Perfect to the World

WSM

New Member
How many people here have children who behave beautifully in front of strangers and run you through the ringer at home?

I've never run into another parent in real life with this problem, until I came here.

It's a relief.
 

C.J.

New Member
Thankfully, N* was already seeing a psychiatrist for her never ending tummy troubles (no physical ailment detected from all those rounds of tests so they referred her to a psychiatrist) and I mentioned to psychiatrist how she behaved at home and how she behaved for everyone else. Even though she was about 12, he did MMPI-A testing - told her to ignore the sex questions, and had her meet with a therapist, too. ODD diagnosis - when I began to read more about it - WOW. It was not something I was imagining.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Me!! Me!!!

It is Kanga's stated desire to convince the world that I am the crazy one. One of her teacher's actually called DCFS on us because we were "treating a great child like she had a mental illness".

It is crazy-making behavior. The light at the end of the tunnel is that there are people out there who get it. You just need one to see it.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Hi There--

My difficult child makes a fantastic first impression...

"O isn't she beautiful?"
"What a lovely girl!"
"O she's so smart!"

But she can only maintain the illusion for so long. So if folks don't see her very often, or only for short periods of time--they can't understand why such an "angel" would have me so stressed.

If they spend any amount of time with her at all...they soon see through the facade--and then they understand completely.

{Well, everyone except my mother that is...she's still confident that the problem is me...and so to compensate for having such a "mean" mother...Grandma spoils difficult child rotten and lets her do anything she wants when she visits. No wonder difficult child is so well-behaved at Grandma's house--No Rules!!}

--DaisyF
 

WSM

New Member
One of her teacher's actually called DCFS on us because we were "treating a great child like she had a mental illness"...there are people out there who get it. You just need one to see it.

We've had a psychiatrist yell at hubby, "Why do you want your son to be sick?"

We've had CPS called on us so many times, they know us. The last one told us how to protect ourselves from him and yelled at him telling difficult child that your parents don't have to do anything for you but give you 1,500 calories a day to eat and one set of clothing. They came a few days before Christmas and we were as a family decorating the tree and the CPS worker pointed at the tree. "Your parents don't have to give you even ONE present. None of that is abuse." (altho I bet CPS would sing a different tune if he went to school and said that all the other kids got presents but he got nothing).

We've had a couple people see it, one school sponsored counsellor, a forensic doctor examining him for child abuse, several police...But never the school, never the teachers, the principal, the administrators. Not even at his military school.

Just last week when I picked him up, his teacher told me that he needed to use the computer tonight to write his report, that was due tomorrow, that he's known about for a month.

I explained to her that he deleted a lot of files on a desktop computer and made it unfixable, and a few days after Christmas he slipped his father's laptop into the pool destroying it. And since Christmas he'd thrown his father's GPS into the dishwasher and his sister's Nintendo DS into the pool, and as a consequence he was not allowed to use any one else's computer. I wasn't letting him on my laptop and my other two kids weren't going to either. He'd blown it.

This makes me a heartless stepmother. "Don't you care about his schoolwork."

I explained he had severe emotional problems and he needed to learn the reasonable consequence that when you damage an item, you will be unable to use it later, and when you destoy other people's property, they will stop lending it to you. Besides there was no reason why he couldn't do his report in handwriting. He'd get all the educational benefits plus a fitting consequence for his bad behavior.

She informed me that ALL her students had behavior problems, and their parents cared enough to see they got to a computer. Besides difficult child's handwriting was horrible.

I thought this would be a great opportunity for him to practice his handwriting. He could write well when he wanted to.

She insisted he have a computer. I insisted we would not be letting him use ours, she suggested we take him to the library. I pointed out the library closed at 6, it would be 4:15 before I got home, I'd worked all day, I had 4 other kids to feed, and an 8 year old who needed attention too, and difficult child had had 4 weeks to let us know.

She was coldly furious and disdainful. I was being soo mean and unreasonable and clearly did not care about this little's boy's well being.

And this was a teacher at a military school for kids with behavior problems that had the reputation of being the toughest one around. And yet she excused him of all responsibility for very serious malicious behavior, she undermined a very logical consequence, she 'asked' on his behalf for the use of the computer which 'infantalized' him, she refused to consider anyone else's needs but put his need to finish a report before everyone else in the family, she refused to consider any other option for resolution, and she didn't hold him accountable for letting this go to the last minute when he's known for a whole month about this report.

I assured her that I would make sure he did his report tonight and she as his teacher could penalize him for not using a computer or overlook it on account that he had mean parents, but he *was*NOT*going*to*using*anyone's*computer*.

They consider themselves the experts. We are supposed to be cowed and bow to their superior knowledge. Unfortunately, we have found this over and over and over in each school he's been in.

Poor little boy with the mean, harsh, unfeeling parents. No wonder he is disturbed. :mad:
 

WSM

New Member
I'm sorry to hog so much bandwidth. It's just so wonderful to be able to unburden myself of these things.

Almost nobody else out there understands. It's always, "there are no problem kids, just bad parents".

How do we keep our sanity?
 
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