S10 With PAS and Don't Know What to Do

[scraps66]

I've just endured a week of vacation with my S8 and S10.  S8 is fine, S10 is firmly under exuBPDNPDw's spell.  She is a teacher so home all summer and it has been rough.  It is to the point he comes to my house and "tries" to appear completely oblivious to any type of enjoyment he can have here.  Also, ex has been trying to control his activity here, I THINK.  He is claimed to be a voracious reader, reading 500 page novels in tow days. But when I ask him about the books, he can't tell me the story line or any of the characters.  My theory is that he is "faking" the reading to appease his mother.  His mother will also drop books off for him at my house when with me.  Curious.

Tonight S8 had a football game and S10 goes along.  He likes playing on the playset at the field and asks to go along.  But, his out of control and aggressive behavior does not necessarily play well with the play area and small kids.  I keep my eye on him, tonight I see him pushing other kids on the swings, very hard, and smaller kids.  I tell him once, stop pushing.  A little while later he is pushing three little kids on a tire swing, very hard.  I tell him again, he gives me a smirk, and I tell him again, I want you to stop pushing kids on the seeing.  But they asked me to, I just don't want you pushing any kids on the swings.  I get a, "just shut up, shut up."  This is the second time for this this week.  I tell him I won't have him talking to me like this and I start walking toward him.  He starts running away. Running away!  He would run out of the play area, down to the field, past ex and her boyfriend, and into the corner of the field.  I now watch the game, he keeps an eye on me.  If I walk toward him he walks the other way.  Ex sees this and starts walking over to obviously see what she can gather here and maybe she can make me look silly. 

I did at one point run after him which was stupid.  When I was leaving I walked past him and told him we would talk about what he said when I see him next and that I still won't have him talking to me like that, his response, "well I won't have you running after me like some crazed maniac."  He's 10!

Among other things happening:

He knows it all, constantly correcting and disagreeing with me;

Turning up his nose to whatever I cook for him;

Not wanting to do anything that I ask him to do;

Does not use any of the things I give him, new boogie board at the beach, nope, new skateboard - tells me to return it, claims I don't have clothes for him, etc.

All of his bad behavior ramped up last spring when he got suspended four times in six weeks time.  The only thing out of the ordinary that had happened at that time was I had confronted ex about not participating in Wrap Around therapy for S10 while in front of our coparent counselor.  Sometimes, like with the reading thing, I can forecast punishment based on things that ex has said, this may have been one of those times.  She doesn't want anyone meddling with S10 and claims school is at fault with all of his behaviors.

My parents seem to think I'm too tough on him.  I do nitpick him quite a bit I guess.  I insist that he does not hit his brother and that he is respectful.  But there are probably quite a few things that I should step back about.

Validation.  I try it, I'm trying to make him recognize that some people that he may feel are helping him, may not be.  The issue with validation with S10 is that he can't describe his feelings so it's difficult to stay away from yes/no questions.  Or I'm not good enough at it.

I feel like I'm running myself down and going nowhere.  Any of the therapy we've done, or I've done just seems to have no effect due to ex's lack of consistency.  I'm debating some type of legal action to have ex properly evaluated but that is costly, the outcome is uncertain and it could make things worse. 

I just don't feel as if I've got much energy to keep this up now.

I'm also in the midst since Feb. with a fairly significant renovation due to ice damage so the house is not conducive to having a lot of kids over for playdates. This is also taking time and energy from me.

I don't know what a next step would be.   

[enlighten me]

Its a tough call with kids. You need to have your boundaries and they need to respect them. Unfortunately children know their rights and they learn what they can get away with and what threats work. I recently had a run in with s14. it was silly and he lied. I sent him and his brother to bed early and after ten minutes he came out of his room and refused to go back. He was very cocky. Refused to do anything I asked and even challenged me by saying "what you going to do about it" In the end I said fine. From now on don't expect anything from me. You can cook your own meals and anything we had planned this summer you are no longer a part of. After twenty minutes of him ranting and me ignoring him his brother came in. I said last chance to tell the truth. his brother gave his side of the story and begrudgingly s14 agreed it was true. I told them to not do it again and left it at that. The whole incident was because s14 had thrown some jelly at his brother. S14 was shocked by my reaction. He feared owning up because he was that used to his mothers anger that he expected it from me.

The one thing I have tried to do is remain constant in my parenting. If this has meant my children have run back to their mum because they didn't like a ruling then so be it. I don't promise them things I don't deliver. I can say no to them and I don't lie to them. Its been worth it in the ends as they now live with me. They finally had enough of their mum and no longer want anything to do with her.

Try not to let this get to you. Easier said than done I know. One thing I will add is you seem concerned about how your ex perceives you. This can be a hindrance as you can spend more time worrying about the exs feelings rather than your childrens.

[david]

Consistency and telling the truth worked for me too. It took time ( the oldest one turned around under a year, the younger one took over two years ). It wasn't easy but it did help them.

I noticed that ex's alienation tactics backfired on her because she was constantly being caught in her own lies to them. They talked to me about it a lot years ago. I listened and said little. When they asked me a question about her I never put her down. A lot of times it seemed they wanted me to. I think that was because that is what their mom was doing to me. That takes practice to get good at it.

[bravhart1]

The pas over here is bad as well. It is very hard to keep a child under control when they run away from you.

