I hate difficult child right now...

JJJ

Active Member
Most memories are stored in the verbal language part of the brain. BUT memories formed prior to the mastery of verbal language are stored in the emotional part of the brain -- this can make trauma much more ingrained and make therapy very difficult because they are dealing with fear/anger/etc that have been there for a long time and can't be talked through because they aren't stored in that part of the brain.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Your step-son sounds very dangerous. I would suggest you look at the laws of your state regarding voluntary foster care because it is not an option in most states. Does your insurance cover Residential Treatment Center (RTC)?
 

Steely

Active Member
Your step son sounds ill, emotionally damaged, confused, and acting out the things that haunt him. My heart hurts for him. He needs intensive one on one help. I am not sure foster care is the right venue, since they do not offer therapy, unless he could be one on one with a family, and the only sibling.
Try to remember that this child is not evil, or horrible - but rather he is acting out the horrors of his memories, compounded with his imagination. He needs intensive love and intervention ASAP. I would start calling every person and establishment you know, until you find him the help he needs. He is crying for it.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I urge you to feel compassion for the difficult child, but NOT to let that compassion lead to danger for your other kids. I do think MWM is right and your husband is doing a number on you emotionally to guilt you into keeping this child in your home and not making him take any responsibility or action to keep everyone safe and to get the help this boy needs. Help that is hard to find, expensive and would mean he had to be very involved and hands-on wiht the difficult child. He seems Occupational Therapist (OT) want all of this to be on your shoulders and that just isn't safe, sane or right.

do whatever you need to in order to keep the other kds SAFE. It likely will mean getting out or making husband get difficult child out, and possibly even making husband get out if he is going to get angry and emotionally abusive if you make him find another place for difficult child to live.

Your other kids are the ones I feel the most compassion for as they are such victims of this situation, nd they are the ones with no real voice and they bear all the violence or mostly all of it.

It is NOT abusive to send the boy to live in a therapeutic setting or in a home where he doesn't have other kids or animals to abuse. Parents of difficult children often find they MUST be families of different addresses in order to make sure that everyone is safe. Many people won't understand this, and will wrongly place blame. Instead they should be giving credit for loving ALL of the kids and yourself enough to take the big step of getting difficult child out of the house so that everyone will be SAFE.

I have a gfgbro who was violent and manipulatve as all get out from a very early age. My parents were invested in NOT seeing the problems and he was/is highly skilled at not allowing them to see any of that behavior, or at least most of this behavior. I was the scapegoat and whipping boy and if I told my parents I was either tattling, just trying to get him in trouble, lying or over-reacting. My parents STILL believe this and it colors our relationship to this very day. part of me has been super angry at them for not protectign me, for not believing me when I told them what he had done/was doing, and until about 2 yrs ago he was STILL abusive to me and my husband and kids. He didn't treat ANYONE else like that, just us because he felt he had some 'right' to control my life nd inflict pain of all kinds if I did something he didn't like or refused to do what he told me to. He tried awful things, the LEAST of them being to try to force my husband to cheat on me. husband didn't, and won't ever be alone with bro again because of this koi.

Don't let your other kids be damaged any more than they already are by this difficult child. Don't let your husband continue to place the blame on YOU. The blame goes to HIM and biomom both. Period. And so does the responsibility for this child's daily life. Make husband step up by refusing to care for the boy or have him in your home with the other kids. You OWE this to your kids. They have the right to a safe home where they are not abused by ANYONE.
 

buddy

New Member
Im goimg to share for.the sake of anyone who may have a similar issue to mine (and several peers of mine) just for the record, and again I am not saying this is true in this in this case, just adding it because there are more scenarios and I would feel terrible if even one remote person in my situation got the wrong info and support if they have a very developmentally disabled child.

Q started pretending to "lick" while imitating the dog and cat. He also wore a collar and curled up on the back of the couch or in a kennel. He also wore a leash sometimes for play. It was done in that context at first. It was clear where it started. As he grew that one part of the routine got attention. (Not that he was doing it but he'd say lick penis) and then he'd say lick your penis because as with many kids with autism he reversed pronouns continuously. It became one of his perseverative statements and of course people assumed the worst. As he got older it "naturally" morphed into a curiosity because kids explore their bodies and he already had that thought/statement. Along the line someone told him it was sexual and was abusive to say that around others. True but had I been involved I could have explained they just reinforced the thought. It became something that he could get tons of attention from (never acted on anything just said it by this time...) This is not so rare, I have had students and friends dealing with much more overt behaviors "where they practice what they learn...one from that innocent little where do babies come from" book.

It's the big picture here that makes all of this boy's behaviors, both sexually and aggressively (with the history), so concerning. There's so much and other kids are being hurt as well as animals.

