how did it get to this point....
First off I'd like to start this post telling a little bit of background on my situation. My wife and I met when her son was 4 years old, he is now 13 and does not remember before I was in his life, he sees his b/f every other weekend, so I have pretty much been the father figure in his life and have treated him like my own. Since we have been married we have a 7 year old daughter and 2 year old son. My ss was diagnosed w/ adhd when he was in 1st grade and takes medication for it. About 4 years ago maybe a little longer he started becoming very defiant and bitter towards me, I have no idea why because I have never treated him any different even after my wife and I had our own kids. I have tried to analyze what would make him feel like this and I just can't place it. He now thinks the world revolves around his father who is a convicted felon and doesn't even have his drivers license because of a dwi (but still drives every where). I am the exact opposite of his father personality wise and career wise (work in law enforcement). He goes out of his way to be rude to me and his sister, I can honestly say that he is one of the rudest and most obnoxious people I have ever been around. He has problems at school because of his attitude and smart mouth, his teacher called my wife and told her that in 15 years of teaching he has never had anybody as disrespectful as him. I have slowly started to distance my self from him because I simply can not stand to be around him any more, I have done everything for this child that I know to do, I have supported him financially, taken him to sports practices, taken him to school and loved him as my own. I have told him to be careful about biting the hand that feeds and it just goes in one ear and out the other. I can honestly say that he has made me hate him because of the way he treats and talks to me. He thinks now that he is about as tall as me that he can buck up to me the only difference is that I am a 225 pound man that power lifts and he still thinks that he can challenge me. I would never do anything physically to him unless he was harming one of my children or my wife, I have warned my wife that if he threatens me or lays hands on me that I am going to press charges against him and let the criminal justice system handle it. I can honestly say that at this point I have little faith that he is going to succeed in life because he has the same attitude as his father, everything is everybody else's fault and the I don't care attitude, I am just waiting on him to have a doc number when he is older and then I am going to tell him that I told you so. He makes everything in my life so miserable, I love my wife and kids but he makes it hard for me to even come home some times if I know he is there. He ruins every outing and vacation we take because he goes out of his way to be rude. Is it bad for me to want to see him fail, I hope that he can turn it around for his sake and I know it would crush my wife for him to go down the path that I in-vision him going down. I have already warned both him and my wife that if things are not completely different when he turns 16 that I will not be paying for a drivers license and if it takes getting a separate checking account then that's what I'm going to do. He keeps saying that he is going to move out with his father when he turns 18, I say that day can't come soon enough. If anybody has any advice on what to do I would appreciate it.
He is disciplined but I have
He is disciplined but I have always felt like sometimes the punishment does not fit the crime, I don't really blame the father my ss just has a lot of his defiant personality and I don't care attitude. My wife and I have not been on the same page in the past but she is fed up with it to, she always says something to him when he disrespects me but it really does not do much good, he has now had his phone and ipad taken away for over 2 weeks and he still continues to act the same
^^^^^^^^ This
^^^^^^^^
This
Agree with you LadyFace
Agree with you LadyFace too--probably a combination of bad genes and inconsistent parenting and ?. I have read many, many stories from SMs who have to put up with ill-behaved children or even adults where the DH was not stepping up to the plate and BM was negatively influencing them and filling their heads with an "its us against them attitude," even when the BM may not have had primary custody. This is pretty much the same, only with different acronyms. SO, the same advice would go. Either genetically or he has been "trained" by his father to see good people as weak and easy to manipulate. I see below he is in therapy. I hope he has a good (male) therapist who isn't letting the kid snow him. It's important the child see he cannot get away with manipulating others so easily and has as many father-figures as possible in his life to counter his own negative dad. Has he been evaluated for more serious personality disorders vs. just a kid acting out in a divorce situation? Anyway, make sure your therapist is working for you than against you, which can happen when therapists think little Timmy is just a poor, misunderstand child vs. a major personality disorder in the making (not saying that is the case, tho.). Take care, and believe me most of us can relate to at least some degree. P.S. If you are in law enforcement, I know you have good instincts, as do teachers. Follow your instincts.
Believe me I know, he has had
Believe me I know, he has had his tv taken, play station taken, phone taken, grounded. At this point I really think he just does not care, I think he is just going to be one of those people who have to find out the hard way.
he is in therapy
he is in therapy
just got an email from his
just got an email from his teacher stating that she told him to calm down and he started getting an attitude and was told to go to iss and then he became really belligerent and she had to threaten him to have somebody come escort him out and then on his way out he slammed the door so hard that it almost broke the window. talked to my wife about it his phone and ipad are gone indefinitely and if he has an attitude about that so is his tv
Hi, have a look online. A
Hi, have a look online. A number of children who have adhd get co existing conditions with it.
http://www.help4adhd.org/treatment/coexisting/wwk5b
One of these is oppositional defiance disorder which can be targeted in one home or with one parent and not the other. You can get help for it and it is manageable. If handled the correct way they can grow out of it.
