The Current Useful Tool

This is what is working well right now:

Naughtiness occurs, child is sent to the couch.  When he or she stops huffing, rolling eyes, glaring etc., the process to be released from the couch can commence.  I hamd them this piece of paper and a pen.

Of course next week will probably be a different story.

Shoplifting

After years of being let off easy for shoplifting he is getting reamed over. She is threatening to have him arrested as our truck is sitting in the parking lot ready to head out for our first vacation in two years. He's terrified. THANK YOU Ace Hardware. 

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Is now confined to his room furnished with mattress, bedding, a bucket, and TP. Motion camera on door alerts us to any attempts to leave. http://twitter.com/wearycook

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Instead of cleaning the basement, he was down there watching hardcore porn on the iPad, bypassing the restrictions with stolen passcodes. http://twitter.com/wearycook

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Dressed. Showered. Hid in bedroom until noon mustering up the courage to face the day. #incompatiblehats #lovingmom #watchfulguard via IFTTT

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How does one go on when one can’t go on? #cryingallthetime via IFTTT

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@wearycook : #parenting. A fresh train wreck every day.

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@wearycook : It's as if he is doomed to the institution. Started in an #orphanage. Next stop #jail? #mentalhospital?

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@wearycook : Yesterday he stood right in front of me and lied "yeah. Mom said I could. She wanted me to". #Infuriating.

Encouraging words

"This isn't your fault, you lifted him out of a very deep and hopeless hole and as discouraging as this is to you, you are the best thing that has ever happened to him and furthermore I love you and you are a good good mom."

In response to my sharing that, if we could find somewhere else for Garbanzo to live, he would be gone. Endless trickery, deceit, stealing, lying. It's not gotten any better, in fact worse. I am so weary of having to always be monitoring, always watching, always suspicious. If I relax at all, he escalates. It's as if he has no internal monitor, and no interest in gaining one. I love him dearly but I am so tired. I can't keep doing this.