ds causing me stress again...

[happygolucky0]

My ds has had a girlfriend for a year. In this year I have had so much trouble. It is one thing after another. The girlfriend is dylexic and struggles alot in school. Can i just say that i work with special needs people so please don't feel that I am against them in any way.
Today I have had the school ringing to say ds had taken another child's glasses and got a compus and scratched then badly. Ds was one of the most laid back people i knew untill 6 months ago. I know hormones are playing a part too but I just think that he has gotten himself into a realtionship that he is finding hard to cope with. I have let it go as felt there isnt anything I can do. I just feel sad that things are going this way for him at school.
Last week I was telling a friend to chill out when her Ds got suspended. I know it isnt the end of the world what he has done it is just that I am tired of it being something if that makes sence. I know alot of you understand that but the problem is I can see what is causing the stress but cant do anything about it.
Have any of you had any experience of dc hanging out with people that you could see was changing your dc? How did you handle it?

forgot to add he is 15

Posted a long post but deleted it as I cannot get my head around the possible non-trollishness of the OP.

So supposedly, her ds attacks another pupil and damages his glasses, but it's all the fault of his girlfriend being dyslexic

And the OP works with special needs people but is generous enough to state that she is not against "them"- as if all people with any kind of special needs (dyslexia, dodgy eye sight, learning difficulties, hearing loss, cerebral palsy, autism and arthritis) formed one homogenous mass that you could be Against.

How very generous

How about concentrating on your ds's behavioural problems instead of blaming his girlfriend, OP?

How very helpful Cory

I am not sure what his girlfriend has to do wih him scratching someone's glasseS with a compass? I can understand your frustration with your ds but I think you wold be unwise to put all this down to him having a girlfriend. I don't really see what her dyslexia has to do with it either tbh.

His girlfriend has alot problems trying to cope in school. This results in alot of frustration and anger. Ds is very close to her so the situation/ anger gets taken out on him. The is resulting him becoming quite stressed. He is also trying to do his work (homework) and take on trying to teach her how to understand hers.
The compass he was out of order he should not of done that. His own fault not his girlfriends. He was prevoked with rude jokes re myself. He has been charged £20 for thr damage and understands that he did wrong.

I'm not surprised your DS's behaviour is causing you stress. Scratching glasses with a compass is a very deliberate act of nastiness. If he were 5 rather than 15 it would be 'out of order'... But at 15 it is criminal damage, as well as bullying and/or intimidating behaviour. You must be very worried. :(

If you are right that your DS 'becoming quite stressed' because of his relationship, then you need to support him to recognise this himself. There will always be something in life for him to get stressed out about: people he's hanging out with, you 'getting at him', school, his future jobs, future relationships, his wife, his own kids... Whatever the circumstances, he needs to learn that it is not OK to take out his stress on anyone else, and that he must develop strategies for dealing with it.

You need to be very careful not to pass the 'blame' for your DS's bad behaviour onto anyone else - you won't help him manage his stress if you do that. TBH, I am quite shocked by your suggestion that this bad behaviour might be in any way 'caused' by his girlfriend. I also do not like the way you are excusing it as 'provoked'. You won't do him any favours at all if you allow him to duck any of the responsibility in this situation, or in any other part of his life: he is responsible for his actions - not anyone else.

If you need specific advice for how to help him to deal with stress, you can Google 'helping teens manage stress', and find lots of websites/online help like this. They'll suggest things like doing less, prioritising, doing exercise, doing relaxing things, sleeping enough, and talking to someone about your problems... You might find this advice helps you deal with your stress too.

How has your ds taken responsibly for his actions. What punishment are you giving him.

The fact that he is stressed doesn't give him an excuse.

Is he happy in his relationship?

happygolucky, don't you realise that it is not exactly pleasant for those of us whose children do have SN to be told that even a very minor SN must be so stressful for the people around them that that excuses attacks on other people?

hence my somewhat snidey reply

dd has a far more serious disability than this, and one that impacts on the whole family and on any friends she has; that is unavoidable

when her younger brother misbehaves in class, I don't see that as an excuse: I tell him that he is responsible for his actions and that I am not interested in excuses

as flow says, it is likely that your ds will come across far, far harder things in life than having to be round somebody with dyslexia

life is hard, there will always be stress, unless you can teach him that he bears the responsibility to control his temper, he will not be safe

you need to make sure that he knows that there are no excuses, and then help him to work with how he handles stress

teens are experts at picking up from what you say or the tone of your voice that things weren't really their fault, that they are hard done by, that their behaviour is unavoidable- because that's what they want to hear. But it is not good for them.

make sure he can't hear it in your voice

TBH, I think the girl's mum has got more to worry about. Her daughter is going out with a bully who wilfully damages another person's property. Hopefully, she'll be encouraging her daughter to get a more suitable boyfriend and then you won't need to worry that he's going out with a "special needs person".

