Appologies in adanvance this is REALLY long.....
We would really appreciate some help here and I honestly don’t know where to start, what this all comes down to is that we are having a lot of problems with our grandson and just don’t know where or who to turn to for help.
J is 8 (almost 9) and he has been living with us full time for just over a year now, my husband has primary care of him as him mom can’t be relied on to look after him at all, the court awarded him this after she ran off to join some commune when he was only a few months old, it took almost a year to track her down and J was found naked in a forest rife with wolves, foraging for food, he was under 2 at the time, since then he has lived mostly with my husband and his previous wife.
In the last few years he has lost his uncle (age 21) his grandma, his great grandma (who he was very close 2) and almost his Papa (my husband) twice, he had a heart attack just over a year ago and is just now recovering from cancer surgery (thankfully they have cured it) I know this has to have its effects on him but he shows no emotion at all. To top all of this his Mom is currently in prison after failing to comply with probation requirements.
After my husbands previous wife was killed in a road accident, J lived with his Mom for about 15 months, during that time he was very neglected, the school he attended was aware of his Mom’s record but failed to let anyone know what was happening, he regularly went to school in his PJ’s often was either late or absent as his Mom was in a drunken, or drug related stupor from the night before, and lost A LOT of weight, During this time we married, it was too painful for my husband to return to his previous home often, there were just too many memories, so he had decided to allow his daughter to remain in the house and we bought land and had a new home built. Just as J was staring 2nd grade we received a very disturbing phone call from a neighbor, she was concerned that he was losing weight and had missed a lot of school, we had been calling to check up on him often (of course she lied about how he was) and he had stayed with us for a couple of weekends prior to this, but we hadn’t been able to persuade his Mom to either bring him to us, or allow us to pick him up for about a month before this call, she often wouldn’t answer the phone and was never at home when we called to see her(we found out later that a few times we were there she was passed out in the bedroom and J had got himself to school). We could never tell if she was home or not as she often leant her car to friends or just left it and walked home, we also found out that she had been leaving him home alone and going out drinking until the early hours of the morning.
After being unable to get in touch with his daughter for almost 4 weeks and a very disturbing phone call from her at about 3am, I managed to persuade my husband to go direct to the school and find out what was going on, they were very reluctant to say much at all, they had specific instructions that if J seemed unwell or was having ANY problems at all they had to call us, this was a court order, they failed to comply and knew it so didn’t want to admit any fault on their part, We asked that they brought J to see us and I was horrified at what I saw, he didn’t look as though he had washed for a few weeks,(he smelt terrible) the clothes he had on were at least 2 sizes too small and looked like some I had thrown away about 6 months ago, they were full of holes and unwashed for ….ugh I wouldn’t like to think how long!!!, he was filthy and Very unkempt, we were both also shocked at his physical appearance, he had lost about 10lbs in less than a month, he was all skin and bone.
To this day I will never forget my dh face as he looked at J, horrified doesn’t come close to it, and I was in tears, we removed him from school that morning and took him back to his Moms house. It took us about an hour to finally get her to open the door, she looked worse that J and was obviously still drunk, while I took J into his bedroom to get his clothes my dh confronted his Mom, she admitted that she hadn’t been feeding him, all he had had in the last week was a couple of tacos from a local fast food place, he mentioned the early morning phone call and she told him that her intention had been to kill both herself and J, she was going to drive at speed off one of the high bridges here, something stopped her from going through with this, we don’t know what., but she had returned home that night with J asleep in the back seat. Managed to carry him into bed and then passed out on the floor in her bedroom, J had got himself up the following morning and with still nothing to eat had got himself to school, I still thank God that we had been paying for his meals at school as this was all he was really getting a day. We still feel guilty that we didn’t go to the house sooner. We brought J home with us that night and he has been with us ever since.
Like any boy his age he doesn’t like school, when he first came here we registered him with our local PS, he began to be bullied almost immediately, this escalated to the point where one of the boys tried to strangle him, in front of the teacher, and he came home every night covered in cuts and bruises, he was really unhappy so we decided to try and homeschool him after countless meeting with his teachers and countless arranged meetings that never happened with his principle, who was always unavailable, nothing was every done about the bullying, they either didn’t have the time or simply didn’t care!! I suspect the latter, but can’t prove it.
