Topic : Good Parenting

i think your step-dad should either be educated, or he should not be a part of your brothers life. and i feel your mom should put her foot down. but me or you can't make her do that, you might only try to help her see, what it's doing to your brother, and what kind of influence it has on everyone. i don't think there's anything else you can do.

The other kids can be talented naturally but one thing your son has that many teens lack is motivation, and effort.

Your son may be an average student and what's wrong with that?

And for trying out sports he's determinded to make the team.

I LOVE wrestling. However I am not very good at it and I constantly give up.

However your teenager seems to have a lot of drive and goals.

If  his grades are slipping then look into how you can bring up his garades, tutors, extra help after school, or you helping him. And for sports maybe you could help him with that , if he likes basketball set up a net outside your house and get a basket ball and shoot hoops with him and teach him some skills and so on, or have his buddies come over.

Also sports are probably his way of escaping reality he can put everything into it and forget about school.

 

Also a lot of moms who brag about how their sons and daughters are on this and team and this club and they won this award and got 150% on their last test are probab;y exagerating.

To me, havin the attitude and drive for something is better then being the best.

Ok, I need advice....my neice who is 9 is causing problems in our family. Every Monday my inlaws get a phone call that they did something to put their grand daughters lives in danger. Let's use this one example: The claim is: The grandparents let the grand daughter climb an apple tree while there were bees buzzing around and she could have gotten stung and becasue she has never been stung she COULD be allergic (she is allergic to everything by the way!) and she could die from the sting The fact: She snuck outside by herself and climbed the tree, when one of the grandparents see her, they go and talk to her. Not thinking it is dangerous to climb a tree. She was only up 2 feet. Situation: on the way home the girl knows she is going to get in trouble so she says that her grandpa told her to climb the tree. Thus the phone call to the grandfather. How do we delicately tell her that her child is manipulating the story? This apple tree is only one example, literally every Monday there is a phone call. I have called my neice out on these things and she gives me a look and runs away.  I have watched and seen this girl sneak stuff, break stuff and blame others for it, even their 91 year old great grandmother! We need help. We have tried to talk to the girl and her mother and say that that is not what happened, the 9 year old laughs as mom just causes a ruckus. We think the girl is smart enough to know that if mom has someone else to scream at for the next for hours, she will have free reign. What are we to do? FYI the mom is a self-diagnosing hypocondriact(sp) plus she is very loud and opinionated. She is always right and her girls are perfect. How do we tell the mom and dad that this is going on?

I am posting as a stay at home mom of 5.  I am also posting with a broken heart.

 

As a parent, we can invest all we have into our children. Spend time and effort raising them with good morals and values. Wipe away their tears, bandage their boo boos, educate them, and talk with them continually.... and most importantly.... LOVE THEM. But as I, unfortunately, have foundout,  sometimes that isn't enough. The outside world sneaks in. Many parents don't raise their children with the love and devotion we lavished on our children. Those children have anger. Lots of anger. A seething anger than can unknowingly infect others who befriend them and try to help. And the chaos and heartache that follows can be devistating to all concerned.

 

This has happened to my eldest son (17 1/2 at the time). He befriended a girl who was in deep emotional despair due to past family issues. He saw her isolation and felt a need to help her. Immediately, we began to see negative behaviors in our son... lieing, stealing, lack of personal cleanliness, disrespecting all around him, music that spoke of hate and rage, dark clothes and a general anger. We repeatidly questioned him and offered help as well as offered professional help if it was something he didn;t want to discuss with us. I knew a bit of the girls emotional and family background so could see paralells in how my son was acting. Things got so bad that our eldest threatened to kill our whole family( his 3 younger brothers and infant sister, me and his father). Immediately afterwards he moved out and things got worse. He tried to kill himself. He did come to me for help. His father and I took him to the hospital where I saw how my son had cut himself to the point not an inch of his body was his flesh color...he was hamburger meat. He was put under observation and on meds. He was advised to continue. During his time in the mental hospital, he requested a family session. During that visit, the councelor advised us that our son had "taken on" the personality of the girl he had befriended and that somehow for some reason a "switch had flipped" in my sons mind so that now, everything that is good for him he now sees as bad and everything bad for him he sees as good. I learned that the girl had been hospitalized 3-4 times for suicide attempts aswell as cutting herself and had been in councelling since she was 11.

 

Right after leaving the hospital he stopped meds and went back to his destructive behavior, telling us to stay out of his life. Any offer we gave of help was met with his telling others we were interfering with his life.

 

He has since moved in with his best friend and the friends wife and young son. The friend works a lot trying to support the bunch. My son works for a week or two and then quits. People in our area started noticing that my son was spending a lot of time with the wife of his firend. And rumors began to fly. People began to question the paternity of the son. The son has dark hair. So my son died his hair to match the little one. And more rumors began to fly.

