I am not a strong advocate of booting kids from the home. While there is some behaviors that may warrant kicking your teenager out, this is not something that should ever be entered into lightly, or without great consideration for the consequences. When we have children we bring them into this world, and our families, for better or for worse and kids under the age of eighteen deserve a chance to make mistakes at home, where the consequences of their behavior doesn’t have to create nearly insurmountable challenges for their future.
When you ban your kid from the home, you are setting them up to opt for a few choices, and none of them are offering them a bright and beautiful future. If they are still in high school, they are going to have to secure a place to live. This is not an easy task when you aren’t living somewhere to begin with. Most kids who are given the boot stay with friends for a little while, but they can quickly wear out their welcome. They need money and they need it fast in order to feel as though they are surviving “this” and thus options such as prostitution and drug dealing suddenly become much more viable.
If we can consider kicking your teenager out to be the punishment, then we have to weigh it against the crime. Knowing full well that we are emotional beings, there is going to be a much more significant emotional impact on the kid than there will be a physical impact on him. What crimes can your kid commit against the family that warrants being homeless and out in the world alone without any preparation? We have to take this in two separate “crime lists.”
Let’s start with the crime of Being. The crime of Being includes those kids who are kicked out of their home for who or what they are. Whether they are told to leave because they are not like they were expected to be or can not be as they were expected to be, these kids suffer greatly because it’s not a behavior that was rejected, but who they are. Gay kids, kids who refuse to “follow the family footsteps,” and kids who are have to take large risks just to keep their heads above water are most likely to find themselves homeless before the age of 17. Kids who are pregnant or who have gotten someone pregnant fall into the realm of the crime of Being as well as the crime of Action. This is often because parents who respond this way do not necessarily see the result of the action as an error in judgment, but parents often refer to their pregnant daughters and guilty sons as sluts and well, worse. This leaves the child with the notion that it is not the action, but who they are that is being punished.
If you are dealing with the crime of Action, there are other methods of not tolerating a behavior than removal from the home. Kids may be seriously messing up left and right but there are almost always other answers. You’ve watched his grades slip, found all the evidence you need under his mattress, and of course, you can tell on the rare occasions that he talks to you that he is either stoned or high or both, and no matter what you do, he insists on bringing drugs into the home. You’re in the military, the police force, or any other line of work that would not only find you homeless but also out of a job should any controlled substance be found in your home or on your property. This makes for a pretty serious crime of Action, and it may even seem like to save the rest of your family, you have to push one out the door. Psychologists have found that kids who are using drugs increase their habit by nearly 30% if they are kicked out of their home.
What about the kid who is violent? Or the kid who is terrorizing the whole family? What about the kid who refuses to go to school, refuses to get a job, and steals money no matter how clever you think you are when it comes to keeping it hidden? These are tough cases. At seventeen, your kid should know better. How did this happen? If you kick him out, then at lest you know you aren’t enabling him.
These are tough calls to make, and there are good arguments for encouraging parents to take a hard line with their kids. Yet there is direct and solid evidence that shows most kids who are in danger of being kicked out of their own home are in these situations for a reason. The almost guaranteed result of kicking your teenager out is that the situation will get worse. By shunning them, you are telling them that they are not even worthy of being part of the family, of being cared for or cared about. By forcing them to leave, without a steady income, a reasonable place to go, and a way to take care of themselves, you are setting them up for failure and everyone knows it. You are literally telling them that you do not care what happens to them and that their problems are bigger than you and your family.
In our society we have available for every family, rich, poor, and in between, a place to get professional help. Even if you can’t afford it, there are places out there that can offer help. Most parents who kick their teenager out aren’t doing it because they don’t love their children, although that is exactly what the child will think. Kids get kicked out when the parents have reached the end of their rope and it is a last ditch effort to force them to get some help. The kid on drugs might need a warm place to sleep so maybe the harsh reality will jump start them into rehab, right? The kid without an education or a job will probably opt for one or the other, right?
Wrong. Kids in trouble stay in trouble and most often make their troubles much worse when they can’t do something as simple as live at home with their family. Stability is one of the factors that can help a kid come out the other end of a really rough time in his life. Kicking your teenager out is not only likely to exacerbate his problems, but leave you with an enormous feeling of guilt. At the same time, kicking your teenager out isn’t going to provide your kid with the boundaries they need to become the successful adult they still have the potential to become. Frustration, anger, resentment, and even uglier feelings like momentary flashes of rage or hate are common in homes with distressed teens. These are emotions that are momentary and that will pass. Forcing your teenager into homelessness is an action that can have irreversible consequences.
127 Responses
When the child refuses to respect health, dignity and safety within the family , then kicking the teen out the door is perfectly reasonable. I would do it without hesitation or guilt. The problem is that some parents mistake inconvenience with what their responsibility of raising a child is and guiding them into adulthood so that they can be independent. Teens will be naturally rebellious and have attitude, but when a certain line is crossed they need to be given the altamatum to get the f@$k out until they choose to follow the minimum rules of respect for everyone’s health, dignity and safety. The love for a child is only as meaningful as the love you have for yourself. And a child will see right through your bullsh!t if you have no respect for yourself. Children respect those who have boundaries and respect for themselves. It’s that simple.
I understand your point and completely agree. But I see that everyone here is talking about issues with their much older teenagers. What about a teenager who is only 13. Who refuses to follow rules. Who isn’t doing anything in school. So constant issues at school and at home. Issues involving respect and following rules. Issues involving the teenager running away every time he’s yelled at and told for as long as u live here, you are to live under my rules.
What do you do then?
I’m in the same position, my child behaving the same way, endless therapy, intervention from social services yet nothing changes, at times I feel that if you have exhausted all avenues to get help with the defiant behaviour, then putting them in a temporary forester care my be an option, remember…… you have to think of your own mental health!
It’s been a year – any changes in your kid’s behaviour, Janet?
Preach hun I totally agree! That’s why I’m looking into kicking my 14 year old out and putting her disrespectful behind in a group home I’m at my wits end with her
Have you ever wondered what she thinks of how you treat her? In my experience parents are hypocrites. They say the child always wants the last word which is supposedly disrespectful whilst at the same time having to have the last word themselves. Theese sort of arguments almost always come about because the parent believes they must be right because they are the adult. Do you get upset about how she might carry things on whilst not apologising yourself? Do you blame items/ hobbies with no relavenve to a problem as the cause of what your fighting over? Do you take these things away unjustly because you can? You control her life and there is nothing she can do about it. Threatening her with somthing advice serious as this is an abuse of power, especially when she is 14, and you don’t deserve her. Sorry if I’m beginning to sound round and I breech my boundaries but to seem as unfazed as you do is actually quiet offensive to a young person who has been through a similar sinario; “preech hun” do you not care at all? This is very disrespectful. There is a fine line between hard just disapline but what can she possibley be doing at 14 that is so atrocious it warrants “putting her disrespectful behind in a group home”
Mental health can be a huge reason for a child being disrespectful.
I recently kicked my 14 yo out . She of course was then “rescued” by her biological father (Disneyland dad). We wanted to take her to a hospital but he was not on board stating it would only solidify and validate her mental issues. (ADHD, Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder) while I lived in denial for the last 3 years that a child who lived a fairly regular life could have such issues and waited until the last year to medicate I am 100% trying to raise her is out of my scope of comprehension and capabilities. I have 3 younger children includes 5 month old.
So why did we kick her out? She didn’t come home. The first time we sat down and discussed what would happen if she failed to come home when she was supposed to. Since we had spent an hour looking for her and her siblings had all missed dinner etc. she agreed it was fair to kick her out if she wasn’t going to Come home. Seemed simple. Until 2 days later she didn’t come home. 2.5 hours looking for her calling the cops… etc. at some point there is nothing you can say or do to convince someone to do as you say. You can put the pencil in her hand but you can’t make her do the work.
She needs help but her biological dad doesn’t seem to understand. He thinks naively like I once did that she is just a rebellious teenager. This article doesn’t even touch base with mental illness or siblings or effects of the behaviors of one child over the others. Sounds to me the writer is possibly bias and was just a teen who “got kicked out” and failed to take responsibility for their own actions.
Or maybe you fail to understand that being an absent parent can cause these issues. I’ve been removed from a home at a young age beat all odds in life and still find that my parents were the majority of the issue. That tends to be the case in most situations. It’s almost always 100% the parents fault. Over medicating or not listening to what the child needs or wants out of life
I fully agree. When the mental health is torture for everyone involved, and younger siblings are being affected, and there is no end in sight with the psychopath behavior, they need an alternative place to chill. And hopefully some change will happen.
Harrison, unless you are dealing with a child diagnosed with ODD, and conduct disorder, you have no idea how difficult it is to parent these children. Ive been struggling with my son since 13, hes now almost 16. He refuses to go to school, smokes pot in my house, sneaks friends in the middle of the night. I also have an 11 yr old daughter that i need to think about. His anger escalates to the point hes putting holes in the walls, breaking my valuables, destroying my car ( hes broke my windshield and tailights). There really comes a time when you cant have them in the home anymore. Im at that point where ineed some peace in my home.
Hi Amy I totally understand what your saying and going through my daughter has odd and mood disorder and she does the same things you were mentioning and it gets so hard that you think your going to go crazy I sometimes feel like I’m on my last straw that she consumes me as a person that I find myself praying for peace and just wanting someone to Acknowledge that this is real !! It will tear a home and family apart sometimes the only joy I have is knowing when she turns 18 she can go off and live and do whatever she wants and no longer has to be in my home the system doesn’t care that I have other children living in my home that they have to Witnessed her bad behavior and violent ways and all the 911 calls but I’m supposed to just put up with that because I’m her mother, i’ve done everything that the system has asked me to do for her (counseling ,medication ,911 calls, admitting her to the hospital ,pins , meetings everything and still no help no justice for me because I’m her mother they don’t seem to care that keeping her at home so she can do whatever she wants too is harming her !!! she barely attends school ,drinks ,smokes and even gotten involved with illegal sexual behavior I feel failed by the system period and then the sad part is people actually come up here read these stories and leave disrespectful remarks people have no idea what it is to go through what us mothers go through as moms we do not want to throw our children out by no means but sometimes it’s the only hope you feel you can get and have I know because I have been going through this for3 years !!!!!
I am hoping things have improved for you and your son. I am dealing with a 17 year old child that lies, steals, and is manipulative. We have sent him to rehab, counseling, put him on medication and he still continues the behavior. We do not allow him to drive because I will not put an at-risk teen behind the wheel. My marriage is falling apart and I am not sure what to do. We can’t kick him out, as the law does not permit it and he has no where to go. I have taken everything from him and he still manages to get stoned. I am at a complete loss. My house is damaged (holes in walls) and valuable, sentimental items are gone. Does it get better? Any advice?
Amy, I hear you because I’m in the same boat! Unless people raised a “challenging” child , they have no business to condemn you for your choices!
My son had behavioral issues from preschool time. We got police intervene by the time he finished first grade. And from then on things were only getting worse inspite of my efforts to help him. I took him to numerous therapies and cancelling, special schools, private schools, even military school! He was kicked out of each one them! I tried to engage him in creative/ physical activities – private piano lessons, private swim lessons, chess club, karate lessons, boy scouts club, basketball team which my husband volunteered to coach for my son’s sake , and so on and so forth! The amount of time and money I spend on his activities, paying off his fines, appearing for school meetings and court meetings, all while somewhat neglecting my other “good” son because of this. By the time they turned 18, they both went astray big way- dropped out of school, start doing drugs, stealing from me, leaving home for days, weeks and months at a time, then showing up in the middle of the night, making a scene, or police bringing them over. Followed by jail time, more court hearings, endless drug rehub trips with drug overdoses in between. My son got overdosed four times in half a year, three times in our house where by lack we found him still barely breathing and called paramedics while administering narcon and doing CPR.
Sure we kicked them out at last. Not exactly on a street. Told them to go to rehub and not come back until they got discharged. One of them didn’t go and moving from one friend to the other, doing drugs and having no remorse. The other moving from one rehub to the other, coming home for a while and then all starts all over again. So unless you lived through similar experiences and pressure, I’d refrain from giving advices. Because it’s kind of like telling war veteran that they overdramatize their experience while you’ve never been at war.
Try having your 19 year old tell you repeatedly he can’t hear you because you need to get the d*ck out of your mouth when you ask him to turn the blasting bass music down at 1 in the morning. I’m open to suggestions…if you have dealt with it yourself. And I said please when I asked him to turn it down…not even off. I compromised.
