My elder stepson is troubled, and I worry for him, for his little brother, and for my 16 month twin daughters.
C, 11, has a really unfortunate combination of a whole lot of very well-earned anger (divorced parents, a disabled father with custody who manages to walk an unpleasant line between utter disinterest and authoritarianism, no social life to speak of after being pulled out of school) and a high degree of impulsivity due to both genetics (his mom is ADHD but medicated) and lack of any experience or help in developing coping mechanisms. We do not have legal custody, so we cannot pursue counseling or medication for him.
He mainly expresses this by routinely bullying and hitting his younger brother (A, 8). If he is within arm's reach of his brother, C is swinging, and if he isn't, he's tossing out insults and threats. I understand sibling rivalry (was one myself) and I get the "boys will be boys" sentiment, but this is way beyond the pale. This is constant, and can range from "whapsh" flails without connecting all the way to denting a refrigerator with his brother's skull or chasing after him swinging with a little Swiss Army micro pocket knife and catching his sleeve and a bit of his arm with it.
A tends to weather this with a remarkable amount of endurance. I've thought more than once that if he thought a belt sander would be his friend he'd be more than happy to go cuddle up to it- which isn't too far off of his relationship with his brother. A wants a friend and is not good at picking up on social cues, gets in his brother's face, and walks off hurt and in tears.
My approach to all of this to this point has been to do my best to draw absolutely clear boundaries for him. Here, in this house, even acting violent is unacceptable. No pretending to hit people. No threats. No tough guy act. If I observe even mild versions of that happening, he gets a time out, both as reminder and to de-escalate. If his behavior is further out of bounds it turns into a discussion and a loss of privileges. In terms of consequences the only card left at that point is calling his dad and sending him home, which is a tough one when my wife already gets so little time with her sons.
It's also really challenging because he shows no remorse, just tough guy bravado BS coupled with attempts to explain away and blame everyone else. I know he doesn't consider the impact of his actions on others ahead of time (see also: he's a kid), but even after he's clocked his brother yet again his emotional response to his brother's pain is annoyance and mockery. He smacked his mom in the face with a pillow hard enough to bloody her with her own glasses, then looked at me and made a finger-twirl-around-the-ear gesture (called her crazy) when she got upset.
My wife's attitude is similar in some ways- she has all the same concerns, but instead of drawing boundaries for C, she tries to maintain them herself by constantly monitoring, redirecting, and separating them. I think it's a valuable idea, but limited as we can't be there monitoring them all the time, oftentimes there's no preceeding spin-up (C goes from zero to swinging without preamble or provocation), and frankly I just don't feel like it teaches him anything- having someone else play Jiminy Cricket for him all the time doesn't ever teach him self control. It is also a constant, exhausting strain on us and on the family as a whole having to try to constaintly keep the blast radius clear lest C go off again.
So now the girls are just getting to the wobbler stage, curious, exploring, getting into everything, and demanding both in terms of incessant emotional terrorism (crying) and physical/emotional/developmental needs. So far I've only seen him push one of them once when she was pawing at his tablet while he played a game. We Had Words and it hasn't happened again, but I am concerned. Even if he doesn't hit them, I do NOT want them to have to deal with the same bullying he heaps on his brother.
Any suggestions? Resources? Help? I'm trying to do right by both him and the rest of my family.
TL;DR - Title.
Submitted March 22, 2016 at 04:23AM by anonymous_villain http://ift.tt/1LCcrgO Parenting
No comments:
Post a Comment