelling for me to play with her/watch her do something, etc.
She’s also a bit of a brat, too. When she doesn’t get her way with something, she immediately runs to my grandmother who gives her whatever she wants – toys, sweets, whatever. When she does get in trouble, be it for screaming non-stop or destroying something (this happens at least four times a day, if not more) or being mean to or playing too rough with the cats/dogs, time outs, spankings, sitting down and talking/explaining, rewards, none of it works. Any attention, good or bad, she wants it.
When I tell her not to do something, the minute I am out of sight, she’s doing it. It doesn’t help that I am literally the only one in the house that will stand up to my grandmother and put my foot down about her being disciplined. I am the only one that takes none of this little girl’s bulls—.
Beyond all this, and as guilty as this makes me feel, I also resent her because during my last miscarriage I still had to take care of her. I resent her mother for this too, but I resent her because it did not matter to her that even though she was told I was sick, or even when she was sat down and someone explained what was happening, she still wanted me to play with her and would not leave me alone for longer than twenty minutes.
I resent her because, for months after my miscarriage, she would still ask me when the baby would be here, and since it is now shortly after she was told the baby would be here, she is asking again. I understand that she’s just a little kid, but it still hurts, and I feel guilty for that, too. I resent her because even though I have no children of my own, I now have to live my life as if I do, which means now that I am working out of the house on 3rd shift, I have to sacrifice my sleep in order to care for her because her mother won’t. I resent her much more lately because every time I try to discipline or work with her, she’s taken to screaming in my face ‘You’re not my mommy, so I don’t have to listen to you!’
She needs therapy, for her anger, for her attention seeking, for the neglect from her parents – she just does not know how to cope, and I don’t know how to help her. Don’t get me wrong, I resent her mother much more than I do my niece, in fact, I would go as far as to say that I hate her mother for all of this – for messing up her child so much! I hate her mother with every fiber of my being every time I have to comfort her when she’s crying for her mom because she misses her.
On a positive note, I do love finding things to do with her that will teach her something, or discover something new. I love that every day I find out something new about her as a person, and I love that we are so close. It would have been so easy to allow myself to wallow in the depression I fell into when the miscarriage happened, but her excessive need for attention made it to where I couldn’t. At that time, all I could do was throw myself into taking care of her. My niece is intelligent and beautiful, she is strong and creative, and so very opinionated. I know that someday, (if she gets some therapy,) she will do great things.”
From Happy Marriage To Miserable Parenthood
“When my wife was pregnant with our first and only child, we knew before birth that she was at high risk of down syndrome. The gene was quite prevalent in both our family histories. We both got tested and the doctor told us that our daughter had an 80% chance that she will be born with Down Syndrome. Our marriage up to this point was happy and wonderful.
We dated for 9 months before getting married and were more of partners than a couple. Everything we did, we decided together. We bought our own business, which didn’t cause any fights, but rather we thrived because she was good at what I wasn’t and vice versa. I was a messy ‘kid’ before I met her, and she helped me change my ways. She lacked hobbies before I met her, and I helped her find things she truly loved doing. We were happy, very very happy.
The doctor told us that ending the pregnancy was a viable option, but we needed to decide within a week or it would be too late. I knew right away that I was for ending the pregnancy, but didn’t know how to bring it up. When we finally did sit down and talk, I brought all sorts of articles and books on kids with Down Syndrome. I tried to show her rather than convince her of how hard our life would be if our child actually did have it. It was going to be hard for both of us to have a healthy child, let alone one that needed far more care. We were both busy and happy…
She didn’t want to kill our unborn child, and there was nothing I could really do to change her mind without really really making her mad and ruining our relationship. So reluctantly, I went with it.
As luck would have it, our daughter was born with translocation Down Syndrome. Only 1% of all cases of down syndrome are that, and it has a lot to do with hereditary conditions. I don’t want to go into how bad our life became. I really can’t even handle typing it out. My wife had to quit her job which she adored. We had to move to a smaller house after a year and a half because of the medical bills. When I came home from work, she was too tired to talk or even see me and went to bed, and my entire 5 hours of free time every. single. day. was spent caring for our daughter in some form or another. I didn’t see my friend for 9 months. I missed my cousin’s wedding because we couldn’t even think about traveling.