I’ve been going through this for many years. Also did everything the system asked me and my child just didn’t want the help and only wanted to be on the streets for days, drinking, smoking, bringing drugs in my house, blasting music and wanting to fight me… all in front of a younger sibling. My child recently turned 18 and also seems to be involved in illegal activity so I have to protect what I have left. And made a very difficult decision “let her go!” Now my child calls crying having nowhere to go and nothing to eat, given some compassion, let her back in and still turns around to continue to abusing us. A parents worst nightmare for sure! Any face to face encounters are now dangerous. This can not be allowed in the house and you can not allow the harm it causes the younger siblings and the rest of your family… AND YOUR SANITY! This is not a loveless and selfish decision when you’ve tried everything under the sun to help and they just don’t want it, they just want a place to sleep and yet destroy! It would be a sin in the eyes of God to allow this evil to continue under your roof! You can not serve 2 masters! One has to GO!
I would Slap him and kick him out, not without wishing him good luck, tell him u love him but won’t allow disrespect and so to start packing and join the military because if he is not prepared or helped by someone else he is just going to end up homeless. Parents deserve respect. Don’t be afraid nof tough love.
He’s 19? Kick him out of the house and tell him to get a job. It is now legal and he needs to learn how to be self-suffient.
i am the kid in this situation and this msde me so happy to see someone seeing our side that stuff slowly makes you build rage rage turns into hatred and comes lack of respect. This and physical punishments are not the way to go conversation need to happen it sounds to me like that mom is trying ayear too late to start the cpnversation part of things there are things us kids go through thag parents simply dontt listen to and all that not being listened to all that lack of conversation drives a big whole into the foundation of your family.
Truth be told, the parents do have the final say. They are the ones not only responsible for you, but have provided you with everything that you call “yours”. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like what the parent is saying or the rules they enforce. You have zero a sum zero view of life as a whole. You only can measure what has been in your perceived lifespan. A typical, decent, amd caring parent knows more than you’ll ever know about life at the moment you’re living it.
Though your spelling is terribly off, I absolutely understand you AND agree!! My heart is broken reading all these parents and the behaviors of their teens! This is NOT my opinion, but a hard fact- parents who cannot “handle” their children are the reason these children are acting out! My advice to these parents YOU MUST FIRST HELP YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CAN HELP ANYONE. Seek professional help, your kids deserve it!
Yeah go ahead and kick her out as long as you’re good never having a relationship with her again
You are a terrible mom. Try understanding why she’s doing this instead of being a b1Tch. Maybe then you will understand why she’s doing that🙄
You are a terrible mom. Try understanding why she’s doing this instead of being a b. Maybe then you will understand why she’s doing that. My mom kicked me out because I was disrespectful but that’s because she never even tried to understand why I was like this. I almost killed myself 12 times after getting kicked out because I felt like I had nobody to talk to. I needed her most but I pushed her away because I was scared she was going to hate me. I was 13 when I got kicked out.
Sounds like your mom made the right decision. You keep blaming EVERYONE else. All of your behavior now and then is on you. You are abusing the commenter the same way it’s clear you abused your mother. You didn’t deserve her live, ultimately.
Wow! You are judgemental, you have NO EMPATHY, and I can tell your definitely a bad person to comment the way you did!
Absolutely! That’s true narcissist behavior. I hate teenagers.
That’s right.
These kids need to be loved and understood yes but they can’t blame their weaknesses on others.
Now days these kids want everything so easy and if they don’t get what they want they threaten their family nw suicidento make them feel responsible when that is not the case. Something is very wrong in the brain of some kids or people in general now days yes they might lack love and understanding but they need to give it as well, including respect.
My teenager seems to blame everyone else for any issues they encounter and takes no responsibility for their actions. It can be frustrating because I constantly have to remind them to do even the simplest tasks. They’re even failing easy classes and often speak to me disrespectfully, as if they know more than I do. They go so far as to call me a failure on a regular basis and even physically threaten me when I try to enforce the rules of our home.
When we got cell phones for them, I made them sign a contract that outlined certain expectations, such as maintaining good grades, completing chores, keeping their room tidy, and staying off certain apps. Unfortunately, they’ve broken all of those agreements. And when I try to take away their phone as a consequence, they resort to physical threats against me. I’ve sought help from the school therapist, counselor, and even third-party DSS case workers, but so far, we haven’t found a solution.
What makes matters worse is that my child knows I’m physically smaller and weaker due to chronic illness. Additionally, I’ve faced job insecurities due to tech layoffs, going from one contract position to another, while they refuse to work, do chores, or improve their grades. It’s disheartening, and I’m reaching a point where I’m considering telling the caseworker to take them to a children’s home and giving up. Their behavior reminds me so much of my own mother, who exhibited similar entitlement and lack of personal responsibility.
What upsets me the most is that until high school, my child recognized that I was doing my best and wouldn’t give up on them like my own mother did. They knew I was the only family member left to raise them, and they knew I worked tirelessly to provide for them. However, once they entered high school and got their cell phone, it’s as if nothing I did was ever right, good enough, or appreciated. I’m exhausted, and my health is deteriorating day by day. I’m holding on just to ensure that my child grows up to be independent, but I’m starting to doubt if that will ever happen. I fear they’ll go through life depending on others and constantly blaming everyone around them for their lack of effort.
You sound just like my entitled-minded son. Nothing is ever his fault…blames family and his friends…says that we don’t communicate, when he would not listen to our advice for years. Now that he is 18 and soon to be on his way out because he doesn’t seem to want to do school and barely work…we are tired and it’s time for him to live by his own rules, since he doesn’t like ours but loves everything that we can provide him. Can’t have it both ways.
my mother kicked me out at 15.. i was raped that night and lived in a crackhouse with my father for 2 years.. then i rented rooms and sold drugs and then i was hooked on heroin for 10 years… dont give her to the streets
some people get a job in McDonald’s or KFC and get into university, you can’t blame your mum, she did that definitely for a reason, if you be at least respectful, none of the parents will want ti kick kids out.
Your totally not at fault right?
Thank you for adding this to the article. I am sorry the article sucks because if the answer is to keep them home then what is the solution? Continue to have them walk all over you? Continue to have them doing drugs, no job and take advantage of your home? Who wrote this? Someone that doesn’t have kids?
Exactly i agree with you . The article makes no sense !!
Someone who has a heart and empathy. Doesn’t sound like you have either.
Completely agree that whoever wrote this either doesn’t have children or has never dealt with a defiant teenager. Because the author literally gave zero solutions.
I’m in perfect peace and agreement with that.
I’m a single Christian mom of two girls- 17 and 6. My 17 year old has threatened me with a knife, stolen from my friends homes and shoplifted. She’s been involved with the police and released, she’s been in and out of counseling and such and has ZERO interest in partying, drugs or alcohol.
She has an issue with laziness and entitlement- nothing more. If she wants it, she takes it without consideration. Too lazy to go to the store with her boyfriend for birth control? No problem- abortion is her answer……not because it’s convenient or that pregnancy is scary- oh no, she just doesn’t want stretch marks. This completely contradicts all she has been taught and raised.
My 17 year old piles up urine and fecal matter in the toilet all day while I work and I have to unclog her DAILY disasters. She even left her 6 year old sister after school for two hours (inconveniencing the school administrator who had to babysit while I was working in an area with no cell signal). Immediately, she complained that it’s not HER responsibility to help with siblings or chores- including cleaning up after herself.
She asks to borrow my brand new bowling shoes and I say no, but when I fall asleep after working 12 hours- she takes them, uses them and is too lazy to put them back so I won’t know.
Earlier this week, she decided it was alright for her boyfriend to sleep over (against household rules) and I woke to him cuddled up with her in the living room on my way out of the house to go to work.
I HAVE to kick her out because the Bible says “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord” and she is leaving a wicked example for her younger sister.
It is my DUTY as a mother and a Christian to TRUST God that His purpose for her will be completed, but that He is allowing me to remove her when she is old enough to be responsible for herself- as was I when I worked 2-3 jobs in my late teens and lived on my own.
I will not be persuaded by statistics. God’s purpose will be completed in her life, mine and her little sister. With the Love of Christ ruling and reigning in our hearts.
I already told my daughter I would take her to lunch once a week to check in with her. She will burn many bridges before she accepts responsibility, but repentance will not come by her destroying the spiritual, emotional, physical, mental or financial health of those she was privileged enough to trample on during the years I was legally responsible for her.
She is an adult and so was I and Christ NEVER abandoned me when I sought Him- neither will He her, but as long as she rejects Him, she rejects me. She is still welcome once a week for dinner and a movie and holidays. She isn’t being rejected, she’s being E-jected.
Jenny you are a strong woman. I admire your decision in handling your family situation and having the strong faith as you do in God. Thank you for sharing your story. I will pray for you and your daughters.
Praying does nothing, never in the history of the world has its ever.
Your crazy
Relgious people dont handle kds properly. Sit, watch and observe. it is true tie and again. by teaching people jesus died for sins you are not teaching responsibility or consequence.
Thats true. Dont ask them cause they will lie. Just watch their behavior. I’m 17 right now and I just got kicked out for speaking about how I was feeling. Im I so wrong as to wanting to confide in my dad and he says all thats happened in my fault. I already told him that I know how much of a mistake i was. I know. I see it on his face everyday. I guess he just didn’t want to help me emotionally or mentally. The only person I have now is my mom cause she went through this and even when she was gone from my life for awhile I welcomed her with open arms while my brothers and dad cursed her out. I love my mom more than anything. She is getting help. She sounds happier. And she still loves my brothers no matter What they say or do to her. Thats a real mother. She knows to stand her ground and knows not a harmful hand will correct me and my brothers. It just made us worse. Which is why we don’t tell our dad what happens in school or if I was almost raped. I couldn’t. I was molested by a boy that was three years older than me and my dad blamed me. Im wrong for filing a report on him? Foe doing the right thing? I guess so. I hate my life I hate every bad thing that happened. Sometimes when I feel weightless and my brain is telling me to overdose or cut. I do it. Cause its what I deserve. Its my punishment.
Hang in there, even if your dad is not getting you or wanting to hear it. There are people who will know what you’re going through and support you; and maybe one day you will be feeling stronger and comfortable with yourself despite the challenges with your parents. You might even end up being that support for someone else, you never know.
So horrible that you were almost raped. (If you did charge someone it’s up to you, since it’s your body and mind that were affected, not your father’s.) It sounds like he isn’t able to handle your experience/s. Maybe he doesn’t know what to do, so he shuts it down. There are lots of reasons parents let their kids down. I thought of some of them and what they do isn’t always personal, it’s their own stuff happening that’s badly managed.
This isn’t an excuse for your dad but you might recognise one of these:
– some parents don’t have good relationship skills because they didn’t have parents with good skills either; they never learnt emotional connection or problem solving, so they don’t have a clue what to do and keep carrying their own unhealed baggage.
– some struggle to see life from their child’s point of view; they are seeing you as a mini-adult and can’t realise why your perspective or actions are so different from their own. It takes time to mature and be skilled in life. They forget that kids are naturally immature and unwise at times, but kids will grow with an example to learn from. It’s a balance of limits, discipline with the understanding and empathy in communication.
– some parents are wounded and avoiding looking at what went wrong, especially if there’s a divorce they often have the pain of all that hanging over them. They avoid looking at their marriage failures by getting away from their kids. Their kids may remind them of their ex-spouse and they find it painful.
– some parents are self-centred, they focus on having ‘their own life’ with dating relationships or a new spouse to fill the gap of loss of their past spouse. But in getting joy for themselves, they can lose focus on their kids, they don’t think about the losses and stress their child has to suffer with new people coming and going in their home.
– some parents are not very present, or are tired or drained in interacting with us because they are doing too much. They know they don’t have all the best actions, words or answers, though they would like to but have got nothing left as childcare/raising can be exhausting, especially for a sole parent who is working to provide food, etc, for their kids. They may need to remember their self-care and having breaks from home and not just 24-7 parenting. To get energy to care and be okay for when their kids need them. Nobody is a robot, there’s no replacable batteries giving people endless energy…
– parents can’t be everything we want or give all we need; the same way as we can’t be everything they want either. No one is a god. So we have to find a kind of neutral place somewhere in the middle where you can all be imperfect in a family, but accept each other as different, yet still work towards some group standards, so being with each other so much is bearable!!
– some do not care about being a good parent if a parent at tll. Some are not interested and never will be. It’s hard to think of this from a ‘parent’. But not everyone wants to commit to the role, beyond biology they don’t or won’t identify themselves as a parent. It might never change. It’s sad but there are all kinds of people out there, but there are. As a child of this type of person don’t take it personally, it’s about their problems within not you, even if they SAY it’s personal to you. They’re lying to themselves because they are either damaged or evil.
