difficult child Left Home....Temporarily (I think)

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Oh it was an ugly day....

Started with a home visit from Ms Ally, the MST worker. Ms Ally tried to speak with difficult child about some of her behaviors....tried to get difficult child to see how nasty and disrespectful she could be. That conversation went over like a lead balloon...

And put difficult child in one of her moods for the rest of the day. Just plain NASTY to me and her brother all afternoon. Plenty of attitude for her Dad when he got home from work.

And then the final straw?

difficult child was told to call a few friends and see if she could figure out an activity to do the next day. I planned to go riding...and difficult child was NOT coming with me.

Well, you'd have thought I asked difficult child to cut off an arm or something. The suggestion that difficult child could invite a friend to hang out at a public pool or something was obviously the ULTIMATE in parental cruelty.

difficult child flew into a full-blown rage. Screaming, swearing, threatening, throwing things -

husband told her to stop...he didn't want to hear it.

So difficult child wrote a note telling us all to go F ourselves...and what are we gonna do? throw her out? just try it - she'll report us to the police.

And after more screaming, yelling, swearing and throwing stuff - husband escorted her to the door and told her to get out.

difficult child promptly stomped herself to her friend L's house...

And L's parents actually agreed to take her in!

So, I'm not sure what happens next...

Nobody has ever agreed to take difficult child (even temporarily) before. difficult child has threatened to leave many, many times....but usually can't find anywhere to go.

So - I don't know. It's a lot to process. And my brain hasn't yet recovered from last night's rage episode to really think clearly

or try to figure out what (if anything) I should do...

???
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
GOOD FOR husband!!!!!

Bet she does not last long at L's.

Did Ms. Ally get to see any of this???
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Did Ms. Ally get to see any of this???

I called Ms Ally when difficult child started raging...

and then everything happened so fast.

Ms Ally is coming tomorrow at her usual time and we will discuss all of this in-depth.

I just don't know what my position is right now.

I'm mostly - relieved, I guess.

and worried, because I suspect L's family is going to get tired of her pretty soon.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
So she refused to stay at home? Good. I hope L's family does get tired of her - then where will she go? I also hope Ms Ally can do something to get more services for her - Residential Treatment Center (RTC) is probably wishful thinking.

At least you ahve had a tiny break while she is at L's.

((((((((((hugs))))))))))
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I hope you can get some forward movement now...

And I know about "relieved"... Am there, doing that... Sort of.
 

klmno

Active Member
LOL, Shari!

And what was it Ms Ally was supposed to help with?? I honestly don't think MST has helped half the people they claim to have.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Let her stay!

Shari, lol!

So sorry, DF. What a mess. I hope tomorrow is better. Maybe you can let Ms. Ally do the talking and ask difficult child what went wrong?
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Dear Mr and Mrs L....

Here's $100. I hope this will entice you to keep her longer.

Love, DF

LOL! That was my first thought, too!

Only I was going to make it a gift card to the grocery store...ya know - to help out with the extra food!
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Maybe you can let Ms. Ally do the talking and ask difficult child what went wrong?

difficult child will not be here for Ms Ally's visit tomorrow...

And I am dreading the fact that I am probably going to have to analyze what I could have done to prevent difficult child's meltdown.

(I know the answer -just let difficult child do whatever the h*ll she wants....but I don't think that will be what Ms Ally is looking for.)
 

klmno

Active Member
I started to get on a soapbox but I won't. I'll give you the jest though- why is it that parents were raising good kids 50 years ago and they didn't use those methods?

All I know is that once my son figured out that people in the system spent miore time telling me what I should do differently than on him, problems went from bad but manageable to worst and completely out of control.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
why is it that parents were raising good kids 50 years ago and they didn't use those methods?

