*bangs head against wall repeatedly*
Posted 06-10-2009 at 09:55 PM by U2Girl416
So there's been a family situation going on recently and it's frustrating beyond belief. 
The background is this: one of my sisters and her husband have 3 kids. their parenting is well sucky, atrocious, non-existant at best. Punishments never stick, one parent says one thing, the other parent says another. The kids have gotten basically anything material they've wanted, if not only to have something to "babysit" the children. There has not been any kind of set bedtime. It's not unusual for the kids to be in their pajamas still at 1pm on the weekend being zombies in front of the tv. The entire family belongs in therapy but no matter how hard we try to help or suggest anything, it's shot down and everything is "fine". Or they don't see a problem. There's a lot of yelling in that house. Yelling, but no action. No changes made. No efforts at communicating better with one another.
The oldest, my nephew who will be 15 in October, has Azberger's Syndrome. It's a variation of autism and basically means he has trouble with social situations and interacting, does things repeatedly and doesn't learn from it. He's been on meds and in therapy for years. He's incredibly smart but he acts out and there's no structure at home, really. He gets most of the attention because of his behavior.
The middle child is my 12 year old niece. This latest situation involves her. She's been known to be moody and surly a lot of the time. She's fairly quiet and keeps to herself a bit. She feels ignored.
The youngest is 9 and well, a bit of a brat and daddy's girl. She'll whine and whine until my sister or bro in law gives in.
Ok, now that I've spelled out the kids, let me get to the adults. My sister Theresa has been a stay at home mom since she had my nephew. My brother in law goes to work every day. My sister basically waits on him and does everything. She lets him undermine her in every sense of parenting. The kids know she has no authority in the house.
So the problem which I was made aware of last week involved the middle child. Turns out she's been sneaking out of the house at night as of late (although she swears she was just in the backyard sitting in the dark). And to make the situation even better (read: sarcasm) she asked my sister if it was normal to miss your period for 3 months.
So needless to say, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that she was...pregnant (it's hard to even type that about a 12 year old). Thankfully, my sister took her to the dr. and the test was negative. I don't know what the cause of her missing periods was/is, but at least she is not pregnant. So this past weekend, my niece was with my other sister, Maria, out on some errands, and she finally opened up, for over an hour. She said she was not having sex, that she hates my sister T, that no one pays attention to her...etc. She even acknowledged how fucked up she is and how my sister doesn't care about her. Maria said T is trying to make some efforts now and that if my niece can meet her halfway, it might at least make the next 5 years still living in that house together easier or more bearable. A small silver lining here is that she said that if my sister and her mom thought therapy would be a good idea, she would try it. So Maria said she would talk to her mom and see what happens from here. So Maria calls Theresa and says that there were some things that my niece said and really wanted to talk to her about it. Theresa said she would call her back when there was some quiet, uninterrupted time to talk. That was last Saturday. She has still not called back 
what's even more difficult is knowing how much my niece is looking to "escape" from the house. She asked Maria if she could spend a few weeks during the summer at her house. She's the only one of the 3 kids that is able to verbalize her feelings and understands what is really going on. I feel so protective of her right now.
This isn't the first time that Theresa has complained or said things need to change but then backs down and nothing happens. You'd think that having the chance that your 12 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER could be pregnant would FINALLY be the wake up call needed, but I guess not. It's frustrating and pisses us all off. But in the end, it's their family issues and we're trying to walk the line of helping but not pushing too much. We pretty much all think that my sister and husband would tell us to fuck off and cut us off if we push too hard. We've gone as far as researching counselors and therapists, making calls on their behalf, inquiring if places took their insurance...etc. And it's nothing but a wasted effort. It's mentally exhausting to know those kids are all messed up and knowing we can't force anyone to make the changes needed. It's exhausting knowing that my sister is a really GOOD person but that she's so afraid of confrontation that she would rather let this go on than put a stop to it all and tell Chris (husband) to stop undermining her and to start working together as a team. And it's exhausting to be the people on the other end here listening to the complaints about how hard it is in their household and how stressful it is...etc. That may seem selfish but this has gone on for years. It's hard to be us too. And it's even harder because we live in different states. Me in IL, my sis Sara in VA. At least Maria lives about 40 min away from T, in Raleigh, NC.
had to vent, this has been pissing me off for over a week. I feel like we have an obligation and a responsibility to try to help. But when people don't want your help, what else can you do?
