Worried Daddy
New Member
Hello Everyone.
This is my first post, having found this forum in a google search.
I am not sure if I am even posting this in the correct forum. My wife and I are desperate to try and understand our son's behaviour and while reading through these threads we found so many remarkably similar stories. We'd appreciate any advice. Here goes.
My wife and her former husband adopted BOB ( Pseudonym ) when he was a 4 day old infant.
They raised him until he was two. The marriage ended and relations remain amicable.
My wife and I have since raised BOB. He calls me dad, and also refers to my wife's ex as dad.
He knows that he is adopted and that he has a tummy mummy. We tell him as much as he wants to know about his biological mother. We know nothing about his biological father. We know that he has biological siblings and that his half brother has ADHD and that he is medicated for it. We know that his biological mum is a smoker and we suspect that she is a drinker. We have tried to maintain contact with her but she is non responsive.
When BOB was 3, we had another son. A biological one.
My wife remembers that as an infant and a toddler, BOB would never snuggle in - he was always rigid and tense. It wasn't until we had another child that she noted the difference in cuddles and snuggling.
We always knew that BOB was 'full-on' - continually requiring one's attention. It wasn't until he was 4 however that we became increasingly concerned about his behaviour. A day care teacher ( elderly and very wise ) sat us down one day and said that she noticed that BOB was 'different'. She noted that he engaged in parallel play. That he did not play with kids but instead he played alongside them.
We began to notice that BOB hoarded things. Everything, and I mean everything that he considered precious got dragged into his bed. Around this time he started bringing day care toys home. We'd make hime take them back the next day and apologise....but the behaviour continued and became more sneaky. We notice his 'odd' behaviours more readily. Continual thumb sucking. Bouncing around and the inability to sit still. His obsessions around food. Separating foods into different groups on his plate. Not wanting to eat anything 'slimy' - so any food that had a squishy texture was rejected. You could literally see him getting sick at the sight of chicken skin. He also has (to this day) a fascination with my stubble. So at night time pre bed cuddles he would try to rub his face against mine so that that stubble would rasp his cheeks. Much like a cat rubs itself against a post. I tried hard not to reject him when he does this but increasingly I am suspicious that it's morphing into sexual undertones. My wife and I observe him closely when he does this - and the sounds he makes and facial expressions that he makes - is akin to gratification. It's awkward for me because I don't want to reject him - so I have taken to putting my hand between our cheeks when cuddling him - but he wriggles and tries his best to remove it.
My wife and I also noted that during his day care years - he was never invited to any kid's birthday party. He is now 8 and he still has never been invited. Our youngest who is now 5 is a socialite and has been to numerous parties and play dates! The contrast is stark. This began to concern my wife and I - so we took our son at 4.5 years of age off to a paediatrician. He was diagnosed with mild ADHD and Aspergus.
Since then he has been medicated. This has had a moderating effect on his impulsiveness but other issues are still causing us concern.
These include:
We are even more careful to treat the two boys the same. ( We are hyper sensitive to the fact that BOB is adopted and that he may feel rejected/ not attached/ angry etc.) We try our best to mitigate this.
However we have a boy who is increasingly getting into trouble - and who can't explain why he does stupid/ implusive stuff. When we read through these forums about the experiences of adopting parents with their 15-19 year olds - we see our son in 5 years time. We are increasingly concerned.
What can we do to arrest his slide into greater anti-social behaviour and perhaps criminality?
Are we just being paranoid?
This is my first post, having found this forum in a google search.
I am not sure if I am even posting this in the correct forum. My wife and I are desperate to try and understand our son's behaviour and while reading through these threads we found so many remarkably similar stories. We'd appreciate any advice. Here goes.
My wife and her former husband adopted BOB ( Pseudonym ) when he was a 4 day old infant.
They raised him until he was two. The marriage ended and relations remain amicable.
My wife and I have since raised BOB. He calls me dad, and also refers to my wife's ex as dad.