Everything changed, and everything changed for the worst. My wife and I only talked when we fought. Either she was too tired and that caused her anger, or I worked too much and didn’t help her enough. To tell you my life went to s— is an understatement because I can’t even imagine how much extra stress my wife must have endured in that first couple of years.
I don’t hate my daughter. But I do resent the fact that we had her, even though I knew our life would be this way. I go to the parks sometimes and sit and watch all the happy fathers play with their happy kids. Watch them throw the ball around, or just run around the jungle gym. That’s the life I wanted, that I dreamed of, but I will never have. My wife and I are still together because neither wants to burden the other by leaving.”
Manipulated Maniacs
“I dated a guy for five years, and he was the sole parent of a kid. He basically raised her barely above neglect levels. She had food, clothes, and a room. But he would basically not do anything to care for her and wouldn’t even see her for days on end. She was 6 years old when we met.
I felt I had to step in and help out, and he basically dumped raising her, on me. I was overwhelmed, resented the fact that I had to change my life and lifestyle for her. But when I would withdraw, she basically was left in her room (frequently ‘grounded’ for minor infractions because it meant he had an excuse not to interact).
I tried to make things special for her, planned outings and whatnot. She never expressed gratitude and would blow temper tantrums that things weren’t enough. I guess I wasn’t spending enough money, or we went to the local amusement park when she wanted to go to Disney.
As for her father, he was extremely manipulative. If I took time for myself, he would tell her it was because I was being ‘selfish’ etc. She picked up on this and would threaten to tattle on me if I didn’t do something or told her to take time. She told her grandparents her grades were bad because I didn’t do it for her…
When her father and I split up, it was hard because I knew her dad wasn’t willing to parent at all, and I knew she would be neglected. No one deserves that. But I had to get out of the bad/abusive relationship. We kept in touch for a while, but her dad started using her as a weapon; I broke contact.
Now she posts angry messages on Facebook directed at me. She is entering her teen years and blames her problems on me…”
The Father That Could Never Relate To His Child
“I live and breathe sports and activity. His mother was a personal trainer and I was a gym rat, our first date was on a climbing wall. We got married in a canoe. We took trips all around the world. We lived life like a travel brochure.
Our son was born with cerebral palsy and AMC, which basically means the joints in his arms and legs are locked up and will never move or develop. He will never walk or stand, he has limited use of his arms. We will never go fishing, canoeing or hike together. Everything that was so important to his mother and I’s lives before him will never mean anything to him. In every way, he is so unlike me that I struggle to relate to him at all. When he was born we both were in shock. He got RSV at 4 months and ended up in the PICU. He wasn’t expected to survive. Honestly? His mother and I discussed it and quietly agreed that it would be best that way. We stopped visiting. He’s 11 now.
Mentally, he’s above average. He gets As in a competitive private school. He competes in math and spelling bees. I hated school. He is cheerful, kind to animals and unfailingly polite. I was a sarcastic, rude little s— who butted heads with everyone. For some reason, he’s still intent on impressing his parents, though I’ve rarely encouraged him. Despite all his wonderful traits I still try to avoid seeing him because it makes me feel guilty, depressed and disappointed, and I feel like s— about that because all his accomplishments tell me is how much I should love him. Anyone else would be thrilled, right? If not thrilled about the medical care, at least impressed with his achievements.
I work long hours so that I can provide the best medical care he needs, the best education, anything material he could ever want. And so that I can stay away from him. Because I know he knows. He tries so hard that sometimes I’m afraid it’s all a front to make it easier for us to like him.”
The Face Of A Liar
“The last day of school before winter vacation, there was a recital with little plays and whatnot. The previous year to this, I went but my ex didn’t. The year in question, I begged him to go. It meant a lot to his daughter and she had been upset her father had been ‘busy’ the previous year. It ended up a fight the day before, as he had a World of Warcraft raid he would miss. The day of, I figured he would be a no-show. I bought the daughter a new dress for the recital and got her ready in the morning and on the bus.
