Feel like I have failed after GS failed every GCSE

@AlgaeDreams op has literally asked for parenting advice!

So good to see the parenting experts out in force 🙄

Your DGS has no attachment to either his mother or father and I can imagine that being the root of his problems, - formed since birth for the last fifteen years.

You have done all you can for him as a replacement mother figure but he must always have wondered why he wasn’t good enough for his parents, especially when they went on to have other children who were kept in the family unit instead of being rejected -as he had been rejected.

So OP please don’t blame yourself, because for all your hard work and love, care and efforts to provide for him, his abandonment by his parents was always there eating away at him, obstructing his thinking. You could never erase that from his developing mind. No wonder he hated them coming for Christmas. How can anything matter to him if the lack of any of his basic needs being met by his mum continue to haunt him…if only sub-consciously maybe.

School must have been a nightmare if he felt different to all the other children who lived with their mums and dads. He didn’t fit in so prefers his computer for company.

It’s a massive job to rewrite his entire childhood for him. He has to have professional help to attempt that. Do all you can to have his parents get professional help for him, now they can see the extent of the damage done to him. I understand that they probably need help themselves.
In the meantime, continue to let him know you will always love him, even through this very rough patch for him.
A few house rules could be introduced … and it should be explained to him that he is required to be in education or work. And that you will help him with that.
As other posters have said, the GCSE exams can always be retaken.
This doesn't mean that he hasn’t a future if he can help himself a little bit.

Maybe, if he can persuaded to engage, a local tradesman would take him on ..on a ad hoc basis to give him a bit of a break from his nocturnal gaming and to give him some practical experience for his CV. Surely his father could help with that. It shouldn’t all be down to you.
Or maybe you could sign him up to retake his English and Maths at a local college as a foundation for an apprenticeship in a year’s time.

None of it will be easy but at least there are options open to him.

The swearing and nasty comments are a defence mechanism OP. He’s lashing out because he’s hurting. Somewhere deep down I bet he really does care. But I understand how hard that must be for you to reach.
Hoping you find a way forward out of this to give him some hope. All the very best!

Hi @CuddlyBears I’m so sorry, this all sounds very difficult. Despite your interventions your GS has had an extremely hard time, he has no relationship with his mother or his siblings and has been rejected by his father. All of this will have had a significant impact. I also note that he was born prematurely. Can I ask if there’s any possibility your daughter could have been drinking alcohol or smoking while she was pregnant? (Especially as she didn’t know). Alcohol, even in small amounts can have a profound impact on brain development in utero. Research now suggests it is more damaging than ‘hard’ drugs and smoking too has far more impact on cognitive development and behaviour than was previously realised.

You need some decent professional help. In my experience your GP and CAMHS aren’t going to cut it. Are you in any support groups for adopters and special guardians? Either in real life or in Facebook etc? They can be a gold mine of information and will make you feel less alone. If you have the funds I would prioritise a private multi disciplinary assessment of your GS in the first instance. This MUST be with people who are specialists in early adversity, developmental trauma and FASD. People in the communities I’ve mentioned above can make recommendations for your area.

As previous posters have said, please don’t give the GCSEs any more thought, they are just a symptom. He can re-take them any time, or not at all.

The things you describe, including peeing in bottles are actually surprisingly common in children with attachment difficulties and early trauma. You have not been given the advice and support you needed. ‘Normal’ parenting is not enough for these children, so please ignore all the people who think they could have done better, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

You need help and it needs to be the right sort of highly specialist help (otherwise it can do more harm than good). Join the groups I’ve mentioned, look up therapeutic parenting, speak to children’s services and find out what support they have for special guardians (even if it’s just talking to other people who get it) and if you possibly can, get a private multidisciplinary assessment for you GS as soon as possible.

OP, I don't think it sounds like you failed him at all, without you he may well have ended up in the care system. He's had a really difficult start to his life and it sounds like he's reacting to that. If anything it sounds like you've been let down by the social system.

Have you spoken to his GP? I know they're not always but mine was really helpful when my daughter was having mental health issues and we got her some counselling quite quickly and that really helped her. It sounds like you're both really struggling. I really hope you both get the help you need.

Feel incredibly sorry for both you and him. You didn’t have to raise him, that was an incredibly selfless decision and I’m certain many in your situation wouldn’t. Without you who knows where he’d have ended up, likely the care system. It doesn’t sound like his mum has fixed her life in any way since he was born which she definitely could have done.

Imagine how different his trajectory could have been if she had taken his birth as a wake up call, worked hard at school and done something decent with her life after so she could give him a stable upbringing. Instead she’s just stayed in a volatile relationship with his dad and had however many more children.

He’ll feel abandoned (quite rightly) by them as well because they raise his siblings and not him. The poor kid has been crying out and probably feels like no one hears him. He clearly needs substantial support from somewhere, as do you. What a thankless job for you.