The background is this: one of my sisters and her husband have 3 kids. their parenting is well sucky, atrocious, non-existant at best. Punishments never stick, one parent says one thing, the other parent says another. The kids have gotten basically anything material they've wanted, if not only to have something to "babysit" the children. There has not been any kind of set bedtime. It's not unusual for the kids to be in their pajamas still at 1pm on the weekend being zombies in front of the tv. The entire family belongs in therapy but no matter how hard we try to help or suggest anything, it's shot down and everything is "fine". Or they don't see a problem. There's a lot of yelling in that house. Yelling, but no action. No changes made. No efforts at communicating better with one another.
The oldest, my nephew who will be 15 in October, has Azberger's Syndrome. It's a variation of autism and basically means he has trouble with social situations and interacting, does things repeatedly and doesn't learn from it. He's been on meds and in therapy for years. He's incredibly smart but he acts out and there's no structure at home, really. He gets most of the attention because of his behavior.
The middle child is my 12 year old niece. This latest situation involves her. She's been known to be moody and surly a lot of the time. She's fairly quiet and keeps to herself a bit. She feels ignored.
The youngest is 9 and well, a bit of a brat and daddy's girl. She'll whine and whine until my sister or bro in law gives in.
Ok, now that I've spelled out the kids, let me get to the adults. My sister Theresa has been a stay at home mom since she had my nephew. My brother in law goes to work every day. My sister basically waits on him and does everything. She lets him undermine her in every sense of parenting. The kids know she has no authority in the house.
So the problem which I was made aware of last week involved the middle child. Turns out she's been sneaking out of the house at night as of late (although she swears she was just in the backyard sitting in the dark). And to make the situation even better (read: sarcasm) she asked my sister if it was normal to miss your period for 3 months.
So needless to say, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that she was...pregnant (it's hard to even type that about a 12 year old). Thankfully, my sister took her to the dr. and the test was negative. I don't know what the cause of her missing periods was/is, but at least she is not pregnant. So this past weekend, my niece was with my other sister, Maria, out on some errands, and she finally opened up, for over an hour. She said she was not having sex, that she hates my sister T, that no one pays attention to her...etc. She even acknowledged how fucked up she is and how my sister doesn't care about her. Maria said T is trying to make some efforts now and that if my niece can meet her halfway, it might at least make the next 5 years still living in that house together easier or more bearable. A small silver lining here is that she said that if my sister and her mom thought therapy would be a good idea, she would try it. So Maria said she would talk to her mom and see what happens from here. So Maria calls Theresa and says that there were some things that my niece said and really wanted to talk to her about it. Theresa said she would call her back when there was some quiet, uninterrupted time to talk. That was last Saturday. She has still not called back what's even more difficult is knowing how much my niece is looking to "escape" from the house. She asked Maria if she could spend a few weeks during the summer at her house. She's the only one of the 3 kids that is able to verbalize her feelings and understands what is really going on. I feel so protective of her right now.This isn't the first time that Theresa has complained or said things need to change but then backs down and nothing happens. You'd think that having the chance that your 12 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER could be pregnant would FINALLY be the wake up call needed, but I guess not. It's frustrating and pisses us all off. But in the end, it's their family issues and we're trying to walk the line of helping but not pushing too much. We pretty much all think that my sister and husband would tell us to fuck off and cut us off if we push too hard. We've gone as far as researching counselors and therapists, making calls on their behalf, inquiring if places took their insurance...etc. And it's nothing but a wasted effort. It's mentally exhausting to know those kids are all messed up and knowing we can't force anyone to make the changes needed. It's exhausting knowing that my sister is a really GOOD person but that she's so afraid of confrontation that she would rather let this go on than put a stop to it all and tell Chris (husband) to stop undermining her and to start working together as a team. And it's exhausting to be the people on the other end here listening to the complaints about how hard it is in their household and how stressful it is...etc. That may seem selfish but this has gone on for years. It's hard to be us too. And it's even harder because we live in different states. Me in IL, my sis Sara in VA. At least Maria lives about 40 min away from T, in Raleigh, NC.
had to vent, this has been pissing me off for over a week. I feel like we have an obligation and a responsibility to try to help. But when people don't want your help, what else can you do?
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