I hate my son

[SerenStar0]

My 12 year old son is nothing but trouble. He’s always in bother at school, angry and abusive in school and at home. Refuses to do anything he’s told. Spends most of school in internal exclusion - yesterday other children were annoying him so he cut some poor boys head phones wire with a scissors then cut a girls hair. She was crying on the phone to her Dad.

Doesn’t respond to any punishment such as having stuff taken away or being grounded- he doesn’t care about consequences.

His latest antic is refusing to get up for school. My DH is constantly stressed and so am I. Last few days he has pretended to go to school then gone to the park to meet with other undesirables to smoke and drink. Now he just refuses to go.

I try and talk to him and he just tells me to F off. My other children are lovely.

Referral to Cahms just bounced back and he refuses to engage with a counsellor.

He hates me and his Dad and now I hate him. I’m thinking of contacting social services to see if they will take him away. He is a horrible human being and can’t help but wish he was never born.

Yes he does have educational difficulties- he can’t do any of the work

This is massive.
What have you done about it?

Yes he does have educational difficulties- he can’t do any of the work

Right, that’s something.

Do school know? Has he been referred for learning support? Or a diagnosis of SEN if needed?

Well the educational difficulties can be a huge part of it, is this likely the crux of it all? My heart goes out to you. Say you hate him here, say whatever you need to, cry, rant etc, you need to be heard, your pain and frustration is very clear and really important too. You need support and a plan here.

Thank you everyone who has been supportive- I feel isolated and everyone else has perfect children

School are supportive but there’s only so much they can take as well. I think he will be permanently excluded soon

“Cahms but it wasn’t important enough to get an appointment”

That’s unlikely to be the reason.

CAMHS are a specialist mental health service. Unless someone is mentally ill, they don’t need CAMHS. He sounds like a behaviourally disturbed young person as opposed to a mentally ill one.

If he’s unable to do the work, that’s an issue that desperately needs to be resolved. If school are ignoring it or aren’t trying to help him, they’re failing him. Which means that the punishments are just angering him, which perpetuates the cycle.

Is there another school he could go to? He needs ed psych at a minimum to help support him to learn. It sounds like this is the root of all the behaviour which is causing so much heartache.

You’re not alone OP, we’re here.

School have put him in a program called NESSY not sure what it stands for to help with his reading. They are also trying to support him by putting him on a reduced timetable. He just won’t engage with anyone- we can’t help him as he won’t talk to anyone

He sounds very unhappy and isolated OP, it also sounds like school aren’t doing anything like enough. He’s slipping through the cracks, not learning and in the process his confidence will be on the floor.

Can you make an appointment with the school to ask where to go from here?

I was a child with a brother like this and all of us children suffered for decades. I'd urge you to get social services involved for the sake of your other children. That level of violence and lack of empathy in a 12 year old is very worrying. When you think about it, if you don't do something quickly, he may end up killing someone. He's already pushed you down the stairs. What if he did that to one of his siblings and they banged their head? When he starts to develop sexually (if he hasn't already) then he's going to have problems with girls - or rather, they will have problems with him. You need help now, rather than waiting for anything more to happen.

Most kids after doing something really bad (like pushing their mother downstairs) will go quiet for a while. They know they've done something really wrong. Did his behaviour change at all?

I’ve tried to encourage him but, it’s not just the fact that he can’t do the work - he has no interest in trying. He thinks school is pointless and a waste of his time!

He clearly doesn’t value education and when I stress the importance and ask what he will do for a job when’s he’s older he just shrugs and says he doesn’t care.

Maybe he’s too young to comprehend his future- he can’t seem to imagine ‘next week’ let alone a few years time when he may want to leave school

Oh OP I’ve been there. It’s horrible. Please ignore the absolute arseholes who replied with nastiness.
My son was very similar a few years ago despite being very much loved. He just seemed to turn feral overnight. It was like he hated me (I got the brunt of it). It was awful. I too used to consider SS.

Have you tried calling his bluff? I once very calmly and coolly handed DS the numbers for Childline, local SA etc and invited him to ring them and explain how badly he was treated. He was distraught at the idea. I followed it up with “Right. Then you will cease doing xyz and begin behaving or WE will be calling these people and you WILL end up in care and that is NOT what we want but we will NOT be putting up with your nonsense any more”.

You have to mean it though. I’d have been heartbroken if it had come to that but I would have seen it as my responsibility as part of teaching him boundaries and consequences.

He thinks school is pointless and a waste of his time!

It is. Because he’s not learning, he’s not being supported to learn and he can’t do what his peers can do. That must be incredibly isolating and demoralising.

It’s hard to comprehend the future when the present is so hard.

When he does something really wrong he just blames me. When he pushed me down the stairs he told me it was my fault as I made him angry. I hadn’t even raised my voice - just asked him something about his day.

Nessy is usually a program to help people who have dyslexia. I imagine that he is having trouble at school due to his learning differences, and if his dyselxia is severe he might well not be coping at all. Dyslexia is not just about having reading and writing difficulties (these are more the sympotms of the condition). He could well have short term memory issues, find it hard to organise himself, remember things etc. Alot of children with dyslexia start feeling depressed / low self esteem as school and learning can become difficult - and they see other children coping with work that they cant.

YOu could perhaps join a support group in your area for parents of children with dyslexia and find out ways of helping him learn. If you contact the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) you could find a support group in your area to help you with his learning differences. It might be a start?