Please don’t blame yourself for how your dad is. He might be doing all he knows how to do. I hope your mum is able to be a healthy support at least some of the time. Do you have any other family or adults you trust??
Hugs 🙂
Leave stupid religion out of it, you shouldn’t force children to believe in your unproven God, they have their own minds, they can believe it not.
But if the children are violent, destructive, don’t follow any “normal” rules/boundaries, police involved etc, then you might have to kick them out, call police every time, get the paperwork going for emancipation……..
Forgot to add, your Bible says you can own slaves, beat them etc, make your kid follow slave rules or else!
Your insane
I agree at the moment we have an out of control 13-year-old he fights with his family and all the punishments we give him he just laughs at us. He pulls peoples hair, he is driving everyone mad. My Mum is sick.
well as a 14 year old it is completely wrong to kick us put have u ever thought about what were going threw or are mental health we could be getting picked on or could have really bad depression or suicidal thoughts and could just need the love and support of are family or are parents the ones who are suppose to love us the most. Most of the time we act up cause were going threw shit and let ,e tell u as a kid who suffers from a brain disorders and extreme depression and anxiety the fact that u parents scream at us and put us down for not being perfect destroys your relationship with us.
and let me tell u something the first time my mom told me to get out when i was ten just shattered any feeling of love i thought she had for me i wanted nothing to do with her and tonight she told me to leave just screamed at me get out and u know what i might just not come home tomorrow well see but after tonight i can never look at my mom again its going to take a long time to repair my relationship with her it may never be fixed, so i am warning u once u kick your kid out that door just abandon them u ruin any chance of getting them back they will feel so broken and unloved that they probably never be truly happy again if u still want to kick them out go ahead but its on u
do you do drugs? do you listen to your parents? do you appreciate you parents hardwork? what was the reason of your mum kicking you out of home? do you respect your mum and the rules at home or not? It’s not about beeing perfect. no matter how anxious you are if you show respect to your home and your parents they wont kick you out. your parents love you but they have to kick you out because of your own actions. dont you blame your parents for your bad behaviour.
Well said.
I got empathy towards these poor kids but they can’t be blaming their problems on others when they r causing all the chaos.
My mother kicked me out at 18 when I finished High School. She has narcissistic personality disorder, very high on the spectrum. I hate her to this day. I wish she would hurry up and die. I took care of my grandma and young niece and did not deserve that treatment. She sent me to my sister’s who threw all my dresser drawers with clothes in ’em down a long flight of 2nd story stairs. Never a phone call, check in or anything from “mom”. I left to sisters old boyfriend who was a friend. He was an alcoholic. I spent next 7 yrs. practically on the street, forced to live with alcoholic. Had a baby and had to go on welfare. Do to narcissistic abuse from family members I couldn’t hold a job. I would cry and feel so unstable. Couldn’t get any stable footing. At 59 years I am at poverty level by USA standards. Never a complete college education, so other americans look down on me and treat me like crap. f them. I have complex ptsd due to all family abuse. She talks about her vacation trips. She is a failure as a mother. I believe God is going to even up the score with both my “parents”. Both selfish failures who care about their money and credit cards more than their 4 emotionally neglected kids.
I was pretty much in the same position after high school, but she kicked me out several times as a teen. Even changed the locks on me when I was 17. Ended up in another state lived off of student loans and did drugs to distract from the pain and confusion from a childhood with such emotionally violent parents. I’m 34 and literally realizing now that my continued attempts to have a relationship with my mom are due to a trauma bond, not a “connection”. She loves that I still deal with her Main Character Syndrome even though she abused me as a child. She’s insufferable. I am in weekly therapy trying to dig her out of my brain, and struggling to get a college degree. Have a baby with and rely completely on a man. Moving forward has always been so hard for me because I truly believe my mental development was negatively affected by being treated as an “expense” starting from a young age.
I was thinking the exact same thing when I read this. It sounded pretty guilt ridden and woke to me. I agree, certain boundaries being crossed is very enabling and will also hurt them. What are the stats on parents doing nothing ending up divorced or having a child live at home their entire lives. Sink or swim. At some point their bad choices are no longer our issue.
I totally agree with you
Oops “ultimatum ” not “altamatum “
I need to have a out of control 17years old taking out of my house
My son has been arrested 19 times and he just turned 17. Won’t go to school, won’t follow rules and when I ground him he goes behind my back. I have other kids in the house and they are seeing the issues. Soon I worry I might be going through this again. I need help. Work is impossible because my home and family are a mess. I fear the worst every time he walks out the door. Everyday is a fight just to want to come home. Counseling, doctor visits, and many trips to the police station and courthouse have not helped. I’m at a loss! He wants to move out but I don’t want him to think I gave up on him. Plus I fear being in trouble for him leaving. He does want he wants and could care less what anyone says.
My situation is very similar. I see you posted this last year. What was your resolution? I need help now!
That’s when I say kick them out
I have a 17 year-old daughter who is rebellious. She comes and goes as she pleases and is sometimes gone for days at a time without answering her phone. I raise her mostly on my own as a single mother and receive some help from friends and family when I reach out, which is no was feat. Everyone has their own lives and their own problems. This is a difficult time in our lives. My concerns lie in the realm of her justifying her behavior to the point where I actually understand where she is coming from. It is because I understand that I find it hard to set clear boundaries. Too much empathy makes for weak parenting skills. You’ve got to set clear rules verbally to start, and remain consistent. This is not easy however it is the best advice I’ve gotten and am trying out.
My 16 year old was using cocaine. Coming down she was violent and I had to remove myself and the younger children from my home, for safety. She went to detox and came out to repeat the behaviors. It has been a two year battle and I can not legally force her to do anything.
So I gave her the choice. Come home from your drug dealers house to talk to me, or I change the locks. She chose to stay there. There comes a point where teens need to realize that they are not entitled. I have a right to be safe in my home, and a responsibility to keep my other children safe.
Ultimately, everyone has free will. If there is a blatant disregard for family and authority, why enable it? I gave her the choice and she didn’t come home. Now, to come home she has expectations to carry through on. She isn’t willing, and that is her choice, but there is no way that choice will come at the expense of my household.
Good for you this article Seems so easy, I need to see numbers stats to back it each direction those that got kicked out those that gave up their life to deal with one child while others suffer I told my daughter clearly I will sacrifice her to save the other four, why should 80% of our time be focused on her daily I personally think this article is bunk.
I agree with you….let me guess written by a person that has not parented a problem teen.
Agreed. BS article. It’s insane to let one person ruin the rest of the family out of fear that they won’t feel supported and loved. They’re all about themselves and think that they’re not supported/loved to begin with!!!!!
I completely agree the victim train has to stop it’s destroying our kids.
You are so right. Its sad.
My daughter that was a teenage parent twice before the age of 17 has kicked her daughter age 16 out because she is pregnant ! She has cussed and said awlfulll things to me and her best friend for comforting her daughter . I am so sad over her actions , when all I have done since she had kids is help her raise . I am done helping my daughter she really has shown her seldfishness
Our daughter is 19. She skipped more classes her Señor year than she went to. Yet, we found her a scholarship at a small college to play Lacross. Two weeks before she was supposed to leave, she told everyone she was not going to college because it was not for her. Instead..she was out smoking pot, drinking, and we found out later .doing cocaine.
She went from living at her mom’s house, to moving in with her uncle, then back to her mom’s house, then to her Grandparents, then another uncle. After she was kicked out of her Uncles house she ended up going into rehab. She came back from rehab a “changed person” and moved back into her mom’s house. Everything was great for at least 30 days. We had her enrolled in a local community college, found her a part time job, and had her attending her IOP meetings on a regular basis.
Now three months from that time she is back on drugs, lying to us about working, having her friends lie to us about what she is doing (including devising a schedule telling us where she is at..when she is actually with them smoking pot.). She has pawned stuff from the house, and posted things on Craig’s list to sell. I know people want to tell you that “I would never let my kid do that to me,” but until you are in that situation, you have no idea how to handle it. We decided we just can not live with this anymore, and decided to change the locks on the door. Her response? To call the cops on us to say we were not letting her get her stuff the day after she never came to pick up her things when she was supposed to. This is definitely nothing that we took lightly, and did everything that we could to help her out, but sometimes the best thing to do is let them find a way. I am sure things will get worse in the beginning, but that is the only way for them to get better.
Thank you for sharing the truth about some of the impossible situations families have to react to.
I agree with almost everything the author writes. But, there comes a time when every other person in the house is in imminent danger. My 17 yr old started dealing drugs after 3+ years of us getting him inpatient, outpatient, residential treatment, family therapy, marriage therapy, etc. for treatment of his substance abuse. We are not wacko parents – we raised him right, taught him right from wrong, disciplined him and loved him. We watched him get indoctrinated into the National Junior Honor Society, and then completely reject his family and our values/rules. Now, we have meth dealers and addicts coming around our home and neighborhood and none of us are safe from our son when he is tweaking and when he brings dealers and clients to our ally. Tell me Professor’s House – you would not take action to have this person removed from your home?
Exactly well said
I was reaching out to the Internet for answers and came across this site. I have a 16 soon to be 17 year old son whom I love dearly. He is the youngest of three and his sister 19 and brother 23 are doing exceptionally well although there were rough times. He went through a nasty divorce with me and his mom a few years ago it should have been simple and ended quickly but she dug in and it turned into a custody battle over my son which I won. Everything was fine up until the first of this year when he got a new girlfriend. This child has carried a 3.5 out of 4.0 GPA up to that point and is one project away from being and Eagle Scout. This girlfriend is a complete loser, has no dignity or self esteem. Now all they do is come in and have sex and smoke pot. He missed over 30 days of school this last semester and came up with a 2.25 GPA now his overall has dropped to barley 3.0. I am getting calls from parents saying they found pot on their kid and when asked where they bought it they say my son and his girlfriend. I had a talk with him as we have a good relationship and he said he would stop but it is getting worse. I smell it in the house, in my car, everywhere. I tried to explain life to him and he just gives me a doe in the headlights look and goes on as usual. I am going to have to get hard with him but also if it continues and gets worse I am considering the ultimatum of comply or find a new place to live. I hope he matures soon and it does not get worse.
Not sure where you live but I posted about my daughter middle of last year and have her now placed in a therapeutic group home through brooklane Mental Health Services it sucks that I have to pay child support to the state of Maryland but if it helps my daughter become a productive member of society it’s worth it.
You can’t do it alone you have to get County and state resources to help you even if it means calling the law taking them to emergency rooms or whatever
I noticed Brooklane mentioned. That was a joke in my daughters “cry for help” that was quickly changed to Borderline Personality and defiant disorder. The next step which didn’t put me in debt and actually helped was Hoffman Homes out of Gettysburg.
Enough…My 15 year old son has always been a problem. At age 2 he started acting up. Pushing and biting other children on the playground. Never had any respect for authority, parents, teachers, principle, etc… Since kindergarten he has been in trouble in school everyday. Everyday, mulitple times a day I would receive phone calls from the teachers and principle, child study team, other parents, etc… We raised our child in the right way. Loving, caring and supporting house hold. Always encouraging him to be the best that he can be. Telling him at the start of each day that today is a new day. Let’s leave what happened yesterday in the past. Started high school last year and was placed in a behavior program at a local high school. One month in he was kicked out for repeatedly being disrespectful to staff, students and refusing to do the work. Was home schooled for 6 weeks then sent to an alternative school. One month in he was arrested at school for drug possession blaming a fellow student for passing him the drugs which he kept in his pocket instead of turning them in or throwing them away. School gave him second chance and allowed him to come back only to get kicked out for repeatedly being disrespectful the staff, students and refusing to do the work. Was sent to another alternative school where he did not attend regularly. found with me every morning and threw tantrums and broke things in the house and punched holes in walls refusing to go to school because he was too tired. Climbs out windows in the middle of the night while everyone is sleeping, stays out all night and sometimes doesn’t come home. He is on probation and has to report to a probation officer weekly. Mandated by court to attend and successfully complete a drug and alcohol counseling program before he can be successfully released from probation. Has been unsuccessfully discharged from two programs for repeatedly testing positive for marijuana. Now in a third program if he does not successfully complete this program judge will mandate juvenile detention or in house treatment facility. All the years we have been seeing therapists for his diagnosis of ADHD/ODD/Mood disorder. No one can help us. He is getting worse and worse by the day. Everyday, there is a cop or a parent or an older teen at our door looking for him. Always in trouble. Selling pot, stealing from our home, hocking our jewelry stealing cash from his parents and brother and from guests in our home and from our friends homes. Today like every other day he called me (his mother) a fucking retard one too many times. Tonight I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw him out of the house. I have had enough and really don’t care what happens to him.
