Mother Talkers :: Rants and raves on modern motherhood

by sherishu

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Wed Feb 08, 2012 at 08:53:43 PM PST

I've been sitting on a family situation for a few days because my heart is breaking and I just don't easily have the words to explain all this. In a nutshell, my cousin is in big trouble. He's the son of my closest aunt, who I dearly dearly love. She and her DH have had marital problems, but are loving parents to 2 kids who we have been close to. The cousin in question will be 16 in a few days and, as of Sunday afternoon, is incarcerated. He was under the influence and got in a big fight with his younger sister. His dad tried to break it up and my cousin punched him and then said all kinds of threatening things, so my uncle called the police. When the officer showed up and went up to his bedroom, he told him to get out of his room and took a swing at him, too! Needless to say, he was taken down, handcuffed, and dragged out of there. He's currently in a juvenile detention center 2 hours away from their home (they live in a small town). How in the hell did this happen to this boy, in this family?

My cousin has been troubled for awhile, and his parents have struggled with him in various ways over the years. He's scary scary smart in a town that has limited gifted options, for one, so he's been bored in school since day one. He has ADHD. He's small for his age and has frequently been picked on. He's rebellious about his intelligence, in that he presumes he's smarter than any teacher and everything they want to teach him is stupid. Thus, he is failing most of his classes despite routinely getting the highest scores in his school on standardized tests.

They have tried numerous things to get through to him and, clearly, none is working. The strange thing is, he is a funny and sweet kid with extended family. I just saw him last summer at some family events and he was lovely, and very kind and attentive to Lucy. My aunt would tell me things about how he acts in school or with them and I am not sure I really believed it, because it just did not fit the kid I knew. Clearly, there's so much more going on than I could see. I love him and his sister and my aunt so very much (her DH I'm not too fond of, but I still feel bad for him).

My cousin has a hearing tomorrow and then they'll find out what is next for him. They don't really want him to come home and know that he needs some help. I think there's a possibility of a group home and/or a residential school for troubled kids.

I'm not sure exactly what to hope and pray for. Anyway, I don't know that I'm looking for advice, really (though I'd welcome whatever insights you might have). I mostly just wanted to share this sad and scary thing that is on my heart right now. Thanks for being the place where I can do that.

****update: He'll go to a group home in their town, where they can visit (and, importantly, take cake and presents for his birthday). Then, he is being recommended for a theraputic boarding school. There actually is one in their town that looks great online, not sure if that's the one. My aunt's text seemed very hopeful. They are all ok and just trying to stay positive.

Source: http://www.mothertalkers.com/storyonly/2012/2/8/9701/-Big-family-trouble

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