On the verge of going off on difficult child

[Farmwife]

I am FURIOUS with difficult child, ready to strangle him, furious.

Got a call from school admin. difficult child had an incident on the bus. Since we are rural all ages ride on one bus. difficult child put grease in a first grade girls hair. Her parents are understandably mad. I would kick my **** if I were them, seriously. How seriously wrong is a 6'2" almost 16 year old who picks on a what...? 6 or 7 year old girl. This is the second such incident this year. Earlier in the year he tore another youngsters backpack strap. May be the same girl too for all I know.

I think I'm going to pop a vein in my forehead right now I am so mad.

Plus, I get the joy of transporting this beast of mine 10 miles away and back to school for two weeks. He deserves it naturally but now I have to pay for it. Aside from gas it will be a serious hassle to have to get a baby who HATES her car seat strapped down twice a day. With the back and forth for me to get home it adds up to 400 miles.

Then there is the fact that I JUST made headway with the school over IEP issues.


My favorite part is that we live in a village of 370 people. The town the school is in is 2000 people. EVERYONE will be wagging their lips over what a complete monster difficult child is and I can't blame them.


I know he has a disorder but if he is going to act out in this way I'm beginning to think he can't be saved. Good grades are one thing but when it comes to making the choice to bully innocent people in sick ways well........I just don't know what to do. I am deeply shamed by his actions. I am disgusted.

I know yelling at him like I want to won't get through to him. I know bullying him so he gest a taste of it won't be appropriate either. This kid has fake remorse and is only sorry when he is caught. The only "tool" at my disposal is to withdraw from him because that really hurts him. Of course that is mean because he has zero friends and who wants to shut out a poor depressed kid who is very lonely.

Someone tell me what I am supposed to do, please.......

 

[Jody]

I am sorry that this is put on you right now. I don't have the answer. I wish I did. Hang in there. Many hugs,

Jody

 

[LittleDudesMom]

What kind of grease and where did he get it?

I know it's hard, but don't take responsibility for his actions. If other's want to reflect, let them.

The only thing you have at your disposal is taking away privileges - tv time, an outing he was looking forward to, computer time....

I don't see depression in his profile - is he taking meeds for depression? Is he seeing a therapist for talk therapy?

Sorry.

Sharon

 

[Andy]

I am so sorry! I can feel your frustration. Why in the world would he do that? You are correct that none of your initial reactions will help matters. Have you had a chance to talk to him yet? Even if you did, you can still bring it up tonight, "difficult child, I have been thinking about what happened today. I just don't get it! What do you remember happened?" Does he deny wrong doing or will he tell you he got mad or was feeling like harrassing someone and did it? Remind him that he knows what is right and wrong to do and that he can make good choices to stay out of trouble. Ask him if being kicked off the bus is worth this behavior.

I think paying you with time on Spring clean up projects around the house and yard would be a good consequence. He is not only causing you gas money and adding stress to his sibling's life (who hates car seats) but he is taking you away from your time to do chores that you would be doing instead of driving him to and from school. Chores he can help catch up on.

I would be careful about withdrawing from him. You are angry at this bad choice but you do not want to totally reject him over it. Stay firm in showing him that you are very disappointed in what he did and that you want him to show you that he can do better than that. It is perfectly o.k. for the next few days whenever he asks anything of you to say, "I am sorry but I am still so mad at what you did to that little girl that I can not do this for you right now (or I can not allow you to do whatever). You need to show me that you can be more respectful to those around you before you get your priviledges back or get new ones."

Maybe some letters of apology from him are in order to: The girl, her parents, the bus driver, the school admin, and to you and his baby sibling. You can help him by giving him ideas of what should go in the letters (scaring the girl, ruining her hair, being disrespectful, causing everyone's time to deal with it, spending $$ on gas that could have gone elsewhere like maybe Summer clothes for him? ect.)

I don't really know the answer either. I do know that as his mom, you can see the wonderful qualities in him that you are trying so hard to pull out. Others will be very quick to give up on that. They will continue to focus only on his bad behaviors. You can focus on his good ones. You can tell him that you know his is a good kid, that you know he wants to be a good person. That when he does bad things he must make them right. He must show people that he is not a terrible person but a kid who did a stupid thing. Let him know that as he gets older getting out of consequences of bad choices gets harder and harder. That he is setting a reputation for himself that will be very difficult to change so maybe it is time to work on the person he really wants to be.