I have a 14 year old who was diagnosed with ADHD/ODD/IED when he was around 5. Since he was little he’s had no respect for authority, argues with everyone, blames someone else when it’s his fault. He gets in trouble at school for disrespecting authority. He got 2 days suspension in the 3rd grade. Last year he had 250 conduct points 1/2 way through the school year. They gave him 2 days OSS & 2 Saturday detentions. He got a referral in OSS. I’m a single mom & he’s had no father figure. Half of my family never wanted anything to do with us or be around us because of his behavior. It’s only gotten worse since he’s a teen. He won’t help around the house & just makes messes & expects me to clean them up. Not to mention talks back & is disrespectful. We’ve been in & out of therapy since he was 5. Nothing has helped. It’s only gotten worse. I’ve taken everything but the basketball hoop out front away from him but he doesn’t care.
He now calls his grandparents & makes them think I am being cruel for taking his things & not buying him the food he wants from the grocery store. They come over & bring him food or ask me if they can come take him out to eat like I’m starving him. They tell me I’m administering cruel & unusual punishment for benching him from playing in his basketball games & making him feel like a prisoner in his room when I ground him. He doesn’t listen to me anymore if I say he’s grounded. He says “no I’m not” & goes outside to play basketball or goes to a friend’s house. He says he’s not grounded because the reason I’m grounding him is stupid. When I take something away he gets mad at me & starts trashing my house, goes around & turns all the lights on in the house to make the electric bill go up, bangs on my door or makes noise in the house when I’m trying to sleep at night just to annoy me. I just want him out of my house but he has no where else to go. I told his grandfather to take him if he’s going to stick up for him but he doesn’t want to have to deal with him. How does he think I feel having to live with this every day? It’s horrible to feel so out of control. To let a child rule your life. The therapist says kick him out. I’ve looked into that but its child abandonment. I’ve looked into places to send him but it cost money that I don’t have. I feel so helpless & rather than have the support of my family they are on his side & say I’m a horrible mother.
Dear Shelley, reading your story is mine today with my 12 year old. I’ve told all the professionals that I fear for my life and I’m at the point of turning my son over to All Church Home here in Fort Worth Tx. because I don’t feel that I’m what my son needs to be able to thrive in life. He has completely torn up my whole house and I’m not able to keep living with such domestic violence. I know you posted this in 2016 so I’m wondering has things gotten any better and if they have or haven’t please tell me what you did and are doing now?
anonymous – I can totally relate! My son has been diagnosed with ADHA/ODD and Depression. We have been dealing with him since the 9th grade, which he failed 2 of the 6 classes. Failed both of his STAAR test. I heard him telling his friends he slept and the last 15 minutes just filled in answers. I think the other teachers just gave him 70’s so he could pass but he didn’t earn them. Mind you – up through the 8th grade he received above average = Advanced on ALL STAR state test he had taken. So, I know he failed on purpose. Went to summer school and failed. We found out he was smoking marijuana with his friend in the woods. They would tell us they were going in the woods to make ramps and jump with their BMX bikes. We were happy it seemed he had a hobby and every once in a while we would go in the woods and check on them. Didn’t seem anything was going on but what they said they were doing. My son was very active in baseball and was even on a year round select team which we traveled state to state for him. He is a left handed pitcher and his dream was to become a MLB player. Which we believed in his dream and did what we could to help him live it. He was caught in school with dip(chewing tobacco) the first part of the school year in 2014. So, I cleaned his entire room out, (from his name brand clothes, his colored socks to all his baseball, karate, swim trophies and others) and just left him the basics, dresser, bed and some generic clothes with the school logo on it. He is my son who is into fashion and likes to have the name brand things. I really thought this would touch him and teach him a lesson and he would realize we are serious about drugs, any kind! He continued playing baseball and now was in the 9th grade and in the baseball period at school. October of 2014 he complained of his throwing elbow hurting when he threw. It tingled down to his fingers and then got to the point it hurt just to pick up a bag of groceries. Long story short – he ended up having Tommy John surgery on his elbow a week before Thanksgiving and that is when all hell broke loose! He couldn’t ride his bike in the woods anymore so we caught him smoking in the upstairs bathroom that him and his older brother share. We confronted him and he was like – so, what are you gonna do about it? My husband, his dad, travels out of town quite a bit for work and I am home with him and his older brother myself quite a bit. Because of this, I am a very stern parent! We have been very open and honest with our kids and they know we will not deal with drugs (it’s illegal) and alcohol until they are of legal age. So, finding out he was smoking was a huge shock to us. He started rebelling at home and would refuse to do anything! He wouldn’t do his classwork and was a disturbance in school, he refused to do any of his chores or clean up after himself. All he wanted to do is come home from school and eat and sleep. Would get up, eat and go back to sleep. We changed the wifi password so he didn’t have access to the outside world but there was nothing we could do about when he went to school and had wifi. I took his phone and turned his phone plan off so he couldn’t make calls or use our data plan. When he found out he became furious. He ended up getting another device from a friend and was using accessible wifi to contact for drugs. When he was asleep I was able to get his device and found instant messages on there about buying and or swapping drugs for drugs. He was accessing them at school. He was becoming more and more confrontational with me at home. He would go through stuff and try to find things he could sell. (can’t prove it but we think he took money from us) He refused to go to school and I tried to call the truancy officer to see what to do. My son kept saying he wanted his stuff back in his room, I wasn’t allowed to just take it. Of course I would explain he was wrong – all he had in his room was more than I was legally bound to provide. He would throw fits and punch holes in the walls in his room and in our upstairs hallway. He would get in my face to the point I was afraid he might do something to me. He would flip chairs, throw things and punch more holes in the walls. He threw our remote to the TV and it smashed into a 1000 pieces on the tile floor. He took a bat to our freezer outside and would take off for hours at a time with out permission. He is bigger than me now and there was no way I could stop him. I would threaten he would be grounded longer if he left and he would just be like – whatever! I would ask him to please think about what he is doing and to make the right decisions – that this behavior was not the way to get his privileges back including his phone. He would just leave. One December morning, on a Monday he refused to go to school again and he became VERY violent. Thank goodness his dad was home this time. He actually went for a gun and a knife and his dad was able to stop him. (yes we have a full big gun safe now) I called 911 and when police and ambulance arrived they heard some choice things from him and had no choice but to take him to the pediatric psychiatry ward at a local hospital. He was handcuffed and taken in the back of a police car as we followed. The pediatric psychiatrist on duty said she didn’t see anything wrong with him and he was released. I was at a loss for words! Everything we told her happened and the police told her – she released with no follow up or plan in place to help us??? Really?? That was Monday – by Thursday he was refusing to go to school once again and being very violent stating he wanted his stuff back. He took my phone and stated he wasn’t going to give it back until he got his back. So, of course we were trying to get my phone away from him. He ended up throwing it across the garage and him and his dad wrestled a little more. His dad was just trying to get him to calm down. He then came in the house and grabbed his dads phone and it all started again. I ended up with a very bruised hand and even thought my pinky might have been broke. (it wasn’t) People would ask me if I had gotten into a fight and I would lie and say my hand got stuck between my wall and frig when I was trying to pull it out to clean. That same Thursday we ended up telling him we found a new place four counseling and it was actually a rehab place for drugs. Of course when he found out he was being admitted and the exit doors were all locked he became verbally abusive. Called us terrible and the worst parents in history. Began to curse at us and I put a stop to that right away. I told him I didn’t care what frame of mind he was in he would not curse at me, I was still his mom and he would respect that! He quit cursing and just said how much he hated us and he was gonna just be worse when he got back home. He was there 12 days and released the Monday before Christmas. We even went to his friend he would go in the woods with and spoke to his parents and him and he denied they ever got high or did anything like it. DENIAL was the game with them. We had Christmas at our house that Monday and traveled to another state for our older sons baseball tournament after Christmas. We stayed with relatives for Christmas and everything seemed to be going great. He was on meds for his ADHD/ODD and depression. We THOUGHT all was going good until we learned Jaeden was smoking again and misbehaving in school. He had stayed the night at the same friends house and I just had suspicion something wasn’t right. Call it mothers intuition or whatever. I called the mother of the boy and began asking questions. She didn’t want to believe her son was involved but was willing to check a few things just to entertain my suspicion. I asked her to check his window sill in his room for footprints and to see if the screen had been removed. I thought I had heard them talking about sneaking out. His window was low to the ground on the first floor and faced the front porch. She didn’t believe they would sneak out and kinda laughed it off. After about an hour or so she called me back and she said she just couldn’t get it out of her mind so she called her husband who was home that day and asked him to check around the window and for the screen. When he did he found foot prints on the sill and on the porch and the screen was gone, which they found hidden in the garage. So, they started searching his room even more and found a good size bag of marijuana under his bed with a bowl to smash it up with. I don’t know the actual name for it. Also, found the pipe they used to smoke it as well. Needless to say it got ugly in there house after that. This was in April of 2015 – we decided he needed another trip to rehab. He refused to go to any or his medical appointments by this time and was again refusing to go to school. We actually even found a counselor that would come to the house because of this. I called the same hospital he was in the past December and they said they had a bed open and would hold it for him since he was a previous patient. We just had to get him there. This was the problem – he was too big for my husband or I to just pick up and put in the car or we were worried he might jump out. Again, the police were called, this time the non emergency line and they said they would send a unit out to help. Well, here comes an ambulance and police all with sirens on – great! Now, all our neighbors are outside wondering what is going on. After several hours of talking with the paramedics and police, one police officer finally got permission to take him to the door of the hospital so he couldn’t jump out. He was there this time for 8 days and released. Again, we thought all was going to be good but he just played the game to get out quicker. Long story short – everything and more happened again (involving the police several times again) and by October 2015 we were looking for a longer treatment place for him. He was 16 by this time and we wouldn’t allow him to get his license because of everything he was getting into. He admitted he didn’t want to stop smoking, he enjoyed it. We knew he was on the verge of failing his classes again. We contacted our insurance company and with the help of them and researching places ourselves found a place we agreed on and our insurance paid 100% of. He was there through that Christmas and New Years when the insurance cut him off. The Dr’s, his therapist and us all knew he was not ready to be released after just 3 months. He had made advances in the system to just fall back to a lower level again. We were not in a position to pay $500 a day for him to stay. He was released in January. All seemed to going well. Few little mishaps here and there by NOTHING like before. We always told him we didn’t expect him to be perfect but NO DRUGS what so ever. We found out he was doing Lean at school. A drug I had never heard of nor had my husband. More research to do. His friends were finding out and their parents wouldn’t allow them to hand with our son anymore. He was seeing a psychologist once a week then it became every 2 weeks. She ended up telling us not to come back because he told her his job was a drug dealer. What psychologist just up and fires their patients without referring you to someone else for help. I was so pissed off!!! More and worst things started happening and still are happening and we want to kick him out. My husband caught him and different boy on the back patio smoking a bowl when he thought we wouldn’t be home for a while. He is back to smoking and doing other drugs now and again being a disruption in his classes and not doing his work. Actually took the worksheet he was supposed to be doing and folded it into a paper airplane and flew it across the room. (he was on drugs too) The same day, just last week he went nuts and destroyed part of our house and attacked his dad several times. We knew he was on something the moment we saw him. Eyes were dilated, speech was slurred and movement was weird. I ended up calling the police again. Same officers that had been here before and were aware of all the trouble we had had in the past with him came out again. Nothing they could do because he was 16 unless we pressed charges. There was not a chance I could press charges. Why? Because we press charges and he gets a record with assault and battery and every time he goes for a job and doesn’t get it because of it – he will always blame us! It will be our fault the rest of his life. Yes, I know it is his fault but if you have kids, stop and think about what our relationship would be the rest of the time. Very cold if any at all. I want help for my child NOT to hurt him for the rest of his life! But, unless WE file charges or he does something illegal there is nothing they can do. They took evidence and our statements and going to put it in front of the DA but doubtful it will be taken as a case. Too many others that are bigger to deal with. So, in the middle of the night he ran away. He didn’t go to school Friday (last time he did this, he at least went to school) so we reported him as a runaway for the second time. The police again came to the house and took down the information and gave us a case #. But they don’t go out and look for them, it is by chance IF they run across them. We had a vague idea where he may have gone but he has friends that drive and didn’t know if any of them came to pick him up. He ended up coming back 6 days later asking to come home. Said he just didn’t want to get anyone in trouble for letting him stay with them. I wouldn’t let him in the house and told him to go to the back patio – we had lots to discuss first. He wouldn’t apologize to me or his dad for what he had done the previous week and basically blamed it on us. I told him he would NOT have a phone and he was not allowed on social media at all. He was going to do a lot more chores around the house to work off what he had broke during his fit of rage! 55″ TV, xbox, vases, picture frames, holes in walls, threw a bar stool at a window, window didn’t break but wood blinds did and other decorative stuff when he swiped tables clean and it all smashed on the floor. He was grounded and he would NOT be able to sleep all day and had to go to school and keep up his homework. He agreed to it all if he got him back in the house. Plus he only took a duffel bag of items when he left. So, the next day when he came home from school I made a list of chores for him to get started on, after his homework was complete. He started with vacuuming the upstairs and was supposed to precede with vacuuming the baseboards as well. He claimed his stomach was hurting and layed in the hallway and fell asleep. I tried getting him up several times to finish is chore. He said – no he didn’t feel good. I made him take a shower and go to bed. The next day he came home from school and started his homework. When he was done he disappeared up stairs. I called out to him and told him to finish his chore and when he was done I had another. He replied “No!” I asked what did you say. He said – I’m not doing anymore, you are treating me like your slave. I told him NO I am not, you are working off everything you destroyed – the TV was about $1000 so you got a lot more to do. He again said – NO, he was not going to do it. His dad tried talking with him and telling him to do it and he refused telling him flat out NO!! I am so tired of him and just want him out of the house and go live the life he thinks he will have somewhere else. He doesn’t have a license, which he was going to go next week and get, but not after all of this now. He has money we have been saving since he was a baby for a car and now he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t have a job! So, what makes him think he will have a better life somewhere else? We just want him to go but don’t want him to get in trouble and us have to suffer the consequences since he is still 16, turns 17 in a month but not 18 for another year. Everything I read protects him until he’s 18! What about the parents that have tried everything to help him take the right path and he refuses! Down right refuses! Won’t do chores and again won’t clean up after himself? I am NOT his maid! What rights do we have as parents of an abusive, druggy, disrespectful, bigger than us male? I haven’t even told everything he has done and it still this long! He can’t emancipate himself – he doesn’t have a license or a job or even money!! I have researched for hours trying to come up with something!! My husband has spoke with a family lawyer and we are going to speak with him to see what our options are. As far as I’m concerned – let him go see if he can have it better somewhere else! I know he won’t and he will probably end up in jail! I hate to be like this about my son, I love him like no other but enough is enough!!