I’m sitting there, things are about to begin and in walks my then boyfriend… He is freshly barber shaved and wearing a freshly pressed shirt and tie. When his daughter recites her little thing, he whoops and yells ‘THAT’S MY GIRL!’ There’s a little reception afterward with cookies and punch and he brings in a dozen roses and presents them to the daughter. He was acting all charming and started walking around basically showing off ‘his actress’. The daughter is beaming, he is joking around charmingly to the teachers. All good. He loudly promises her we are going to Olive Garden for dinner (she loved Olive Garden and thought it was fancy).
At this point, his ‘charming personality’ is crashing, and he is starting to get snippy with us. She is feeling the drop in mood and is getting sullen. We go to leave and she has her drink in a to go cup. I had opened the backseat of my car and was leaning in and for some reason she was running backwards in the parking lot. She crashes into the door and the drink spills down the front of her dress. He blows up, screams at her, and grounds her for a week for horsing around and ruining her dress.
The grounding meant he didn’t have to deal with her for a bit, then her grandmother showed up to take her for their annual getaway. I was in the living room when the grandmother confronts me, asking why the kid was grounded. Turns out the kid told her grandmother I had slammed a car door on her and blamed the kid for the drink being spilled. She said I wanted the kid grounded so that I could go to my friend’s bachelorette party. She threatened that if I didn’t treat her granddaughter better, she would throw me out of her son’s house.
I spoke about it with my now EX-BOYFRIEND over text. He sent me back a picture of him with the daughter at the recital, both all smiles, and said ‘Is this the face of a child who would lie?’ WOW GOODBYE!”
A Child She Never Wanted
“When I became pregnant, I had not ever wanted a child. I was not at all happy! In fact, I cried so much and became very depressed. I felt very pressured I to going through with it by my husband. He had very good intentions but it was just not something I wanted for myself. We had agreed before we married that we did not want children. So I was very resentful and miserable. But I absolutely did my best to be a good mother because my baby had no say in this and I believe all babies deserve loving mothers regardless of circumstances. So I faked it as best as I could and got help. I never wanted to hurt her or for her to feel unloved but it was so hard.
Never did it feel natural to me. I never found much enjoyment out of raising a child, I was exhausted and burned out by all the stuff kids do. I resented giving up my plans, my work, my horse, my whole identity for a child I never wanted.
My daughter is now ten and we have a great relationship. I enjoy her her company now. My harshness has pretty much dissipated and I feel much better about being a parent now. Hoping my early issues have not forever damaged her.”
Son Ruined Their Relationship
“I fell pregnant when I while taking birth control. My husband and I had sworn that we wouldn’t have kids but kept this baby. He fell ill when he was a baby and it ended costing thousands in bills and caused a lifetime of developmental problems. We treat him as if he is normal, don’t tell him why he goes to his therapies, and to anyone who meets him they have no idea that there is anything wrong.
He has put a great strain on what was once a very good relationship. My husband and I were together for 4 years before having him. We rarely fought. After having him, we fight all the time. My husband works long hours to try and pay off all of the medical bills, which leaves me to basically be a single parent. We don’t speak to my in-laws because they tried to use my son as a pawn to make my husband hate me.
I love my son. I bust my a– trying to give him a normal life. But I hate what he has done to the relationship I had with my husband. I hate the stress that his illnesses have put on my life.”
Autism Happened To All Of Us
“My oldest son is severely autistic and twelve years old. Imagine someone bound by OCD that cannot talk and cannot understand seemingly very simple concepts.
He can understand some things, but the concept of abstract communication eludes him. Example: I can tell him to get dressed, but he cannot understand that the ‘tag’ on a shirt goes behind his neck. So, there is a 25% chance his shirt is on correctly, 25% chance it is on backward, 25% chance it is on facing correctly but inside out, and 25% chance it is on backward and inside out. Of course, if it is cold outside, there is a 50% chance he’ll come out in shorts. That isn’t really too big a deal, but the inability to grasp this portion of communication bleeds into everything, things 99.9% of people take completely for granted.
