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englishredrose
Guest
calm down if you want me to answer you rather than the opening poster.
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Eleanor61
Guest
I appreciate all the replies, but I want to especially thank you, EasterJoy, for your responses. I do have five children, three of them are older than this son, and I agree that this is not testing boundary behavior. He needs counseling, but the very best face we can put on this is of someone who is not able to handle normal emotions like jealousy and anger and lets them build up to the point of irrationality and acting out. This is not normal. We also have a pathological amount of lying going on all the time. This child is exceptionally good at lying and it has not been good for him to so easily be able to fool us. He has left us in the dark too often and we seem unable to understand or help him.
One of our other sons was a glib liar as a child, but he grew out if it, eventually seeing it as a sin and beneath him. This son does not seem interested at all in what kind of character he is creating, and seems to want to create a lower class persona for himself. That may be an expression of rebellion, but the lying and stealing cannot be explained as easily.
All of this is completely separate from his marginalizing of religion. I say marginalizing rather than rejection because he will go to Mass and confession. We normally attend Latin Mass, but he prefers English, and he does drive himself to the local parish. The catholic community around here is pretty close knit and we have outside confirmation that he does actually attend Mass. He will go to confession if we suggest it, but obviously none of this goes very deep. I am not sure that any values or moral issues go very deep with him. He is a shallow thinker, but is pro-life.
I am convinced that we need outside help to assist him in clarifying values and deciding where to go from here. I know it isn’t about me and I keep telling myself that but I feel like I failed him in some way.
My husband has also been reading the replies and they have been very helpful in setting the agenda for our ongoing discussions with our son. Thank you all again for taking the time to reply.
One of our other sons was a glib liar as a child, but he grew out if it, eventually seeing it as a sin and beneath him. This son does not seem interested at all in what kind of character he is creating, and seems to want to create a lower class persona for himself. That may be an expression of rebellion, but the lying and stealing cannot be explained as easily.
All of this is completely separate from his marginalizing of religion. I say marginalizing rather than rejection because he will go to Mass and confession. We normally attend Latin Mass, but he prefers English, and he does drive himself to the local parish. The catholic community around here is pretty close knit and we have outside confirmation that he does actually attend Mass. He will go to confession if we suggest it, but obviously none of this goes very deep. I am not sure that any values or moral issues go very deep with him. He is a shallow thinker, but is pro-life.
I am convinced that we need outside help to assist him in clarifying values and deciding where to go from here. I know it isn’t about me and I keep telling myself that but I feel like I failed him in some way.
My husband has also been reading the replies and they have been very helpful in setting the agenda for our ongoing discussions with our son. Thank you all again for taking the time to reply.
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englishredrose
Guest
Being involved in Scouting …
however, I am sorry but I remain in my stance about saying it sounds like normal behaviour of growing pains.
It may be hard to hear and we want all our children to be perfect children and regulary heard about police taking laddie/girl home and it can’t be their son/daughter - s/he doesn’t xyz. All parents want to believe their children are innocent because that is love, love for their child.
Not everyone believes in God and not everyone has the same values. He is18 and learning his own values. Okay so that don’t mean all 18 year olds snear their parents. But some do there are sadly no easy answers to the way forward. All will test their parents their own ways. But the best help for him has to come from family too. He can’t do all the work otherwise when he has a set back it will go further back because everyone isn’t singing of the same hymn sheet per se. Family counselling may be better than just himelf. Counselling is not easy. Easy to suggest but not easy to follow through if we are doing it properly. It better if everyone is on board to know how to move forward.
May be he hasn’t seen the benefits of believing in God and that is why he challenges and lies etc. There is nothing to loose from his own view point. If he really saw the benefits of believing in God then that may be his biggest change into being what you consider normal. He will have reason to conform to parents expectations. Rather than be an angry unhappy young man which he must be in reality to do what he is doing if that is what he is doing. He won’t know that because at 18 he still finding his own way. If he could really see the benefit of believing in God the journey may be pleasanter
however, I am sorry but I remain in my stance about saying it sounds like normal behaviour of growing pains.
