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Today has been the most vile day and it has all gone horribly wrong.
The family is so used to being horrible to each other and now that mum is away it has not stopped. The two eldest, girls in the early teens are vile and the language is awful. against my daughters advice I allowed both girls to have friends sleep on, one on one night and another on another night and both times the middle child was loud and showing off, and embarrassed both me and her sister...today I had planned a picnic at the beach and if it is not the girls being vile it is the youngest, a nine year old being vile and gobby as the girls put it. They should know, cos they ar gobby too.
However, after asking again and again for the youngest to come and sit down and eat with us, he rode off on his bike and pulled faces. The middle child defends this action, and shouts at me when I try to correct him and then the eldest joins in cos she is now, with me embarrassed.
I decide that I cannot cope with this behaviour and things escalate, as I have no way of getting any of them to respect me and stop the swearing, answering back, lairiness and the middle child takes over.
Eight hours later and I have just managed to get peace in the house, but not before the middle child has now telephoned her mother who I have come down here to relieved because she is at her witsend.
I have learned that noone wants to take the children because of their behaviour...and apparently according to my daughter the children do not have any respect for their other grandparents, their uncle or ME because of what they have gone through in life.
I have sat through days of listening to the children complain about the way their mother treats me, how she beats them and chastises them, how she bans their friends, has them all in behavioural conselling, how they don't want to got to their fathers as he is violent towards them.
What seems to have happened here is that whilst they have wanted me here and their mother away, they are used to vile behaviour, fights, insults between themselves and their mother...they are continuing this and then when I tell them to stop as this is not acceptable they shout and scream and become OTT and aggressive.
Aggressive behaviour scares me...and I struggle with it...tonight the youngest hit me hard in the chest and my automatic reaction was to hit back...I stopped myself half way but did smack him. Not hard as me did not have a red mark, my hand was not red I walked away after shouting back.
I am so upset. I do not like violence of any kind, neither do I like shouting and I ending up shouting too and smacking him back, even though it was the once I am ashamed.
They have been in their rooms, however the boy came down and said he was hungry could he have something to eat. I told him I would make something when I was ready and would call him when I had done it.
About twenty minutes later he came down again and said sorry. I asked him to come and sit down and talk to me. We ended up talking quite a time with me asking him why he was being so agressive, why he hit me and why he stuck one finger up at me and sworn at me and said all the horrible hurtful things he had said to me. He told me he was horrible to his teacher, he told me that he was used to shouting and being horrible. He told me too that he hated his mum because she beat him with a wooden spoon when he was naughty.
I asked him if I said horrible things to him, or shouted at him, or beat him and when he said no...I asked him why he was horribe to me and rude and hit me...he shrugged his shoulders...I said that I had not accepted his apology whilst we were out because he had given too many of late and did not mean them because he went back to doing all the things he said sorry for. I told him that saying sorry meant, not doing them again. I asked if he wanted someone else to look after them as his mother said that she felt I should leave and she would ask someone else to come instead if I felt I wanted to.
I had said no because I knew that the children always felt people would leave and that I was not prepared to do that to them but that I was not prepared to put up with being hit by a nine year old and I was very low now because of all the arguing and hitting and bad language from ALL of them and the downright daring and disobedience from them...they have all told me that I cannot do anything or make them do anything.
Why are they being so horrid, when all I am trying to do is do good things for them and quieten the house down?
I hate what living with a violent alcoholic has done to me, I hate what it has done to my daughter, and I hate what my daughter's violent husband has done to her and the children, but I am not a violent person and I am not normally a shouting person either...right now I feel I have let my daughter down, and myself and the children and after all the talking with the children and my daughter tonight it would seem that I am the one at fault here.
Okay, maybe I have not handled everything well, I have handled it the best way I could at the time. The boy has quietened down now, come to hug me and is in bed. The eldest daughter has apologised for yelling and kicking and screaming and hitting her sister and using really bad language. The middle one though, even though I have apologised for my part in any of this, is still really angry, sulking, and does not see she has anything to apologise for.
She is the one that I am most worried about, she is the one who is cutting. She is the one that feels most mistreated, misunderstood and most blamed. The trouble is she is the one who is the most abusive too and aggressive and in your face.
I still have forty eight hours to go before parent and boyfriend get back...and here I am crying and being told off for not coping and crying. I have been abused so many times, and I just want all of this to stop and I do not think that I will see them again after this as the mother sees it as all my fault that things are so bad.
