When do you feel a child needs to leave the home? When is enough enough?

[susiestar]

I am not sure how many of you know about the situation with Wiz. At this point in time I would not hesitate to have him here for a short stay, but he still can't move back in with us. I will start at the beginning.

I first thought things were "off" with Wiz when he was about 2 yo. He would just get this "dark cloud" around him - his whole face and attitude would just change on a dime. He would get SOO upset, unreasonable and unreachable.

But mostly he was a sweet, happy, funny, smart kid. Everyone LOVED him. Truly and deeply. If anything, he was over attached to me. It sure wasn't a lack of attachment. He also showed clear signs of hyperlexia. He went INTO kindergarten at age 4 and he was already reading chapter books (animorphs and Hank the Cowdog were his favorite series - one of these books would take less than 1 day to read!)

We started to see intense anger toward Jessie about the time she could crawl around on her own. He started destroying every toy she had. By this time we were in therapy to learn how to help him.

School was a total nightmare. Too smart for the classes he fit in agewise, too awkward socially to fit into classes he fit academically. Incredibly intense anger toward Jessie and I.

By the time thank you was born we knew Wiz could not survive the local elementary school. We pulled him out to homeschool, but not before the teachers (witches) at the school convinced him he was useless - according to these witches Wiz couldn't be gifted because he didn't get 100% on everything and he didn't behave perfectly. Let me tell you, bored little boys get into TROUBLE. We also couldn't leave Wiz alone in the same room with Jessie. Not even long enough for us to use the restroom. She would end up with bruises or worse if we did.

NO therapist EVER really dealt with that. It drove us nuts. There is only so much you can do by changing your parenting. If a child refuses to change, or respond to the changes you make, there is very little that you can do.

When we moved to OK it was a new start. Jess went into 1st grade there (we had pulled her out of the local school for the first couple of months of the year because 4 boys in her grade were sexually abusing little girls by pulling them into the coatroom or bathroom while some of them distracted the teacher and aide. I refused to have her potentially abused this way.

wiz had already been diagnosis'd with Aspergers. He responded to medications quite well. After we moved we found a wonderful doctor who did testing, and all the testing pointed to Aspergers. We used medications to handle his symptoms.

By thsi point we had few suicide attempts anymore (those happened before we pulled him out of school - and were how we found out that the teachers were abusing him emotionally).But EVERY time we tried to pull him off of the SSRI antidepressants he became suicidal again.

We dealt with a LOT of abuse aimed at Jessie and I. The abuse toward Jessie was FAR worse than we knew. One night when Wiz was in 6th grade and Jess was in 2nd, I walked into Jessie's room because I heard a noise.

I found Wiz on top of her with his hands around her neck trying to kill her. It took ALL the strength I had to pull him off of her. That very day I got door alarms AND a neck alarm (like a pendant) that Jessie was to wear at all times that she was home. This was a short term help until we got Wiz into a facility wehre he could get help.

Within a week we drove him to a psychiatric hospital. He stayed there for 4 months. The staff said he was one of the lucky kids because we visited at a MINIMUM 2 times a week PLUS one more visit for therapy with him. It was a tough period of time, but we got through it.

He finally made HUGE strides and came home. But by the next fall he was sliding into violence again. This time he came after ME first, and Jessie second. We had the sheriff come out once because he locked himself into the bathroom and was pounding on the mirror to get some glass to kill himself. He told me this through the door. By the time the Sheriff's deputy came he had calmed some. They talked to him, and to us, and they left.

A week later Wiz got mad because I mentioned his homework and tried to headbutt me in the stomach. Jess took thank you and locked them into my room. She called 911 at my request. husband came home from work to find the Deputy here. I was determined that Wiz would NOT spend another night in our home. Period.

After 3 days in the youth shelter Wiz got himself kicked out. He hugged a girl who was crying. The rule there was NO physical contact. Including hugs because you had no way of knowing which kids had been abused under the cover of "affection".

My mom and dad took Wiz in. We were trying to get the court to order Residential Treatment Center (RTC). After a month and no real action by the judge, my dad asked if we would drop everything and let Wiz stay with him and my mom. It ended up being a wonderful thing.

My dad somehow got through to Wiz. Partly by dragging Wiz out to trim their overgrown acre of yard every time Wiz showed aggression or created a problem.

Right now Wiz is living with my parents, he just finished up high school, but is taking a sort of "gap year" instruction at the tech school. His program will be paid for in full by the state for next year and he will end up certified as a machinist.

He is now a responsible kid, and is a good big bro to Jessie and thank you. He also feels incredible remorse for the pain he "put us through". He knows that in one attack he caused nerve damage in my hand. He will take it and rub it gently or get me a hot rice bag to wrap it in if it hurts.