It may be hard to hear and we want all our children to be perfect children and regulary heard about police taking laddie/girl home and it can’t be their son/daughter - s/he doesn’t xyz. All parents want to believe their children are innocent because that is love, love for their child.
Not everyone believes in God and not everyone has the same values. He is18 and learning his own values. Okay so that don’t mean all 18 year olds snear their parents. But some do there are sadly no easy answers to the way forward. All will test their parents their own ways. But the best help for him has to come from family too. He can’t do all the work otherwise when he has a set back it will go further back because everyone isn’t singing of the same hymn sheet per se. Family counselling may be better than just himelf. Counselling is not easy. Easy to suggest but not easy to follow through if we are doing it properly. It better if everyone is on board to know how to move forward.
May be he hasn’t seen the benefits of believing in God and that is why he challenges and lies etc. There is nothing to loose from his own view point. If he really saw the benefits of believing in God then that may be his biggest change into being what you consider normal. He will have reason to conform to parents expectations. Rather than be an angry unhappy young man which he must be in reality to do what he is doing if that is what he is doing. He won’t know that because at 18 he still finding his own way. If he could really see the benefit of believing in God the journey may be pleasanter
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EasterJoy
Guest
Even if he doesn’t feel for other people, if he is actually willing to give intellectual assent to the idea that he ought to keep himself within moral boundaries whether he feels like it or not, then that is something very important. He does not have to be like everyone else. Actually, there is philosophical reason to believe that the person who does what is right even though he has no feelings for the object of his generosity may be more generous in the eyes of God than the one who does good with good feelings as a consolation for his self-sacrifice.
I don’t mean to make him out to be a monster. I mean to say that someone who for some reason does not have emotional brakes that go on when they hurt someone is more dangerous because of that lack of feeling. That does not mean that such a person may not employ the brakes of rational assent to right and wrong–someone who lacks emotional empathy is not criminally insane nor automatically morally inept. A lack of feeling doesn’t mean a person is not “deep”, and I wouldn’t marginalize someone for lacking feelings that they can’t manufacture. I simply wouldn’t normalize. If he is trying to live a moral life without a normal set of feelings connecting him with others, he is working at a disadvantage. That’s nothing against him; he didn’t ask to be made that way. OTOH, if you won’t let your legally-blind son drive your car, that’s nothing against him, either. It just has to do with what you can trust him to manage with the gifts that God actually gave him and his history of using or not using those gifts in a positive and reliable way. At this point, your son’s integrity is not showing itself to be trustworthy, and that, without anything against him as a person, is naturally going to show up in when and how he can be trusted.
I hope this works out for you, and for him. Again, I wouldn’t try to shame him if he feels nothing. I’d keep this on the footing that you know he can appreciate, which is that a pattern of behavior naturally will have consequences concerning what opportunities a person is going to be given by others. That, even someone with the handicap of sociopathic lack of empathy can understand.
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Allegra
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No offense, but this is baloney.
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EasterJoy
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I had one other thought on this that might be helpful, since you are experienced parents.
What do you think your son’s “moral calculus” is? Have you been guiding him using his calculus, or the calculus that worked on his siblings? How has what you “spend” on him played out in the overall “economics” of the family?
For instance, you have seen a child react without thinking…they are like someone who uses a credit card with no thought of the day when the bill comes due. But you have also seen a child who, when faced with the cost of the antisocial act he very much wants to commit, takes into consideration whether he wants to pay that price. You’ve seen them stop and weigh, and you know the little gears in there are turning: Well, this is the cost, this is the return, am I a buyer today, or am I going to pass? What they decide to put on the “pro” list and what goes on the “con” list and how each is weighted and what isn’t even worth adding up: that is very telling, isn’t it? That’s what I mean by doing the calculus. Not the thing they do by impulse, whether good or bad, but the thing they do when they stop to add up all the columns and make a hard comparison. As Dr. Phil would put it: What is his currency and how does his inner economy run?