"she doesnt see him as her child but shes never tried to even get to know him on any other level but he just refers to her as “her” or a bitch which I always pull him up on"

This really got to me. It's no wonder he's acting out, he's carrying so much anger and pain, being rejected like this. And to see his mother caring for her other children must feel like a massive slap in the face.

I think nothing short of really good therapy/counselling is going to help this young man.

This is kid whose self confidence is in the gutter, no matter how much bravado he's currently putting around it.

It's a tough situation all round.

I think the first thing to address is the sleeping. He can't move onto anything keeping those sorts of hours. Again I know it's easier said than done.

Then he needs to do something, anything to see that there are ways to things outside of school. If he can't go to college, look at the King's Trust.

He won't think he needs any of it which will be a mass hurdle but this time is critical.

Hard as it is, try and not dwell on the results. Oh well that's school done. Let's find something that suits you. But be very clear that doing nothing isn't an option.

This time is critical. If he doesn't find something to do now, it will only get harder.

I think it’s clear what the issue is, so not sure why you can’t see it. He’s feeling rejected by his parents who he as little contact with but sees that his siblings are a much loved part of their family. I’d suggest self referring to social services for some support. Look for an apprenticeship for him, he may finds that suits him better than a formal 6th form placement. Above all make it clear it’s not the end of the world and that he does have options. I’d also say he’s suffering from depression which will again link in with his feeling of rejection!

Sadly by the time a child becomes a wayward teenager its far too late. Children need firm boundaries from toddlerhood, and to be taught to respect parents authority from a young age.

You see it all the time on here "hes 14 i cant make him go to school can I, he's huge".

A child whos been taught to mind parents, its so ingrained that you're in charge that you can tell them they can/can't do things & they obey.

this is of course true.
Its worth remembering though that ‘some people have it harder than others’ is also because some people try very hard to make good choices / choices that will lead to good or less risky outcomes.
In this situation for example; there are lots of things mentioned that could absolutely have been addressed before this point that would have increased the chances of a good outcome. Many people would take these steps and see them
as reasonable, in the hope of getting the desired outcome of good education/ good family bonds / respectful behavior.
Getting rid of the PC in the lead up to exams; either not seeing his birth mother or asking her to make some huge changes to benefit her son; seeking professional support. These steps could have been taken to encourage a better outcome. It’s also not too late now to take some steps to help this young man. Love alone and keeping a roof over his head will not be enough to set him on a successful path.

To me it seems like this is a repeat of the initial situation which caused this scenario in the first place; OPs daughters’ teenage pregnancy and then the daughter’s subsequent choices to have other children. The pregnancy is not ‘the problem’ - it’s an outcome that is arrived at by poor choices, lack of understanding around risk and lack of strong boundaries that need to be set by the parent.

@CuddlyBears you have been a saint to adopt your grandson. You have done right by him. I am not trying to be unkind; I wanted to explain that these are scenarios that are repeating themselves in your family. Love alone isn’t enough to be a good parent; you also have to have discipline and boundaries and teach children to make good choices. X

I feel like we’re missing a lot of information. Can you give us some more insight into what his teachers were saying at his parents evenings in Y9, Y10, and Y11? What mock grades did he achieve in Y10 and Y11?

For different reasons (MH) my DD finished y11 with no GCSE passes.
The world did not end

You and your GS clearly need help, whether that is SS and/or CAMHS or elsewhere. Under Special Guardianship are you eligible for the Post Adoption Support Fund, PAS was the place we got most help.

Education-wise the clear option is a level 1 course at college. If he attends and engages in that then he can work up from there to level 2 and maybe even level 3. Alongside the level 1 course he will do Functional Skills / GCSE maths & English language. Quite possibly functional skills with 1s and 2s.

This sounds tricky. What was he predicted? As these grades shouldn't have come out of the blue. Have you been to parents evenings? Seen his reports? Schools are often seen to be over testing children so there should be records of assessment to show that this is the level he is working at.
I am surprised no one had been in touch regarding his low performance.

It sounds like there are much bigger issues going on and you needed help sooner.
I hope you can speak to school/college to make a plan for what happens next.

I’m astonished at your tone and how much blame you seem to be landing at the feet of the OP.

GSCE results are just the symptom of a terrible situation.

Firstly, well done for being there for him. How awful that his parents abandoned him.

What a shame we don’t have functioning CAMHS any more. He needs intensive and consistent support from staff who can work with adolescents who are difficult to engage. But there are not enough workers, and there are kids in worse positions so he won’t be a priority.

But you need to keep fighting for support.

Is there anyone in his life he looks up to? Any male role model? Any hobbies he could do?

