Good morning all--
I am sorry that I have only been posting and commenting sporadically. Things have been a bit stressful....
At any rate, I wanted to share what's been happening. I like to think that someone reading or lurking might learn from us. ( sorry, this is long....)
As you know, we found out that difficult child was continuing to sneak out of the house on Saturday (and when we confronted her, she threatened to kill us again, so that was the first report to the sheriff's office). In addition to assigning her extra chores, husband curtailed all priviledges. He changed the passwords to her email account--she may now only send or receive messages when he enters his password and then screens all messages first. In this way, he has intercepted emails from strange men and responded to them by typing "Please be advised that all messages to my daughter are subject to parental controls and will be reviewed by her parents."
husband is similarly monitoring her mail and telephone calls. (She does not have a cell phone). The freaky 17 year old "boyfriend" has been advised to stop calling...and yet he continues to call. husband told him that his next step will be to report him for making "harassing" calls.
So that was the weekend...
Wednesday, I was on the phone in my home office when I heard a fight break out in the next room. My son was screaming "Stop hitting me!!". I dropped the phone and ran to get my son out of there. It seems that they had been playing cards, and when difficult child lost, she beat her brother over the head with the cards.
So that was another report to the sheriff's office.
Also, I signed husband and I up for parenting classes. A woman at CPS advised me that this was a really good way to earn "brownie points" with Department of Juvenile Justice and the court system. It will be a way of demonstrating to law enforcement and/or Family Court judges that we are doing everything we can to be really good parents....and when it comes time, we will be taken more seriously when we request placement at Residential Treatment Center (RTC) or mental health services to be ordered by the courts.
The first night of parent class was earlier this week, and we were instructed to make sure that we were demonstrating to our children that we loved them. Our assignment was to make sure that we did a loving act every day.
So that night, we had a family discussion where we talked about the whole family doing loving things for one another. I had each person say what others had done for them. Even difficult child had no trouble coming up with a long list of all the things that I had done for her that day. But when it came time to describe what difficult child might have done for anyone else...that was a bit harder. No one could think of a thing. Finally, difficult child offered that her loving act for the day was "Well, I didn't hit you."
Day 2--DS and I had run across a used book sale while we were out running errands, and so we bought books for himself and his sister. I put the book we selected at her place at the kitchen table so that it would be there when she arrived home. husband and difficult child walked in the house together, husband saw the book first and made a loud comment about how nice it was that there was a present for difficult child.
difficult child looked at the book and offered a begrudging "O, thanks", but wondered what other books were available and how come we didn't buy one of those instead. husband felt bad that the gift was being met with such contempt and insisted that she give me a proper thank you. Well, she repsonded, maybe after I read it.
So that night, when we went around the family and asked each person what nice things we had done for one another--again everyone seemed to have a long list (yes, my book purchase was on the list). And what did difficult child say? "O, I guess I'll do something nice tomorrow."
--DaisyF
I am sorry that I have only been posting and commenting sporadically. Things have been a bit stressful....
At any rate, I wanted to share what's been happening. I like to think that someone reading or lurking might learn from us. ( sorry, this is long....)
As you know, we found out that difficult child was continuing to sneak out of the house on Saturday (and when we confronted her, she threatened to kill us again, so that was the first report to the sheriff's office). In addition to assigning her extra chores, husband curtailed all priviledges. He changed the passwords to her email account--she may now only send or receive messages when he enters his password and then screens all messages first. In this way, he has intercepted emails from strange men and responded to them by typing "Please be advised that all messages to my daughter are subject to parental controls and will be reviewed by her parents."
husband is similarly monitoring her mail and telephone calls. (She does not have a cell phone). The freaky 17 year old "boyfriend" has been advised to stop calling...and yet he continues to call. husband told him that his next step will be to report him for making "harassing" calls.
So that was the weekend...
Wednesday, I was on the phone in my home office when I heard a fight break out in the next room. My son was screaming "Stop hitting me!!". I dropped the phone and ran to get my son out of there. It seems that they had been playing cards, and when difficult child lost, she beat her brother over the head with the cards.
So that was another report to the sheriff's office.
Also, I signed husband and I up for parenting classes. A woman at CPS advised me that this was a really good way to earn "brownie points" with Department of Juvenile Justice and the court system. It will be a way of demonstrating to law enforcement and/or Family Court judges that we are doing everything we can to be really good parents....and when it comes time, we will be taken more seriously when we request placement at Residential Treatment Center (RTC) or mental health services to be ordered by the courts.
The first night of parent class was earlier this week, and we were instructed to make sure that we were demonstrating to our children that we loved them. Our assignment was to make sure that we did a loving act every day.
So that night, we had a family discussion where we talked about the whole family doing loving things for one another. I had each person say what others had done for them. Even difficult child had no trouble coming up with a long list of all the things that I had done for her that day. But when it came time to describe what difficult child might have done for anyone else...that was a bit harder. No one could think of a thing. Finally, difficult child offered that her loving act for the day was "Well, I didn't hit you."
Day 2--DS and I had run across a used book sale while we were out running errands, and so we bought books for himself and his sister. I put the book we selected at her place at the kitchen table so that it would be there when she arrived home. husband and difficult child walked in the house together, husband saw the book first and made a loud comment about how nice it was that there was a present for difficult child.
difficult child looked at the book and offered a begrudging "O, thanks", but wondered what other books were available and how come we didn't buy one of those instead. husband felt bad that the gift was being met with such contempt and insisted that she give me a proper thank you. Well, she repsonded, maybe after I read it.
So that night, when we went around the family and asked each person what nice things we had done for one another--again everyone seemed to have a long list (yes, my book purchase was on the list). And what did difficult child say? "O, I guess I'll do something nice tomorrow."
--DaisyF