I have a step son who lives with his mother and occasionally comes to visit his father and I.
Mom is the kind of parent who is so afraid of looking bad that she completely caters to his every whim.
She fetches everything. If he acts scared to sleep at night she lets him sleep with her, or makes someone else sleep in his room, or he is up until whomever shares his room goes to bed. She does all his school work for him. She jots down the answers and tells him to copy hers in his writing. She is the one filling out his daily reading log when teachers have told her he is to do it and she is to initial it only. She’s done all his school projects, getting him an A+ etc. I watch his actions carfully. He will turn a water hose on and yell at someone else to turn it off. I will tell him to do it. His most famous words are, I don’t know how. Because it works with mom. Won’t shampoo his hair because I don’t know which one is shampoo, I will tell him read it, you will find it. I am not his mom, I am not fetching everything. He brings work here, he is to take it out not me, he is to put it back not me. But mom does it. You need to learn. YOu tell me what you have to study.
Because she does all this and won’t admit it to teachers, the teachers are convinced the boy has a learning disability. He is 12 years old now. I have been fighting this issue with her for 4 years. She now has him on ADHD drugs plus with cheating him his right to educate himself with good study habits he continues to fail so what good is all her help and medication?? All I see is that she created him to be this lazy mess. If I were a child, I too would use tears to get out of it - if it works. And it does. The boys father and I are so angry because even though we have addressed this with the school they hide behind the mothers shadows and treat us like our opinions don’t matter because we are not the full time parents. And that we need to stop fighting the mother. Well when it comes to these meds it angers us to no end when he is not getting better. He is being drugged for nothing. I am just afraid it will end up being a stepping stone to another drug and another as long the truth is ignored he will grow up discourage, depressed, jobless, a dead beat dad or worse. Who is i charge mom or child, teacher or student. My question is how do they diagnose someone for the truth. A child can pretend to be dumb, no care about reading instrutions on tests, circle any answer in hopes half come out right, which he says he does. Is he lazy or is he ADD?? How do doctors know for sure?? [/b]