This could have easily been written by me. The only difference is his dad did drugs and was abusive and my son blames me for ruining his life.
I have not always dealt with my son well especially when he was little and would get in trouble. At the same time as my son was getting in trouble I was dealing with an addict husband running us in the poor house and physically hurting me. I often lost my temper with my sons issues. He took a knife to school in 4th grade, called his kindergarten teacher a b**ch, bit children in preschool, and would never follow the rules. My son has been through the juvenile justice system 3 times. He has been held back for refusing to take placement tests. Since he was little I have been constantly getting calls from schools ultimately I have had to switch his schools yearly. He has been at his current school 3 years which is the longest he ever attended any school. He is still getting suspended and failing his classes. They are done with him and want him gone.
I kicked his dad out last year. After that my son started acting out worse and finally started hitting me too. I have called the cops but they don’t do anything, same as when I would call on my husband. I let my husband come back a few times because my son was so out of control. Then I was getting it from both. My husband would cover for my son and they would gang up on me and tell me how I am to blame for their lives. I asked my husband to leave again.
Yesterday my son hit me twice while I was driving. He dropped food in the car and got really angry and snapped his arm violently when he picked it up. I asked him to not be aggressive around me. Than the verbal assault started. He called me stupid and every other name in the book telling me I was crazy and he didn’t do anything. We were on our way to the mall and I told him if he didn’t stop we would just go home. He told me if we didn’t go to the mall he would kill me. I told him he wouldn’t threaten me and we were going home. He started grabbing the steering wheel and shaking me. I took him to his dads. On the way I said awful things to him. I told him I wish he wasn’t born and he was dead to me. I feel terribly guilty but I just needed it to end.
I am worried he won’t finish school. His dad lives far away from his Charter school. He will definitely lose his spot at the school because his dad has no car and also has no job, so he can’t take him. His dad is so messed up on drugs I highly doubt he’ll enroll my son in the terrible high school where he lives. This is my only child but I feel like I have been living in a war zone since my son was 2.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like my whole life has been as a punching bag for abusers. I am torn on if I did this to my child or was he going to end up this way anyway. I did the best I could while dealing with abuse and addiction.
You need to know that many would end up like this anyway. My son was interesting and fun to be around when he was young and into learning. But at 17, he has turned into his dad. It’s almost as if puberty put them in this permanent state of undeveloped frontal lobes. And I don’t think it’s all about the drugs (they were both taking drugs).
I was a non-spanking mom (hitting creates hitters and hitees). I didn’t abuse or neglect him. I exposed him to all kinds of physical activities and creative hobbies. The dad left at age 6 and we just stayed busy, had counseling (ineffective when the kid won’t engage), and statyed positive. This kid became difficult approaching puberty. Nothing was ever enough. Even if I were wealthy, I don’t believe in ‘giving my kids everything I never had’ because it does them no favors. If you never say no, they will never learn to cope with a ‘no’. I believe a parent’s main job is to teach independence (not picking up behind them and having them earn money) and to give them emotional support (no matter if they belong to the opposing political party, a crazy religion, or their career choice). I want them to find their happiness internally and treat others right. Nothing I want for my kids have to do with materialism or arrogance.
So yeah, no matter what you do to help kids turn into adults, many of them resist that. They want to be treated as adults, but don’t want the responsibility part of it. And these leads back to the frontal lobes. I also suspect a lack of dopamine is a problem for many, especially if drugs come into it. If I could see into the future and see how social media affected kids (being liked, having followers, and this delusional pursuit of fame and admiration), I may have had my tubes tied at 20 and not wasted my time, lol. But seriously, as much as I love my son, I do not know him anymore. Despite me knowing that frontal lobes are a big part of these kids’ issues, it doesn’t change my desire to protect what little credit and belongings I have.
When the addicts are both father and son, it is like you’re surrounded by abusive men. And that truly takes its toll. I do all I can not to let it warp me into being wary of all males. When your country won’t protect you in your own home from them, it breaks you down, bit by bit. I’ve decided to tell my son I love him once a day (even when what I feel is pure heartbreak and rage), but I won’t say much other than that when he becomes intolerable. To heal my own self, I go to the lake with my other son. That way, I’m not interacting with the faultless one (lol) and I’m getting recharged in nature. I couldn’t do things without animals and nature (yoga, art, reading…all hard to enjoy around chaos but necessary). I’m lucky (or unlucky depending on your view) to not have many things worth stealing. I don’t wear jewelry and I don’t have a lot of tech. My son works, goes to college. So it’s like he believes he can have a foot in both worlds, being both Bill Gates and Scarface at once. We will see.
UK folk are lucky. They can boot theirs at 17. I told my son to save a certain amount of money per month since he doesn’t feel there’s anything wrong with dealing and using. I can’t get an eviction notice after he turns 18. If he changes by then, we can renegotiate. But I’m truly hoping a study is done on inherited addiction/genetics/frontal lobes to find out how to fix the brain. I say this because his father is near 50 and will spend 3 years in prison, get out and do the same dumb thing that had gotten him in there. He was a shaken baby (frontal lobes, again) and does not seem to learn from punishment or pain. The son is following the same pattern.
I’m also sick of big pharma and the ADD game. Esp when teens play up the symptoms and get the drugs just to get high. It’s like having a tweaker in the house, and I don’t see how it goes unsaid in the media what it’s really like to deal with these legal pushers. He will be off the meds if he doesn’t take them properly.
So decide how take care of yourself and have a plan of action of what to do during your countdown time. Meditate and visualize what you’re going to do with the next phase of your life (forget the empty nest crap, don’t tie your existence into your children). Do your best. Tell them you love them, no matter how you feel. Tell them to prepare for 18. Stop allowing guilt to enter. Learn how to have fun again, even if you have to force yourself. Play frisbee. Take an archery or craft class. Learn to make candy. Hunt for treasure. It seems ridiculous while you’re in crisis, I know, but it pulls you up out of your home (sanctuary turned dungeon) and gives you an aerial view for a while. And you get to breathe a while without them around. Sometimes this is when new ideas come to try on the kid or yourself. We have no help in the US. We are on our own. So we all have to custom design our own survival plans. If guns or knives or giving drugs to siblings comes into play, you can’t feel bad about calling the cops and giving them a criminal record. Because, in reality, they gave it to themselves.
Peace to all of you. I remember when I had FOUR years to countdown (my son’s troubles began when he went from home and charter schools to public – he became a dumbed down clone in many ways). Now I have less than a year to freedom. Funny that I thought I was free when their dad left. But all I got was a break before the son picked up where dad left off, destroying my finances and trust. I am glad I’ve never bought a home to anchor me here. I won’t stay here and watch these slow suicides. I will make myself available for emotional support, but no kind of enabling. I will always hope that his lobes are working well by his mid 20s and that he will have awakened to his actions. But when your kid doesn’t wake up, you have to make peace with it and go on with life. I’ve already known the loss of a baby, and you can either let depression take you (literally or figuratively) or you can rise up and rebuild your life into something better than before. I may sound optimistic, but I’m not. I’m realistic, with an ounce of hope. I feel despair at some point most days of the week. It seems neverending. And the home stretch is always the worst. You see your freedom, yet you’re still down in it. Each day is about battling that urge to not come out of my room (my bed, even), battling depressed thoughts, focusing (hard under stress) on my studies (community college is a great, free distraction), navigating a non-existent social life (even if you’re more of a loner, you should try to make a friend or two who understands, preferably in real life), battling the government when they get involved (sending your car to impound, tickets that arrived in your name), and whatever other misery the lobe-challenged individual brings into your world. It’s an out of control situation so the stress is high. The best way to regain control is to have your plan for reacting to the kid’s behavior and a plan for blowing off steam when you get a break from the kid. My plan includes the kid knowing that the impound was a one time thing. If it goes again, it either stays there or (if I can afford it), I will get the car out and store it for myself. I don’t pay my son’s cell phone bills. Nor his gas. If he wants his car to ‘go’, he has to have a job. I can’t imagine him not working, but money/materialism/shopping is one of his vices. I don’t have to lecture that I don’t have the money to pay for his fun. It wouldn’t happen if I were rich either. I hope the best for all of us. We’re screaming so loud to get our country to take addiction and mental illness seriously. For now, we have each other…which will probably go a lot further than the government’s idea of loving care (prison and more prison). Peace.
Sounds like my son. I am on the verge of throwing him out but am torn. I am seeking advice from police and the like atm. How did it all end up?
Your story is so similar to mine. This wknd was the last straw. I didn’t let him back in the house after he was sighted by police for running away. To get high and drink himself stupid. AVO’s curfews by police , you name and I’ve tried it.
He spat at me in the station. I had no choice but to let him go. Can’t deal with the abuse anymore. My heart goes out you ♥️
It sounds like your son has a personality disorder—most likely antisocial. Unfortunately there is not s lot that can be done for people like him. They just have no insight into their behavior. It’s horrible to say and to know that it is your own child, but maybe it would help to know it’s not because you didn’t put him in the right school or whatever.
It’s been a couple of years since you posted. Any updates? My son is almost 16 and is the exact same way. I’m so done with him.
My son’s daughter is 20 years old, has two children and is trashing his newly bought home. She is threatening everyone who lives there. Is there someone or organization we can call to get help. The police will not do anything and I am afraid this may lead to someone getting seriously hurt or worse. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.
We have a 17 year old soon to be 18 year old. Since grade 10, it has been hell, chasing pot smokers and drug deals off of our property. He has 6 credits left to get for high school. He missed more than 50% of his year. Brought drugs home and was advertising on his Instagram account that he was selling right out of our home. We confronted him and he ran with a car. Gone 2 weeks begged to come home. Home 2 days found pot a huge bag. We called the police. Arrested they found Coke on him. He has been hone on and off when he acts out he runs. He has been hone 5 weeks, taken cars without permission, had his GF overnight without permission, took my car brought it back smelling of pot and found pot in his room. We said zero tolerance to drugs in our home. You think he would get it. We are drawing up yet another family contract. His new line is that we can’t make him leave. This new contract will outline that his refusal to comply with the rules is a clear indication that he does not want to reside under our roof my our rules. He will F$&@ up again in less than 5 days. We are prepared to cut him loose. I agree this article is bunk. He need to find bottom and he is not dragging us with him. Don’t need to change the locks again because this time we didn’t give him a key.
