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| Tue, 12-06-2005 - 4:02pm |
i am new on this board, we are having major problems with my SS 13. we have ods 15 ,mds 13, ss13, dd8, ds3. my ss this month has been caught with cigs (stole from us?), and a lighter he either stole (or bought he says)from the store ods works at, a week later i found a bag of weed in his room, in plain sight. tues, night he pushed my 8 dd into the computer desk. Dh thought it was 'accident' but when i asked ss he said he pushed her. then i found a porn tape in his room. please keep in mind this is not new behavior (smoking stealing, lying, bad temper, fights at school.) but the more he does the less dh reacts, he uses the fact ods, & ds dont include ss all the time as part of the problem. i can understand them not wanting to be involved w/ ss "activities"..... dh has no problem grounding my boys for smaller rule breaking, that do not involve law breaking or violence.
i am at my wits end, i am the bread winner and gone 4 nights a week. I feel like i have no say. i am not looking for an instant fix, maybe some like souls with insight. i will be here, often (to stay sane). k-
i am at my wits end, i am the bread winner and gone 4 nights a week. I feel like i have no say. i am not looking for an instant fix, maybe some like souls with insight. i will be here, often (to stay sane). k-

You have to invest the time in parenting this child by ensuring he is not given opportunites to smoke, steal, and watch porn. At 13, they need mom and dad to parent them.
Personally, if I caught my 13 doing what you described, I would clamp down and force a change of behavior. I think my son would call it "kids marshall law"...lol.
Seriously, If it were me, I wouldn't give my 13 the chance to do any of the above. Going forward I would bring him to school, pick him up from school and bring him straight home. I would eliminate all activities until I could trust him, including taking away tv so he cant watch porn or take his door off his room so he can't read it. And as long as he is with a parent, he can't smoke, right?
Pretty much my 13's life would be school, chores, and homework until his early bedtime.
Jenny has some good points, though I wouldn't go so far as to completely take tv away... just make sure his tv and computer activities are happening in an area where he can be monitored.
This has to be really hard for you, where you work evenings and aren't home to more closely monitor the situation, and you have got to be worried about how SS's behavior is affecting the other children in the home. I don't blame you there.