The question to ask yourself is to review those times he used his emotional credit card and ask yourself: what was he buying, what was the cost, what debt did he rack up without thinking, what debt did he rack up on purpose, and what has the actual cost been? If he’s paid the price, what did he pay, and why was it worth it? Of the whole package he bought, which part was the part he was willing to pay for? What used to be too “pricey” for his siblings, but not for him? Why? You get where this is going. You cannot do business with your son unless you know his calculus, because you’ll never be his equal in negotiations unless you know what he considers valuable and what he considers dross. If he has figured out your economy and you haven’t figured out his, you are toast, you are his suckling pig, ready for the spit. He is P.T. Barnum, and if you don’t go into that circus with your eyes open, you are set up to be his suckers. Know his calculus, though, and you have much more power in the negotiations, even from a very gentle demeanor.
With your experience as a parent and some imagination, I think you can catch up to him, and not get caught again in a “slick deal” of his. I hope you come out of the exercise with a strategy for dealing with him short of just staying out of his stock exchange altogether. And if he decides he won’t deal with someone savvy enough to insist on a fair deal from him? If that is the true case and he refuses to do business with you at all, consider that sometimes no deal is the only deal you can afford to offer. If he turns into an unrepentant sociopath, there is definitely no deal you can make with him that will work for anybody, alas. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
What do you think your son’s “moral calculus” is? Have you been guiding him using his calculus, or the calculus that worked on his siblings? How has what you “spend” on him played out in the overall “economics” of the family?
For instance, you have seen a child react without thinking…they are like someone who uses a credit card with no thought of the day when the bill comes due. But you have also seen a child who, when faced with the cost of the antisocial act he very much wants to commit, takes into consideration whether he wants to pay that price. You’ve seen them stop and weigh, and you know the little gears in there are turning: Well, this is the cost, this is the return, am I a buyer today, or am I going to pass? What they decide to put on the “pro” list and what goes on the “con” list and how each is weighted and what isn’t even worth adding up: that is very telling, isn’t it? That’s what I mean by doing the calculus. Not the thing they do by impulse, whether good or bad, but the thing they do when they stop to add up all the columns and make a hard comparison. As Dr. Phil would put it: What is his currency and how does his inner economy run?
The question to ask yourself is to review those times he used his emotional credit card and ask yourself: what was he buying, what was the cost, what debt did he rack up without thinking, what debt did he rack up on purpose, and what has the actual cost been? If he’s paid the price, what did he pay, and why was it worth it? Of the whole package he bought, which part was the part he was willing to pay for? What used to be too “pricey” for his siblings, but not for him? Why? You get where this is going. You cannot do business with your son unless you know his calculus, because you’ll never be his equal in negotiations unless you know what he considers valuable and what he considers dross. If he has figured out your economy and you haven’t figured out his, you are toast, you are his suckling pig, ready for the spit. He is P.T. Barnum, and if you don’t go into that circus with your eyes open, you are set up to be his suckers. Know his calculus, though, and you have much more power in the negotiations, even from a very gentle demeanor.
With your experience as a parent and some imagination, I think you can catch up to him, and not get caught again in a “slick deal” of his. I hope you come out of the exercise with a strategy for dealing with him short of just staying out of his stock exchange altogether. And if he decides he won’t deal with someone savvy enough to insist on a fair deal from him? If that is the true case and he refuses to do business with you at all, consider that sometimes no deal is the only deal you can afford to offer. If he turns into an unrepentant sociopath, there is definitely no deal you can make with him that will work for anybody, alas. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
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bcuster
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It may be difficult for you, but have the friend file charges. Otherwise, he may not take it seriously.
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Aggie414
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I concur. I work in a courtroom (in Texas) and most first-time offenders – especially ones with mental disorders – are not immediately thrown in prison but are offered a chance on probation (sometimes a probation that will not end up in a conviction of the probationer does what he/she is supposed to). BUT this kid has got to start facing some serious consequences for his actions and turn his life around – be that through mental health counseling or just behavior modification. If this is not nipped in the bud, this kid is heading down a path that is not going to end in a pretty place.
Regarding paying for school, I do not think I would continue to pay for it – and I’m not sure he would be able to reside in my home – at least not with some very strict guidelines. And counseling/probation requirements would certainly be part of those guidelines. No exception.
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EasterJoy
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My feeling is that this particular crime is greater, not lesser, than sneaking the same amount out of the cash register of a total stranger. Besides, if he does this at a fraternity house at college or steals from a professor or a fellow student, he is going to be arrested.