I just wanted to clarify because you never know who is reading on this forum and id never say dont.take.a nehavior like.this.lightly! If its more isolated and you can trace the development its a different kind of help thats needed. Either way kids would need protecting etc.

Again to be clear, this poor guy seems sadly, terribly involved and dangerous. I'm not disagreeing at all. Just that outside of the mental health field, people don't say "why else would any child do that?" They know there are other reasons. Bottom line, one should get it professionally checked by all sides. Mental health people and social workers will immediately say abuse and once my well documented trail was shown...(I brought it up.from age 3 at.the pediatricians.) people agree its not the case. It's in his county records now to avoid someone over reacting. Even our psychiatrist who has five special needs.kids.of her own agrees that q has no signs of being abused that way and.she said that she has other clients who like q just do or say what comes to mind and need direct teaching around social rules.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Buddy, big difference here: There are other kids living with him. This particular child, unlike Q, has several siblings that he has already hurt. He has hurt the cat. He has signs of antisocial issues and probably has Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). Also, not all developmentally disabled kids act out sexually. That is also untrue. My son has never done that, in spite of being abused by his older brother for a few years.

My kids had to see a special pediatrician who specialized in sexually abused children. They were the only kids she saw and she was not a mental health professional...she was on the medical side, and she was one who told us that usually a perp was perped on. She wasn't the only one who told us that, but she was one who did. Why did we see her? Because R. was 13 at the time he was found out, and my children were six years younger than him, the state wanted to press charges against him. This was not our idea; we had no say in it. But my younger kids had to go to see if there were signs of sexual abuse (physical signs). My daughter had been partly penetrated, which really upset us. We thought "molested" meant "on the surface." Anyway, this child WAS charged and found guilty of sexual assault of a minor, although he was also a minor. Most kids are never prosecuted like this; most of the time nobody finds out how far they have gone. They think, "He touched my child." They don't think "He had sex with my child." This child held a knife to both of my kids and made them do his bidding, all the time acting like he was the sweetest kid on earth...at least to adults. We did not realize the evil inside of him. Whether or not, he was a victim of his own sexual abuse, by then he was evil...having sex with little kids, terrorizing them, killing animals, setting little fires that we never knew about until AFTER he left. Sonic and Jumper were so scared of him they didn't open up about the REAL extent of the abuse until he was gone at least six months and they had been in therapy that long. Fortunately, so far both of them, maybe due to early and intensive intervention, seem happy and healthy. But I don't think this would have happened if we would have let R. still be a part of our family. They would have felt betrayed, as if we hadn't protected them from him. It is very sad what R. must have gone through, but we couldn't let him destroy the other two kids because he had gone through a lot. He got TONS of good therapy in residential once he was gone...more intensive than anything we could have ever afforded and he still perped on other children who were there.

in my opinion, from my experience, if a child is acting out sexually, we the parents never know how bad it is...we want to think it is just a few times and just touching a little and our other kids will be ok. But we don't know. It is dangerous and in my opinion unfair for any parent to allow a sexual predator, even their own child, to live at home. Pity for the perp should not again in my opinion supersede the safety of the other kids. There is no reason why this child can't be helped in an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) rather than while living in the house. As long as he is there, even with elaborate safety measures, he is a threat. Even with cameras running 24/7, our ex-son perped on kids in his facility. He liked to use the bathroom stalls, where there aren't any cameras. Many kids told on him, unlike our kids at home, who are confused because this is their sibling and mom and dad love him too...

I share this horror we lived only to explain how bad it can be. It is up to each person what they do about a child who acts out sexually on the other kids. My point is, you never know how far it has gone or will go. So weigh your choices carefully.
 

buddy

New Member
Yes mwm, I also said that it was a big difference. I agree. Just responding to the one concern about why else would a child ever do that kind of behavior.
 

