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<blockquote data-quote="mrsammler" data-source="post: 408886"><p>I'm so glad that this thread has emerged and I think that every new member ought to be urged to read this thread as part of their "orientation" to the forum/website. Why? Because, if we're really honest, this is at the very heart of what's happening in your homes and lives due to your difficult children. It's what no one wants to talk about or admit out loud, unless a thread like this opens the floodgates: you are being held hostage by the threat of abuse, of violence, or even the threat of serious harm or even murder if you don't comply with what your adolescent or young adult difficult children demand. It is hideous and vile and insupportable, but there it is, and it's probably at work in the lives of about 80% or more of the parents who post here.</p><p></p><p>I don't have a difficult child child. So how can I make this claim? Because my sister does have such a child, a son now almost 19. True to form (and by "form" I mean the standard onset of ODD in budding sociopaths at about 13-14 yrs of age), he "went bad" at around 13. His father died suddenly when he was 14, and he likes to blame his hideous misbehaviors on that convenient excuse, but he was already going way south (pot-smoking, dealing drugs at school, stealing, bullying) well before his father died. When his father died, he didn't grieve--he stole his late father's remaining pain medications. Then the predatory household behavior and the bullying of his mother began. You all know the syndrome: the lying, the thieving, the constant desire to do drugs, to party, to blow off school, to do no chores, to defy all parental authority. In his case he simply bullied and menaced his widowed mother--even without provocation, just for the fun of it. He partied/drugged every night, was the big drug dealer at the high school--as a 10th grader. His friends were similar reptiles, but they didn't brutalize their parents--because there was a Dad in the house to prevent it. My sister had no such protection. His younger brother, from whom he stole at will, had no such protection. Finally, my sister sent him off to an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) in UT, at enormous expense. He was gone for 8 months. When he returned, he was superficially well-behaved, but the thievery began anew almost immediately: money stolen from her purse, from the "rainy day expenses" coffee mug in the kitchen. He denied, he lied, he began to menace again.</p><p></p><p>You can imagine her despair. He was only 16 and the state offered no solution except to have him declared an "unruly child," and even then he couldn't be hauled off to a reformatory unless he committed crimes around the house. My sister simply couldn't send him away. So she used the one ace she had in her hand: she called me. The one single adult male in the family whose job was "transportable" and who had no locational obligations to keep him away. She flew me in. For 3 weeks he and I locked horns over and over and over again. I had never seen anything like it in my life: if he didn't get his way, a hugely violent rage and tantrum and probable assault was in the offing. I settled the assault matter pretty quickly--frankly, you need a man young enough and strong enough to just plain kick the kid's ass, period, and that settles the matter. For a while. But he raged and raged and raged, whenever he didn't get his way, and with me there, he didn't get his way anymore. You mentioned feeling "glee" at finally being free of your child's predations: don't feel guilty about this. I saw it in my sister after I arrived and took control of the situation: her almost-glee at finally being able to deprive him of the money he'd been demanding, to tell him off when he had it coming (which was every day), to take his car keys away, to stop his enraged destruction of furniture, walls, art, plates. It stopped the only way it can be stopped: by dint of having an in-house bouncer.</p><p></p><p>None of this was easy on me. I had to fight him. I endured towering verbal rages from him of the most heinous sort--and I gave as good as I got. In the pitch of verbal battle I called him what he was: a sociopath, the worst **** I'd ever laid eyes on. We lived in a constant state of stalemate: him refusing to "stand down" temperamentally but now unable to brutalize, to steal, to destroy things, to demand money, the use of a car. We permitted him his verbal offenses, but attacks and destruction of property were forbidden. This was a terrible way to live, and we endured it for 15 months during my stay there. For me, it was a horrific experience, but for my sister and younger nephew, it was a blissful period of being unmolested physically.