I cut mentally ill children slack because I often don't believe they can help it. And they AREN'T adults so they are not responsible for getting their own treatment and learning to fight the demons that make them who they are. I often feel the kids are wrongly diagnosed and medicated by the doctors who are supposed to help them. It's up to us to help our kids or they could end up those abusive spouses/adults that we'd never take anything from. So my take is different. I'm more focused on getting help than the garbage that they don't mean that comes out of their mouths. However, that doesn't mean it needs to go unpunished or that you should put up with it, even though the child likely doesn't mean it and is spouting it out of his own misery. I don't know how much good it does to discipline, but it should certainly be addressed. You can't divorce yourself from a child so, in my opinion, the best route to take is to try to get all the help you can for the kid until he is legal age--THEN it's up to him to get help that will allow him the control to become a more acceptable person. As one who parents took my words too seriously (I was very out-of-control when I'd say things like "I hate you"), we never reconciled, even after I was stable and tried so hard to explain and make it right. My mother refused to think of me as anything except "bad." When she passed, she still hadn't forgiven me for things I had done thirty years prior. She had never met my three youngest children. She didn't mention me in her will (the only reason I cared is that she acted as if I had never existed as her child). Trust me, I wasn't so horrible to her either. I would implode maybe once a month and was always remorseful. For some, maybe that was too much, but I had unmedicated bipolar and the moodswings were horrific and rendered me half insane sometimes. So I have a different take on it. I wouldn't just put up with it, not saying anything, but...you don't want to detach so much that you totally lose the child. My siblings are appalled at my mother's lack of understanding--I haven't abused anyone emotionally since about age 30 and I'm 53. My mom died two years ago, still talking about my mishaps when I'd been a teenager, which were my worst years. I loved my mother very much, but she chose to believe what I said when I was so sick that I hated myself. Of course, most of the difficult children here are a lot worse than I was. I guess it's a personal choice what you decide to do. When my daughter took drugs, I was more concerned about her welfare than her ugly words. We are best friends now. I refused to be my mother all over again. JMO