Good luck.
I'm going to throw a
I'm going to throw a completely different twist on this.....
When my son was born, he was my world and I was his. Anything and everything, revolved around him. He had me all to himself for the first 3 years of his life, and I took him every where I went. He was SO well behaved, respectful and such a lovey and polite boy. When I gave birth to his sister, life changed for us all, as more of my time and energy was given to her. When he was about 6, we couldn't help but notice how insubordinate he began acting. His teacher told me that he was speaking out in class and not taking direction very well. His behavior at home had me in tears because I just couldn't understand what had happened to my wonderful little boy. I'd have anxiety about him getting off the bus at the end of the school day, as my perfectly peaceful day was soon going to be over. His dad and I stripped his room of every amenity. We pulled him from his acting classes he was taking, grounded him from playing with friends, and STILL the behavior continued. We were fit to be tied, as there was nothing more to take away from him, and to be honest, the more we took away, and the more grounding we did, the worse the behavior spiraled.
As his mom, I kept asking myself "Where did I go wrong with him ? What has changed in his life SO much that he feels the need to act out as he does" ? As soon as I stopped pointing the finger at HIM, and started looking within myself for an answer, it dawned on me that this poor boy's acting out was just his way of getting attention from us. Everybody knows that negative attention from someone lasts longer than positive attention does. If you do something wrong, you could be in store for several minutes or hours of prosecution for your actions, but do something good, and you get a pat on the back, and a "Way to go" and all of a sudden, the attention is gone. The bigger the transgression, and the more ludicrous the attitude, the greater the response !
My solution ? Give my son back the one on one time that he use to have with me. Take him on mundane shopping trips to the grocery store, without his sister. Walk to the McDonald's for an ice cream, just the 2 of us.
And you know what ? That perfectly polite, lovey, respectful and well behaved little boy returned.
We were so busy blaming him for becoming so defiant and disrespectful, when all he really was trying to do, was receive the amount of attention he had before his sister came along.
I do realize that there is an age difference between your SS and the age at which this scenario took place with my own son, (who is now 20, btw) but perhaps his defiance stems from you coming into the picture, and giving his mom 2 more babies to share his time and attention with. This doesn't have anything to do with you treating him any different when your own biological children came in to the picture. I believe it has everything to do with his own one on one time with you or your wife being monopolized by 2 other kids. And by no means am I casting blame on either of you, as that would suggest that I too was to 'blame' for my own child's unacceptable behavior.
Perhaps what he needs at this stage of the game, is the complete opposite reaction you're giving him. Perhaps a night out with you, or your wife, or you AND your wife, is the first step towards restoring what you once had with him.
You literally have nothing to lose here by giving it a shot.
Hey Buddy, Sorry to hear
Hey Buddy,
Sorry to hear about your troubles. I was a lot like your SS, I was a little dick from 12 to roughly 20. I was pissed at the world because my father left us when I was 3 or so. My mother never remarried or had a live-in boyfriend. I got in trouble at school, got in fights and moved on to trouble with the law, even got arrested a couple times. I was too far gone for help. The only thing that saved me was me. Meaning I somehow figured out what I thought man was supposed to be(hard to do when you have no one to look up too) and that I was doing wrong. I moved out at 18, got a job and took care of myself. Ended up joining the Army a couple years later and I became an even better man for it.
When I think about who I was back then, the only thing I think would of helped was a father figure kicking my ass up and down the street. I needed to learn the hard way, not a you're being bad and go to your room from my mother. I needed a man to put me back in my place and teach me discipline .I know most people don't agree with that now days but my brother found a different way to do it. When his son acted like a little shit and started mouthing off to him and his mother, he bought two sets of boxing gloves and took him outside to show him that he was a child and had no right to step up to a man, especially his father. After he knocked him on his ass really hard and gave him a come back to reality moment , he went over and helped him up and had a talk with him about his actions. From there on out, when he acted up, my brother grabbed the gloves and the kid stepped down lol.Later on he also started to practice boxing with his son and that became their thing to do to bond.
I know firsthand that when you have built up anger, it can destroy you. Your SS needs to find a constructive way to release that. Maybe you can help him find it through physical activity? Start running together, sign up for a 5k, then a 10k. Find a way to rebuild that bond you had with him.
Bottom line is, please don't give up on him, he needs you...Even though he acts like he doesn't. I always pushed away the people that cared the most, maybe that's what he's doing? I wish I had someone like you when I was a kid, someone who invested in me and taught me how to be a man.
Good luck Buddy and you said you were in law enforcement, so thanks for what you do on a daily basis!
I actually love the boxing
I actually love the boxing story. This is certainly a peculiarly masculine way of handling a masculine child. I do assume your bro pulled his punches and did no actual harm to the child. I am not at all surprised that boxing became their "thing."