A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hi Hope someone can give me advice. I am 34 with no kids but would love them one day. My partner has an ex with 3 kids (2 are his). The third child, well we just don't know how to help him anymore. I truly don't want to sound nasty, but I am fearful of his future. He is a 16 year old and 2 years ago his Mother threw him out the home, he will not speak to her. His bio Dad has tried to be involved tho Pete won't have anything to do with him. My partners parents didn't want to see him in care, so let him live with them. The truth is tho, is that Pete is angry, bitter and resentful of his life which is understandable. We have tried to help him, talk to him but all you get is attitude and disrespectful ness. He has been asked to leave school, social services won't help and now my partner has had to take his ex to court to see his children. I am scared for Pete's future and mine. My partner is a wonderful man - he is starting college in autumn on top of his full time job and is a GREAT dad - he will still go to every school show, dance and football practice and doesn't let his ex say when he can't see his children. He know sees them due to the court order, but the ex has poisoned those kids minds and now can't see one member of their family apart from their Dad and me. He is also a great partner. The truth is tho is that I'm scared. I feel Pete is wearing my partner and his parents down who are in their 70s due to his attitude. Marriage has been spoken about and kids. Has anyone been in this situation? Thanks.
View related questions:
his ex Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (7 August 2014): Don't stop opening your door and your heart to Pete. He is still a child in spite of his troubles.
You know his history; but he still needs someone to listen. His behavior is due to anger, and feeling disconnected. He doesn't feel wanted by the people who brought him into this world; and they don't show him affection or really acknowledge his existence. He needed to feel that as he grew-up. He doesn't know what it feels to have both biological parents together, raising him in a loving and stable home.
He acts-out for the attention, and to punish the world for his unhappiness. Their rejection tears him up inside. Watching other kids who have functional and loving families.
Watching his siblings getting protection and affection. He feels like a mistake. Far removed from family.
Your influence keeps him human and sane. He will become a victim of the streets; unless someone makes him feel less of an outsider. He pretends to be resisting, but he really wants to be loved by his parents. He pretends to reject everyone; but he is old enough to know they don't really want him around. So he spares them any reason to fake it.
His mother has other younger children to protect. He will set bad example for the other children, and he will distract all the attention away from them. While everyone focuses on putting out all his fires.
His sassy behavior is a facade. Showing how tough he is, when he's a crying little-boy on the inside. Wishing someone would hold him. Don't try, unless he reaches out to you first. You'll only give him a reason to play on your feelings, and manipulate you. He's also growing older and smarter.
He will soon be too old to be placed in a foster-care environment. His grandparents are too old to deal with him.
He is putting a strain on your relationship. All this, and he's just a kid. He'll get his attention, if he has to hold his audience captive!
Counseling and mentoring is usually what kids like Pete need. He has to have parameters, discipline, and restrictions to remind him who the f*ck he is. He thinks he can destroy the world; because he's rude and pissed-off. He will become a problem in the legal-system; and that will either turn him around, or it will change his path. That's why your listening is important. He needs someone to talk to, and a place to vent his feelings. That is like therapy, but it isn't enough for a kid like Pete. They find their way to rotten kids of the streets, who lead him to drugs and crime. They form their own little toxic families.
He likes you, he knows you're real and not just pretending you like him. It doesn't change how he behaves, because the people who mean the most to him have rejected him. His parents. His dad doesn't show him affection. He just wants to discipline him and bully him. That's why he hates him.
His parents are separated, and he got lost in the process.
The other two kids have a stable and jointed family. He's the "ugly step-child," the problem-kid. Just being nice to him doesn't work.
He's emotionally-damaged and needs the benefit of professional-counseling to get to the core of his anger. Discipline to teach him self-control and anger-management. By discipline, I mean teaching him responsibility. Making him own-up to his destruction, think before he speaks, and show concern about how he effects everyone around him. To be grateful to people who do give him the time of day.
I do not recommend you and your partner taking him in, unless it is temporary with a lot of rules and conditions. He will destroy your relationship, if you plan to marry and have kids. Your life would revolve around an angry teenager, who is selfish and enjoys the pain he causes.
In his mind, he thinks he hates everyone for hating him.
He needs to be in a strict school for troubled-teens. He needs the benefit of an education, or he will be truly lost. He needs a school that offers behavioral-therapy, because he has social dysfunction due to emotional-trauma and displacement. He has trouble socializing and responding to positive reinforcement. He spits in the face of people who are good to him.
Everyone could/should pool their financial resources to help him find a special school for this purpose. It takes a village to raise children. Pete is "everybody's" problem. He should be "everyone's" rescue-project. Children like people start out as a "family-problem." That will only become worse until he is a menace to society. Who will know exactly where he belongs. Behind bars! Where he'll eat his sassy-mouthed words. All of you can help Pete.
Especially the egg and sperm donors, who make this child feel so rejected and unloved. Everyone forgets he is kid; because of his exhausting and troublesome behavior.
Do your research to find teen organizations and specialized family counselors. How to help him should be the focus. You have the right mindset.
Everyone else makes him feel like they only want to figure out what to do with him. Where to put him, to get him out of the way. How would you behave, if people treated you like that? Don't let your empathy or fear of him dismiss his disrespect. Set him straight, you're a friend. Make sure he values that.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 August 2014): I would also like to add that Pete and I are friends. He sometimes comes to me and talks about his Mum but other times it's just attitude. I know he is hurting and I although many of you feel that it's my partners problem, this child does like me and talks to me, but I don't like to cross boundaries because this could have implications on my partner not seeing his children.
...............................
|