 

Drawing this to an end, up until a year ago we were still getting word from local pawn shops that our son was trying to buy a gun.My son has covered his body with tattoos, when he cannot even afford to clothe, feed or house himself. He has stopped speling his name correctly, siting that others misspell it often so "if ya can't beat 'em , join em".He has stopped contact with us, except of rare occasion where he can see or speak with us just enough to "uppercut us" with more info of his destructive lifestyle. Now the rumor is, the wife of his friend is pregnant. Supposidly, she is telling people it is my sons baby and that her husband thinks he himself is the father. Acording to more rumor, my son doesn't deny that he is the father. My son is now almost 21 years old and more lost than ever.

 

As a mother, my heart has broken. Been crushed The pain is immeasurable. I have cried so much. To know that such a bright future awaited my son and that all was lost because he felt he could"help a girl in distress". The best advice I can give parents is to teach your children to GUARD THEIR HEARTS.  I dont suggest not helping others. I just suggest they try not to get in over their heads.

 

I ask that all who read this pray for my son. I pray that his darkness is broken with light. Please pray that my son will come back to our family so that we can help him.  He and his situation has rocked our family to the core. We are all still dealing with the fallout of the original mess. My next two oldest sons feel they have to be extra good, smart and successful to "make up" for the mess their older brother made of his life. The stress is not healthy for them. We are all reeling with doubts and fears now but I am glad to say, that we are surviving. The remaining family is even closer due to this. But I do ask for your prayers for my son and the rest of our family.

 

p.s.

Just for information, his father and I have been married 21 years and yes, his father was in his life growing up. {I know Dr Phil always ass that :)   }

This story is long and complicated, but the short version is: I have a friend who when she was 24 discovered she was pregnant.  She discovered this at 14 weeks, and thus too far along to terminate.  She hid her pregnancy from us and it wasnt until her father reported her missing one night that it was discovered she was in hospital on the maternity ward and had just given birth to a boy.  We know for a fact that she had adoption papers drawn up but believe her parents encouraged her to keep her son with the promise of helping her out.  Her son will be 3 in 2 months.  My friend - i'll call her Jane - has a fantastic job with excellent financial returns, but she insists on going out every weekend, drinks to the point where she does not know what she is doing and picks up random men.  This happens EVERY weekend.  The only attention her son gets is when she admonishes him for doing something wrong or for "annoying her."  When she is hungover she lets her son run around the house by himself while she sleeps it off.  She has gotten a name for herself at the pub, but refuses to believe it. 

 

Her father babysits for her when she goes out on the weekends as we believe he is helping her in her pursuit to find a husband.  Her son's father is not in their lives and we strongly believe, based on the information Jane gave us, that she is slightly unsure who the father is, although she has "pointed the finger" at one boy.  She wont get a paternity test because she repetitively states that she doesnt want to force him to want to see her son.  We believe however it is because she is unsure herself and would be mortified if it turned out this man was not the father.

 

A friend recently said to me "how does she know if she's doing something wrong if no-one has told her?"  We realise this, but we are not sure on what we should do.  She is not the only person in out circle of friends with children - all are married and we do realise that it must be harder on Jane, but what she is doing is not acceptable.

 

We all have different ideas on what to do, from calling child services to informing her mother of her antics.  How do we do this without ostracizing her and do we sit her down as a group or should one of us do it on a one to one basis?

 

I realise it sounds like Jane is a skank, but she is from a very good family, she is very well educated and has travelled widely.  We dont understand why she does this either....WE SERIOUSLY NEED HELP WITH THIS!

It sounds like your friend is lucky to have all of you to care for her as it sounds like she is almost punishing herself.

It is so difficult to see  a friend in such obvious pain but its more difficult to see the smallest paying the ultimate price for this situation.

My only suggestion is, a group intervention. Her parents, friends and possibly "pub regulars" meet with her as a group and as a group present her with what her actions are doing to her as well as to her son. Be sure to reassure her that she is loved and has a lot of people for support in standing up and being a real mum.

I wish you the best of luck.

 i'm 20 yrs old and have been with my wonderful boyfriend for over a year and a half. we love each other very much and we have sex. i want to tell my mom and just get it over with, but she treats me like a child. i can't be alone with him without supervision, and she doesn't like the idea of me going camping with him this weekend even though there's going to be a lot of other people there. my boyfriend isn't a bad guy and would never do anything to hurt me or make me uncomfortable and everybody i know feels the same exact way, including my parents. she also knows that i'm on the pill (originally for severe menstrual cramps) and i'm pretty responsible, so i don't know why she treats me this way. is this a control freak mechanism? how can i finally tell her that i'm having sex and have her respect my decision and quit treating me like i'm 13?