I am sorry OP. He is scared, sad and struggling. But without support he may go down an even worse path. I feel for you xx

I too wonder where his mother is in all this. She she must now be in her 20s, an adult and ultimately it is her responsibility to manage his upbringing and behaviour. I was 25 when I had my first child and 28 the second and was expected to cope. Sounds like you have done your best, I hate this assumption that there is always something wrong at home to make a child go off the rails. Peers, media, school and society in general all have a huge part in how a child turns out. Don’t beat yourself up, things are how they are. In any case academic grades are not everything, he might be better off studying a trade eventually. But in the meantime yes, I would try and get help for his mental health. Don’t despair, he is still very young. You sound like you have done your best which is all we can do.

Don’t worry too much about the GCSE results. There’s lots of other opportunities out there like apprenticeship or more practical courses.
The post explaining what his dm has done since having him as nd his relationship with his df is probably worth more concern. They are both wrong to behave the way they have and your gs needs to know you also think it’s wrong and he’s not been treated fairly and that you chose him and you love him.
Try some different charities to get advice like Young Minds, Family Action etc etc. Tell the GP you need a referral to CAMHS. Be your gs biggest advocate.

What a tough situation for you both. There is some good advice on here about getting back in touch with social services / GP as well as some decent suggestions of ways to get through to him.
Please ignore the responses that lack empathy. It’s very easy to be smug when you’ve had a good life and are lucky enough to have relatively easy DC. The reality is that some people just do have it harder than others.

Poor kid, rejected repeatedly by both his crappy parents.

Whats the bigger picture OP?

Are there any family members that he has a relationship with ? Grandads, uncles, cousins? Is there anyone other than you who has time for him ?
What was he like at school ? What have his teachers said over the years ? Does he have any diagnoses or health conditions ? His poor grafes can’t have come out of no where, so what were you doing to help him work towards them ?
What are his friends like ?
What hobbies / activities does /did he enjoy growing up ?
Have you and he ever had any counselling together? Did you talk to him about his parents

And this is hard to ask but… what are you like as a parent ? Are you strict or soft ? Are you a loving and involved mother or a disappointed and exhausted grandmother ? What age were you when you took on your grandson? Did you try to get your DD to stay involved with him? Do you have a husband / partner ? Is your DDs father around? Do you have any other children ? How’s your own health / life etc?

So many questions, but your story pretty much jumps from him being born to failing his exams: it’s everything that happened in between that he’s led him here.

I’m not sure why you are shocked, your GS sounds like a nightmare so he’s not going to go from doing all those things to getting straight A’s so it can’t have been a complete shock. That aside you’re in a horrible position and he clearly needs help, you need to go back to GP and say you are at breaking point.

Sorry but having read all of your posts; your daughter has taken absolutely zero responsibility for her actions by the sounds of it. Are you serious that she has other children who live with her??? Yet she never took back her own son? That is shocking to me. In your shoes I would have cut her off over that; at least then your grandson would have felt someone was on his side. All you’ve done has validated her behavior and he will feel that you support what she has done to him. Which is abandon him. I suspect he has deep rejection issues which is not surprising given his mothers and fathers behaviour. You sound very relaxed about it all.. in your shoes I would have cut my daughter off for this series of actions probably. I am not surprised your GS doesn’t want to spend time with her and ‘his siblings’ - can you imagine how that must feel for him???? You don’t seem to get that

Well he has had a hugely dysfunctional start in life and it sounds like you have allowed him to coast along rather than force him to make good choices. It doesn’t sound like he knows what a good choice would be. The PC can go in the bin. You’ve left it very late to tackle this sort of behaviour now; Has he ever had counseling or similar? What is his relationship like with his mum now? This is huge trauma that rears its head all through life.