To the Author:
You offered little to no solutions. Basically, you just said sympathy is supposed to override all else? We’re supposed to sit here and let them destroy our lives? Get the car impounded, pay for all the random fines/tickets, let them destroy the house, verbally abuse and threaten us, sell drugs (probably storing drugs here) so that our homes can be taken under America’s insane civil asset forfeiture/robbery laws? We’re supposed to lose everything, including our mental health for the one kid who doesn’t give two sh!ts about anyone but himself?
Like I said, you gave no real solutions for the kids who are an ACTUAL problem (by actual I don’t mean a gay or pregnant kid – I mean ones who risk your safety and the credit you’ve built over decades and don’t care what harm they bring to your home). Guess I still have to keep looking. In the US, we can’t make them leave until they’re 18. That’s ridiculous because this country also makes a financial killing out of charging 17 year olds as adults in the courts so they can collect those ‘adult’ fines. Hypocrites.
I got kicked out because I’m left a window open
That seems rather harsh
That sounds like a lie.
Sure does sound like a lie, the window was the final straw. Tell the rest of the story Chris.
I got kicked out of the home because I often broke curfew, skipped school, and got pregnant when I was 14 & 16, that’s how I discovered unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy, and many other factors play a part in determining if someone truly loves you. My mom was abusive in every way throughout my 13 year stay with her, and she was totally unstable. We found ourselves homeless on MANY occasions, riding city buses & trains all night till the daylight as a means to have a place to be & sleep. My siblings and I would have to wash up in train station bathrooms and change clothes there so we can make it to school on time. I would pray throughout the school day that she could find us some shelter placement because no family would let us spend nights at their home because of her. My younger brother and I frequently ran away to my grandmother & aunt’s house (they lived together) late at night when we could escape, only to have her call the police who just returned us to our abusive, unstable mother who always had a severe beating waiting for us when we returned to privacy. After asking question later on in life, my grandmother, aunt, and other family members proclaimed that they knew not what we were going through as far as the maltreatment goes. I found that very hard to believe after looking at older photos shown to me of me & my siblings. I and others (non-family members) who viewed these photos with me clearly pointed out malnutrition, lack of grooming, bruises & scars. Even more, I had a many of black eyes in different photos, and my frail siblings and I are rarely ever smiling in any of them. Back to the story, because my mother was sent to jail for arson (burning down our apartment building), my grandmother & aunt were asked to become temporary guardians of us to prevent us from becoming state wards and being possibly split up. Both obliged, and my aunt agreed to become the primary caretaker & decision maker for us. My aunt took so-called parenting classes offered and paid for by the state to complete state requirements for being a foster parent. My siblings and I resided in a shelter with her until my mother’s guilty verdict was handed down, and from there the state assisted both my aunt & grandmother in the purchase of a home for us in a aesthetically pleasing neighborhood full of high racism. We moved in with them at this point, and I discovered through my exploration of the community that there were few families in the community who looked like us, and they definitely didn’t have the family composition we had; most were 2 parent, well to do households inclusive of pets! By this point I was a relieved 13yr. old who was relieved that my brothers had a stable place to live, but I had particularly lost any INKLING that my grandmother and aunt truly loved me being that every time my younger brother and I ran away, her actions placed up back in the hands of abuse. By this time, i really hungered and craved love. I wanted to experience it, I wanted to be hugged, kissed, told and shown I was loved; I saw this in exhibited by parents in the households of the 2 friends I had. I wanted a mother and father to ( I never knew my father), a happy home. Both my aunt & grandmother worked, so they barely had time for us. As long as we followed the house rules (curfew, go to school, stay out of trouble) everything was cool. There were know hugs or kisses involved, barely conversation. My aunt asked if I was sexually active, I said no & that was that. I was already in my first year of H.S, and had already missed almost half the year (my grandma & aunt gained custody of me & my siblings about this time), and I was already engaged in my first sexual encounter & relationship (so I thought) with a guy who went to my H.S. who was a senior, and I thought he REALLY LOVED ME! Long story short, I had no idea sex could lead to pregnancy, and I got pregnant. I told a friend, and her mom suggested I go to the planned parenthood clinic to seek help. So, I skipped school and there is where I found I was pregnant, and the Dr. explained to me how pregnancy occurs. I told my boyfriend, but he didn’t care, and avoided me the entire rest of the day. I returned home but never said a word to anyone in the house, but one day my grandmother saw me eating several servings of pickles. She said, “pregnant people eat pickles,” my aunt then said we were going to the Dr. the next day. I never said a word, I was afraid, ashamed, embarrassed, and really just wanted to kill myself. After the appt. & our return home, she asked what I wanted to do. I told my aunt, “whatever you think I should do.” She suggested abortion because I was now only 14yrs. old and didn’t need a baby. So I said ok because I just wanted the shame & embarrassment to go away. Afterwards, my aunt started me on birth control, i transferred into the neighborhood H.S and put forth my best effort in attaining A’s & B’s. I joined the girl’s basketball team, made a new friend, and began participating in teenage life. However, my family never came to my games, and my grades didn’t seem to mean much to my aunt. I began not to care & got this idea that I would create my own family. I decided I would have a baby, that way I could have something to love who will love me back. At 16, I got pregnant again intentionally and still never said anything until my grandmother noticed my weight gain. Again my aunt asked if I was pregnant, I lied and said no. Truth was revealed via a Dr’s appt, and upon returning home I was given an ultimatum. My aunt asked me what was I going to do, I sat in silence. My grandma said from her bedroom, “I ain’t taking care of no babies cause I raised all my kids!” My aunt then told me if I keep the baby I would have to get out, If I have the abortion I could stay. I immediately said that I was keeping my baby, my aunt then said she would call the caseworker so he could remove me from the home. My caseworker came by the house 2 days later and offered various social services that would remove strain from my aunt and grandma in regards to the baby. My aunt rejected, and told him I must leave because she has my brothers to care for. 1 week later I found an after-school job at a national grocery chain, and I went to school in the day and worked in the evenings. 3 mos. later my worker found a temporary holding spot in the main state home for state wards. He promised he would continue to look for me a home for pregnant teens & take me there after I was processed at the main facility. 2 weeks later I was sent to a catholic adult/teen temporary home for pregnant women. This place was for the homeless, and for those whose parents hid them there until they had there babies & placed them for adoption; these teens then returned home afterwards. My family came to visit once out of the 5 mos. I was there. From there I went to a teen parent facility in hopes of getting into transitional living and then onto independent living. I am now 19, my son is 2, i’m in independent living, in college, and my beautiful son is well taken care of; I kiss & hug him all the time. While I still crave a mother’s love, family love, I do LOVE my beautiful son! I’ve visited my family two times, but they make me feel like an embarrassment. There really is no connection, barely conversation, but I just smile & pretend I’m not angry with them until I can fully process everything. I know I have a role in this because I got pregnant 2x’s, broke curfew many times, and this had to cause my aunt stress & worry (especially since she didn’t have children of her own). I sincerely apologized to both my aunt & grandma for my choices, but I’m too fearful to let them know how much I’m angry with them because I feel they never tried to find out my backstory, what I’d been through, or the mental, physical, emotional, & spiritual trauma my mother subjected me to for 13yrs.!!! This abuse has damaged me in many ways, but they’re the type of people I CAN’T TALK to about ANY OF THIS! They feel if you talk about the past, or harbor anger then you’re being negative. They take a stance similar to the “Get Over It, Don’t Talk About It.” Yet, the brightest part of my visits in their home is seeing my brothers who are now 14 and 9. What should I do? Why do I crave their acceptance & love? I’m not in counseling at all.
Is it time to kick him out. My 19 year old has been dealing with anxiety, depression, anger, and thoughts of suicide. Over the past 8 months we have given 1/2 dozen chances to stay living at home. All he has to do is follow house rules, no drinking of alcohol, no drugs and treat everyone with respect. In the past he has verbally and physically abused. Especially his father who he punched him in the forehead and opened him up for 14 stitches. His father has forgiven him, but can not trust him. Last fall he went to school for heavy equipment and AZ training. He has all his tickets, but totally regrets it as he is working 50 hrs a week doing physical labour. He know has a problem with alcohol abuse etc. My sons whole phylosify on life is you go school to better your chances for a job, to only be in debt, work all your life to never own anything, then you retire, sit in a rocking chair and then die. Not a very good out look on life. If a majority of adolescents think the same way no wonder there is so much mental illness. It is going to be hard life for them, but the way we are teaching are children, society is totally to blame. As an example, when we were in the school yard picking teams there was always kids that we picked last. Today’s standards, we can not have the kids feel bad, so even if we lose everyone gets a gold star. The problem with this is children today are not ready for real world. Back to the subject of kicking him out. Is it the right thing to do? I’m not totally sure as he said he would kill himself. So is this a manipulation tactic or possibly the truth? I’m stuck between a rock and hard place. He has no where to go, so do we kick him out immediately or give him more time to find a place? As a parent our love for our children is so great that continue to enable them with their bad habits. Please give us your opinion, Thank You. Concerned parents
I don’t appreciate some of the comments I am 20 years old now and was k8cked out of my adopted home when I was 16. I was homeless for 4 weeks. Here lemme tell you guys a strory. I was homeless I had no option so umm I got a gf on the internet and saved enough money to get a hotel and shower she came to visit I went to live in GA with her I got a job started college and I was doing good (until I told her my story) she ditch3d me real quick so I just kept going with my life and here I am 20 years old graduated and completed college ( I always had good grades) and to this day I live in my own world am currently building the truck of my dreams and started with a $1200 94 f250and it has about $27k of upgrades and body work and I’m doing good but I won’t forget her she was the first and I still don’t date to this day bc I’m a money type of guy like it or not. Ppl never cared about me and you onow what I don’t care either. My parents (adopted) always said I wouldn’t be shit in life and I’d be in prison but the time I’m 21. Listen guys , where did they get that idea?????? Really I have NEVER been arrested and never will bc I have a straight head.but I do miss my family and they refuse to have anything to do with me and part of me wants to hate them for kicking me out but part of me just doesn’t care anymore bc family was never what I thought it would be. I donr plan to marry and DEFINITELY have no plans for kids bc I don’t know how to raise them as I don’t have a role model I could use so I’m kinda stuck but it doesn’t bother me anymore. And ppl don’t feel sorry for me I’m fine I just 5hought I’d share my story. I wish my parents could have seen a potential in me but they didn’t . too bad bc I make more money than both of them combined and no plans of looking back even after I found out she got cancer. They did me cold now its my turn.I will never turn back to help them they shouldn’t have done me this way now they can pay. As much as I want to to back and act like this never happened I can’t vfind it in me to do so. Therefore middle finger to them. Those 2 years sitting alone in The woodshed didn’t do too much good for my health and well being either I don’t think but we won’t go there but yes we (all of us that they adopted) were treated bad and I won’t go help them bc I made it on my own they can find their own way. They thought it was funny to lie on me about things they did and get me in trouble now looks who’s happy and doing hood, they’re next on the kick list just like my adopted older 2 brother AND my sister they didn’t hell me either , said I would find my way just like they did , when I heard that over the phone sitting on my tree stump homeless in the woods my heart sank and I wanted to kill myself. Im glad I didn’t bc my adult life is treating me very well and YES I have indeed turned my back on all of them they didn’t want to help but now that I’m a rich kid at only 20 years old they try to connect w me and I completely ignore them and have changed my phone number. My name is getting changed soon as well bc I want NOTHING to do w them and of discussion. But I don’t hate them but I just don’t care anymore I’m living my dream and no one will still me now bc I have god and he has always been there for me even when I thought I was alone and better off dead. He will always have my hack since no one else does and I’m very religious and will always be.
Dear Jacob
You told your version of your story but you left a lot out. Why did your adoptive parents put you out? What event actually occurred during the time that this all took place? Did they just wake up one day for no reason at all and decide that today was going to be the day that they were going to make you homeless?Or was this just the aftermath of the straw breaking the camels back? I’m not trying to be funny because inquiring minds really just want to know.
My thoughts exactly Veronica.
What about a 21 year old who indulges in disgusting verbal abuse, and until recently, physical abuse?
