D
DESPERATE
Guest
I am so happy I found this site!
As you can see from my name, it perfectly describes how I have been feeling for the past 4 years.
My best friend and I live together. She has four beautiful children (14, 11, 9, 7) but has always had trouble with her youngest (aka-SK). I have worked with children my whole life, but have never experience behavior like SK's. Where to start??? Through this website am really hoping to exchange ideas or talk to parents also suffering in silence. Perhaps some of you have some tips ... would be greatly appreciated!!!
SK was adopted at 9 months old. Directly after the adoption, child bonding exercises were practiced immediately and more then frequently. In order to ensure a feeling of security for him. About 6 months after welcoming him into our family, we began to realize he didn't seem to be developing ''normally''. He was physically very small, he would not sleep (At ALL) and would enter these ''crying rages''(screaming, crying, banging head against the wall) when around food. He did this until the age of about 3 and a half. Over the years, we naturally contacted numerous specialist for his growing problems, behavior, temperament etc... Doctors tested and scanned and results came in he was just a slow grower, he was small but met his mental age milestone. Keep in mind he is now 7 and he is the size of a 3 and a half year old. We visited many social workers and psychologist and none of them seem to be able to put there finger on SK's problem.
One of our dilemmas is the following, SK seems to have no ''stop'' when it comes to eating, he basically can eat and eat until he throws up. ( He would even eat his throw up) We eventually realized of course this was the reason for his ''crying rages'' as a toddler. He could not stand to be around food or see other people eating. For example, if we bought a pie and all six of us would have a piece, he would wolf his down and then enter a rage because we were all still finishing our pieces.
Currently our biggest concern with SK is that he lies, is very manipulative, has no regard or remorse towards other people or hurting there and he steals uncontrollably.
Here are just a few examples:
-At the age of 4 and 5 he constantly was stealing out of our refrigerator. Of course this sounds ridiculous, but we are talking about eating a 4 liter bucket of ice cream, yogurt containers, salami pack and cookies. Stealing and eating to the point where he can barely walk.
-We bought new little puppy for the kids, and of course the puppy needed puppy food, which was placed on the top shelf in the cupboard, he scaled the cupboard took the bag and was caught red handed with a mouth full of dog food.
-His older brother (9 years) loves him insanely, he made SK a beautiful card and fabricated him a gift for his birthday. Great. Three hours later SK was sent up to play in his room, when his brother went up to play with him he had taken scissors and cut the card and gift up into a hundreds of pieces. His older brother angry ask why did you do this? And burst into tears, SK's response was nothing at first. Of course we made him apologies, sit in time out etc...but he feels no remorse. Seeing his brother cry, didn't phase him. He just has a blank look on his face.
-He often played with the hot water in the bathroom, with the stove and or oven in the kitchen, burnt himself numerous times. You would think that after being warned and scolded and BURNT numerous times (7-8 times) a normal child would stop. 1 year ago, SK woke up around 4 AM poured himself a bath and jumped in. He scalded his lower torso and was hospitalized for three months. He had to learn to walk again move again etc....You have to imagine, he was almost completely immobile wrapped in gauze and sleeping in his mothers room and he still attempted to climb over a kiddy gate and go down a flight of stairs in the complete darkness into the kitchen to steal. We thought that perhaps, giving him food in his room at night (Sandwich) would solve this problem but he would eat it immediately and proceed to go down.
- He still constantly plays with the hot water.
- SK is under our supervision 24-7. But it only takes a phone call or a trip to the bathroom for him to do something terrible.
-He can lie completely and sometimes there is no reason for the lie, doctors claimed after the burn trauma he might not be ready for school. SK was often claiming he didn't want to go to school yet and he was scared kids would touch and hurt his scars etc... We decided (the doctor and us) that perhaps he was not ready and we would be keeping him home, we sat him down and spoke to him one on one and he seemed very very relieved. When we met with the school board a few days later, he walked in and said ''I am sad, mummy won't let me go to school''.
