auntparent
03-14-2008, 07:07 PM
My husband and I have been raising our niece for the past four years. “Jane’s” mother, my sister-in-law, has borderline personality disorder and is unable to provide a stable home for Jane. When we took Jane in at age 8, she was in a self-contained learning disabled classroom, had a speech-language therapist, was practically non-verbal, and had behavioral and emotional problems in school and at home.
We have been through a lot with Jane. We enrolled her in a social skills class, which really helped her with learning how to make friends. We found an excellent counselor and Jane saw her for about a year and a half. We addressed the behavioral problems at school simply by showing up at the school every time a teacher called us, something Jane’s mother never did. We sat at the kitchen table with Jane every night for months and convinced her she was smart enough to do her homework. By the middle of fifth grade (last year), Jane was released from the learning disabled program altogether. She has been in a mainstream classroom for the past two years and she made the A/B honor roll her first quarter in middle school. Jane has ADD and a central auditory processing disorder.
Now for the current issues: We do not have custody of Jane and are not likely to get it. Jane’s father has had no contact with her for the past two years and avoids paying child support. Jane stays with her mother on some weekends and with her maternal grandparents the other weekends and during the summer.
Jane no longer sees the counselor because she criticized my sister-in-law’s parenting skills and my father-in-law flipped out over that. My husband and I told the family that as long as Jane lived with us she needed to see the counselor. That backfired and my sister-in-law took Jane back for four months last year. Poor kid left our house for school one morning thinking she lived with us and Mom picked her up from school that afternoon and told her that we didn’t want her anymore. My husband and I anticipated something like that would happen, so we went to the school that day and tried to explain things to Jane and to say goodbye to her and make it clear that we loved her.
Four months later, my sister-in-law got tired of being a parent and gave Jane back to us. Jane came back a different girl. My relationship with her was seriously damaged and she no longer trusts me the way she used to. She was also told by her mother that counseling is stupid and that she doesn’t need to see a counselor.
Now Jane has hit puberty. She is angry much of the time and you can feel the waves of hostility emanating from her the minute she enters the house after school. She refuses to talk to my husband or me about anything going on in her life and has become very secretive. She has also started eating a lot and is gaining weight rapidly, and she has never been an overweight child. She has discovered boys this year and neglected to tell us that she had a “date” for her first school dance. She also neglected to tell us that another boy gave her a nice necklace for Christmas. We have caught her in so many lies that we feel we can’t trust her at all. I also have begun to suspect that Jane has hurt my, who previously liked Jane, but now runs the minute she hears her voice, and hides underneath the furniture.
Over the past few months Jane has been spending about half an hour on the phone with her mother every night. At age 12, Jane has reached her mother’s maturity level and they are currently best buddies. According to Mom, Jane sees my husband and I as evil incarnate. Last night Jane became hysterical, yelling and screaming, because my husband looked at her magazine that she had left on the kitchen table. She then left two tearful messages begging Mom to come pick her up because she couldn’t take living with us anymore. Naturally, Mom came over without speaking to us first. We all agreed that was only reinforcing Jane’s behavior and that taking Jane home with her would be a bad idea. After Mom met with Jane she changed her mind and took Jane with her.
We believe this pattern of behavior will continue with Jane and my sister-in-law, and we are about ready to tell my sister-in-law that Jane will have to move back in with her. We don’t want to do this because we love Jane very much, but we are limited in what we can do. We see no point in trying to take Jane to another counselor because my sister-in-law and father-in-law would both want to meet, and approve, of the counselor first, and the minute the counselor criticizes either one of them, Jane won’t be allowed to see the counselor again. Every time Jane has opened up and trusted an adult, that adult has been taken away from her. We don’t want to set her up to go through that again.
We have been through a lot with Jane. We enrolled her in a social skills class, which really helped her with learning how to make friends. We found an excellent counselor and Jane saw her for about a year and a half. We addressed the behavioral problems at school simply by showing up at the school every time a teacher called us, something Jane’s mother never did. We sat at the kitchen table with Jane every night for months and convinced her she was smart enough to do her homework. By the middle of fifth grade (last year), Jane was released from the learning disabled program altogether. She has been in a mainstream classroom for the past two years and she made the A/B honor roll her first quarter in middle school. Jane has ADD and a central auditory processing disorder.
Now for the current issues: We do not have custody of Jane and are not likely to get it. Jane’s father has had no contact with her for the past two years and avoids paying child support. Jane stays with her mother on some weekends and with her maternal grandparents the other weekends and during the summer.
Jane no longer sees the counselor because she criticized my sister-in-law’s parenting skills and my father-in-law flipped out over that. My husband and I told the family that as long as Jane lived with us she needed to see the counselor. That backfired and my sister-in-law took Jane back for four months last year. Poor kid left our house for school one morning thinking she lived with us and Mom picked her up from school that afternoon and told her that we didn’t want her anymore. My husband and I anticipated something like that would happen, so we went to the school that day and tried to explain things to Jane and to say goodbye to her and make it clear that we loved her.
Four months later, my sister-in-law got tired of being a parent and gave Jane back to us. Jane came back a different girl. My relationship with her was seriously damaged and she no longer trusts me the way she used to. She was also told by her mother that counseling is stupid and that she doesn’t need to see a counselor.
Now Jane has hit puberty. She is angry much of the time and you can feel the waves of hostility emanating from her the minute she enters the house after school. She refuses to talk to my husband or me about anything going on in her life and has become very secretive. She has also started eating a lot and is gaining weight rapidly, and she has never been an overweight child. She has discovered boys this year and neglected to tell us that she had a “date” for her first school dance. She also neglected to tell us that another boy gave her a nice necklace for Christmas. We have caught her in so many lies that we feel we can’t trust her at all. I also have begun to suspect that Jane has hurt my, who previously liked Jane, but now runs the minute she hears her voice, and hides underneath the furniture.
Over the past few months Jane has been spending about half an hour on the phone with her mother every night. At age 12, Jane has reached her mother’s maturity level and they are currently best buddies. According to Mom, Jane sees my husband and I as evil incarnate. Last night Jane became hysterical, yelling and screaming, because my husband looked at her magazine that she had left on the kitchen table. She then left two tearful messages begging Mom to come pick her up because she couldn’t take living with us anymore. Naturally, Mom came over without speaking to us first. We all agreed that was only reinforcing Jane’s behavior and that taking Jane home with her would be a bad idea. After Mom met with Jane she changed her mind and took Jane with her.
We believe this pattern of behavior will continue with Jane and my sister-in-law, and we are about ready to tell my sister-in-law that Jane will have to move back in with her. We don’t want to do this because we love Jane very much, but we are limited in what we can do. We see no point in trying to take Jane to another counselor because my sister-in-law and father-in-law would both want to meet, and approve, of the counselor first, and the minute the counselor criticizes either one of them, Jane won’t be allowed to see the counselor again. Every time Jane has opened up and trusted an adult, that adult has been taken away from her. We don’t want to set her up to go through that again.