JP> It's good to write to someone who is familiar with what you are going
JP> through. Does the frustration ever go away or ease down? Just when I
JP> start to feel that things are going better for Jessica she does a
JP> flipflop and goes back to what we thought was corrected. At 10 years of
JS> I'm afraid at this point the frustration is increasing.  When an 8
JS> year old acts like a 5 year old, you can tell your self he is
JS> immature and you can limit him without much trouble.  But the
i know this feeling all too well...
JS> I find it very difficult to deal with problems which have no
JS> solution - by nature I'm a fixer of things.  But you can't fix a
JS> person.  I tend to withdraw from situations like that, which is very
JS> bad.
this one, too...
JS> Fortunately my wife
i, however, have no SO... haven't for 13 years now... both boys stay
with their mothers except one who lives close enough for me to have on
the weekends and all summer... it's hard enough on them to take care of
things and they call on me often... sometimes, though, there seems to be
nothing that either of us can do... at one time, shaming the boys into
proper behavoir was working... that is until "the streets" got hold of
them and rebellion was viewed as "a good thing" among their peers...
"the streets" are very prevelent in public schools :(
JS> know what to do, we can't trust him to do the things a kid his age
JS> should do and yet we feel rotten when we restrict him so tightly. 
JS> He's getting restive, too, so more and more our attempts to control
JS> him are met with evasion.
one thought on this and one that i have learned thru my own past and
actions...
  if you take a ball of mud and squeeze it tightly between
  your hands, you can only squeeze it so hard before it starts
  escaping from between your fingers. no matter how hard you try
  its time will come and it will soon be all gone.
JS> We explain to him over and over again that if he acts in a
JS> trustworthy manner, we'll start to trust him more; but that just
JS> doesn't "take" in a deep enough way.
i still do this with my boys and i try to talk to them and take personal
time with them... even to the detriment on my company and outside
friends... basically, i still tend to use the shame routines on them to
make them realize that it is their behavoir that is unwanted. read that
again... please... it is their behavoir that is unwanted... not them...
not their love... not them... but their behavoir... many of us have
learned to control our ADD... over the years, we have learned to control
it or channel it where we felt that it's energy would benefit us the
most... yes, i believe that i have ADD and that i have had it since
childhood... i have learned to control and channel it... my youngest
son is learning this now and doesn't realize it >...
i feel that i must go back to the behavoir thing again, though... it has
taken me many years to learn to express that it is their behavoir that
is unwanted and not them... when i tell my youngest this, he responds
much differently that if i just jump him about whatever it was that
caused the problem... when i/we forget this, he responds with deep
depression and suicidal thoughts and that is very scary considering he
is only 9 years old and i've only known him for the last 4 or 5 years...
)\/(ark
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