N
nighthawk75
Guest
Chances & Consequences
What is the name of your state? West Virginia
My 10 year old step-son currently lives with his mom, whom my husband tries to keep a fairly civil relationship with for the child's sake. For the past 8 years he has been telling us that he wants to live with us but says his mom won't let him. My SS says he doesn't feel like he 'belongs' there he feels he 'belongs' with us. He calls Sunday (the day he has to go home) the "sad" day.
They live in a three bedroom trailer (His Mom, Her Boyfriend, their son (3) and their daughter (2).). He shares a room with a three year old. She and the BF both have Minimum Wage jobs, She works full-time as a home aide for the elderly and is gone from 11:00am until 7:00 am the next day four days a week. This leaves him with her grandmother or her boyfriend. His mother told us the GM feeds him four Meals between 4-8, he stayed with her over the summer and gained over eight pounds in three weeks. He is getting significantly overweight (111 pounds at 4 foot), his mother weighs around 350. He tells us that she makes him hotdogs with cheese for breakfast, macaroni (with nothing else) for dinner. He tells us that when he stays home with the BF all the BF does is drink beer and smoke cigarettes. He says when they are home together they fight alot, sometimes they wake up him and his siblings in the middle of the night, once the BF even put his fist through a wall. He has also reported on several occasions that their house is a mess, he said they had to through his sisters bed away because it was full of bugs. I asked why and he said his mom wouldn't clean it and she threw up in it alot.
Social Services has been to their house on at least two occasions, the last time that we know of was two years ago. At that time we called them because he was saying that his mom smashed his face into a dresser three times, we tried to talk to her about it but she was inaccessible. The other time we don't know what happened. Social Services never got back to us so we assumed their investigation turned out nothing. Needless to say she was pretty PO'd when they told her it was my husband that called (we didn't know they were allowed to do that). Now if he has an "unexplained" injury he will just say "My mom said I fell down". A few months ago he missed the bus so he ran three blocks to school, when the teacher asked why he said he was scared to tell his mom he missed the bus.
The year before last he started having "accidents". He says he can't feel that he needs to poop and his mom says it is due to a medical condition. We have never seen medication for this "condition" and it is not getting better. His grades are terrible (never higher than C's and he is an intelligent child). His most recent report card had (3 D's, 1 E, 2 C's) showed a drop of 2 letter grades in 2 subjects. His teacher says he rarely brings in his homework. His self esteem is very low.
We now feel that we are in a position (financially and emotionally) to finally do something about it. In truth we just feel like bad parents not doing 'something'. Although we can't prove "abuse", we can't prove "neglect" and we aren't sure if he will say anything to a Social Services worker as his mother has him so "trained" on responses. We know we could give him a better life than he has now. I have recently finished my BS and landed a great job. We just bought a house where he has his own room. I have a BS in Elementary Education so I could work with him alot. I don't work until after he has to go to school and his dad gets off work by the time he would be home. We want to take him but are just unsure how to approach it.
We know his mother loves him, it's just she is not very good at this taking care of herself let alone children. We would like it to be nice and friendly but somehow I don't see that happening, but we don't feel we can just sit back and let him live like this anymore. What we are afraid of is that we will go to court and they will say well if you can provide so well we'll just raise your childsupport and he will stay put. Then things will also be tense with her, and last time (with calling Social Services on her) she made it very difficult for us to get him. - as of now she is being pretty easy to get along with - we don't want to make things worse...for him or us.
Dont get me wrong - We don't mind paying for him, we pay her $200/month plus we buy all of his school clothes and we pay for his glasses, eye appointments and prescriptions (what her insurance won't cover). We wouldn't even object to paying more if we thought it would change things but it won't.
What is the name of your state? West Virginia
My 10 year old step-son currently lives with his mom, whom my husband tries to keep a fairly civil relationship with for the child's sake. For the past 8 years he has been telling us that he wants to live with us but says his mom won't let him. My SS says he doesn't feel like he 'belongs' there he feels he 'belongs' with us. He calls Sunday (the day he has to go home) the "sad" day.
They live in a three bedroom trailer (His Mom, Her Boyfriend, their son (3) and their daughter (2).). He shares a room with a three year old. She and the BF both have Minimum Wage jobs, She works full-time as a home aide for the elderly and is gone from 11:00am until 7:00 am the next day four days a week. This leaves him with her grandmother or her boyfriend. His mother told us the GM feeds him four Meals between 4-8, he stayed with her over the summer and gained over eight pounds in three weeks. He is getting significantly overweight (111 pounds at 4 foot), his mother weighs around 350. He tells us that she makes him hotdogs with cheese for breakfast, macaroni (with nothing else) for dinner. He tells us that when he stays home with the BF all the BF does is drink beer and smoke cigarettes. He says when they are home together they fight alot, sometimes they wake up him and his siblings in the middle of the night, once the BF even put his fist through a wall. He has also reported on several occasions that their house is a mess, he said they had to through his sisters bed away because it was full of bugs. I asked why and he said his mom wouldn't clean it and she threw up in it alot.
Social Services has been to their house on at least two occasions, the last time that we know of was two years ago. At that time we called them because he was saying that his mom smashed his face into a dresser three times, we tried to talk to her about it but she was inaccessible. The other time we don't know what happened. Social Services never got back to us so we assumed their investigation turned out nothing. Needless to say she was pretty PO'd when they told her it was my husband that called (we didn't know they were allowed to do that). Now if he has an "unexplained" injury he will just say "My mom said I fell down". A few months ago he missed the bus so he ran three blocks to school, when the teacher asked why he said he was scared to tell his mom he missed the bus.
The year before last he started having "accidents". He says he can't feel that he needs to poop and his mom says it is due to a medical condition. We have never seen medication for this "condition" and it is not getting better. His grades are terrible (never higher than C's and he is an intelligent child). His most recent report card had (3 D's, 1 E, 2 C's) showed a drop of 2 letter grades in 2 subjects. His teacher says he rarely brings in his homework. His self esteem is very low.
We now feel that we are in a position (financially and emotionally) to finally do something about it. In truth we just feel like bad parents not doing 'something'. Although we can't prove "abuse", we can't prove "neglect" and we aren't sure if he will say anything to a Social Services worker as his mother has him so "trained" on responses. We know we could give him a better life than he has now. I have recently finished my BS and landed a great job. We just bought a house where he has his own room. I have a BS in Elementary Education so I could work with him alot. I don't work until after he has to go to school and his dad gets off work by the time he would be home. We want to take him but are just unsure how to approach it.
We know his mother loves him, it's just she is not very good at this taking care of herself let alone children. We would like it to be nice and friendly but somehow I don't see that happening, but we don't feel we can just sit back and let him live like this anymore. What we are afraid of is that we will go to court and they will say well if you can provide so well we'll just raise your childsupport and he will stay put. Then things will also be tense with her, and last time (with calling Social Services on her) she made it very difficult for us to get him. - as of now she is being pretty easy to get along with - we don't want to make things worse...for him or us.
Dont get me wrong - We don't mind paying for him, we pay her $200/month plus we buy all of his school clothes and we pay for his glasses, eye appointments and prescriptions (what her insurance won't cover). We wouldn't even object to paying more if we thought it would change things but it won't.
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