Oh well, what can you do?
So SS13 missed another three days of school this week due to illness. He supposedly threw up at school, so BM picked him up. He had to miss Thursday because the district rule is if you throw up, you can't come back the next day. Friday morning, guess what happened? He got sick again. Apparently spent the day on his PS5 until she made him check assignments. Lounging around, snacking, etc.
SS has acid reflux that causes him to spit up occasionally. He has medication to keep it under control.
DH, who is out of town, asked BM: Has he been taking his medication?
BM: I don't think so.
OK.
DH: Is he vomiting or spitting up?
BM: I don't know.
Sssooooooo... Your kid has a non-contagious digestive issue for which he has medication and you don't bother to make him take his medicine. You also don't check to find out what's actually going on. And you make no attempt to talk to the nurse about it or to explain to SS that a reflux spit-up is not "go to the nurse and go home" worthy.
DH finally said something to her about "Hey, ever noticed this doesn't happen on holidays or weekends? It also never happens at my house?" (SS tried it twice at our house. One time, we picked him up, realized he wasn't sick, and made his two days at home very not-fun. Second time, DH explained the situation to the nurse and had her send him back to class.)
BM admitted that, yes, she had noticed the pattern. But "oh well, what can I do about it?"
I don't know:
1) When the nurse calls, explain again about the reflux and have her send him back to class.
2) When he is home, no sleeping in. No video games. No phone. No tv. No fun foods. Make it boring as hell.
3) Pay attention and try to ascertain what, physically is happening.
She says he told her nothing is worrying him at school. Who knows. Getting him to talk about things is like pulling teeth.
DH and I think either he's anxious and it's aggravating his reflux, which he then takes advantage of to go home.
Or, he's not anxious and, again, is using reflux as a way to stay home.
Either way, not good. He needs to be in school. DH would be open to discussion and problem solving if he's having some sort of problem, but the school isn't aware of anything and SS doesn't talk.
What's frustrating is, this only happens at BM's and she's aware there's a problem, but seems completely unwilling to attempt to deal with it. Not much DH can do when this is on her weeks.
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She sounds completely checked
She sounds completely checked out of her kid. Zero effort or care. I don't know but I feel like this is a trend these days with a lot of parents.
That's accurate. It's the
That's accurate. It's the same thing with his lying ("oh well, everybody lies"), rule-breaking ("it's not a big deal") and bad attitude ("all kids have attitude. I just ignore it.")
She's an intelligent, well-educated woman. But it seems pretty clear she'd rather just ignore problems and keep him happy to avoid dealing with anything.
Thing is, the more you just push the rock down the road, the bigger it gets and the more difficult it will be to manage (potentially). She seems completely incapable of seeing that.
Maybe everything will turn out fine. But given the behaviors over the years and utter lack of consequences, I'm not terribly optimistic. And he's the one who could end up paying the price for her (and sometimes their -- DH can also be guilty of not wanting to deal) lack of parenting.
I used to work in school
I used to work in school health and in our district, if you had a note from your doctor about a diagnosis of reflux, the "vomit rule" didn't apply without fever, diarrhea, severe abdominal pain, or other symptoms. Not to say SS couldn't just come out of the bathroom and say he had diarrhea, but it gets rid of them having to go home for reflux symptoms. I bet this could be done for SS. He probably doesn't want to go to school and BM probably doesn't care, but maybe your DH could get the note from the doctor.
That's a really good
That's a really good suggestion. I'd thought about suggesting DH talk to the nurse himself, but a doctor's note would probably give it more weight.
We only missed school due to
We only missed school due to fever or bloody injury. If we missed school it was not pamper time. It was "get and stay your ass in bed". No TV, no playing, no nothing. We had to be in bed and our only option was to read or not.
Gaming, etc... should not be a sick day thing. I would advise rolling out the old school rectal thermometer as well. Just to make the sick day notable and not enjoyable.
