Our 12 yr old YD is now living in a childrens home. The home itself is lovely, and the staff have been brilliant - I really cannot fault them. But her behaviour is continuing to get more and more out of control and we are getting pretty close to our wits end.
Since she has been there (7 weeks now), she has absconded 3 times (once at 1:30am), she has started smoking. On family contact last week, she disappeared after school and was picked up by the police on the A50, 7 miles from our house and walking back to the home (some 15 miles from our house). Staff then brought back to our house, where she promptly kicked off and started trashing the place, all the time screaming vile abuse and both myself and DH. She then tried to shove past DH (who is disabled), so we ended up calling the police and having her removed. (All of this in front of 3 social workers from the home, a PCSO and two police officers, together with a police car parked at the top of our drive).
On the last 2 visits, when she has gone back to the home they have searched her bag and found - on the first occaision a bottle of wine and a can of cider, and then on the second occaision two bottles of wine and a can of lager that she has taken out of the fridge while here and stashed in her bag.
She has said numerous times that she doesn't want to come home and she hates us etc etc. I have threatened to sell her bearded dragon if she continues to cause problems when here on family contact; she has had her mobile phone confiscated etc. I really don't know what else to do.
Meanwhile, social worker continues to insist that she has no mental health problems. She may not, but I feel I am rapidly developing mental health problems as this damn saga drags on. sigh
Our problem is this: she is currently in voluntary foster care, so in theory we can withdraw her from the 'system' and bring her home whenever we want to. Clearly, this is only going to end in tears (probably ours) as she will be utterley vile. The house will have to turned into Fort Knox to keep her in and it's going to be very stressful. Part of me wants to just leave her there and part of me wants to be able to say that, no matter how bad she behaves, we've always been there for her. I know it probably souonds awful for me to say I'm tempted to leave her there, but her behaviour really is unmanageable and she has been absolutely vile towards all of us. Yet on a good day, when she is more like herself, I have hope that we may get through this and she may come back to us as herself.
It's such a nightmare and the stress levels in the house are through the roof. I know that some of you have been in similar situations as we find ourselves in at the moment - how on earth do you manage to keep your sanity?? I'm tempted to pay for a private psychiatric consultant to assess her and see if she has mental health issues that social services have failed to pick up on.
Sorry for rambling.
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12 year old - still causing problems, sanity rapidly evaporating.
34 replies
biffa85 · 04/11/2012 14:52
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Coconutty ·
04/11/2012 19:12
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04/11/2012 19:26
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Maryz ·
06/11/2012 09:29
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Maryz ·
06/11/2012 09:31
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