Should I let DS fail in 7th Grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fucking stand over him and put his nose to the grindstone.

NO other fun until his grades improve. No TV, no phone, no internet, no sports, no friends.

My parents tried this with my brother. Now he's an adult, has moved to the other side of the country, and has as little to do with them as possible.

But he didn't flunk out of school, right?

As a parent, if I have to be strict so that he succeeds in life, and he decides to hate me for it forever, so be it.

No, but he did have undiagnosed depression and wound up engaging in substance abuse to self-medicate. He attempted suicide twice. He's doing well now at 30 but could easily not have survived that long. My parents missed the depression forest for the GPA trees, so to speak, and didn't handle it well. Being a martinet is not the only answer, nor necessarily the best. From your later posts, you should be way beyond worrying about his academics at this point.

[Anonymous]

I'll just add that OP is not alone. We have a 7th grader who can be explosive as well, yet you wouldn't know it as he is pleasant to people outside the house. Unfortunately, we don't share our plight with even our closest friends, so no one knows the enormous pressure on our family life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you keep referring to a "therapist." You need a psychiatrist ASAP. Your child sounds like he is in crisis.

You should know in case you need it:

In a mental health crisis, you have options. The very best is to get your child to the ER for an emergency psychiatric evaluation.

If you cannot safely get the child to the ER yourself, you can call the Mobile Mental Health Crisis Team or an ambulance and explain that your child is in an uncontrolled mental health crisis. This is a better option than calling the police.

Here are some resources (first link includes the phone numbers for the mobile mental health crisis teams in MD):

http://namimd.org/uploaded_files/574/What_to_do_in_a_Psychiatric_Crisis_PDF_for_Web.pdf [note that the process on this page sounds like a lot of intimidating red tape, but once you are in the ER they help process all of this IME]

http://www.safeteens.com/resources-for-youth-in-crisis/

You are not alone. Call for help.

THIS IS A USEFUL POST. I didn't know about some of these resources. I hope this helps OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:military boarding school. you two are obviously incapable of being the sort of parents that this kid needs, and right now he needs to be knocked down a few pegs.

So, since you think I'm so incapable explain to me with your great parenting skills how you would handle this situation.

DS is doing homework, you check it and tell him you can't understand what he wrote and would like him to do it. He says f*** you I'm not re-doing because I don't care. I say that is unacceptable. He says I don't care and punches me in the arm and back. He then runs outside and comes back in garage only to turn off all the breakers in the house and smash two windows with a golf club. Next he throws an outdoor table at me followed by ripping two screens out of the windows. Last but not least he grabs two i-phones and deletes one and smashes the other one in the street.

Since you have all the answer, please explain to me how you would handle the situation.

your son must've had some sort of horrible event occur- please send him to therapy, he is so angry, what made him so angry? he sounds depressed ( a lot of time depression is anger and helplessness)

i hate to say this but has he been in a situation where he could've been abused or witnessed it? He needs a safe place- a therapists office to talk this out right now. I'm so sorry that you are having to deal with this. Your kid isn't going to just fail 7th grade- he's doing serious harm.

[Anonymous]

OP-- something else that may help you is Parent Training with a therapist. It is a life changer. It also sounds like your son needs to be seen by a psychiatrist. I am sure he doesn't like to be out of control.

[Anonymous]

Careful about calling police. Accidents happen when people are out of control and police with weapons are called. Obviously do whatever you need to do to keep safe, but don't do it as a scare tactic.