The problem I have right now is that he will not do anything he is either told or asked to do, he just doesn’t care at all, this extends to his school work, which is often incomplete or simply not done at all, when we ask he why he just shrugs his shoulders, and has this most annoying smile on his face while he does so. He has no respect for anything at all, either his own or those belonging to others, in the last few weeks he has caused so much damage here I hesitate to add up the cost. The most recent of which is damage to a $16.000 boat, destroying a radio and trying to hide the evidence ( Marine Radio) which will cost about $300 to replace, and just this evening after countless warnings and reminders to be careful he had finally managed to break out 3 seater recliner sofa ( about $2000), I have told him repeatedly over the last few months not to use the recliner as he doesn’t know how to get is back upright, his answer is to simply kick it…….. well tonight, he kicked too hard and managed to break it. He tells the most outrageous lies all the time, I have watched him do something he shouldn’t be,only to be told I was seeing things and it wans’t him!!!
What on earth do you do with a child that WILL NOT do anything they are told to, I know PS would be a disaster, but we are considering sending him back there, if he was a few years older I honestly think my dh would put him in military school, he went to one and says it would do him good. This disobedience isn’t simply the normal 8 yr old forgetting to do things, he knows he is doing wrong and yet deliberately goes out of his way to do so, even trying to draw your attention to the fact at times. If he is told NOT to do something he always tries it to see ‘what would happen’. What worries me is that this evening he saw something on TV about guns, he knows he shouldn’t go anywhere near one, he asked a few questions and I asked what would he do if there was a gun on the table and he could reach it, would he leave it alone as he has been taught or not? He just grinned at me, and I know he would have to pick it up and play with it, he WOULD try shooting something just to see what size hole it makes, if it lives, or how much mess it makes…. I just know it and it really worries me. Hard as I try he has no concept of responsibility, doesn’t care about anything or anyone (to the point he is really cold and emotionless) He has deliberately hurt the dogs in the past just to see what they would do, we’ve also caught him throwing rocks and sticks at squirrels in the trees, to see of the dogs would be able to catch them when they fell out, and He didn’t take into consideration what I would do…of course, and when I asked what he thought would happen to the poor squirrel? He said he hoped they ripped it apart…ARGHHHH I cant stand cruelty to any animal. He is extremely cruel and cold hearted and this worries me.
If you have any suggestions (apart from a psychiatrist, which believe me we have considered) that may help us out I would be forever in your debt and truly appreciate it.
We have to stop this with him but nothing we have tried so far works, after this evenings episode with the couch, my dh told him to bring him all his Xbox games and his game boy…all he said was a light hearted OK!!!!!. No remorse at all, he even had that grin on his face when he said it. Its really getting scary for me and I don know what to do to stop this..
We would really appreciate some help here and I honestly don’t know where to start, what this all comes down to is that we are having a lot of problems with our grandson and just don’t know where or who to turn to for help.
J is 8 (almost 9) and he has been living with us full time for just over a year now, my husband has primary care of him as him mom can’t be relied on to look after him at all, the court awarded him this after she ran off to join some commune when he was only a few months old, it took almost a year to track her down and J was found naked in a forest rife with wolves, foraging for food, he was under 2 at the time, since then he has lived mostly with my husband and his previous wife.
In the last few years he has lost his uncle (age 21) his grandma, his great grandma (who he was very close 2) and almost his Papa (my husband) twice, he had a heart attack just over a year ago and is just now recovering from cancer surgery (thankfully they have cured it) I know this has to have its effects on him but he shows no emotion at all. To top all of this his Mom is currently in prison after failing to comply with probation requirements.