Your last post chimed. My DS has spent the last couple of years pissing about at school but he’s entered his final year a different person. Growing up a bit I think.

Mine went through a patch of this. Not as severe. And at 9. In trouble every day, sitting in exclusion every day. I had days where I hated him. Genuinely could have throttled him out of frustration and exhaustion. He was a badly behaved, smug, entitled little sod.

Firstly, the school were fucking useless. Made everything worse in my opinion. I let that carry on for far too long.

What worked for us, was firstly, taking him out of school for a week. Without their "straight to exclusion" as soon as his name was mentioned, he didn't feel like he was doomed from the start, so what's the point in even trying. We've since changed schools and it's so so so much better.

Whilst at home for that week, I became the proverbial iron maiden. He'd lost all respect for authority including me. So I ran the week like an army sargeant major from the 30s. It was hard, it was horrible, but it worked.

I'd get him up. He'd do the work I'd collected from the school, under my glaring eye. He was allowed no TV, no games consoles, no tablet. If he wanted something to do, he was given the hoover, a duster and some polish.

The first couple of days were awful. He yelled, he had tantrums, climaxing in him saying he was going to punch me. At which point, I bent down in front of him, put my face right in his, stared as coldly as I could right in to his eyes and very quietly told him "Try it. See what happens." I meant it as well. I don't know quite what I would have done if he did. But what mattered was he knew I meant it, and it was like the penny dropped that finally there might be a consequence to his behaviour. It was like in that instant he realised he didn't own the place, in every sense.

Things changed after that. He'd listen. The rest of the week was still boot camp for him, but he just got on with it. With no other distractions, he talked. About why he did things, about why he felt he could, about how he was going to accept the help to change. I told him what I was going to do to make things better, I promised that we'd find a new school. I also told him that I'd keep him home for as long as I wanted under my militant regime if he did not put the effort in. And he really didn't want that.

A huge part of it, was the terrible influences of the children at his school. A tiny minority, but they were unfortunately the ones DS was impressed by and gravitated too. Their parents were unconcerned about what their children were doing as long as they were out of their hair. Getting him away from that is key.

DS is now a very accomplished boy. It seems incomprehensible that we were going through this under a year ago.

He’s threatened to call child line and report us (not that we’ve done anything wrong).

I’ve handed him the phone and said go ahead - of course he didn’t!

He ran away in the summer - we reported him missing- when the police brought him home he said he was afraid we would put him in to care. I saw that as a cry for help and explained we loved him and want to help him - all he has to do is show a little respect and try and behave- but he just can’t grasp this concept

OP I can only send you my very best wishes for the strength to get through this.

My eldest has got ADHD, and even at 25 she's still making poor decisions. I am resigned to a life of stress and worry..... there were many many times during her childhood when I loved her but really didn't like her. The early teens were the hardest - defiance mixed with raging hormones is not a good combination. Getting help is like pulling hen's teeth and the classic "have you tried using discipline" was quite regularly said to me.

It's soul destroying. You've done your absolute best, but every day is a nightmare that you never wake up from. Our most helpful source of help was a part of our local education authority called Partnership with parents. We had an advocate who really fought DDs corner (and ours) and we eventually had a few years of home education to take the stress out of all of our lives and DD went to college for year 11 which she coped really well with.

Some posters need to hang their heads in shame for saying what they have. Talk about lack of empathy

You sound emotionally exhausted OP, which is totally understandable (no judgement here).

It also sounds like your son is, and doesn’t know how to express his feelings. He sounds very lost and angry, probably as a result of not being able to cope in school and then being punished for acting out.

i felt like you were talking about my cousin, hes like the devil child also 12. sometimes i wish his mum would just call social services, she loves him very much and he gets his way all the time because she doesnt want to argue or be punched, kicked.

She had cancer last year and he called her a fat ugly cow because she wouldnt get him something else to eat on way back from hospital even though she said he could go next door to the shop and buy something but nope not good enough so he slaps her.

She spends hundreds on him every month trying to get him everything he wants and now everyone else has given up on him :(

If it was my child im afraid to say, I wouldnt handle it.

I know he is only a child but he is behaving violently and being emotionally abusive. You need to protect your other children. I am not suggesting ' giving him away' but I do think you need to give social services a call.
You are not coping and have exhausted all other methods. You need to protect your other children and your own mental wellbeing as otherwise you will not be able to be there for your other kids and they will suffer. He will also suffer too because you are not able to cope (not a criticism btw I think most people would struggle in this situation, I know I would).
From what you have said it sounds like he is unable to empathise with others which is really difficult and worrying.

Have you tried love bombing him?

I also think you should get some counselling for you, your needs are important here too.

I sounds horrendous for the family.
I think I'd go with Courtney's suggestion of running him like a boot camp.
You are obviously a caring Mum or you wouldn't be even trying to get any help for him. Ignore the nasties.

Has he always had problems with the work at school? Sounds like he could have fallen so far behind that he feels useless/stupid/like it's just not worth bothering any more, and that is leading to his anger and his unacceptable behaviour.

What support has he had from schools in the past?

Are his problems in all areas? Is there anything he's good at or enjoys? Hobbies, sports?

Whatever the reasons behind his behaviour, it sounds awful for you all. I'd ring social services and see what they can advise.

I