It would certainly not be out of place for the victims to file a police report, even if the victim does not elect to press charges. The parents would do well to give them that permission, if they are so inclined. If the victim does not want to call the police, though, then there is not much to be done, is there?
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
If that’s normal, I don’t want to meet any of your progeny. Stealing from your friend’s parents and calling to rub your friend’s nose in it is normal??? In the most charitable way possible, you’re out of your mind.
:doh2::banghead::nope:
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JackieMom
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Don’t ya know, every adult needs to try his hand at being a thief just to see if that’s his way in the world?!?!
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TheRealJuliane
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Yeah right, I can tell you where that leads and it’s a one-way trip to PRISON.Don’t ya know, every adult needs to try his hand at being a thief just to see if that’s his way in the world?!?!
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Allegra
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Glad to hear my own opinion confirmed. There are scores of parents like this in my neighborhood. It makes me hate the summer time because I feel like I have to lock up everything that isn’t nailed down like I live in the ghettos of Los Angelos or something. “Boys will be boys!” “He’s just a little Tom Sawyer, that’s all!” I’m so sick of other people’s spoiled-rotten, over-indulged, over-grown brats it makes me want to move out to Foristell and live among the preppers! And the police do absolutely nothing. I think they all play golf with these kids’ stepfathers.
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maryjk
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His little Tom Sawyer behind would be talking to the cops every time I caught him stealing.
It isn’t “testing boundaries” or “rebelling.” It is stealing, and I don’t know how I put up with it. I am sorry that you have to, Allegra.
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Allegra
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All the cops do is “talk” to them.
His little Tom Sawyer behind would be talking to the cops every time I caught him stealing.
It isn’t “testing boundaries” or “rebelling.” It is stealing, and I don’t know how I put up with it. I am sorry that you have to, Allegra.
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EasterJoy
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Are you saying that the same kids get multiple “talks” of this nature? Maybe you need to ask the district attorney for an explanation? The city counsel?
When there are teens stealing stuff from their back yards, do these young people get the same talk? Could they let you know what level of theft you are allowed, so that *you’ll *know what stuff you can swipe from your neighbors with only a talk as a deterrent? I mean, isn’t a midlife crisis kind of a hard and confusing thing to go through, too?
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Allegra
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As I said, certain kids seem to get an awful lot of “favors” from the various municipality police departments. Alot of complaints just seem to go away, even if someone does complain about it. On the other hand, if you can get the county cops involved, more tends to get done than if you deal with the local police.Are you saying that the same kids get multiple “talks” of this nature? Maybe you need to ask the district attorney for an explanation? The city counsel?
When there are teens stealing stuff from their back yards, do these young people get the same talk? Could they let you know what level of theft you are allowed, so that *you’ll *know what stuff you can swipe from your neighbors with only a talk as a deterrent? I mean, isn’t a midlife crisis kind of a hard and confusing thing to go through, too?
For that reason, I made sure my last apartment wasn’t in an incorporated township so I could always call the county cops if anything went wrong. I wonder if I they could make it go away if I happened to catch one of them and roughed them up a little? Pregnancy can be a very tumultuous time. (hormones and all)
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EasterJoy
Guest
That does sound like a good town to move out of.
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Allegra
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Well, on the positive side, someday I’ll have teenagers and maybe I won’t be held to any parenting standards either. Or maybe my kids will be considered exceptionally wonderful compared to the low standards. Might even make valedictorian!That does sound like a good town to move out of.
The high school here has a three tiered honor roll system. The qualification of the lowest tier is a 3.0 average. 3.0! That’s a flippin B- minus average! It’s .001 percent away from a C average! What about that is to be celebrated? “Congratulations son, you did the bare minimum! Here’s fifty bucks so you can buy some of that heroine stuff you like so much!”
To be fair, in addition to placating the mediocre offspring of middle-class west St. Louis County, they do happen to have alot of AP courses and arts and honors options for students who actually feel the need to accomplish something in life other than a wrap sheet. But that 3.0 “honor roll” is a sore spot for me. Frankly, if that’s all my kid did, I wouldn’t want it advertised in the district newsletter!
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