I think we were all forged in the fires of Wiz' disabilities, but we came through it so much stronger.

As for us - we never wrote Wiz off. Never will. But we also will not live with him under our roof for any extended length of time. If it was needed because some crisis, we would work it out.

I can honestly and truly say that without the warrior parents here on this board we would not have gotten one tenth of the help Wiz needed. Thanks to everyone here - you strengthened us, supported us, and helped us figure out what to ask for to help the entire family.

I do NOT think the 4 month psychiatric hospital stay, the 2 shorter psychiatric hospital stays, or any of the treatments, or having Wiz taken away by the police was copping out. It was incredibly hard to do those things. Esp with the people who didn't see that side of Wiz and gave us a very rough time of it.

And right now, things are pretty good with all the kids. So it isn't all impossible to come through the fires and be stronger.

 

[DaisyFace]

I think there is a difference in raising an adopted child vs raising a bio child....not in love, of course...but in blame and guilt.

You know for a fact that anything your adopted child may have inherited, or been subjected to during pregnancy, or suffered during early childhood was not your fault and had nothing to do with you....

Whereas, your biological child that you carried and raised from birth....? There will always be nagging questions for me. Is it hereditary? Does she get this from me? Was it something I did? Was it something I could have done better? Was it the drugs they gave me to prevent pre-term labor? Was it the time that I was tired and she fell when I was changing her diaper? Did I give her the wrong food? Did she miss out on some important vitamin or nutrient? Should I not have gone back to work? Did I leave her with the wrong sitter? etc etc

The list goes on and on....

And so for a biological child--I imagine that there will always be more guilt and a sense that we, as parents, have to make up for past mistakes that might be the cause of our child's issues.

If my daughter inherited mental illness from my side of the family--how can I possibly cut all ties even if she kills the dogs? Was I not aware that I have a blood relative who has also killed dogs? How can I be irresponsible enough to pass on those genes and then abandon the child?

It's never black and white....

And there seem to be no easy answers.

--DaisyF

 

[DammitJanet]

MWM....I dont think we can compare taking in a foster child at age 11 and having him turn out to be a sexual predator with what most of us have to deal with when we make the decisions about our kids....bio or adopted. I can only think of a handful of people who have adopted older kids. I am sure the decision was extremely difficult for you even though he was adopted.

I dont know what I would have done and thankfully I have never been in that position. I was involved in a similar situation through a friend who reacted differently than you did with a bio child and I dont know if her decision was the right thing or not. I often wonder.

 

[BusynMember]

Oh, I don't think it's the same either, at least in one way. If this had been a biological child or one we adopted at birth or very young, we would have kept in contact. It was easy to walk away after knowing him for only three years and with him not attached to us in any way.

However, I would have sent my biological child or the kids we got at birth out of the house if they had sexually perped on the other kids. It's a matter of protecting the victims. I wouldn't have thought twice about it. It would have broken my heart that my child was that way, but I still would not have made my other kids feel fear in their own home. There are ways to parent from a distance and at different addresses.

My question was how much is your limit before your child has to leave the home, not how long before you disown him. However, I'm very much in favor of the victim, not the perpetrator, even if it is my own child. The two children this child perped on were both adopted and, as far as I'm concerned, they are both as much mine as if I'd given birth to them.

I have seen people with dangerous stepchildren who stay in spite of having their own kids who put up with their danger. I am sure I would not stay under those conditions. But everyone is different. There are no right and wrong answers--only difficult choices.

 

[DammitJanet]

I have no answers to this because I didnt deal with sexual abuse or physical violence. I dont think I could have put up with either of those things but I dont know what I would have done. I cant say because I didnt have to actually do it. Its really hard to say what you would do until you are there.

I know some of us longer term parents have compared kids before and one said how Cory was one of the "harder" kids. Well...yeah he was hard and yeah he did some really awful stuff but I think some of the other kids are harder and some of the other parents are far more "warrior moms" than I am because I would have killed my kid if Cory had done some stuff. So I guess some things just seem "harder" to us when it isnt happening to us because we get used to what our kid is doing and it becomes just normal. I was able to parent Cory but someone else would have snapped.

 

[standswithcourage]

Well I think I couldnt cut ties with my son either. Even though a lot of counselors say if I really want to help him we should cut him off - we do not give him money or rides to bad places. He is 25 - still uses pot and pills to excess - I am afraid for his life everyday - we are going to a counselor to talk about invervention - I know in intervention you have to say if you wont get help dont contact us - I am not sure about that - also I have considered having him committed again - I do not think that if you put your child in a treatment facility you are getting rid of him/her - When I did that I was afraid for their lives and felt they didnt have the wits about them to think rationally - so I did it for them - also many people would say that is fixing the problem - well when it is in your face you have to do something to try and help them.