My 20 year year old step son as £50.000 savings, a new car, and every day we ask him why he is not getting a job etc or joint a club and every year since him leaving school at 16 he just keeps saying he is going in the navy, then the police force then the army, and now he wants to go to uni, all he does every day is lay on his bed playing PS4, then he may go to the shops to buy some junk food for himself, or he may stay at his girl friends for one night a month, he only goes out night time when we are ready to go to bed that’s around 10pm, my wife and I get fed up with it and don’t k ow what to do, he as rants of money, good health, a new car, how he pays £160 a month board
I came here looking for some info on what I am going thru at home and decisions that need to be made, and I found this article. The reaction I got from reading was my answer I was looking for. As I write this I am in tears and have been most the day. That’s all I can do now is just cry. I’m tired. So very very tired and still in shock over how really bad my 15 yr old son treats me. It gets worse every day. I know yous can all understand and I am grateful for all your shared stories. I just felt so alone before. My 15 year old son is completely and totally out of control. I’ve had problems since the age of 3. I remember so clearly going to Teachers night in Kindergarten, & he’s showing me all his work and then shouts “And this is my desk!!” It was secluded by itself next to the teachers. I was mortified and embarrassed, & that was my first and last one I attended. He’s ALWAYS in trouble. Every school he’s been in has hated him and has gone on to treat me awfully because of their hate for him. He was just recently expelled from his 3rd school. Now he attends an alternative school TO AN alternative school. There is nowhere left for him to go if he messes this one up. I’d have to sign him out. The last 3 to 6 months it has gone from bad to really really really bad. He hits me and I am now afraid of him. He gets super angry and it scares me so bad. The 1st time he put his hands on me he was confronted when expelled from his last school. This was November. He physically assaulted his gym teacher. They had to restrain him, & pull him off. Because of him being in a alternative school for kids with behavioral issues I think they may have considered this “normal” there and no one was called. Just the expulsion. The argument got so bad he charged at me and violently pushed me into another room with so much force. I called the police and hysterically cried begging for help. They said “What do you want us to do?” To call CYS. I knew this was an option for awhile then, but feared their results. Had enough and in December called them. To my shock and amazement their reply was “We cannot help you without an open case and there is no warrant for us to.” I felt so hopeless after that!! He does what he wants and will not listen to me AT ALL. Yous should see his room. It’s so disgusting but he doesn’t care. The incident today that got me this shook up was smelling weed from upstairs in his room. This kid was really smoking weed in my house and with a “So what? What are you going to do about it?” attitude. He kept smoking after being confronted. He just doesn’t care about anything. I’m in his disgusting room watching him smoke weed and he was telling me “So.” I reached out to smack the crap out of him and he kicked me many times in my gut. I went downstairs to cry and to just be away from him. He relit it and kept smoking. I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t take it anymore. This is everyday. Every day. I’m afraid of even saying anything random and simple because the way he talks to me all the time. Waking him up for school in the morning leaves me in tears at least half the week. He just started cursing at me a few months back and his choice words were to repeatedly tell me to go fuck myself and calling me a whore. His mother. A whore. All I do is cry now. I’m just so exhausted. No energy for nothing but to cry. I can’t understand why he treats me this bad. I ask so very very little of him. He’s violently shoved his 1 yr old sister when he was angry at me & sometimes I fear that he is going to try and stab me to death when he is in one of his violent moods. I live in fear and with abuse. I’ve been counting down to his 18th birthday since he was 13 to legally kick him out. It’s going by so slow. I pray every night while he’s out doing God knows what that he’ll commit a crime and be arrested. If he’s on probation there’s my chance. No respect for authority. Absolutely none. He’ll be packed away at a facility faster than he can say “I don’t care.” I’m convinced it’ll happen soon. But if that doesn’t come thru I have made the decision to wait until he’s 17 to be put out. I’m just afraid of everything to come until then. He is going to start beating me soon. I can feel it. And when and if that happens before 17 he is out indefinitely. I have a right to feel safe in my own home.
Honey, call the cops. Let the cops remove him and the drugs.
Mom2, I have and that’s what makes this all the worse to deal with. They did nothing but “talk” to him. All 3 times. I think that if he were to seriously injure me or showed signs of they’d do more. I don’t know. But they do NOTHING but watch a hysterical woman break down every time. Smh.
I am that think who was kicked out at 16. I was raised by a Portuguese family. Dad worked, no. Stayed home. My mother never allowed me to have friends. Family only. My case is different. I wasn’t abusive. I just wanted to have friends. My mother always fight with the neighbours. My mother was known at the wicked witch. My mother kicked my out on my 16th Birthday. Reason ;cruising with my friends (what does that even mean?) I never stayed out late, I always went to school.
For me, I was living on the streets, sleeping with men for money so I can eat and somewhere to crash.
The relationship I have with that women is forever broken. I am now 35. I have a 14 year-old daughter, and would never ever do that to her knowing what I have done. Please seek help and bold that bond. Your child will hate you forever deep within.
All these articles are centered around how we can help kids be functioning members of society while the parents walk on eggshells and have mini strokes Trying to hold their family, lives, work and marriages together.
My step son has been arrested, has been in and out of group homes, and rehab, switch schools three times in a year and is three years behind. He does drugs in the house and pretty much anything he wants because he knows if he says he will leave he will get anything he wants from his mother.
Recently received a call from school saying he was sleeping in class. We went to one of our support People and they said we should have a meeting to find out how we can make it easier for him.
Really? We keep making it easier and easier for him every day making accommodations for the rest of the family crumbles under the stress. I am counting the days until he turns 18….
What a bunch of selfish parents. Kids who are raised by parents who fulfill their duty to be mature and lead by example do not end up the way you describe. I’m sure if there was an objective review of these horrible mothers it would be a complete failure.
You are the adults. They are the children. They do not have to be adults. It’s so sad to think these are the parents kids got stuck with. Hopefully when you’re old and sick you get treated the way you treat your kids or they don’t bother with you at all.
The curse you speak to all of these hurting parents is upon you to bear now, Sandra. What a horrible thing to say to all of these people who are being tormented by their own children who have turned against their mature parents who have lead by example even when their kids are thinking and behaving like tyrants. You must not have ever had someone tell you that everything you’ve worked hard for was for nothing. Your day may come though, after a judgemental and cold comment like the one you chose to leave here. I’m shocked by what these parents are going through and the pain and sadness that they are going through. For you to coldly point your finger and insult them is astonishing…I imagined you taking in all of these children under your wing, into your home, to love, nurture, teach, guide, and make up for all these “selfish parents” as you said. I’m sure if there was a review of THAT scenario, YOU WOULD BE THE COMPLETE FAILURE AFTER ALL. Careful with your opinions, Sandra. All of these terrible children WILL have to be adults eventually, they are all on their way, inevitably to adulthood. When they are in the world, you WILL, no doubt, hold them responsible for their decisions and actions THEN. You will be dealing with these kids turned adults eventually. Try helping the situation, if you know so much. Criticism is terrible karma for you. These parents lives couldn’t get much worse. I hope your comment wasn’t for the purpose of making their lives worse than they already are. That’d make you a horrible candidate for advising on the best interest of any child, parent, or family dynamic. That’d just make you a monster. Like these children being discussed here. Were you a horrible child, Sandra? Take your hate somewhere else. It’s not welcome here.
Sandra, you are a moron. Every parent on this thread has tried their best. I’ve raised my children on my own 100% of the time for the past seven years. Their mother chose not to be a part of their lives and it has hurt them very badly emotionally resulting in some very bad behavior. Walk a week in my shoes before you decide you’re going to dish out unqualified advice.
Give me a break. Can’t count the number of adult kids that I’ve seen put their parents in homes and rob their elderly parents out of every penny. Do not allow a child to turn your house upside down, cause strife in your marriage, and discord with your other children. This will lead to many problems. You have to turn them over to God and let Him lead the way. Peace has no price. God isn’t telling parents to let their kids walk all over them. Trust God.
Sharon, REALLY???Consider yourself blessed. There are children out there that are completely unruly, disrespectful, and selfish no matter how great of a parent you are and what u teach them, they continue to pursue a negative,self sabotaging path in life. Dear author, you among many other so called professionals have got it wrong.
Author has no clue. We are a week from kicking our son out because we’re done with his chronic pot use and dealing, utter ignoring of our rules, verbal abuse, and more. We and his younger sister have effing been through enough.
I’m a fourteen year old boy and I’m having problems with my mom I love her some backstory about my family, my dad tried to kill her and my sisters and I went to live with my relatives ever since about ten years ago. now I live with my stepdad who was in the Marine corps and he is an alcoholic and now I have two more siblings. My mom can be a little violent but what she’s been through I can’t blame her. I always help her with yard work and have been for the past couple of years. Now as of the time of this comment we’ve been having arguments left and right about how she’s going to leave me send me away to live with my other father or my relatives (both live in poverty) so not a bright future. I’m an A student who doesn’t deal with illegal activity. The only problem is I’m very antisocial and she doesn’t want that she wants me to help her out excessively to provide a comfortable place for my younger siblings. And wants me to be very social to live so I can remember them, those are her views. I view things differently I do help her out and I am a good student and I don’t have much friends much due to the matter of fact of how they do whatever to be relevant doing drugs, dealing them, and even sexual acts. I don’t do any of these things. But she complains of how I do nothing for the family, of how I am couped up in my own room etc. She threatens to send me to a boot camp, to my dad, and my relatives. All of my family side with her (except my dad I don’t talk to him much, but she goes on and on about how much I kiss the ground he walks on). But I do prefer him over my stepfather that chews nicotine, drinks during the night making the house seem scary. He has even gone to “joke” about how I will kill him and my younger siblings will be rapists? And sexual harrased my sisters. not the best guy but is appreciated when he doesn’t do those things. My mom believes in him that he can change, he has been to rehab three times in a matter of four years. I don’t know what to do I’ve never told anyone about this, just been keeping the stress and pressure in for four years. I find it funny that the kids that do illegal activity have actually decent lives. So any information regarding the relationship with my mom would be appreciated. Sorry for the grammar errors.
Jighnes,
I really hope and pray that you have an opportunity to read my message. Continue being the awesome young Man that you are. Continue doing good in school and getting straight A’s…you are setting yourself up for a successful future. When you graduate, I suggest that you leave – join the Air Force, allow the military to pay for your College.
In the meantime, do what you need to do around the house, do not disrespect your Mother., help her; tell her you Love her, kiss her, hug her. It sounds as if she may be putting a lot on you because her husband is not being the Man he should be. I believe in YOU!!! Success is in your near future. If things get too bad at home, it may be a good idea for you to find a relative you can live with until you graduate, if the environment is clean and safe. I am a single Parent and was homeless a number of years ago…CONTINUE TO PUSH FORWARD EVEN THROUGH ADVERSITY, is the absolute best advice I can give. No situation lasts forever. If/when you have to stay with relatives…follow the same motto, do your best in school, stay out of trouble, help around the house. Do your time young man…you will be graduating in a few short years. Once you’re out of High School, you have the POWER to determine a POSITIVE PATH for YOUR LIFE. You can be anything you want to be…Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, Chemist, Security Systems Analyst – you can work for Google – earn a high 6 figure income. I’d really love to see where you are in the next 2-3 years. LET LIFE WORK FOR YOU!!! Trust the process, you will be ok….
In closing for your own mental health, here are a few suggestions: Work – get a part-time job. Write, Read, Meditate, Exercise, Jog, Make a friend or two, go to the movies (when things are back to normal since we are in the midst of this pandemic)…write, draw, take up a hobby – photography; take beautiful pictures of your Mom, frame them and give them to her. I know these may sound boring – but they could be the Chicken Soup needed for your Soul. If you’re a believer, attend church online. Have members of the church pray for you and your family. It’s important for you to stay healthy mentally! Wishing you the best!!!
It’s obvious the writer of this article has zero experience with a violent and toxic child that has no consideration for the siblings or damage done financially and emotionally. Everyone on this thread has tried their best. How about I come to your house and berate you every night after a long day at work, destroy you property, abuse your other children, throw parties on a Wednesday till 4:00 am and threaten to kill you when your sleeping?
I hope you called the police each time. If someone threatens to kill you, immediately call the police. This isn’t a long-term solution, but maybe after enough death threats law enforcement may take them to jail. You can try to find somewhere for them to live, a family, boarding school, somewhere else. Whatever you do, don’t give in to cruel and abusive children.
When your child has a undiagnosed condition and has been kicking off since a toddler and 15 years later is still doing it and now getting arrested,aggressive,unpredictable and you get to the point, is suicide my only option to get out of this cycle of abuse,well then kicking them out seems to be the best way does it not.Respite for them and yourself,I would welcome that.I have spoken with Doctors,Teachers,Counsellors,Psychologists over the years and they don’t fully understand.It’s all textbook advice, “Children cannot express themselves so act out instead”or Give them time to calm down make a cup of tea blah blah”.Yes but misbehaviour does not change.They say there is loads of help but only if you can afford it.No help,fact.