What can I do? I have to gain control but I cannot do it the way their mother does it...for days I thought I was making headway. Now I feel I have lost everything. And I cannot tell you how unhappy I am.
Thank you for listening to my heart ache and sadness and distress. It helps to talk to this family.
Suzannah
__________________
Out of the ruin of my past I have found the fortress of myself and I know how to defend it.
Strive for WISDOM; Seek SERENITY; NEVER compromise your INTEGRITY.
I can feel your pain in reading your post. I think it was great of you to offer your daughter and her boyfriend some time away without the kids, and you taking care of the kids. I can not imagine what you are going trough but it is obvious that the A has a big part in the kids behavior. I hope you and your daughter can talk about things and find a solution. I think counseling should help the kids some. As I understand, two of them are teenagers and I would say that any teenager can be a handful, so I have heard. I will be at that point in a few years with my daughter.
I don't think you should blame yourself for what happened. There are times when I have to remind my daughter that I'm the parent and that she has to treat me with respect. She is not a bad child, but does have this 'teenager attitude' at times.
Yeah, don't blame yourself for not being perfect - no one is, all the time, with kids, especially kids with behaviour problems.
Remember though - as confused and troubled as you are by all this, they are ten times that. You have your adult understanding and your program to help you deal with the insanity, all they have is their instincts. Just as with the A, setting boundaries that you know you can keep, saying what you mean and meaning what you say, being kind but firm - all of these things will work with the kids too. Just, not all the time, and not right away. Sometimes they have to let all that emotion out - the best you can do is give them a more socially acceptable way to do it.
I am so sad and sorry that your visit has turned out so difficult. Grandparenting isn't the same as parenting. I think we have our expectations and often they may not be met. I have friends who have experienced the behaviors you speak of from their teen and pre-teen grandchildren. I hope you know it isn't YOU!!! Perhaps you can tough out the next 48 hours, and I am sure you will do that. Maybe this was too great an undertaking in the first place. Eventually these children will grow up. For better or worse, but they will remember your visit and I would bet it won't be all negative. You are trying to show some positive behaviors to them. No one in the world would fault you for your reactions.
Keep your chin up and hang on for two more days. When it is over you will be able to look back and know you tried...and maybe just succeeded in ways you don't now see. Sometimes teen problems are just too big for us to handle. I taught teenagers in the public schools for years and years. At times they just overwhelm the supervising adult. It sounds like that has happened with you. And from what you say, these kids unfortunately have problems that sound way above the norm.
Take care of you. End the visit with hugs all around if you can. Forgive them their "sins" and know that you did your very best.
Sounds like every day at my house... I think you can only take it one day at a time just like everything else and do the best you can with what you have.
(((((((((((((Suzannah))))))))))))) You know, what I saw in your post is that your grandson approached YOU and sat down and spoke with you and that you were able to talk calmly about what is and is not acceptable behaviour. This sounds like it could well be new behaviour for him, and also like you ARE making headway - there were just some very bad moments in there. Everybody has bad moments. Everybody. Even Mother Teresa did. So write down the successes as things you can be grateful for, even if they're tiny specks - they are there, and they are real.
Did you frighten yourself with your violent reaction? I knew a lovely lady with many years in program who told me more than once during my first year in alanon (to my annoyance) - you're not having a failure, you're having a learning experience.
As someone else said, you really don't know what effect your example of living in a healthy way - even if it's not every single second of every single day - may have on these kids. Maybe it will just make them more open to something they will hear later. But I would urge you to consider that there may be different ways of looking at this, too; and that what your higher power is asking of you is probably not to be their hp, but to be the best grannie you can be. "It" is NOT your fault, and you don't need to take it on even if blame is being hurled all over the place. Figure out how to state your truth quietly, and clearly. Stating your fears is fine if you decide that's part of it. These kids are way beyond the myth of the omnipotent adult; there's no reason not to tell them honestly, well, I've been working on this stuff quite a bit over the last year, and I find for myself that my life is better when I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
And then, get a really good night's sleep; it sounds like you need it.
This sounds like you are on simple overwhelm. I can relate to that a great deal.
I think there are times to see things historically and other times it isn't. that helpful. I can't take responsibilty for everything anymore. I do the best I can every day. When I'm in over responsible mode it puts me into overwhelm much sooner.
