DSS has had a pretty rough time in his short life, his mum and dad split up when he was 1 and since then he's been constantly moving house and passed from pillar to post and I think it's really affecting him but I don't know what we can do about it?
He's got a sister too who is 8 but I think she's a lot more emotionally stable and she deals with things much better.
Their mum isn't a bad mum but I think she often doesn't put them first, they are about to move house for the 8th time in their lives!!! All the other moves have been quite local but this time hey are moving to another city and moving schools to live with their mums boyfriend of around 3-4 months!!!! We're not ecstatic about her decision but realise there's little we can do about it. The kids are very find of her boyfriend and we know they love spending time there but it just seems too quick, especially as they'll be moving schools.
In the past DSS has had problems with his behaviour but I'd say for the past year or so there has been a drastic improvement, until a few weeks ago when he started being very quiet and sulky again and more recently he's started lashing out, screaming, hitting etc.
It's so difficult as I understand that his behaviour is a reaction to everything else going on in his life, he can't express how he feels with words so it shows in his behaviour instead.
But I have 2 children of my own and when he starts lashing out a) I'm scared they'll get hurt or scared and b) I don't want them witnessing or learning that behaviour.
What can we do about it? DP and I have discussed it and we've said that we have t just try and ofer him as much stability and normality as we can, we can't control what decisions his mum makes but we will try and be the stable part of his life. But is that enough?
Last night it did come up in conversation about the possibility of him coming to live with us. I don't even know if he would want to or if his in would allow it or if it went to court if they'd grant us custody?
We only have a 2 bed house at the mo (trying to save deposit for bigger place but its hard). When the DSC sleep over at weekends they sleep in our bed and we sleep on an air bed on the lounge which is clearly not something that could work permanently. We could put bunk beds in the kids room but would a court consider our house to be over crowded with 3 kids in 1 bedroom?
It's hard for DP because his child is clearly really sad inside but we seem to be pretty helpless.
Has anybody experienced similar problems or any ideas of how we can help DSS?