We finally decided after this episode he could go to school, we warned the teachers, school etc, about his stealing habits and off he went... The school got funds to grant him a ''bodyguard'' because of his size and sensitive scars etc...
Of course we don't want to play the color card.
But every time we attempt to get help, professionals are constantly painting him with this ''poor little brown child card''
After explaining our problems with SK's stealing and lying, one psychologist, argued that this was not stealing, and we should be patient.
Excuse me, but when you say do NOT take this to a child (sister's money, sweets from a purse, dog food, classmates Pokemon) and he takes it and purposely hides the evidence. To me that is qualified as stealing.
She also argued that perhaps because of his background or the fact that he might feel like the 5 wheel on the wagon with the other children, might explain his odd behavior.
The thing is we have tried so hard not to make a difference in the way all the children are being raised. Dividing our attention evenly between all of them emotionally, physical and mentally.
SK is like a local celebrity at school, the kids and everyone huddle around him, we live in a small community and he is the only brown child here We found out SK stole some kids Pokemons last week at school and he was not even disciplined or scolded at school. We found out through his older sister (14 years) when kids confronted her at school. He leaves the classroom without asking and the teacher has claimed he yells ''This is so Boring'' during class. He often lies about his homework and nothing....We confronted SK and he claimed it wasn't true. So we called the teachers and told them what we had heard and they said it was true. He stole, lied and was extremely rude in his classroom and no one bothered to tell us.
Our other children also go to this school and if they would misbehave like this, you could guarantee we would receive a letter from the principal. But because of SK's appearance, this is different.
We warned the school of SK's eating disorder, we asked them to follow a rule of one full plate of lunch and a glass of water is sufficient for him during lunchtime (no seconds and thirds and fourths allowed) in the canteen.
( He is allergic to many foods...)
He came home one day and was breathing very heavily we removed his jacket and his stomach was bigger then a 9 month pregnant woman. We ask him what had happened and he said he got to drink bubbly apple juice all day. Once again, we called the teacher and she apologized and said, ''its difficult to say no to him, he claimed he didn't drink all day''
If this is just a phase....how long will it LAST??????
Help.
Desperate
As you can see from my name, it perfectly describes how I have been feeling for the past 4 years.
My best friend and I live together. She has four beautiful children (14, 11, 9, 7) but has always had trouble with her youngest (aka-SK). I have worked with children my whole life, but have never experience behavior like SK's. Where to start??? Through this website am really hoping to exchange ideas or talk to parents also suffering in silence. Perhaps some of you have some tips ... would be greatly appreciated!!!
SK was adopted at 9 months old. Directly after the adoption, child bonding exercises were practiced immediately and more then frequently. In order to ensure a feeling of security for him. About 6 months after welcoming him into our family, we began to realize he didn't seem to be developing ''normally''. He was physically very small, he would not sleep (At ALL) and would enter these ''crying rages''(screaming, crying, banging head against the wall) when around food. He did this until the age of about 3 and a half. Over the years, we naturally contacted numerous specialist for his growing problems, behavior, temperament etc... Doctors tested and scanned and results came in he was just a slow grower, he was small but met his mental age milestone. Keep in mind he is now 7 and he is the size of a 3 and a half year old. We visited many social workers and psychologist and none of them seem to be able to put there finger on SK's problem.
One of our dilemmas is the following, SK seems to have no ''stop'' when it comes to eating, he basically can eat and eat until he throws up. ( He would even eat his throw up) We eventually realized of course this was the reason for his ''crying rages'' as a toddler. He could not stand to be around food or see other people eating. For example, if we bought a pie and all six of us would have a piece, he would wolf his down and then enter a rage because we were all still finishing our pieces.
Currently our biggest concern with SK is that he lies, is very manipulative, has no regard or remorse towards other people or hurting there and he steals uncontrollably.
Here are just a few examples:
-At the age of 4 and 5 he constantly was stealing out of our refrigerator. Of course this sounds ridiculous, but we are talking about eating a 4 liter bucket of ice cream, yogurt containers, salami pack and cookies. Stealing and eating to the point where he can barely walk.