After my husbands previous wife was killed in a road accident, J lived with his Mom for about 15 months, during that time he was very neglected, the school he attended was aware of his Mom’s record but failed to let anyone know what was happening, he regularly went to school in his PJ’s often was either late or absent as his Mom was in a drunken, or drug related stupor from the night before, and lost A LOT of weight, During this time we married, it was too painful for my husband to return to his previous home often, there were just too many memories, so he had decided to allow his daughter to remain in the house and we bought land and had a new home built. Just as J was staring 2nd grade we received a very disturbing phone call from a neighbor, she was concerned that he was losing weight and had missed a lot of school, we had been calling to check up on him often (of course she lied about how he was) and he had stayed with us for a couple of weekends prior to this, but we hadn’t been able to persuade his Mom to either bring him to us, or allow us to pick him up for about a month before this call, she often wouldn’t answer the phone and was never at home when we called to see her(we found out later that a few times we were there she was passed out in the bedroom and J had got himself to school). We could never tell if she was home or not as she often leant her car to friends or just left it and walked home, we also found out that she had been leaving him home alone and going out drinking until the early hours of the morning.
After being unable to get in touch with his daughter for almost 4 weeks and a very disturbing phone call from her at about 3am, I managed to persuade my husband to go direct to the school and find out what was going on, they were very reluctant to say much at all, they had specific instructions that if J seemed unwell or was having ANY problems at all they had to call us, this was a court order, they failed to comply and knew it so didn’t want to admit any fault on their part, We asked that they brought J to see us and I was horrified at what I saw, he didn’t look as though he had washed for a few weeks,(he smelt terrible) the clothes he had on were at least 2 sizes too small and looked like some I had thrown away about 6 months ago, they were full of holes and unwashed for ….ugh I wouldn’t like to think how long!!!, he was filthy and Very unkempt, we were both also shocked at his physical appearance, he had lost about 10lbs in less than a month, he was all skin and bone.
To this day I will never forget my dh face as he looked at J, horrified doesn’t come close to it, and I was in tears, we removed him from school that morning and took him back to his Moms house. It took us about an hour to finally get her to open the door, she looked worse that J and was obviously still drunk, while I took J into his bedroom to get his clothes my dh confronted his Mom, she admitted that she hadn’t been feeding him, all he had had in the last week was a couple of tacos from a local fast food place, he mentioned the early morning phone call and she told him that her intention had been to kill both herself and J, she was going to drive at speed off one of the high bridges here, something stopped her from going through with this, we don’t know what., but she had returned home that night with J asleep in the back seat. Managed to carry him into bed and then passed out on the floor in her bedroom, J had got himself up the following morning and with still nothing to eat had got himself to school, I still thank God that we had been paying for his meals at school as this was all he was really getting a day. We still feel guilty that we didn’t go to the house sooner. We brought J home with us that night and he has been with us ever since.
Like any boy his age he doesn’t like school, when he first came here we registered him with our local PS, he began to be bullied almost immediately, this escalated to the point where one of the boys tried to strangle him, in front of the teacher, and he came home every night covered in cuts and bruises, he was really unhappy so we decided to try and homeschool him after countless meeting with his teachers and countless arranged meetings that never happened with his principle, who was always unavailable, nothing was every done about the bullying, they either didn’t have the time or simply didn’t care!! I suspect the latter, but can’t prove it.
The problem I have right now is that he will not do anything he is either told or asked to do, he just doesn’t care at all, this extends to his school work, which is often incomplete or simply not done at all, when we ask he why he just shrugs his shoulders, and has this most annoying smile on his face while he does so. He has no respect for anything at all, either his own or those belonging to others, in the last few weeks he has caused so much damage here I hesitate to add up the cost. The most recent of which is damage to a $16.000 boat, destroying a radio and trying to hide the evidence ( Marine Radio) which will cost about $300 to replace, and just this evening after countless warnings and reminders to be careful he had finally managed to break out 3 seater recliner sofa ( about $2000), I have told him repeatedly over the last few months not to use the recliner as he doesn’t know how to get is back upright, his answer is to simply kick it…….. well tonight, he kicked too hard and managed to break it. He tells the most outrageous lies all the time, I have watched him do something he shouldn’t be,only to be told I was seeing things and it wans’t him!!!
