Hi,
I last posted here a couple of months ago so you probably don't remember me, but you were all very helpful. Dh and I took his 13 year old nephew in several months ago as nephew's mother needed a 'break'. Although her latest comment in regards to her son was 'keep him'.....God only knows how my Dh and my sister-in-law came from the same household...
Nephew is a difficult, tiring kid. Our main issue with him is respect, respect for himself, people and things around him. There is very little respect within him. He respects our puppy. Which is good, it's positive, but that's about where it ends. He just doesn't seem to care much about how he's behaving, and what the consequences of that are, and what people's responses are. He says what he wants to people and picks and chooses what he will listen to. Our main concern is that he just doesn't care, and fair enough, the world's been pretty rough to him - but we need his assistance to work on that.
We have been attempting a positive behavior plan based on a suggestion from someone here (sorry, can't remember who!) with points and rewards for specific behaviors that we wanted to see, we had him help us set it up (...he wasn't that helpful). It's been declared "f*#@*&*# lame" so far. It's needs modifications if he's going to care, and more input from him. And probably time.
We are in counseling with him to work through everything that is going on in his head, he had an abusive father and stepfather, and a very unstable period of being shuffled around, and not a whole lot of parenting along the way. I know that the disrespect is all connected with what's going on inside of him so maybe it's a case of getting into all of that before we can work on other behaviors?
He has had an issue with physical contact (he had flipped out a couple of times at our 7 year old whacking him to retaliate for something he'd done and our sons trying to wrestle with him when he wasn't aware that it was about to happen) so we now have a family wide understanding that you ask him before you touch him so that he knows that it's safe touch (also someone's idea from here I believe). This has led to an increase in hugs that dh and I are allowed to have - before this, when we would try to judge ourselves he would sometimes flinch or break away. He does say no sometimes so he seems to have an understanding that he does now control who gets to touch him. (I think that it has also given our 7 year old more self-control - I did hear her ask him the other day if she could throw something at him after he'd disrupted her game
)
We have our bright moments with him - he and I are going to puppy training classes with our new puppy and he is a different kid there. He is so kind and gentle with her and he is very positive towards me during this aswell. Also, all our boys (including dh) have bikes that they mess around with and dh is going to get nephew his own one for the two of them to tinker with. When we get him involved in specific things like this he changes his attitude but when it comes to 'general life' he continues to be so difficult.
This has turned into our life story, if anyone has any ideas.....
Thanks.
I last posted here a couple of months ago so you probably don't remember me, but you were all very helpful. Dh and I took his 13 year old nephew in several months ago as nephew's mother needed a 'break'. Although her latest comment in regards to her son was 'keep him'.....God only knows how my Dh and my sister-in-law came from the same household...
Nephew is a difficult, tiring kid. Our main issue with him is respect, respect for himself, people and things around him. There is very little respect within him. He respects our puppy. Which is good, it's positive, but that's about where it ends. He just doesn't seem to care much about how he's behaving, and what the consequences of that are, and what people's responses are. He says what he wants to people and picks and chooses what he will listen to. Our main concern is that he just doesn't care, and fair enough, the world's been pretty rough to him - but we need his assistance to work on that.
We have been attempting a positive behavior plan based on a suggestion from someone here (sorry, can't remember who!) with points and rewards for specific behaviors that we wanted to see, we had him help us set it up (...he wasn't that helpful). It's been declared "f*#@*&*# lame" so far. It's needs modifications if he's going to care, and more input from him. And probably time.
We are in counseling with him to work through everything that is going on in his head, he had an abusive father and stepfather, and a very unstable period of being shuffled around, and not a whole lot of parenting along the way. I know that the disrespect is all connected with what's going on inside of him so maybe it's a case of getting into all of that before we can work on other behaviors?
He has had an issue with physical contact (he had flipped out a couple of times at our 7 year old whacking him to retaliate for something he'd done and our sons trying to wrestle with him when he wasn't aware that it was about to happen) so we now have a family wide understanding that you ask him before you touch him so that he knows that it's safe touch (also someone's idea from here I believe). This has led to an increase in hugs that dh and I are allowed to have - before this, when we would try to judge ourselves he would sometimes flinch or break away. He does say no sometimes so he seems to have an understanding that he does now control who gets to touch him. (I think that it has also given our 7 year old more self-control - I did hear her ask him the other day if she could throw something at him after he'd disrupted her game
)We have our bright moments with him - he and I are going to puppy training classes with our new puppy and he is a different kid there. He is so kind and gentle with her and he is very positive towards me during this aswell. Also, all our boys (including dh) have bikes that they mess around with and dh is going to get nephew his own one for the two of them to tinker with. When we get him involved in specific things like this he changes his attitude but when it comes to 'general life' he continues to be so difficult.
This has turned into our life story, if anyone has any ideas.....
Thanks.