Too sick for school? You are sick, you are not enjoying yourself. Period. Dot. For this type of kid anyway. A kid that has to be half dead before they play the sick card, that kid gets pampered.
Agreed. Which is why he no
Agreed. Which is why he no longer gets "sick" on DH's weeks -- only on BM's. While she does appear to have cottoned on to the timing of his episodes, she has presumably not figured out that if she made staying home unpleasant, it would stop.
My dad is a doctor and my
My dad is a doctor and my mother is a human lie detector. We each tried faking sick about once. It was miserable -- no tv, no books, bland food. Basically, you lay in bed staring at the ceiling all day.
If we actually were sick, we got pampered. And I was one of those kids who would catch anything and everything -- strep, flu, colds, even mumps and scarlet fever despite being vaccinated. But it was clear our parents knew sick from malingering. Other than reflux, SS is exceedingly healthy and rarely gets anything.
If BM is not careing
What are you going to do ? If SS is Motivated not to do school work but video games. How you from far away can do anything . Just be prepared for SS to not go to college.
These types need a life of
These types need a life of escalating abject misery. The why is a waste of time and effort. They need pain and discomfort based on what they are doing regardless of why they are doing it.
So, get creative. No foods he likes. He can eat tasteless mush that does not trigger his reflux. He can sit under the hairy eyeball as he takes his meds. He can watch while his games, phone, etc... get pulverized into junk or.... he watches as it all goes in the electronic recycling shredder.
We had the electronics thing to deal with. We purged it all from our home when SS was in about 7th grade. We made the mistake of getting him a laptop in HS at the behest of his teachers. Bad move. Their stance was that the computer lab was too busy and he needed a laptop to be able to do his school work. Wrong. He and his SpermIdiot hacked the boarding school firewall and would stay up all night playing WoW and he would be a comatose zombie in class all day. That got the misery level amplified to the point he would have walked barefoot on glowing hot coals to get to school every day and to graduate on time.
We yanked him our of boarding school at Winter break of his Sr. year and brought him home to finish HS at our local HS where he knew no one. We moved a few weeks after dropping him off at Military school for his Jr year of HS. No friends, no nothing. He walked to school every day and knew that we either went to graduation on graduation day or we dropped him off at the homeless camp under the elevated highway in Philly with a new coat, new pair of boots, Walmart pup-tent, and a McD's gift card. We had him spend a couple of hours with his new neighbors at the homeless camp when we first brought him home from boarding school. Those wonderful people welcomed him, fed him, and scared the ever living shit out of hi telling him to get his head out of his ass, finish HS, and recognize that his parents wanted the best for him but also were no longer messing around.
He graduated on time and with honors. Sadly, his graduation was not a happy occasion. It was extremely sullen for all of us and for my parents and DW's parents.
He had the world in his hands and chose to briefly follow the scent trail of his SpermClan. Fortunately he is exceptionally sharp, recognized his mistakes, learned from those mistakes, and has chosen to live a life of character and honor. So far anyway.
If you set and enforce the right boundaries and standards, find the right misery inducing consequences to keep scrubbing his nose in, he may turn out okay.
In my experience and opinion of course.
Good luck.
I'm all for making it
I'm all for making it unpleasant for him when he fakes sick. Unfortunately, he doesn't pull that at our house. Just BM's. And she either pampers or just shrugs and lets him do what he wants. Whatever we do at our house ends up getting wiped out at hers.
He came back over today, feeling better. His "medication" is OTC, so she didn't even bother to get his prescription refilled. OTC isn't as strong and you can't take it regularly, which is what he needs. Also, the box is unopened. BM thought he was taking it, but obviously nope.
On top of that, he absolutely reeked of cat piss. DH sent him straight to the shower. We speculated that maybe he's getting teased about his stench on her weeks and that's what's going on. Who knows. I don't really care at this point. I just want him to get consequences for his decisions and behaviors.