Aimless, thank you for your message and for sharing your thoughts about what I said. This is, very rightly, a "soft place to land" where parents can come and be heard and understood rather than judged, blamed or criticised.
I think what I am saying is that you clearly have a deeply disturbed child, who was deeply disturbed from the very beginning, from earliest babyhood - and yet you expect him to behave like the other kids in your family. Why is this? Have I misunderstood? You all seem to ostracise him to some degree, from what you have said - and, believe me, I understand how a child's unlovely behaviour can make one want to withdraw. It is all very understandable, I guess. But I fail to see how this could in any way make him "better" or less unlovely.
Actually I do know what it is like to have a potentially dangerous child! My son is fascinated with knives, with fire (with lighting things with lighters that he finds on the ground), and when he is angry, he has little control of himself. For a long time now I have hidden away all knives. It may be just paranoia but I can visualise J picking one up in the heat of the moment... I hope I'm wrong. When he is in difficult mode now, he is just like an angry, troubled teenager and it is really not hard to imagine him as the real thing... I know I don't always love him unconditionally and I feel it to be my failure. I wish I could.
Parenting these kids is SO hard. We all know about that. I think you needed real help long, long ago.