Too BAD you ALL didn’t raise your CHILDREN on farms whereby they learned to do chores on a regular basis but obviously your children had been raised spoiled rotten brats! I’m glad I never got married after reading most of your comments. BLAME New Technologies but TV reprogramming as WELL as smartphones didn’t help the teens in my beach neighborhoods. God bless and Merry Christmas and HAPPY New Year 2021. TAKE care my PRAYERS are THERE for those especially suffer xing from Covid19.
Wow there is a lot of crazy people commenting on here. Kick out your teen? Wow! Life is unforgivably hard, for an adult how is a teenager suppose to survive? Obviously if you feel you have to kick out your own child you did something very wrong since they were born. You probably are a terrible dark and evil parent. Kids thrive with love and patience. Duh. Most parents who kick out their teen choose a boyfriend or girlfriend above their kids(so gross) or are drug and alcohol abusers themselves. The people here who advocate for kicking a kid out are some dark souls.
Some people who are commenting here do not know how it is to live with these rowdy kids. My daughter is 16 and has made life a hell for my wife and I. She is arrogant, abusive, will watch and listen to the dirtiest shows/movies and music and has no concern or respect for parents, among all the other dirty stuff that is filled in her. We tried to teach her values, morality and goodness, but there is no effect, they just follow the most rowdy kid in the class or have such friends.
In such a situation, what to do, what are our option? Parents have to do so much sacrifices to support these monsters and on top get abused by them. Don’t we have our life to live after going through so much in life? The best way is to kick them out so that they learn a lesson and deals with their life on their own. I have to think of a best way of doing that.
Set rules & call the police when you feel threatened. We’ve done that and it works. Teenagers want to intimidate you, but what you do is take their electronics away, and when they grab you or push you, then call the police. You can have them involuntarily committed for mental health crisis also. If you are wealthy you can send them to a boarding school, but otherwise you’re stuck. Our society needs to change so that cruel sociopath children can be forced out and they have a place to go.
I am one of the 13 year olds that lost their home because of bad behavior. Telling me to leave was about control act thi was or be homeless. I hope all of the above people have a chance to be homeless and feel the fear and abandonment. Now consider being homeless at 13. It’s a shame that parents would choose the carrot as someone’s place to be safe. I never went back and haven’t spoken to them in 40 years. I did live through it and grew up nicely. There is never a reason to threaten somebody’s home. A roof over their heads a warm place to sleep. Shame on you all.
This is a one-sided story. If you were a violent, cruel, sociopath, they were smart to kick you out. Child-to-parent abuse is very real, and it’s criminal that teenagers think they can abuse their family and get away with it. Some children are just mean and selfish people, and parents shouldn’t be forced to live with them.
My sister and I aren’t really as chaotic as most of the children mentioned in the comments. We go to school, get good grades, and participate in extracurricular activities well. The only problem is our attitudes. My sister is overprotective of what she considers rightfully hers. Things she has bought with her own money, things that are given to her, etc. I am overprotective of my siblings. I will blurt out whatever I want to say whenever I think it in arguments where my siblings are being scolded by my mother.
Yesterday my sister yelled at my mother because she drank my sister’s gatorade that she was saving for our next swim practice(if anyone has been on a swim team, you know how much your energy is drained from only an hour of swimming). Previously, my sister had announced to the whole house that she was saving the gatorade for our next practice, and asked our family to not touch the drink. My mom wasn’t there. And so, when my mother drank the gatorade, my sister got really frustrated and yelled at my mom, which made her get really, really angry. My mom and dad were like, revving up for an biiiig lecture/argument/scolding match, asking my sister questions and stuff, but I, my idiot self, defended my sister and asked my mom why she even bought the gatorade in the first place(my mom was saying that since she used her own money on the gatorade, she had the right to drink the gatorade). That’s what got me in trouble. My parents went off and yelled at us. My dad started asking ‘so what are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do to solve this?’ And my sister and I had NO answer whatsoever because we didn’t think we were in the wrong. My dad got fed up of our silence and told us to get out the house. I actually WANTED to get out of that house, I still do.
We didn’t leave because we were afraid that our parents would track us down and pin the blame on us AGAIN and say that they were ‘joking’ about telling us to leave and that we should have used our brains and deciphered what they were ‘really saying’ when they told us to get out.
My parent’s asked us what was going on, why we were acting like this. I said that I act this way only in retaliation. They didn’t believe me. My mom started accusing us of taking drugs, or that we were like this because we were friends with non-members of our religion. So, does that mean that every person in the world that doesn’t believe in the same things as us is suddenly a bad influence on us?
My mom is an english teacher, and she can use manipulations like nothing else. She thinks she’s so ‘smart’ and ‘knowledgeable’ just because she does her ‘homework'(research) and thinks that she knows everything about us. She said MULTIPLE times that she understands us, that she was 15 and 16 once as well, but she ‘never’ acted the way we did and ‘never’ disrespected her parents.
I’m sorry, did you ever live in a world when your face is everything, where technology is just a step away, and where judgement is at its highest? Did you ever go to high school with depressed, suicidal, mentally ill kids? You DO know that kids with mental illnesses are more common now that technology has been introduced to the world? Did YOUR parents expect you to keep up a 4.0 GPA for all of their school life while also being the best at the extracurricular activities they put you in?
She’s such an irrational person, and my dad supports all of her crap.
Yes, we were disrespectful. Yes we should have been punished for not apologizing. But I don’t think that they have the right to kick us OUT because their imagination pictures us as rebellious teens that seem to now whatever they’re doing and that they deserve to live on the streets.
They have the audacity to tell us that we never blame others for our problems, it’s always ‘someone else’, or ‘them’. Um, excuse me? They just barely said that WE were the problem, not them. THEY apparently didn’t raise us, THEY didn’t create us. THEY didn’t do anything wrong.
Who ELSE could we have learned from to act the way we act now?????
We NEVER go to school activities. I honestly feel robbed of my middle school years. I was a straight 4.0 student for all my years in middles school, therefore qualifying for every 4.0 student activity that was held once each quarter. I was never allowed to go to any of them. Swimming, bowling, watching a movie—I never went to any of them. And neither did my sister.
My mom used to yell at us every other day when we were young, 6-13 years old. My sister has the same personality as my mom, and so she learned from my mom that she needs to yell to get people to listen to what she wants if they disagree at first.
That was the worst thing my mother could have ever done. Ruin my sister’s personality.
Before, I didn’t think it was abnormal to have your parents expect you to be the best at everything. Once, I couldn’t understand a math question even after my dad ‘explained’ it to me multiple times. My mom got angry at me for crying when he started yelling at me, and tried to kick me out of our house. It was midnight. She was yelling, trying to PUSH ME OUT THE DOOR, while I was crying and apologizing. I was 6 years old.
I was nearly dragged out my house by my mom. We had a hamster, and she expected us to not let it’s poop get on the carpet. Well, I played with it, and ONE piece of poop was stuck to my clothes. It fell off, and she found it. She told me that if I was going to do this, then I get to get our of her house and life with the hamster I so dearly ‘loved’. I refused, and so my mom grabbed my arm and dragged me to the door. I got a really bad rash that day. She then forced me to MURDER my own hamster and show her the body. I was sobbing the whole time.
You guys might think that your child is acting rebellious for no reason. Let me tell you, this is NOT the case. NOBODY just wakes up one day and thinks, ‘I’m going to make life miserable for my parents’. I’m sure that they hate themselves, and hate that they do bad things, but they can’t stop. Addiction is powerful.
But sometimes, it’s the parent’s fault. My siblings and I were neglected basically all of our lives. Our parents struggled with money, so they worked full time every day every since we were born. They never really taught us to not do something, they just yelled at us when we did something bad and left it at that. I remember when I was in elementary school. I was a happy kid. But then middle school rolled around, and my parents started expecting me to get straight As. I started taking college classes when I started high school. My parents made me play the violin, percussion, and sing. They made me take tennis and swimming, but then turned it around and blamed ME for wanting to take those activities and that’s why my grades had one A-.
My parents are manipulative and unreliable. Their habits and personality rubbed off on me and my sister, my mom’s temper going to my sister and her manipulativeness going to me. Nobody likes seeing their flaws in the mirror, especially my mom. And now that she created MONSTERS, she doesn’t want to look at us for the rest of her life.
I don’t even want to RECOGNIZE my own feelings, because if I show emotion, my parents will grab it by the head and manipulate it to whatever helps them the most. And now, I CAN’T recognize my emotions. I CANNOT. Because I taught myself to not show vulnerability, and now my future is going to hurt from it.
I hate my parents for hurting all of our futures and expecting us to be BETTER. It’s always being BETTER, not making any MISTAKES. We are HUMAN BEINGS. WE ARE FREAKING DESIGNED TO MAKE MISTAKES. IT IS NOW OKAY FOR YOU TO MAKE MISTAKES??? BUT WHEN I MAKE A MISTAKE, YOU SAY THAT IT CAN’T POSSIBLY BE A MISTAKE, I MUST HAVE DONE IT ON PURPOSE.
I second-guess myself because of the criticism I received from my mother on a daily basis.
I am a bad kid. I recognize my faults. But WHY am I a bad kid? I hate my parents for giving me all these chances to be awful and not stopping it sooner. They keep on talking about getting to the root cause of all of this, and I know exactly what it is. But I don’t think they’d take knowing that they are the problem very well.
SO parents, please look a little closer at your actions. Humans are designed to imitate people they are close to. Some of us kids are going through things that you couldn’t even imagine. Neglect, self doubt, and emotional problems. Because of YOU.
Please be the adult here. Prefrontal cortexes don’t suddenly appear out of nowhere. They grow. Painstakingly slowly. Us teenagers are literally incapable of making a split second rational decision. We don’t think. Just know that.
Man this is like a flashback. Adults are just as bad as kids. It’s due to mental illness. Your kids love you. Your sick too. Don’t stop loving them. Yes everyone needs a punishment every once in a while…no need to neglect your child. Don’t kick them out of the house for long periods of time. Don’t stop feeding them. They are family. You don’t want to go to a nursing home when your old. Remember if you take care of your kids when they’re young (you can still discipline them within reason) they will take care of you when your old. (But remember they’ll be setting boundaries, rules, and discipline for you by then because kids become the parents) and then you can know your grandkids and yes there will be drama but that’s life.
Children who show no respect for rules and/or are violent from a very young age might be psychopathic. My struggle is a very entitled 17 yo who is lazy and displays a lot of contempt for me. Nothing I do for him/give him meets his expectations and he’s made it clear I’m a HUGE disappointment to him. Whenever I buy something for him he has asked for he sighs and says “I guess that’s okay” or “That’s not gonna work” and gets that “sad” look on his face. NEVER says “thank you”….EVER. My other sons are not like this so I will not take the blame for his rottenness. He was not spoiled so I truly have no idea why he developed this grandiosity.
Wow, reading this article and these comments…
Why are parents so terrible?
I came here to find some help from hopefully people that know, understand and have experience. However, after reading some of the awful, negative comments from both teens and adults what was the point. I love my son dearly and am trying every avenue I can to resolve the seemingly hopeless, endless situation. None of us are looking for judgement, we can do that aplenty ourselves. I just wanted some help.
People shouldn’t be forced to live with an abusive sociopath, no matter the age. In a sane society, we’d have authoritarian places for all these cruel sociopaths to live, it shouldn’t be forced upon parents like it is today. We don’t force wives to live with abusive husbands, so why do we force parents to live with abusive children?
Well. My son doesn’t do much in comparison with many of these examples. He’s had some psychological issues since the age of 3, however. He thinks people are out to get him. Now, he’s very disrespectful about 20% of the time and suddenly snaps
Out of it and apologizes.
It’s confusing to me. He does it over and over again.
I bought him a solid wood writing desk that was a high end piece of furniture to match his bed. It looked beautiful and he was grateful but he became very angry once I told him I was going to put a custom glass top on it to avoid scratches. He told me he would smash the glass top. I then said “if you do that I will have you removed from our home”. I then sent him to bed (it was 10 p.m.) and said good night. This wasn’t a sudden reaction on my part. He has worked me up to the point of idly considering putting him into some boarding program, and I would never, ever leave him homeless.
However, I’m not going to remove him.. it was actually an idle threat and I am fairly sure he knows it. But when he says things like that I feel cornered and don’t know what to do. It’s amazing to me to have someone speak so rudely. My other two didn’t ever go this far. He does it multiple times a day.
This boy is 13. He can be very sweet and loveable but turns in an instant, then turns back. It’s bizarre. I’m actually wondering if he’s autistic or bipolar. And I want to cherish our few last years together. I know he’s going to turn into a good adult. But this time in the middle is rough.