SD6, will reject toys, clothes, meals, all of it. Nothing other than what mama has blessed is good enough. I have a hard time finding ways to validate "shut up" and " you are a f---ing B".

When I try to enforce rules and appropriate boundaries for name calling or even leaving for school, I get told " you aren't my mother". Funny thing is, I have been her "mother" for three years, she has spent over 85-95% time share in our care. Only since March when it went to 75% with us 25% with mom did mom get a foot hold on the PAS. We used to get along great, had some issues on the exchange days back from mom, but that usually went away after a day or so. But now we can have her for seven days straight and she never lets it go.

The running away from me is the hardest part as I worry about her running into the street and getting hit by a car. Therapist is very concerned too. Says she is seeing the BPD behaviors being drilled into SD6 with deft skill. This is very hard. My DH has broken down in tears (not normal for him) he's so worried about the state of his relationship with D6 turning so bad.

We have exhausted our bank accounts, and given the last three years of our lives to this battle. And BPDm has barely had to be accountable or pay a dime, and it looks like she's winning. It's very discouraging.

What can we do? Why are we so helpless to fight the unstable parent and why do the courts make it so hard to get a clear picture across?

[lbjnltx]

I hope that something in these excerpts from the book "I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better" will be of some help to you as you practice validation scrapps.

Validating Kids in Divorced and Blended Families, Validating Young Children

lbj

[scraps66]

Things have even gotten worse through the first week of school.  I had responded to an e-mail that ex ahd sent to school - didn't copy me, but I blatantly blasted ex while copying personnel at school for what she was doing.  She has wanted to get rid of S10s aid for two years now because, "S10 was complaining about having someone follow him around."  The fact of the matter is school will not take the risk of S10 doing something that ends up hurting another child while in school.  so they have aids checking up on him, this year too, but he doesn't have a 100% aid so he does have some freedom.  My response no doubt has triggered ex.  In my response I also provided an example where ex was using S10 as propaganda to get her way - saying he was discussing the aid with a summer teacher and he wasn't.  I had inquired with the teacher if he was having these discussions and he wasn't.  So she was caught redhanded.

So now it's first week of school in the new school.  Yesterday I pick him up, he gets in the car and he won't talk.  I ask how his day was, he doesn't respond.  Eventually he says, "you've ruined everything," and he begins to get out of the car.  He stops and I let it go and we wait for his brother to show up.

We get home and later that evening he tells me about the aid, that it was supposed to be that he didn't have an aid but the one of the school aids is watching him all the time.  I explain to him that school cannot have him go unobserved for the first week.  I summarize his behavior of last year and his suspensions and that regardless of whether he has an aid or not, he needs to behave.  We go to bed.

Get up this am, I make French toast for breakfast.  S8 sits down and gobbles down his breakfast, has some conversation.  S10 just sits there, pushes his plate away.  I ask if he's not hungry, he says no and stares at me.  he has been doing this of late, staring at me with these hateful eyes.  I tell him that he has his breakfast and if he doesn't want to eat it, fine.  If he gets hungry he had his chance to eat a full breakfast. 

He has the same shirt on from the day before - a shirt that he had from his mothers.  He's dressed for school.  I ask if that was the shirt from yesterday, he said yes, I say, "S10, you'll need to get a new short for today," his response is that he has no shirts here.  I say that he does and I got to his room and make sure he has clean shirts.  Come back down and I say there are a couple shirts on his bed and he walks away saying, "I hope there's one that fits."  (a few weeks ago I was chastised for allowing him to wear the same shirt tow days in a row, chastised by Ex, this almost sounds premeditated.)  I also have a conversation with him and explain that his other gets mad at me when I let him go with old clothes.  I ask if he likes it when mom gets mad at me, he says yes.  I ask if he likes it when someone gets mad at him about something someone else had said.

After the ruined statement I did talk to him about taking what someone else has said or something that he has overheard and using and acting on it and that it is important to verify for himself and not just take what someone else tells him.  Also told him that no one can tell him how to feel.

I'm exhausted, frustrated, angry and at a cross roads.  I don't know what to do or if there is anything I can do.  I've left a message for my attorney to see if she has any advice.  My courthouse sucks bad and in particular in custody, the master at least.         

[ForeverDad]

Have you investigated the novel approach by Dr. Craig Childress to consider Parental Alienation as a type of abuse?  Since the professionals have dissed the Gardner PAS concept for years and never really accepted it, Childress argues that it's really a form of child abuse and therefore there is already a way to address it from that perspective.  His thesis is that PA is a child protection issue, not a custody issue.  It is discussed in his new book Foundations.

www.drcraigchildressblog.com/

Here's a thread where we were discussing the topic across a number of posts in July and August.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=279815.msg12657769#msg12657769

This is in Book Reviews:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=274234.0;all

[scraps66]

Thanks FD.  I started that video but hadn't finished.

Unbelieveable to me that we just ended a round of coparent counseling where it was apparent from some of the things ex was saying and how I was countering that there was blatant PA going on.  This so called effective Dr. hung his hat on the ethics of coparent counseling (similar to couple's counseling) being neither parent could be singled out from the other.  Had to be right down the middle.

As luck would have it I just received a call from school, fourth day, and S10 had an incident with butting in line and then hitting a kid when asked to get back in line.