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We adopted our son when he was 18 months old. He was born crack addicted and both parents were maniac/depressive bipolar. He has been a very sweet boy and we haven't had many behavioral problems until he turned 12 (8th grade) He was expelled from 8th grade for making a threatening phone call to another student. He had 10 weeks of anger management counseling. I homeschooled him the rest of the school year but during that summer (2002) he was caught with neighbor kids getting into unlocked cars and stealing Cds, DVDs, etc. We disciplined him by requiring him to write apology letters, return what was taken and doing work for the injured parties. Then he got up in the middle of the night and took our car out for a joy ride. He got a ticket from the sheriff and we had to go to court. He did 68 hrs of community service.
In 9th grade he started high school and then the trouble really started. He kept cutting classes, being tardy, and defying a certain teacher. In fact, he had to drop the class as the teacher couldn't deal with him anymore. We had a lot of parent teacher conferences and the school had him sign a behavioral contract with them. He broke that 3 weeks later by cutting his PE class. He then stole 2 PS2 games from a video store and was arrested along with another boy. The charges were dropped as everything was returned to the store.
There are a lot more I could go into but we are at our wits end with the boy. He blames everyone else for his problems. He is openly defiant . He screams at me and his father at the top of his voice hateful swearing. He told me last night that he never loved us and we weren't his parents. He threatens to run away and leaves the house from time to time (especially at night) but always comes back. Then he sleeps until noon or after.
I am going to get himi nto continuation school this week and he has promised to work hard and not mess up anymore but I don't know at this point.
I should add that he does keep his room neat and clean. And he works as a soccer referee and a Little League baseball umpire and does well in those areas.
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Fourteen is not what it use to be. I have 4 adopted boys in that age range and I gotta tell you, when I was fourteen, things were differnt and I'm not that old. One of my sons was the schools nightmare and wonderful everywhere else. My 13 yearolds friends have been gtting arrested for car theft and other theft also and they're not adopted. My highschoolers are now enrolled in a Satelite school program that allows them to do alot of their work at home and my eighth graders are homeschooled.
Privledges are only granted to kids showing responsible behavior as irresponsible children can get into too much trouble unsupervised. I know staying home forever is not a solution, but it's allowed them to have more time to mature without the influence of peer pressure. It's worked really well and two of the four are leading pretty active social lives and the other two are respectful, but still working on some things.
As for the running away, we have this rule. Feel free to run, the police are immediately notified so you may be spending the night in Juvi or they'll bring you back here. If they bring you back here, you start at 0 priledges and will have to do chores to earn money for the pizza we ordered while you were causing so much trouble. If a lawyer is required for your behavior, you pay for that too.
As for the yelling, I don't respond to that much. Sometimes I tell them they've "Won" something, like extra chores, a nap in their room(if your behaving like a toddler...), a nice vacation from their social life or radio, or t.v. (if their allowed tv). I also, occasionally pick up the phone and ask them if they'd like to calm them selves down, or if they need the police (reserved for kids who's anger might escalate to violence). I also have this tree in my back yard that excepts complaints they're allowed to yell at. I tell them to yell at the tree and when they're ready to talk in a calm voice, I'd be happy to listen.
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Lucy as a mom of 4 boys I just wanted to tell you that you are my HERO! Such great ideas and you always make me smile. I hope you use that tree sometimes!!!
Our sons were adopted at ages 3 and 4, 3 and a half years ago. In our now 6+ year old I see all sorts of behaviours that scare the crap out of me (not in a bad way - just a testing, SMART, sneaky sort of way) LOL I think we just might be in for some battling years ahead.
I love the ideas - many of them we used with our 13 year old foster daughter. The hardest part for me was to separate myself emotionally from the behaviours. Its easy to say "order pizza" but the reality was I was totally terrified when she would run away to do drugs with her friends and wander in hours later. and that emotion often fueled my response. I LEARNT SO much through the process ... I am hoping I will handle my boys better.
Lucy do you have any advice for those of us with little ones to prevent those behaviours down the road ... My boys are 8,6.5, 5 and almost 2. :)
My only advice is communicate and mean what you say. If you establish early that what you tell them means something, they're more likely to think before they do. (My 18 year olds friend try to con me into letting him do stuff I've said no to and its funny to hear him say "I wouldn't ask her, no means no).
Also, be careful not to rescue unless there's real danger, it interferes with their decision making skils(foster cline love and logic).
When I make a mistake or something doesn't work, I learned not to beat myself up and to try something new. I also learned to seperate myself from my childrens disabilities and their disabilities from their persons. This prevents me from taking their anger personally and makes me able to better help with their needs.
thanks for the quick response. We are trying to get the school district to put him into a special school for kids that have low credits. I don't think he will have so many problems as the school is in an area that has no temptations around it and more security. It is only for half days and Friday off so it would take some of the pressure off of him. It is also much smaller than the regular high school (300 students compared to 5,000!) with smaller classes. I put a call into the principal of the regualar high school as he would have to be referred.
we do need to follow through better with consequences. Friends are really important to him and he is grounded when he screams or acts up. This helps somewhat.
Has your son been evaluated for bipolar disorder? Since both bio parents had it, there's a chance he has inherited it. If he is bipolar, appropriate meds might help even out his moods. Sometimes the symptoms really pop out in adolescence. I am not suggesting that this is the whole problem, but it could be a piece of the puzzle. Just another avenue to explore......
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I think all the messages in this thread highlight the importance of finding a professional you can trust...a professional who is well trained and has lots of experience helping families with adopted and foster children, who has training is attachment issues, and is well versed in differential diagnosis and treatments. Behaviors are not diagnoses and many disorders look like other disorders, so differential diagnosis is crucial since the treatments for various conditions are often very different.