I don't want my 14 year old son to live with us anymore. He's always been extremely difficult and it's just got worse and worse over the years. He's already at his second high school after a bout of severe school refusal. Now he's just started year 9 and it's only four days into the term, and he's already been pulled up for cutting registration and spray painting obscene words on the sports hall wall. He's heading for expulsion and I don't blame the school one bit. We sent him to private nurseries and he attended a very good private prep school until he was 9. We then moved him to an outstanding rated primary school, and from there he started year 7 in an outstanding high school that he promptly refused to attend. We then found him another outstanding high school - and he's messing that up too. He is highly verbally abusive to us all. He has no motivation to work in any activity unless it involves video games. We've tried banning the electronics, but then he just plagues our other two kids who are younger, to the point where they are beside themselves with distress. Over the years he's had educational psychology assessments, occupational therapy, 18 months of counselling therapy, specialist diets and more. My husband and I have bent over backwards to support him and help him. But all we've had back is abusive behaviour. I think he has PDA - an autism spectrum disorder because his behaviour can be so extreme. But sometimes I also wonder if I'm just looking for excuses because I've produced this jekyll and Hyde, child. This evening was the last straw for me. He started picking on his 7 year old sister. All she said was that she'd bitten her tongue and it hurt, and he went ballistic, calling her a b!Tch, a slut and a c*nt. He trapped her in her room with the light off and just bombarded her with foul language. At 7, this is serious abuse and is damaging for her. I don't want her to ever think that men and boys can treat her in this way. It's literally as bad as punching her in the face. He also calls her fat and tells her she was an accident and her dad and I never wanted her. He is highly manipulating and clever at cruelty... He's pretty foul to my other son too. But thankfully he's almost 12 and very smart, so recognises that his big brother is the one that's the problem.. I realise that sending him away could make him worse... I am desperately worried about that. But I will not stand for my daughter - or my middle son to be abused in this manner. I have to think of their welfare now. He's been given so much love and patience and opportunity. And now, she and my other son deserve some of that too, without living under the cloud of daily abuse. We are very financially stretched and can't afford to send him to boarding school. Does anyone have any suggestions that could help us? This situation is horribly difficult. You alway love your children - so having to send them away to something that might be worse for them, is a dreadful thing. However, I can't see my younger children being abused any more..