Hello,
My 8yr old son is a sweet, compassionate, and a goodhearted child. However, we’ve had nothing but problems with him from the start of his school years. For every bit of sweet he is, he’s also lazy and apathetic. To understand his personality you have to understand his upbringing. My wife and I had him at the young age of 17 (an accident obviously). We had nothing, no house, no money, and no idea how to care for and love a child. It certainly wasn’t an ideal environment. Plus, emotionally we simply were not mature enough to value our son and love him whole heatedly. That’s not to say we didn’t love him, we loved him very much and try to give him everything but he was always that mistake.
Fast forward to the present; the school constantly calls us reporting our son’s odd behavior. He’s lying, not listening, and not trying. We’ve taken him to the doc and the physiologist. They recognize a certain amount of immaturity but we’re not given any solid answers. At school the teachers tell us that when doing work he’ll just put answers on the paper without even looking – because he doesn’t care. When he does care or is compelled to care, he does great. At home he doesn’t listen well and acts very immature. He’s constantly whining and paints himself the victim of every situation imaginable.
I’m looking for ideas on what to do. The more we take things away or punish him the more jaded he becomes. Unlike with most kids, taking stuff away doesn’t motivate him to get it back – he just becomes cynical.
We’re all worn-out and we need a fresh perspective.
Thank you.