I hope somebody is able to speak to the girl and make it clear to her that dyslexia doesn't have to be such a dreadful thing, as long as you get the appropriate support. In any one year, I have at least a couple of dyslexic postgraduate students; they still get through their MA's. But it does take the right kind of support.

Flow4 thanks for the link, I will read through it.

Footface: He paid the cost out of his own money for the damage. I took his xbox and tv from his room. The question if he is happy in the relationship was a tough one. I know he wants to be in the relationship and wants to help his girlfriend. We are just getting over a period where he was suicidal/ having thoughts of doing this so not much has been happy.

Cory: i sorry that I upset with what I said. I didnt mean to cause anyone any upset. I am wondering if you have any ideas of how I could maybe help his girlfriend as would be willing if she wanted me to, but not sure how. She gets some lessons printed off before the lesson. She gets alittle support i think maybe it is in English. Also a special type of glasses to wear.

ds had taken another child's glasses and got a compus and scratched then badly.

I find it well believable a hormonal showing-off stressed out teenage boy would do something so stupid & self-centred. Not sure what the girl's dyslexia has to do with things, does she have low self-esteem and aspirations, as a result? And that outlook added to the stresses of LURVE is distorting his ambitions, Is that the real problem?

thanks for the explanation, happygolucky; this makes it a lot clearer

but I do think you need to get away from this idea that if only you could fix the girlfriend, your ds would be fine

I am the parent of a suicidal teen myself, and I have sadly have to accept that it isn't about fixing any one situation, it is about helping them to change how they react to stress

dd has had stress triggered in the past by: an unsympathetic school (she has now moved), physical pain, illness, friend's mh problems, other friend's mh problems, love, exam stress etc.

I have gradually come to accept that the main problem lies not with external situations- which are a normal part of life- but with something in dd herself

if I were to remove her suffering friends from her, magic her through her exams, put her in a stressfree relationship and perhaps even sort out her physical pain, that something might still be there and that is the bit that has to change before she can move forward

this is why she is having CAHMS counselling and CBT- to help her to accept that the stresses of life will always be there, but that she can have control over how she reacts to them

it is helping

What support is your ds getting?

Thank you Mindfulmum and Cory for taking the time to reply.

The school set him up with a counsellor. After they had him suicidal in school one day around Dec last year. He had around 6 sessions. he was being bullied around this time and she seemed to help him get over that. Then they said he didn't need anymore.

I did go to his gp re the suicidal thoughts. He just said that alot of teens feel like this and it is normal.
Not very normal when you are going to work and unsure if you going to find your child alive when you walk in the door.
I wonder how you went about seeing a CAHMS. (not really sure what that is)
I read a book last summer about CBT and thought it was very good maybe your are right I should ask the doctor for some help for myself.

It makes me so annoyed when GPs tell young people their feelings are normal on the grounds that lots of people their age feel the same. That just means it's a big problem and so should be taken more seriously, not less! Lots of people develop cancer but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely serious. My dd (17) plucked up the courage to go to the GP by herself and was told exactly the same - "lots of young people feel the way you do, so here's a leaflet about youth counselling, but I'll neglect to tell you the email address is out of date, so when you finally feel brave enough to email them, they'll never reply", which is really what happened. Six wasted months later, she is on the waiting list, but a colleague who works for CAMHS said she had had good feedback from Relateen (an offshoot of Relate). Sadly it's £35 an hour. CAMHS is the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, part of the NHS. Your DS will need to be referred by his GP or another health professional of someone at his school. Be warned, though, their thresholds are now very high. Good luck.

That's feeble of your GP, happygolucky. Someoftheabove's cancer analogy is spot on; just because it happens to other people doesn't make it harmless.

When dd was self harming and suicidal, I rang the school counsellor and she got dd moved up the CAHMS waiting list.

I can see where your ds' school may have been coming from; they probably thought the bullying was an isolated incident and that once that had been fixed he would be fine. But subsequent events have shown that this was not the case: he is still struggling and needs help.

Could you contact the school again, ask to speak to the counsellor/SENCO and stress that this is an ongoing problem. Make it clear how very worried you are about his recent attack on another student (schools like to hear that parents take these things seriously) and tell them you are worried something worse could happen if he doesn't get help.

As someoftheabove says, thresholds for referral are now very high, so the NHS will need convincing that there is a real danger.

If school is willing to do the referral (it would probably be the Senco), one thing that seems to get CAMHS' attention is the suggestion that a young person is at risk of being excluded from school. If he has already been suspended (is that the same as a fixed term exclusion?), that might be the way to go.

Just remembered something else that might be useful - find out whether his school has a CAMHS school nurse - they work at what's called Tier 1 (i.e. below CAMHS' thresholds) and offer 1:1 for young people with mild to moderate mental health problems.

sometimes there are also CAHMS nurses working in the community: while dd was on the waiting list for the CAHMS clinic she was seen by a community team which included a CAHMS nurse and a SW