On 2005-07-21 10:48:00, Anonymous wrote:
I would give anything to know how to help him. It is so easy for ya'll to sit and judge when you are not in our shoes!!!!
Why do you assume that we're not in your shoes? Ok, so I never adoped any kids. They're all mine, flesh and blood, till death do us part. And I can imagine (and observe) that adoption creates some difficult issues. But it's not the only circumstance that can create similarly difficult issues.
In my case, it's the other way around. For a couple of years, our older daughter (now 21) seemed to do all she could to turn our hair gray early. It's our middle daughter who usually does all we expect of her, makes decent calls for herself most of the time and is the good, reliable, responsible kid.
I can't stress this enough.
If I didn't know better, I probably would have thought some tough boot camp or other intensive coerced therapy looked pretty good. But I do know better. I lived it; was immersed in it, in fact, from around the age of 6 (see my sig for explanation)
Over and over again, we see programs promise, and parents hope for, something which can never and should never be. They want their disturbingly wild young adult offspring to be transformed back into the maliable, obedient, dependent little child they used to love. I'm sorry if you find it offensive, but that's just a sick notion!
Are you a religious person? The Judeo/Christian mythology offers a pretty good parable in the Prodigal Son. I'm told that almost every other popular religion down through the ages has a similar morality tale.
All kids grow up. Some tend to agree w/ much of their parents' world view and they get along just fine. Some don't. Only time will tell who's right or wrong in that situation. Just have a little patience and faith in your kid. They'll figure things out one way or another. And, very likely, the sooner you quit trying to control and manipulate them, the quicker they can get to figuring themselves out w/o the distraction of fighting you.
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him,--"I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."
--Abraham Lincoln