ready2run

New Member
i am going to say i don't think he was sexually abused. he has done a lot of other things that were bad, bad, bad that he figured out on his own and i think in my opinion this is just the next step for him. i live in canada, we don't have insurance we have public health care which means everyone with a referal can access services but there are huge waiting lists and you can't just go in and ask for help, you have to wait to see someone who can refer you to someone who can tell you where to get help type of thing.
I am working on a plan. i am going to call CAS. i am waiting for the worker that i trust to come back from holidays. in the mean time i am supervising difficult child with line of sight and if i can't be with him i set him us in his room or downstairs with the alarms on so i will know if he comes out or other kids go in. the other kids i think have learned not to let him do this but really i don't know since they didn't come to me in the first place. there are no Residential Treatment Center (RTC)'s around here. i asked about that before and was told there is nothing like that here, just group homes but mostly for older kids and that if he were to go there he would be the youngest kid ever, but they seemed doubtful he would ever qualify. i have heard from several people that biomom is clean and doing well, not hooking anymore or anything. she looks a lot healthier, i skyped her. i told her if she wants him she should call her lawyer, husband and i will not oppose and then she will only have to pass the drug tests and have her home checked out, then i explained the process we went through to get difficult child in the first place because that is how they do it here, it should be the same for her. i wrote out a page on why i think this is best for difficult child, and everyone involved. so hopefully that works. i think it will be the least painful way to do this for everyone,and i am carefully planning my 'demands' like i should still be able to help make decisions about important things, or help by attending school meetings because bio mom is going to need to be schooled on caring for him.
also, i am aware that it isn't fair that husband puts everything on my shoulders. he thinks it is my fault because i pushed him to let difficult child move in here, obviously i had no idea what would happen but neither would he and i just saw it as mean. he doesn't seem to care about difficult child too, so it has just been natural for me to be the one who is loving towards difficult child. it has always been this way since our first son was born, he became very demanding of me. i have long since given up even trying to meet his expectations because it is not humanly possible. he is helping out around the house finally and taking the other kids out while i play with difficult child so at least he is helping a little. he is really good with the other boys. i know, i wish he was more of a support but he has his own issues and i don't think he has it in him to deal with difficult child which is why it all falls on me. he wasn't raised right and he was made to look after his mother from the time he was very young because she had brain cancer. he also has bonding issues of his own and is hard to reason with but listens to me for the most part because he knows i am stubborn and won't stop if i feel i am right. i am not going to leave him. i know our relationship is not ideal but well.....it is what it is.

eta:difficult child is not stuck in when the alarms are on, he is able to come get a drink or ask me questions, it just lets me know that i have to stop what i am doing and get back to him and he doesn't seem to mind, he knows it is only for a little while and i make sure he has something to entertain himself with, i just wanted to say that because i reread my post and it sounded like he was banished and forbidden to come out which is not the case. he is just not allowed to be unsupervised.
 
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Mattsmom277

Active Member
major hugs. i am in northern ontario too and i know how hard services can be to find. I did myself call cas when my then difficult child was 12. This got me rapidly off wait lists and also provided a back up plan, of therapeutic foster setting while awaiting a Residential Treatment Center (RTC) bed, should the need arise. Which it did and he ended up placed, by me, at a therapeutic placement for a few months. He ended up not going into Residential Treatment Center (RTC). I don't know what part of the north you are in, but there are a couple around, although likely you would have to send difficult child out of town. There is one in my city as well as a main hub type facility about an hour and a half north of her which is part of a larger child psychiatric program/center. I think meanwhile that doing what you can to make it easiest as possible for bio mom to regain custody, is a good idea. If she is clean and has a suitable housing arrangement and can provide necessities, I think I would probably recommend that you go with her to the court where you can file a custody change "on consent" without an attorney and without requiring seeing the judge. It is effective immediately. I went through the on consent process when difficult child went to try living with his dad, it took all of about 20 minutes which included filling in the paperwork. If that is possible for you and bio mom is accepting of difficult child returning to her, I suggest seeing if this may be a quick immediate option in order to rehouse difficult child. Your husband of course can still be supportive in helping find services for difficult child etc. But he would be out of hte home, away from the other children (a must really) and afterward you and your husband can work out just how he is going to have visitation where HE parents and where you and your children aren't in any fashion exposed to negativity.

Best of luck, you are in a terrible position in the middle of all of this. Glad you found this site. There are so many wonderful people to lean on and who have wonderful insights to all kinds of situations. Hang in there.
 

ready2run

New Member
thank you for your reply...see, i thought there must be some type of Residential Treatment Center (RTC) but my cas worker said there wasn't and she offered us care on weekends and then backed out on that. i don't get it.. i can not just hand him over to bio mom, because the court order when we got him states that we won't do that, that if we chose to let her be involved it will be with cas permission because she was so heavy into the drugs at the time. either way she is coming to meet him next week and i am going to take her to talk to the court lawyer and then the cas about what we can do. i am really willing to work with biomom on anything she needs to be successful at this. we used to get along at one point so i know we can work together. *praying she passes drug test*
 

buddy

New Member
Sounds like you're doing the best you can in a situation where little help is available. Just be open to other options. You may need to parent from separate houses if you decide to stay with husband. There are parents who do that and switch nights leaving the kids in their main houses/apts. I hope you can fight for those supports still. Never let on when he's doing better or if you are handling things. They will use any excuse to not pay for services. I hope they listen. How's husband now?
 

Mattsmom277

Active Member
Hopefully she passes drug testing. Does she have adequate housing and finances to support difficult child? If not, I would try to help her find agencies that can support her efforts to make both of those things happen.