What on earth do you do with a child that WILL NOT do anything they are told to, I know PS would be a disaster, but we are considering sending him back there, if he was a few years older I honestly think my dh would put him in military school, he went to one and says it would do him good. This disobedience isn’t simply the normal 8 yr old forgetting to do things, he knows he is doing wrong and yet deliberately goes out of his way to do so, even trying to draw your attention to the fact at times. If he is told NOT to do something he always tries it to see ‘what would happen’. What worries me is that this evening he saw something on TV about guns, he knows he shouldn’t go anywhere near one, he asked a few questions and I asked what would he do if there was a gun on the table and he could reach it, would he leave it alone as he has been taught or not? He just grinned at me, and I know he would have to pick it up and play with it, he WOULD try shooting something just to see what size hole it makes, if it lives, or how much mess it makes…. I just know it and it really worries me. Hard as I try he has no concept of responsibility, doesn’t care about anything or anyone (to the point he is really cold and emotionless) He has deliberately hurt the dogs in the past just to see what they would do, we’ve also caught him throwing rocks and sticks at squirrels in the trees, to see of the dogs would be able to catch them when they fell out, and He didn’t take into consideration what I would do…of course, and when I asked what he thought would happen to the poor squirrel? He said he hoped they ripped it apart…ARGHHHH I cant stand cruelty to any animal. He is extremely cruel and cold hearted and this worries me.
If you have any suggestions (apart from a psychiatrist, which believe me we have considered) that may help us out I would be forever in your debt and truly appreciate it.
We have to stop this with him but nothing we have tried so far works, after this evenings episode with the couch, my dh told him to bring him all his Xbox games and his game boy…all he said was a light hearted OK!!!!!. No remorse at all, he even had that grin on his face when he said it. Its really getting scary for me and I don know what to do to stop this..
:
Let me first say that my stepdaughter (she's 8 now) was deserted by her mother (a drug addict and alcoholic who "couldn't handle" being a mom) at about 3 1/2. When I met and married her dad, she was suffering from some pretty serious issues as a result. Now, nearly 5 years later, you would never know what this poor child's little heart has been through. She's sweet, funny, intelligent, and bubbly. And she has decided that, although she was "in that other lady's tummy", I am her mom, in the way that I am my own biological daughter's mom. So, yeah, things are good for her now, but let me make a point to say that we (my husband, myself, and his parents and mine) all had to take numerous steps to get her here (family counseling, behavior therapy, and constant effort on our parts in regard to how we interacted with her) . And, it certainly wasn't easy. That being said, this little boy has been through terrible things - far worse than my stepdaughter - far worse. He never has had someone love and nurture him. He never had a "mommy" the way most of us do. No one showed him affection; no one made him feel important; no one protected him; my goodness, no one even fed him!! What this child needs; more than discipline, more than homeschooling, more than anything - is unconditional, unsolicited LOVE!!!! He MUST get counseling. That's not even negotiable in my book. This kid has been setup for so much future failure and hurt; and, quite possibly, aggression and rage; that if it is left "untreated" and un-dealt with he doesn't have a chance in 
of "normalcy". My heart breaks for this boy. And for you and your husband. I honestly commend you for your dedication and commitment to such an enormous responsibility. That boy is very blessed to have you and your husband. My advice is this, 1. get him counseling; 2. just love him. Don't try so hard to set up a structured, disciplined environment yet. From where he's come from, he needs a very slow introduction to "normal" family life. He needs tons of positive reinforcement right now. A very dear family friend once said to us, for every 1 negative/critical remark you make to your child, give them 10 positive ones. Even children from very average homes need this. They need an over abundance of compliments and sincere "good jobs". Their so fragile. He really needs to be built up and loved. And it may take awhile for him to trust you and believe that you're being genuine. Pick your battles. Hurting animals is NOT okay - forgetting to put down the foot on the recliner - is it really that big of a deal? Even my grown husband forgets to do that! 
My suggestion would be to maybe check out some good parenting books. Some dedicated to addressing some of the issues you're facing (parenting a child from an abusive situation, behavioral problems, etc.) I know that helped me a lot when we were going through the "rough patch" with my stepdaughter. I hope you don't feel like I'm getting down on you or anything -- I'm absolutely not!! But I do know some of your frustrations first hand, and I know it's hard to look at things objectively when you're in the thick of it. Counseling for you and your husband might be a good idea too. I'm sure you guys could learn some really wonderful and effective ways of relating to and disciplining and caring for J. Just remember how much he needs you guys and your love; regardless of how he acts or whether he knows it now or not. I will be praying for you all. Please keep us updated, okay? May God bless you for your good, tender heart!
Follow Mothering