When he was three, he had an ear infection. We didn’t know that, of course, we just knew that he was inconsolable and in pain from something. He does not understand questions like ‘does it hurt here?’, or ‘show me where it hurts’, or ‘does your stomach hurt?’ Eventually, his ear drum burst out yellow stuff and we said, ‘Oh. Ear-ache’.
He has never been given an aspirin for a headache. He’s probably had a headache, but I don’t know. He can’t tell us if he has a headache or any other kind of ache.
We’ve taken to ‘hiding’ foods he prefers in the house, given free reign to potato chips, or hummus, or cranberries, or f—ing whatever! This boy will eat and eat and eat, and then throw up later that night. It’s not his fault, he’s been on anti-psychotics for a few years now, one side effect of which is weight gain. I hate, f—ing hate, giving him antipsychotics, but not quite as much as how he acts/acted when he wasn’t on them.
As a family, we cannot realistically travel. Interruptions to his routine result in a constant moan/whine/crying/occasional outburst of self-injury, or rarely, attacking others. The pain and fear he feels are very real to him, and we are powerless to provide him comfort. Instead, my wife will travel with my other sons while I stay home with him.
He has never had a friend that was not direct family or therapist. I don’t see how he ever will. He will never kiss a girl, drive a car, or have a job. I have no idea if he wants to do those things or not, of if he knows they exist as things at all.
In the early days of his autism, we threw therapies at him by writing checks against the house and credit card companies to the tune of 30K+/year for five years or so (insurance has subsequently helped out some with this). We’re still digging our way out of that, slowly but surely. Ultimately, however, they haven’t really done much in the context of turning him into a person that can life his own life. For example, they are working on having him keep a band aid on; they’ve had that as part of his program for about six months, and he’ll keep a band aid on for fifteen minutes or so. Great. The reality is that when he gets a cut or laceration, it sits open for weeks; he simply will constant tear away any bandages. I’m sure that he has good reasons in his mind for not wanting a bandage on, but he just doesn’t understand the concept of ‘medicine’ making you feel ‘better’ ‘in a few days’; none of those things seem to get through.
He’s never been to the dentist. There are some that will work with children like him when he is unconscious. We just haven’t felt like giving him anesthesia to take him to the freaking dentist. It’s on the list for this year.
He goes through periods of self-injury. When he was a toddler, he banged his head, a lot. He broke a few windows in our home. He very likely concussed himself a few times. Lately, he’s been punching the table during favorite scenes from Disney films; he has a blood blister about three inches long on both hands. He understands when we tell him, ‘don’t do that, punch the pillow instead’. He’ll punch the pillow for a few minutes, and then start banging the walls again; he is simply a slave to the routine.
When my wife and I die, people that make $10 an hour will take care of him, or not, for the rest of his life.
There’s more, so much more, and the thing about autism is that it does not take one f—ing second off. Nobody gets a day off. Ever!
He works harder than anyone I know and gets s— to show for it. He inhabits the world where everything is too loud, too bright, too confusing and too conforming to his patterns, and is trying as best as he can to navigate through it. He didn’t ask for any of this. Sometimes he’s got a d— father who gets mad at him, who resents him for all of these things and a million others that he cannot control. Me. But he deserves better than that, so I’m trying, every f—ing hour of the day to remember that he is the one who got the raw deal, not me, not his brothers, him. I have bad moments, but no longer bad weeks or days. I’m working on it, if only I could work as hard as he does, I’d be golden. Autism happened to him, to us.”
Who Knew Having Kids Would Be That Bad
“My dad likes to ask me: ‘I bet you didn’t know having kids would be so hard huh?’ But no, I never in a million years figured how hard, and I by no means have it as bad as some people.
Basically, it started at ‘terrible 2’s’ normal, ok. But wait no, 3’s were terrible, and 4’s, and 5’s, all terrible. It’s a bit of just a bad memory at this point with a few highlights that stand out.