Going together to CAS is a good idea! I forgot to mention that CAS wasn't much help initially. Obviously when a good parent wants a child out of a home they don't jump at it. My biggest concern (though far from only concern) was safety and a healthy home environment for my easy child while I tried to get difficult child and our family help. I did not let up on the CAS worker. I also worked to get difficult children therapists understanding and support on the issue. I kept insisting to CAS that easy child's safety was paramount and that I had a duty to help difficult child but also a duty to protect easy child and that as a child protection agency these concerns should be a given for them as well! I think you would be wise to do the same with your CAS contact. When they initially sort of froze me out of care for difficult child, I brought therapist in for a meeting with the CAS worker and requested CAS supervisor attend as well. I insisted that we have a written plan of action with concrete measures for difficult child behaviors that crossed into out of control and risky for easy child. It included that I would call CAS each time difficult child went beyond the pale behavior wise and also ensured that such calls would garner a home visit from the worker and include face time with difficult child. Well after several of these incidents I called a meeting again and insisted they are failing my difficult child and my easy child both and that their agency must provide services. This did the trick finally. You may have to pave the path a little as well. I would also insist that it isn't an option to not provide the weekend respite. It initially was offered. Period. If they again refuse, I would respond formally in writing requesting a written and documented response as to their reasoning for backing out of it as well as outlining your serious concerns about difficult child and the impossibility of ensuring safety of others from difficult child 24 hours a day. One must sleep, shower, take calls, cook etc.

I don't know if it is possible for you to travel a bit for a service but maybe ask about a family type evaluation program that exists. To not be specific on the board, it is in a major northern hub city that starts with the letter S. it is part of a children's mental health treatment center attached to a hospital. They have a program whereby the family stays in a "home" setting for evaluation for a number of days. I have heard helpful things about it. They also can talk with you about out of town Residential Treatment Center (RTC)'s. Simply because one isn't local to you doesn't mean your difficult child may not be eligible for placement at the nearest one such as in the S city or in my city. Better on a long wait list that may not be needed once difficult children name comes up than not on one and possibly things getting worse.

I really hope you find solutions. I know how hard it can be. Hugs
 

Jody

Active Member
Gosh, I have no experience with this, but I would run as fast as I could. It might seem cruel to some to just give up on one, but I couldn't chance it with the other three. Isolation is not new to parents dealing with difficult child's, but it's possible to overcome. You have to start reaching out whether you wnt to or not. You need help. Do you have a church family or do they have any single mother programs that help with housing in your area? I put my daughter in foster care for about 1 1/2 years. I dealth with CPS, and they were great. They were very helpful, and I received all the services that I needed. If you ask for the help, and explain the situation and leave your home to protect your other kids, you would not be in fear of losing your children. They really don't just want to take people's children, but remember they will if they feel you are not protecting your child or getting the right services to adequately deal with the situation. Please seek help of some kind, regardless of husband's advice. Please keep us informed about how you are doing, and keep those kiddo's away from the other child unless you are right there with them. I am so sorry you have to deal with this.
 
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ready2run

New Member
buddy, husband remains largely uneffected. in fact he isn't letting on to any type of emotional reaction to this whole situation. he never does though.... he just goes about his day as usual, mostly staying in his room or gone out.... i can not leave him in charge because he does things like forgetting to feed the kids.

i talked to biomom again last night. she has a one bedroom apt but she said he could have the bedroom and she would sleep on the pull out. difficult child has money of his own so i don't think i have to worry about her having money to feed him, as long as she keeps that money for food it should be enough to feed both of them. she is trying to transfer closer to us, the closest city is 2 hours away and i think that is the s city Mattsmom was refering to. he is already seeing a specialist from there and most of his services are run from there. that way he can continue seeing the same doctors and everything, and we will be able to access him as well. right now she is a good 8 hours from here. she has a meeting with her lawyer today to discuss what steps we should take and to get advice on appeasing the CAS. i am an athiest so there is no church to help me out. there is a woman in crisis center but i think i have things arranged in a way that i can keep everyone safe for now, although it is certainly not an acceptable long term solution i am hoping it should be sufficient for now.
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
Ready2Run, don't let being an atheist stop you from turning to the church for help. Many church-run programs do not require a religious affiliation in order to participate. If there are church programs available that meet your need, it's still worth exploring.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Ready2Run, have you thought t hat maybe your husband has some serious problem too that mirrors his son? He seems so out of it, considering the severity of the problem. Perhaps he has some antisocial traits? Looks like the kid got bad genes from both parents. I have no idea why you are staying with husband, but I give you credit. He seems to be less than adequate as both a husband and a father.
 
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