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. 

Discouraged

He's upped the stealing from gum to pocket knives, family jewelry, electronics, credit cards and cash.  Where will it end?

stealing, again, and again

Garbanzo has an uncle that has invested a lot of time and energy in setting Garbanzo up with a mowing gig, mowing for both the uncle and the uncle's neighbor. We'll call him Uncle McGivor. Uncle McGivor's knife turned up under the bed that Garbanzo sleeps in over at his grandparents' house. That is, the bed he USED to sleep under, before he was banished from their house for stealing from grandma's jewelry box and lying about it.

What does one do with a child with such poor impulse control, such unreliable morals, that he steals from the his relatives? In a way, you could say that we have given up. Not that we don't care or that I don't lay awake at night worrying about his future, but that we have given up the idea that we have any control over this. I am powerless over my son's stealing. We tell him he has to chose what kind of man he wants to be, and that with choices come consequences. I'm still waiting to hear what consequences Uncle McGivor has in store for him. I would think he will be fired.

stealing

again. more.

This time it was his Grandpa's class ring.

I am at a loss of what to do.  He is impervious to punishments.

one thing that is working

Tater has a really hard time controlling her temper.  Anything that makes her mad makes her really really mad.  Not getting her way, being told no, being told what to do, being corrected, being asked to do a job correctly, these all make her mad.

When she is mad, she is consumed by the mad.  And the situation escalates into more and more bad choices.

Basically, she can't be around people, as she will engage them in anger.  So, obviously, she needs to be by herself until she can calm down.  It usually does not take long, and she can usually see that she was being unreasonable after she has become calm.

But getting her to go to her room usually became chaotic.  I'd say something like, "You need to go to your room until you can accept my decision." and she would shout hateful things and stomp and shout challenges and NOT GO.  And then I would stand up to take her and she would cry out that I was hurting her and whimper and do the whole kicked puppy thing and it would just go on and on.  She would lose control and (as James Lehman would point out) gain control, as I would back off on my resolve to ask her to go to her room.

But no more!

I give my kids printed lists (via OLLY) that show the day's responsibilities.  Included on each day is this:

COPYWORK: 5 times neatly and in cursive: When I behave inappropriately, Mom and Dad may ask me to go to my room to calm down so that I can correct my behavior. I need to go to my room without challenging, grumbling, stomping, and so on. When I am ready to apologize for my inappropriate behavior and am ready to be polite to people, I may come out of my room. (If you go to your room appropriately when asked, you don't need to copy this today.)

Now, if it wasn't on the list, and I assigned it when she acted up, there would be a big raging fit over receiving the lines.  But since it is on her list as default, and she can earn the right to skip it with good behavior, she choses that.