My goodness this sounds like an absolute nightmare and I'm sorry your going through it.
First thing I want to say is GCSE results barely get any recognition after your 20's and can be re-sat if needed.
I can relate to your grandson- in a way-not all ways as I was never as disrespectful to my parents or did anything like pee in bottles, but i got kicked out anyway.
I am asking you to step into your grandsons shoes for a while, your bought into this world by little more than a child who had absolutely no intent of being a mother- nor should you at that age-but showing some kind of interest in the child you made would be, natural but by what i have understood reading your post never happened.
Perceived rejection from an early age is confusing for a ypung child-tgey will persume they are at fault or unlovable as I feel has happened here. You said that your daughter has had more children and lives and takes care of them but has very little to do with your grandson, this will just be more evidence to him that there is something wrong with him. He will feel like he isnt good enough and feel totally excluded from your daughter's life again, so this is where the self harm and drug taking comes into play, I was self harming due to my mental health issues and family problems which I couldn't understand at the age of 15-16. I thought it was my fault, that I was "bad" so went totally off the rails not unlike your grandson, smoked a lot of weed, drank to access did other drugs. Shoplifted got arrested multiple times and it was all just a cry gor help.
Your grandson is lost, and is hurting. He takes it out on you because he has no one else and by the sounds of it your the only constant thing in his life, the comment he made about his dad trying suicide came from a place of dispair and hurt, he probably felt this was something to do with how low he is so he lashed out and put a front on.
Unfortunately he won't accept help because he cannot face the reality of his life, he has lost all ability to see a future for himself and this should be a massive issue for the mental health people you have tried to access because in my experience you don't care if your future ever comes meaning he is in danger of taking his life, or his behaviour could end his life. Ether way, he has lost hope of a decent life.
Do you know who he calls his friends?, Are they trouble makers?. Can you access his gaming console? Another thing to be aware of is what he us seeing online! Could the things he is seeing be making him worse?.
I can understand how hard this is for you, but please think about how this kid must feel too, empathy is used everywhere online these days but no one seems to practice it. There are online groups that help with drug taking in young people. FRANK is a good option, education on this matter is important if you want to talk to your grandson about why he is smoking weed but in my experience its to get some relief from his life, and could be why his sleeping pattern is so off.
I hear a lot of things that point to depression, and if he is feeling the way I think he may be, smoking weed will make things 100 times worse (even if you think it chills you out the thc can make psychotic symptoms appear or worsern).
Please stick by him, he has such a mixed up life that an adult would have trouble making scene of it let alone a boy, he is scared, he needs you more than ever because everyone else has let him down or seemingly rejected him. Don't worry to much about the exam results but please keep on at your g.p. any services that are aimed at children and teens and badger the heck out of them!.
Look after yourself too!. You have not failed!! Everyone else around this lad has, please use empathy and show him as much kindness as ypu can without becoming a doormat. Sending you strength and love xx

It sounds as if your dgs has some quite, and understandably, complex issues with his mental health. My dd is mentally unwell and it is incredibly difficult. She’s 18 and we have had 2 years of pulling her round. She is getting better, but anxious and highly resistant.

We are using someone privately, who is very highly trained in mh. The first thing she got us to do 2 years ago, and when she was the same age, was to connect with dd.

I would suggest that you do the same with your dgs. Lots of love bombing, connection, trying to entice him away from the computer. He’s going to object, probably tell you to fuck off and he hates you. The response to stuff like that is, it’s ok, I love you. And I have enough love for the 2 of us. Try to dip into his world. Would he watch a film with you. Or play a game. This is the first stage that I would do, because it’s re-establishing connection. And with connection, you have something to work with.

And at the same time, put the boundaries in. What are the boundaries? You need your write some really simple rules, which you write down and present to him. And not too many right now, otherwise he is unlikely to comply. Find maybe four or something. So pick the ones, which are most needed. Put a copy on the fridge. And write on this that you will turn off the WiFi at x time. You’ve got an almighty battle coming.

WRT going to college, it sounds as if he won’t do anything willingly, or be told. You’re just going to need to sew seeds here. If you find the information about which local college would accept him and possible courses, then you could suggest something to him. Try to find a moment, when he is calm and available to connect and just say something like, I’ve seen x college is offering course an and b (check availability first). It starts on y date in September. What do you think? Then leave him, come back to him a couple of days later. Tackle it lovingly. Ask him if he’s thought about the college stuff.

Have you ever told you dgs that he may be your grandson, but your love for him is one of mother to him? That to you, he will always be your son. And you love him to the moon and back. I am just thinking, perhaps a key to his feelings, is to allow him to feel how he does about the rejection from his birth parents (effectively this is an adoption situation in all but name). I just think it would be useful if he could see himself as a person, inside your little bubble.

Have you spoken to him about how his parents are with him? How he feels about that? That it’s ok to be hurt or not to like them. And very importantly, you need to be putting your hurt to one side for all that. The hurt from him and from your dd. And you’re going to need some counselling yourself as has been mentioned, to be able to really park your feelings and not let them spill into your relationship with your dgs. So that you can remain loving and calm.

The reaction your dd has had to this all would make me think she’s also very hurt, that she wasn’t given what she needed emotionally either, when she gave birth to that tiny dot. Did you just take over and she fell into the background? I’m wondering if she felt very rejected. 13 is a very tricky age from a brain development perspective and it seems there there was some quite black and white thinking, that she’s take forward. That one is even trickier due to her age. And she’s a grown woman now.

Are you the sort of person, who just gets on with it and doesn’t give out much love? Because if you’ve been this way, due to some very tricky circumstances, this is how things have ended up this way. And you are the parent. And the changes come from you first.

And please, get all the support you can from a social worker, from mh charities. And anyone, who will listen, including the school, who may have some ideas for you. If you can find someone at school, who is interested in his wellbeing, that could be a starting point today.