</p><p></p><p>What ended it? I had been assured repeatedly that my stay was only until he would turn 18, at which point she would throw him out of the house. When that date came, however, she couldn't do bring herself to do it, so it simply went on as it had been: his nightly partying, his occasional run-ins with the law, from which consequences he was freed by means of her paying for lawyers and legal defenses. When my children came to visit last April during spring break, he was using and one night attacked me in the kitchen, in front of my children. We fought, in front of my horrified college-age and teenage children. It was bloody, a melee. When the police came, I was tacitly pressed by her not to press charges against him, so I didn't. But that tore it for me: she lacked the spine to do what was necessary--to throw him out, at least for the sake of her younger son if not her own safety, and I could bear it no longer. </p><p></p><p>My point? If you have a husband, he needs to step up. If you can recruit the aid of an adult male in the family in the family, do it. If you can't do either of these--let me be very clear--call the police. Liberally, as often as needed. I have bad news for most of you: in most of these cases--not all, I grant, but most--you've got a budding sociopath on your hands. Your mercy and your lenience and your patience will not bear fruit. When he/she hits 18 years of age, put him out of the house, and use the police to enforce and sustain his ouster. Yes, he will malfunction--use drugs, commit crimes, flirt with disaster. Believe me, nothing you do can prevent it unless you simply surrender your savings and your home to his predations. My sister's solution is to put him out of the house, supposedly to attend classes at a community college in a neighboring city and live entirely at her expense while there, but he isn't attending classes. He's using drugs and partying and getting nothing done, and it's all on her dime. The tacit understanding is that if she ever cuts him off financially, he'll come home and there will be hell to pay. Like most of your difficult children, when he really needs help, he's very sweet and vulnerable: when he broke his leg a few months ago (skateboarding), she took him in and he was very sweet, enjoying the vicodin fog that his injury had earned him via prescriptions for pain. When the leg healed, he returned to his apartment and the parties and drug-taking and worthlessness resumed. It'll never end. And she's being held hostage financially throughout this ordeal.</p><p></p><p>Sound familiar? It should. This is what most of you are contending with: tacit enablement at the threat of more brutality. If this would or could somehow work, provide a buffer of time until he grows up, it'd be worth doing, I suppose. But it doesn't work. Throw him/her out and let him plummet. That is the *only* thing that *might* work. Meanwhile, you've got a life to live, a career to pursue, other children to protect and nourish and enjoy, and a home you should enjoy and feel safe within. Don't let these monsters eat your life--and don't kid yourselves that someday it'll somehow end or taper organically. So long as you enable them--with money, with housing, with mercy and patience--they will not change. They probably won't change anyway, regardless of what you do. But don't let yourself be played for a chump. A kid like this doesn't love, doesn't feel compassion, and doesn't feel remorse. Protect yourself and your other children and your property accordingly.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mrsammler, post: 408886"] I'm so glad that this thread has emerged and I think that every new member ought to be urged to read this thread as part of their "orientation" to the forum/website. Why? Because, if we're really honest, this is at the very heart of what's happening in your homes and lives due to your difficult children. It's what no one wants to talk about or admit out loud, unless a thread like this opens the floodgates: you are being held hostage by the threat of abuse, of violence, or even the threat of serious harm or even murder if you don't comply with what your adolescent or young adult difficult children demand. It is hideous and vile and insupportable, but there it is, and it's probably at work in the lives of about 80% or more of the parents who post here. I don't have a difficult child child. So how can I make this claim? Because my sister does have such a child, a son now almost 19. True to form (and by "form" I mean the standard onset of ODD in budding sociopaths at about 13-14 yrs of age), he "went bad" at around 13. His father died suddenly when he was 14, and he likes to blame his hideous misbehaviors on that convenient excuse, but he was already going way south (pot-smoking, dealing drugs at school, stealing, bullying) well before his father died. When his father died, he didn't grieve--he stole his late father's remaining pain medications. Then the predatory household behavior and the bullying of his mother began. You all know the syndrome: the lying, the thieving, the constant desire to do drugs, to party, to blow off school, to do no chores, to defy all parental authority. In his case he simply bullied and menaced his widowed mother--even without provocation, just for the fun of it. He partied/drugged every night, was the big drug dealer at the high school--as a 10th grader. His friends were similar reptiles, but they didn't brutalize their parents--because there was a Dad in the house to prevent it. My sister had no such protection. His younger brother, from whom he stole at will, had no such protection. Finally, my sister sent him off to an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) in UT, at enormous expense. He was gone for 8 months. When he returned, he was superficially well-behaved, but the thievery began anew almost immediately: money stolen from her purse, from the "rainy day expenses" coffee mug in the kitchen. He denied, he lied, he began to menace again. You can imagine her despair. He was only 16 and the state offered no solution except to have him declared an "unruly child," and even then he couldn't be hauled off to a reformatory unless he committed crimes around the house. My sister simply