Parents are raising good kids these days, too. And there were difficult children 50 years ago. But they were not talked about, they were hidden away or in jail. I could drive down the street I used to live in and point out the houses where difficult children lived. They were the houses I had to avoid on my walk home. I had my own routes home that helped me avoid the worst bullies, including the two girls whose father left them in the truck while he drank and gambled in the club. Those girls would attack me for any food I might be carrying. I learned to lug the groceries through the park rather than walk along the street with them. I finally made friends with these girls to try to get them to stop attacking me. That earned a friendly visit from the local cop, to tell my mother I was getting in with a bad crowd. Meanwhile I was a kid, trying to get these girls into church... and nobody stepped up to help me. Nobody called CPS. Those girls ended up in jail for breaking and entering - there was an abandoned house next to where the truck was always parked, the girls broke in to get out of the cold.

It's no better or worse now than it was 50 years ago. We just know more these days, and we do more.

Marg
 

klmno

Active Member
I see your point, Marg, but if I'd EVER become aggressive with my mother, much less rob her with a knife, the whole town- sd, cops, everyone- would have stopped me in my tracks. No one would ever have told her what she should change- even though she is a complete flake. There is something to be said for finding a balance between EITHER concentrating on "what the parent should do differently" and actually concentrating on what the kid can wake up to. IOW, I get the fact that we can only change ourselves- but why is it no one has given my son that talk- that if he gets frustrated or whatever, he can only change himself and not me?? He has to learn how to conform to the world, too, everyone in the world can't change to meet his desires. When and how are our difficult children supposed to learn that if the "help" we get as parents only feeds the idea that it's us (parents) that should change? They sure don;t learn it once they've been thrown away in the Department of Juvenile Justice system.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
klmno, I can't speak for your justice system where you are these days. I agree, it doesn't sound balanced to only focus on parenting and not to also deal with a kid who does the wrong thing, especially to such extremes. Sadly, it is not perfect. It was not in the past, either. Those girls - someone should have told the authorities about the parental neglect and removed them before they began to commit crimes. These girls just did not understand what was right or wrong. I know, because I spent a lot of time talking to them and was horrified by their naivete. And in a supposedly caring, parental society, nobody intervened. Even when I tried to get them to church with me, the disapproving looks were overwhelming. Looks from adults who should have stepped up to the plate and helped. That was not quite 50 years ago.

Your son has not been given the help he needed and neither have you. If this had been happening 50 years ago, I am not sure how different your lives would have been. He may have been thrown into the system sooner. Would he have been made to face his own faults? I can't say. But I remember "reform schools" and "boys homes" from 50 years ago in our area; the inmates were never given a chance in society later on, the expectation was that in jail they had learned how to be better criminals.

It seems that with an increasing emphasis on healing the damage, there is perhaps too much focus on trying to place blame, often in the wrong place, and not actually work with the individual to rise above whatever the issue is and change themselves.

Marg
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I don't know if it will make you feel any better or not, but my DEX is 42 (not quite 50) and he was a major difficult child. His mother was judged harshly (still is), which lead her to be a bit of a hermit in the midst of his "glory years", and even the professional community blamed her - she had no one to turn to for help.

So at least 30-40 years ago, it wasn't much different, just lonelier.

I do think there are more difficult child's now than there was then. But I also think it is because of factors that g way beyond differences in parenting...
 

klmno

Active Member
I do think there are more difficult child's now than there was then. But I also think it is because of factors that g way beyond differences in parenting...

That was pretty much my point....
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
UPDATE:

difficult child came here yesterday to pick up a few things. Very disrespectful and very cocky! Ugh!

And now, Ms Ally has rescheduled her appointment to Friday. I'm hoping difficult child will still be out of the house by then....because I'd really like to discuss all of this without difficult child being present.
 

april1974

New Member
I don't think they were any better 50yrs ago, although women/moms face more stress now than any other generation of mothers, but that is an entirely different topic. I know of many kids who were abused 50yrs ago or neglected and in turn did the same thing to their own families. 50yrs ago would place you right in the 60's talk about teenage rebellion at it's peak! Runaways, drugs, pregnancy, they had it all back then, only alot of screwd up kids didn't have a chance because they didn't know what the medical community knows now.
 
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