My boyfriend's 14 yo son was reported to have shot the neighbor (at his mom's- while visiting her) in the back with a BB gun. The question was; was this an accident (which the boy claims) or on purpose (which the man who was shot reportedly claims).

I am confused by the lack of the father's (my bf) interest in getting the whole story. He talked to the boy, got and accepted his story (that it was an accident) and then didn't feel that he needed to talk to the man who was shot because this happened at the mother's house and therefore within her jurisdiction to handle. He is the boy's custodial parent and she has visitation. I felt that as the boy's guardian, HE should take steps to talk to the man and find out BOTH sides of the story--the WHOLE story.

I wasn't convinced that the boy's story (to his father) was all there was so I talked to the boy myself (with the father present) and found out several details that were not disclosed by the conversation that the boy had with his father. Those details suggest that he could very well have shot the man intentionally and if not, it was clear that he was negligent in his behavior (admitting to shooting "randomly" in the same direction as the man while knowing that he was there in his line of fire). My question to anyone is this; am I out of line thinking that the father, being the custodial and legal guardian of this boy, should take the matter into his own hands and find out all he can by talking to the man who was shot AND then be the one to delegate the punishment accordingly, instead of washing his hands of it and just let the mother handle it since it was her that the boy was visiting while it happened??

I have been married for almost 7 years. I have custody of two children, Keysha, 16, and, Cody, 14 from a previous marriage.  My husband has shared custody of one child, Alec, 10, from a previous. Alec is with us for one week, then with his mom for a week. His mom is not an issue. She has tried to help as much as she could by dealing with Alec at her house with these issues. Alec was 3 when we first met. I noticed that my husband, Chris, would allow Alec to talk to him as if Chris was the child. Chris would tell him something to do and if Alec didn't want to Alec didn't mind telling him. The bad part was, Chris would let him have his way. Alec became very good at telling his dad what was what before he turned 4. I should have walked away from this situation but I felt I could help and I really loved them both. So I married my husband. Instead of getting better, things have gotten worse. Alec was then allowed to hit, pinch, bite, kick, and spit on my children. When Alec was confronted he would turn Chris's attention to the other child. It worked with Chris every time! I began to get very angry with both Chris and Alec. I found myself punishing him when Chris wasn't there. I just couldn't allow to continue thinking that his behavior was OK. Then he started turning on me. He hit me a couple times. I tried to talk to Chris about it and all he would say is "What did you do to him to make him so mad?". I tried to explain to him that no matter how angry he gets he still has no right to put his hands on some one else. For some reason Chris don't get it. By the was, I was making him clean his room. This caused a wedge to start between me and Alec. He would, and still does, play his dad like a fiddle. I tried to bond with him when he entered school. I took him to school every morning and would stay to volunteer. He liked it when I did that. I ate lunch with him some. I was there so much that I was offered a position. Chris got very angry with me for being there. He told me that I was not Alec's mom and I needed to stop acting like I thought I was. Alec heard him and started being rude with me again. He became very defiant with me again. I told Chris that I was just going to have to back off. He could deal with Alec himself. Well, that enter-feared with his work and he wanted Alec at home on our week. So he started backing me. This lasted for maybe a couple of weeks. It ended when Alec got mad and cried. Tears is all it took. Well to make a long story short, here we are 7 years later. Alec still cries when he don't get his way and it still works. He has became a master at lien. His dad believes everything he says no matter how much proof is there against him. He is in trouble if he gets on Chris's nerves only to get by with the very same thing if Chris is in a good mood. He makes comments to Alec like "you know how she is, and just do it so she will hush". He also tells me to shut up in front of him. Alec is still allowed to talk back to me. Chris has been told that Alec has been cursing and sticking up his middle finger. Of course, Alec said he didn't so end of discussion.  He ripped a pair of my daughter's boyfriend's $60.00 short by grabbing them. Lied to his dad and got away with it. Then Chris says I need to hug Alec more. I told him at this point I'd rather hug a porcupine. I know that was mean but the wedge is going to have to be lifted at least some. That's not going to happen till Chris wakes up.I'm at the point where I want to leave but feel stuck. I do love them but we are a very separated family right now. My children get very upset when they see Alec getting by with stuff that they know I would bust them on. I want the kids to grow into respectable adults with a bright future to bad to just stand back and let them raise themselves.  If there is any one that has some advice I'd love to hear it. 

You are right. He should step in and get the entire story then take appropriate action to see that this never happens again. I feel that it would be a good thing if both parents came together on this one.  Next time it may not be a BB gun. It could be a shot gun. Then what is he going to do when his son is up for murder. Too many parents are way to quick to believe that thier child couldn't lie to them. In a perfect world that could be true. However, we are not living in anything close to a perfect world.