He knows that he is adopted and that he has a tummy mummy. We tell him as much as he wants to know about his biological mother. We know nothing about his biological father. We know that he has biological siblings and that his half brother has ADHD and that he is medicated for it. We know that his biological mum is a smoker and we suspect that she is a drinker. We have tried to maintain contact with her but she is non responsive.
When BOB was 3, we had another son. A biological one.
My wife remembers that as an infant and a toddler, BOB would never snuggle in - he was always rigid and tense. It wasn't until we had another child that she noted the difference in cuddles and snuggling.
We always knew that BOB was 'full-on' - continually requiring one's attention. It wasn't until he was 4 however that we became increasingly concerned about his behaviour. A day care teacher ( elderly and very wise ) sat us down one day and said that she noticed that BOB was 'different'. She noted that he engaged in parallel play. That he did not play with kids but instead he played alongside them.
We began to notice that BOB hoarded things. Everything, and I mean everything that he considered precious got dragged into his bed. Around this time he started bringing day care toys home. We'd make hime take them back the next day and apologise....but the behaviour continued and became more sneaky. We notice his 'odd' behaviours more readily. Continual thumb sucking. Bouncing around and the inability to sit still. His obsessions around food. Separating foods into different groups on his plate. Not wanting to eat anything 'slimy' - so any food that had a squishy texture was rejected. You could literally see him getting sick at the sight of chicken skin. He also has (to this day) a fascination with my stubble. So at night time pre bed cuddles he would try to rub his face against mine so that that stubble would rasp his cheeks. Much like a cat rubs itself against a post. I tried hard not to reject him when he does this but increasingly I am suspicious that it's morphing into sexual undertones. My wife and I observe him closely when he does this - and the sounds he makes and facial expressions that he makes - is akin to gratification. It's awkward for me because I don't want to reject him - so I have taken to putting my hand between our cheeks when cuddling him - but he wriggles and tries his best to remove it.
My wife and I also noted that during his day care years - he was never invited to any kid's birthday party. He is now 8 and he still has never been invited. Our youngest who is now 5 is a socialite and has been to numerous parties and play dates! The contrast is stark. This began to concern my wife and I - so we took our son at 4.5 years of age off to a paediatrician. He was diagnosed with mild ADHD and Aspergus.
Since then he has been medicated. This has had a moderating effect on his impulsiveness but other issues are still causing us concern.
These include:
- Stealing
- lying - even when the evidence is overwhelming.
- Not making genuine friends.
- requiring a teacher aide in school to keep him on task. ( A clear signal that the school has difficulty managing him.) We are very supportive of the school - we are in close contact with his teacher and support her unequivocally. We follow through with consequences if she alerts us to anything which concerns her.
- his need to be the centre of attention - any attention negative or positive. We are increasingly of the view that he enjoys the negative attention.
- He appears to delight in annoying everyone.
- He can be defiant - but sneakily so.
- his loud speaking voice - which rises to be above the crowd.
- his hoarding ( Things that have no value to you and me but he becomes obsessed with. e.g bottle tops)
- he choked a girl in his class and when asked - couldn't explain why.
- his lack of personal hygiene - despite being repeatedly shown and helped - he remains grotty in his personal care. Our 5 year old has superior skills by comparison.
- he is clumsy - he can fall over his own shadow.
- he has a cocky strut ( a still like prancing walk ) which usually correlates to his frame of mind at the time. When we see the walk - we know he has done something or is about to do something anti-social.
We are even more careful to treat the two boys the same. ( We are hyper sensitive to the fact that BOB is adopted and that he may feel rejected/ not attached/ angry etc.) We try our best to mitigate this.
However we have a boy who is increasingly getting into trouble - and who can't explain why he does stupid/ implusive stuff. When we read through these forums about the experiences of adopting parents with their 15-19 year olds - we see our son in 5 years time. We are increasingly concerned.
What can we do to arrest his slide into greater anti-social behaviour and perhaps criminality?
Are we just being paranoid?