Kindergarten started and the school called every day saying how his behavior was bad. He wouldn’t sit down on the bus, wouldn’t sit still in class, wouldn’t stop talking. During grade school, getting a simple page of homework done took 2 hours because he would hide it, rip it, throw it away. I couldn’t read books to him at night, he would slap it out of my hands, or bounce around on the bed to the point I couldn’t finish.
He would go into terrible rages as he got older but still in grade school, threatening to throw up on me, smash the table, turn chairs over. Had no concept of behavior vs punishment or reward. None. We tried everything we could think of. I could say: ‘Don’t touch that thing’ and turn my back for a second, and he was touching it. Short term goals, long term goals, immediate punishment, or ‘atonement’ in the form of making up for bad behavior with ‘good works’, nothing matters. Nothing was being learned.
He was on meds for a while, Focalin at first. His teachers at school called me in one day under the pretense of seeing him read. Instead, I got ambushed about how unhappy he was, and how he really needed more reading help. The next day they said he was done with the special reading program. What?
He lies about homework…’I don’t have any’. Great…well the school website says you do, where is it, show it to me? ‘Oh I forgot it in my locker/I did it already/I turned it in already.’ LIES! When hiding it around the house didn’t work out, he turned to saying it was at school, knowing I couldn’t verify until it turned up as late on the online grade sheet.
He’s currently in detention after school on Wednesdays and Fridays to help him get his work done. He is also grounded. He lied about not needing to go last Wednesday and didn’t show up. He tried to do it this past Friday but I called his teacher and marched his butt back to school. He cried and screamed about that.
I nearly had more than a few nervous breakdown when the school has called me and let me know about terrible things he’s told other kids at school. We got into therapy. I took hidden videos when he would flip out because it was so nightmarish I sometimes couldn’t even believe it even the next day.
He’s threatened to hurt himself because some girl didn’t want to date him. We thought we had that talked out with the therapist. Another night when he ran home early which was unusual, and I got a bad feeling. Shortly after the police and paramedics showed up because he threatened to hurt himself, and smeared my red lip gloss across his chest and took pictures, and said he had stabbed himself. That was a very expensive bill. The therapist thought we had it sorted out. Nope, as soon as he got his cell phone back he messaged the girl saying he was dying from infection.
We keep tabs on his web activity, Xbox, TV viewing, and cell phone usage. We try to provide knowledge of the bad things, but not allow him to bask in it like many on the internet do. I’m not religious but I roll with ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ It’s hard. Evil is pretty cool, in many young people’s minds. Trolling is funny to them. Being mean is funny. We try to keep him occupied with sports and activities, but he needs action and monitoring what feels 24/7 and I can’t DO IT.
We have 2 kids and the youngest, who is 8 now, is so much EASIER I want to cry. I would have NEVER had kids if I knew how much work the first one was going to be. NEVER!”
Stinky Step-Son And His Major Issues
“Not my child, but my husband’s youngest son from his first marriage. I don’t hate him, I care very much for him, but he is impossible to like. He’s 12, and completely incapable of entertaining himself in any way. If he isn’t pacified with television or some other electronic device, he’s wandering the house being as loud and obnoxious as possible because bad attention is still attention. If you give him attention or try to find an activity to do together, he’ll simply try to use that as a bargaining chip to get something else he wants later.
He will do anything to play video games, and if you allow it, he will play all day without getting dressed or eating. He will also pretend to be sick to stay home from school to play video games. He has a time limit but will lie and sneak to try to play longer. Taking away these things does no good. He’ll continue to be an obnoxious, annoying s— until he can play again. Sometimes I let him play so he will stop bothering everyone in the house.
Also, he’s a chronic bed wetter, so he frequently smells like urine, he’s got issues with s—-ing his pants sometimes too and swears that he has no idea when or how it happens. He’s been to numerous doctors and counselors who tell us to give him fiber. He’s been instructed to change out of dirty clothes and put them in the wash, but he won’t admit to it. Instead, when he soils his pants, he’ll often hide them somewhere until his disgusting cache is discovered and he gets in trouble. His punishment is usually a video game ban, but his behavior never changes. I love my husband more than anything, and his other kids and my kid are no issue at all, just the one youngest. I feel like a monster.”