couldn't send him away. So she used the one ace she had in her hand: she called me. The one single adult male in the family whose job was "transportable" and who had no locational obligations to keep him away. She flew me in. For 3 weeks he and I locked horns over and over and over again. I had never seen anything like it in my life: if he didn't get his way, a hugely violent rage and tantrum and probable assault was in the offing. I settled the assault matter pretty quickly--frankly, you need a man young enough and strong enough to just plain kick the kid's ass, period, and that settles the matter. For a while. But he raged and raged and raged, whenever he didn't get his way, and with me there, he didn't get his way anymore. You mentioned feeling "glee" at finally being free of your child's predations: don't feel guilty about this. I saw it in my sister after I arrived and took control of the situation: her almost-glee at finally being able to deprive him of the money he'd been demanding, to tell him off when he had it coming (which was every day), to take his car keys away, to stop his enraged destruction of furniture, walls, art, plates. It stopped the only way it can be stopped: by dint of having an in-house bouncer. None of this was easy on me. I had to fight him. I endured towering verbal rages from him of the most heinous sort--and I gave as good as I got. In the pitch of verbal battle I called him what he was: a sociopath, the worst **** I'd ever laid eyes on. We lived in a constant state of stalemate: him refusing to "stand down" temperamentally but now unable to brutalize, to steal, to destroy things, to demand money, the use of a car. We permitted him his verbal offenses, but attacks and destruction of property were forbidden. This was a terrible way to live, and we endured it for 15 months during my stay there. For me, it was a horrific experience, but for my sister and younger nephew, it was a blissful period of being unmolested physically. What ended it? I had been assured repeatedly that my stay was only until he would turn 18, at which point she would throw him out of the house. When that date came, however, she couldn't do bring herself to do it, so it simply went on as it had been: his nightly partying, his occasional run-ins with the law, from which consequences he was freed by means of her paying for lawyers and legal defenses. When my children came to visit last April during spring break, he was using and one night attacked me in the kitchen, in front of my children. We fought, in front of my horrified college-age and teenage children. It was bloody, a melee. When the police came, I was tacitly pressed by her not to press charges against him, so I didn't. But that tore it for me: she lacked the spine to do what was necessary--to throw him out, at least for the sake of her younger son if not her own safety, and I could bear it no longer. My point? If you have a husband, he needs to step up. If you can recruit the aid of an adult male in the family in the family, do it. If you can't do either of these--let me be very clear--call the police. Liberally, as often as needed. I have bad news for most of you: in most of these cases--not all, I grant, but most--you've got a budding sociopath on your hands. Your mercy and your lenience and your patience will not bear fruit. When he/she hits 18 years of age, put him out of the house, and use the police to enforce and sustain his ouster. Yes, he will malfunction--use drugs, commit crimes, flirt with disaster. Believe me, nothing you do can prevent it unless you simply surrender your savings and your home to his predations. My sister's solution is to put him out of the house, supposedly to attend classes at a community college in a neighboring city and live entirely at her expense while there, but he isn't attending classes. He's using drugs and partying and getting nothing done, and it's all on her dime. The tacit understanding is that if she ever cuts him off financially, he'll come home and there will be hell to pay. Like most of your difficult children, when he really needs help, he's very sweet and vulnerable: when he broke his leg a few months ago (skateboarding), she took him in and he was very sweet, enjoying the vicodin fog that his injury had earned him via prescriptions for pain. When the leg healed, he returned to his apartment and the parties and drug-taking and worthlessness resumed. It'll never end. And she's being held hostage financially throughout this ordeal. Sound familiar? It should. This is what most of you are contending with: tacit enablement at the threat of more brutality. If this would or could somehow work, provide a buffer of time until he grows up, it'd be worth doing, I suppose. But it doesn't work. Throw him/her out and let him plummet. That is the *only* thing that *might* work. Meanwhile, you've got a life to live, a career to pursue, other children to protect and nourish and enjoy, and a home you should enjoy and feel safe within. Don't let these monsters eat your life--and don't kid yourselves that someday it'll somehow end or taper organically. So long as you enable them--with money, with housing, with mercy and patience--they will not change. They probably won't change anyway, regardless of what you do. But don't let yourself be played for a chump. A kid like this doesn't love, doesn't feel compassion, and doesn't feel remorse. Protect yourself and your other children and your property accordingly. [/QUOTE]
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