-We bought new little puppy for the kids, and of course the puppy needed puppy food, which was placed on the top shelf in the cupboard, he scaled the cupboard took the bag and was caught red handed with a mouth full of dog food.
-His older brother (9 years) loves him insanely, he made SK a beautiful card and fabricated him a gift for his birthday. Great. Three hours later SK was sent up to play in his room, when his brother went up to play with him he had taken scissors and cut the card and gift up into a hundreds of pieces. His older brother angry ask why did you do this? And burst into tears, SK's response was nothing at first. Of course we made him apologies, sit in time out etc...but he feels no remorse. Seeing his brother cry, didn't phase him. He just has a blank look on his face.
-He often played with the hot water in the bathroom, with the stove and or oven in the kitchen, burnt himself numerous times. You would think that after being warned and scolded and BURNT numerous times (7-8 times) a normal child would stop. 1 year ago, SK woke up around 4 AM poured himself a bath and jumped in. He scalded his lower torso and was hospitalized for three months. He had to learn to walk again move again etc....You have to imagine, he was almost completely immobile wrapped in gauze and sleeping in his mothers room and he still attempted to climb over a kiddy gate and go down a flight of stairs in the complete darkness into the kitchen to steal. We thought that perhaps, giving him food in his room at night (Sandwich) would solve this problem but he would eat it immediately and proceed to go down.
- He still constantly plays with the hot water.
- SK is under our supervision 24-7. But it only takes a phone call or a trip to the bathroom for him to do something terrible.
-He can lie completely and sometimes there is no reason for the lie, doctors claimed after the burn trauma he might not be ready for school. SK was often claiming he didn't want to go to school yet and he was scared kids would touch and hurt his scars etc... We decided (the doctor and us) that perhaps he was not ready and we would be keeping him home, we sat him down and spoke to him one on one and he seemed very very relieved. When we met with the school board a few days later, he walked in and said ''I am sad, mummy won't let me go to school''.
We finally decided after this episode he could go to school, we warned the teachers, school etc, about his stealing habits and off he went... The school got funds to grant him a ''bodyguard'' because of his size and sensitive scars etc...
Of course we don't want to play the color card.
But every time we attempt to get help, professionals are constantly painting him with this ''poor little brown child card''
After explaining our problems with SK's stealing and lying, one psychologist, argued that this was not stealing, and we should be patient.
Excuse me, but when you say do NOT take this to a child (sister's money, sweets from a purse, dog food, classmates Pokemon) and he takes it and purposely hides the evidence. To me that is qualified as stealing.
She also argued that perhaps because of his background or the fact that he might feel like the 5 wheel on the wagon with the other children, might explain his odd behavior.
The thing is we have tried so hard not to make a difference in the way all the children are being raised. Dividing our attention evenly between all of them emotionally, physical and mentally.
SK is like a local celebrity at school, the kids and everyone huddle around him, we live in a small community and he is the only brown child here We found out SK stole some kids Pokemons last week at school and he was not even disciplined or scolded at school. We found out through his older sister (14 years) when kids confronted her at school. He leaves the classroom without asking and the teacher has claimed he yells ''This is so Boring'' during class. He often lies about his homework and nothing....We confronted SK and he claimed it wasn't true. So we called the teachers and told them what we had heard and they said it was true. He stole, lied and was extremely rude in his classroom and no one bothered to tell us.
Our other children also go to this school and if they would misbehave like this, you could guarantee we would receive a letter from the principal. But because of SK's appearance, this is different.
We warned the school of SK's eating disorder, we asked them to follow a rule of one full plate of lunch and a glass of water is sufficient for him during lunchtime (no seconds and thirds and fourths allowed) in the canteen.
( He is allergic to many foods...)
He came home one day and was breathing very heavily we removed his jacket and his stomach was bigger then a 9 month pregnant woman. We ask him what had happened and he said he got to drink bubbly apple juice all day. Once again, we called the teacher and she apologized and said, ''its difficult to say no to him, he claimed he didn't drink all day''
If this is just a phase....how long will it LAST??????
Help.
Desperate