Need to work with BM so that SS will start acting his age...HOW???
I had a real breakthrough today with ss6. He acts up at school on a pretty regualr basis. Nothing MAJOR, but CONSTANT little things. He basically goes to school and once he walks through the classroom door he becomes this immature, silly, out-of-control child who doesn't even resemble the nice boy he is when he's at home (dh has full custody, he's lived with us for almost 2 years).
He sees his mom just a few weeks out of the year (1 month in summer and 2 other weeks during spring/holiday vacations). When he is with her, though, he turns into this same kid. It's like he goes back to being a 2 year old. She calls every week or two and he acts this way on their calls also...She EATS it up and thinks it's so funny and cute when he acts this way (she actually acts like a 3 year old herself most of the time...). So in our 100th conversation about WHY he acts this way at school he tells me today that he thinks he acts the same way at school that he acts when he's with his mom.
BINGO. WHAT A REVELATION!!
I will try not to get TOO deep here, but what this tells me is that he feels abandoned by his mother, which is unfortunately very accurate, and so he puts on this "act" when he's with her to win her over, and he sees how much she LOVES it, so he keeps doing it. I think when he's at school he is trying to win all the other kids and teachers over also, so he puts on this same act. He sees it work with his mom and probably thinks it will work there too!
Needless to say I feel like a breakthrough has been made, which is GREAT. But now we have the issue of solving this problem, and it seems that we are going to need bm's help. This is where it gets tricky...
We have managed to basically take this child from her and convinced her to sign over custody to my husband by TIPTOEING around her and NOT becoming her enemy. She believes everyone in her family (and the world for that matter) is against her, and we've played into her victim mentality by making her believe that we are doing her a favor by taking in her son. Thankfully she's dense enough to believe it and lives a days drive away, so she isn't too hard to handle.
My question is: How do we explain to her that she needs to help us with this behavior by not allowing him to act this way. By not LAUGHING and acting SO impressed with his bad behavior? You would think that with her being such a small part of his life that she wouldn't have such an effect on him, but it seems that she does...Has anyone had any success with anything like this? Any tips for doing this in a way that won't make her feel like we're attacking her?? I realize she may get upset no matter how we handle it, but I really enjoy the peace between us and would love to keep things this way....
If You Figure It Out....
We have the SAME issues my 5 yr old SD (attention seeking, acting up in school, etc.) We have the kids on a "week on/week off" basis so it is very difficult to create stability for them. When we try to talk with BM about the issues and encourage her to enforce consequences for negative behavior she ignores us. Our 5 yr old has even gotten to the point that she will say "I love Mommy because she never gets mad at me when I am bad at school" when we are trying to punish her for using profanity in class, etc. If you come up with a good solution...PLEASE let me know!
glad I'm not alone at least!
I will definitely let you all know if I get any good advice! We are lucky, at least, that bm only sees ss6 for a month in the summer and a couple of other random long weekends in the year. She's definitely not a big presence in his life, although I think he misses her so he acts that way because he knows she likes it and it reminds him of her in a way to act like that...I just don't understand why the only other place that behavior comes out is at school, not here at home. I mean, I see it now and then, but it's constant at school...it's gotta be some kind of attention seeking thing, I just don't know how to get him to cut it out!
My SS 16 and we are still struggling with this problem.
I am not sure if it is the usual teen crap or a hold over to the behavior he witnesses and participates in when he is on visitation with BioDad and his three out of wedlock half siblings.
When he was much younger he would leave a talking, mostly toilet trained pleasant toddler and return a pointing grunting crying diaper rash ridden mess. I am convinced that THEY did not want him growing up and fostered the baby talk and other less than age appropriate behavior. That combined with the crap he say his half siblings getting away with and we were pretty much doomed to a decade or more of the extremely immature behavior for his age.
That said, things have improved incredibly since SS began attending boarding school (Military). The goofy voices and goof ball actions are fading significantly. He is expected and held accountable for behaving as a responsible young adult rather than a goofy kid and he is stepping up nicely.
IMHO the key to driving improvement in age appropriate behavior is accountability. Hold him accountable for his actions regardless of what behavior BM encourages him to exhibit.
I am 6yrs older than my next youngest brother. I recall having a problem not long after Mom and Dad brought him home from the hospital. I started wetting the bed (I was 6). This went on for a few nights and Dad finally figured out how to get me to stop. They put me in a diaper with the lecture that if I was going to act like a baby they would treat me like a baby. I wore the diaper for one day. That was it. I went to bed that night without a diaper and never had another issue again.
I can assure you that walking around first grade with a diaper under my clothes got my attention in a hurry.
As for leveraging BMs help in addressing SS-6 behavior issues. I would be hesitant to come down on her to hard until you have completed getting her signatures on the custody paperwork. Once you have her and the SS in the bag (so to speak) then address the age appropriate behavior more assertively. With both SS and BM. Getting her support is not likely and certainly not as important as getting results from SS in acting his age.
Just my thoughts of course.
Best regards,
thanks Rags
We are definitely holding him accountable for his actions, we have written down exactly what the consequences will be for bad behavior and we stick to it. I guess maybe I'm looking for a QUICK improvement that may be unrealistic...I just get so frustrated! It's also tough because with him being only 6, he's GOING to act up and do things to get himself into trouble...I just don't know how to separate 'normal' 6 year old behavior from anything that is being caused by his family situation (basic abandonment by his mother a year ago)...
You're right. We decided we aren't even going to tell bm about ss6's school troubles until the papers are signed. There's no sense in it. Once she signs them and we prepare him for his fist visit with her this year, which will be for a week in March, we will relay to her what we expect for him while he's there - bedtime, diet and discipline-wise. We'll have to wait and see if she complies. Knowing her she will agree to do anything she can to keep things consistant for ss6, but everytime he comes back from seeing her he tells up he's stayed up late and that she fed him chicken mcnuggets for every meal....
Thanks for your help!