Struggling a bit with DN

[mamateur]

Hello, I've posted a few times about DP's DN who came to live with us 6 months ago. Back story here among other threads.

Things had been going quite well - his behaviour at school vastly improved mainly because one of the teachers who sees him all day emails when there is the slightest problem, so we've had major tabs on him. He took this pretty well and has earned lots of rewards etc.

So, after a stay with Granny (always bad news) she told me he was back on fb. We had talked about it before and he said he wasn't bothered about it. But now he's getting a lot more involved with friends at school and is back on. I checked his profile (pic only visible) and it was a really dumb rapper pose giving the finger. Charming! Had a chat said that was not on, he said he would change it. We also said he had to 'friend' DP. DP and I are not 'friends', DP has no pic, no info and hardly any 'friends' so it wasn't so bad, was it? Au contraire, we are invading his privacy, not trusting him etc. His school is very rough and not particularly good and he idolises bad boys (being more of a follower than a leader). He has now (apparently) deleted his profile although I don't really trust him not to set up another one I can't find so DP is blocking FB from the home network. THis has made things worse because we don't trust him, etc.

Anyway, he now sneers at everything I say and generally makes me feel uncomfortable in my own home. Obviously I expect some of this, but things seem to be getting very him and us and I can't seem to get through to him.

Also granny has said I push him away by always criticising everything he does and should just leave him be. Well that's her style of parenting which frankly has been a massive disaster five times in a row. But she's made me feel I'm being too hard on him. There are about a million things I see as needing changing and I do pick my battles.

I think this job might be impossible

Please don't give up on him.

Maybe you should phone someone like Parentline, and get some support. I think you are doing really well, its just that Teenagers can be horrid.

So what if you are invading his privacy? Maybe it needs invading. If you can talk to him about some horrible news story about a girl who's gone off with a guy she met on the internet, and see what he thinks her parents should have done. Try to talk around issues when your not too fraught.

Do you have any support from Social services? Try to get some support, as you are doing a hugely valuable job, and you really need to not get over-whelmed by it all.

Keep at it - he desperately need the boundaries you are putting in place in order to have something to kick against.

I suppose it's difficult being 13 when you know everything there is to know about life but noone believes you

Parentline is a good idea. We have no help from SS, I'm not sure what they could do as DN is family and they were not involved when he parents died, granny just took over.

I have actually taken Granny's comments on board (much as it sticks in my throat to say it). I try to listen for longer without replying when he's telling me something (have the how to talk to kids so they talk to you book).

The problem is he doesn't expect any parental involvement because granny let him do what he wants. He knows he is stuck with us because it's the only way he can stay at this school which he loves (no homework, loads of naughty kids, what's not to love!) - he can't go back to granny because he would have to go back to the school he left.

The worst bit is feeling like he is enduring us. It doesn't feel at all like he's ours, more like we're providing boot camp services.